Across the high frontier: a Big Gemini space TL

[Archibald]

"After an updated presentation of the post-Apollo project by a NASA team, the first meeting of the Joint Group on US-European cooperation was held in Washington from 30 November to 2 December 1971.

J.P.Causse and J.Dinkespiler acted as spokesmen for the European delegation which was composed of members of the ESC Secretariat as well as of experts nominated by the Member States, while Charles Matthews headed the NASA group.
As far as the space tug was concerned, the time did not seem ripe for a definite decision because it was so early in its development. It nevertheless seemed a logical area for European participation since it was an easily separable item with a relatively clean set of interfaces; moreover,ELDO in close cooperation with NASA, had elaborated a Phase-A work statement.

ELDO intention was to start a phase A tug study at about October/November 1971. For this study ELDO has begun together with NASA to discuss the task definition and to define the input documents with respect to interfaces, safety, operations and shuttle performance. Following this study it would be possible to enter into phase B during 1972 and to enter into phase C during 1973.

This timescale would fit very well into the present shuttle schedule which assumes a first shuttle flight for April 1978 and an IOC for mid-1979. It would give Europe time enough for a development start on the tug as a contribution to the Post-Apollo program up to 1975 when DOD and NASA want to decide whether to select an existing upper stage as expendable tug as an interim solution or to go with their European partners right from the beginning.

The described preparation in Europe shows that the problem has been seriously considered and that the project picks up speed in accordance with the shuttle project in the United States.

***​

​

"When University of Rochester space biologist Wolf Vishniac says he's going south for the winter-he really means it. This past winter, Vishniac and graduate student Stanley E. Mainzer led what is believed to be the first Rochester expedition to Antarctica.

The two explorer-microbiologists spent six weeks alone in the Dry Valley region, about 800 miles from the South Pole, where they studied soil bacteria and tested instruments and techniques planned for the Viking unmanned landing on Mars in 1976.

On December 10, 1971 , the Rochester Antarctic expedition set out, only to grind to a three-day halt in Hawaii: plane trouble. There was another delay in New Zealand, and a final one at McMurdo Station, the main U.S. station in Antarctica and the operational base of National Science Foundation activities in the area.

The team returned January 26, 1972, convinced that the trip had opened up additional areas for future study. Both hope to go back some day. Despite delays, frustrations, cold, and wind, they strongly recommend going south for the winter."

Wolf Vishniac: a good friend of Carl Sagan.

***​

​

December 5, 1971
Headquarters of the British Interplanetary Society
London
Owen Gordon had returned to England, perhaps for the first time since the end of World War Two.
In his days at Avro Canada he had known and befriended many British engineers, notably from Rolls Royce (the Arrow, at least initially, was to be powered by advanced British turbojets). His space background also helped - he somewhat knew Philip Bono, since both worked at McDonnell Douglas.

“… the Black Arrow worked superbly, and it’s a shame the government jettisoned it the day after it orbited Prospero. One of the reasons advocated was the payload is too small, although there is much room for improvement.”

David Andrews showed the assembly a photo. It featured a very recognizable Avro Vulcan bomber with its immense delta wing. On the belly was some cruise missile.

“Very ironically, the Black Arrow Gamma engines were developed for the Blue Steel cruise missile. The space launcher, however, did not used the full potential of these engines – the Stentor, which features eight combustion chambers. By salvaging Blue Steel missiles, thrust of the Black Arrow might be doubled.”

“Another reason given for cancellation was cost, and sure enough Woomera is half a world away. But we couldn’t launch from Britain… unless, of course, the Black Arrow or its improved variant would be air launched from an aircraft. In 1965 the French had a study of a Diamant air launched from a Vulcan bomber, and the Black Arrow is smaller thanks to H2O2 density.

Of course the Stentor variant would be heavier, exceeding the bomber capacity. In this case, we suggest to cut into the internal fuel to restore the payload. Range isn’t needed for air launch, and even if it was, the Vulcan could be refueled in flight, even just after takeoff, like the SR-71 or A-12 which tanks are leaking so much…”

David Andrews presentation ended and was followed by a barrage of technical questions. After all it was the cream of British (and American) rocketry that was gathered there today. The meeting had been introduced earlier in the morning on a mixed mood.

"Forty months ago in this very place I welcomed George Mueller, the father of the space shuttle concept - although he did not liked that title. It was a hot day of August 1968; a shiny future in space awaited us at the corner." Val Cleaver, who spoke those words, was not called the british Von Braun for nothing.

Kenneth Gatland continued the speech. "We had a glance at that future through Stanley Kubrick and Arthur 2001"

Kenneth Gatland nodded at Arthur Clarke, that stood beside him "2001 that was airing at the time, complete with Orion III, rotating space stations and nuclear-electric space cruisers flying to Jupiter and Saturn. That day of August Mueller disclosed what looked to be the first step in that future; NASA own Orion III, the space shuttle.”

There were evident regrets in Gatland voice...

“Forty months later it seems that the future will have to wait a little. Gentlemen, we are here to discuss the future of the shuttle and, at large, of reusable launch vehicles."
Clarke took over.

"Before the 70's had ended the cost of space travel had been slashed tenfold (...) The brief age of the rocket dinosaurs, each capable of but a single flight, was drawing to its close.
Instead of the thousand-ton boosters whose bones now littered the Atlantic deeps, men were building far more efficient aerospace planes-giant rocket aircraft which could- climb up to orbit with their cargoes, then return to Earth for another mission.
Commercial space flight had not yet been achieved, but it was on the horizon.”

“This is a part of my 2001 novel I did not retained in the final cut. I think it is still pertinent today.

In 1969, a year after Mueller communication to the BIS, Kenneth wrote a wonderful book called Frontiers of Space. He co-authored it with an American engineer which is present today; his name is Philip Bono."

In the room were the said Bono, and a pair of American engineers, Robert Salkeld and Gary Hudson. Veterans Gatland, Clarke and Cleaver hosted a whole generation of British rocket scientists: Alan Bond and Bob Parkisnson, Peter Conchie, David Ashford and David Andrews.

All these men all shared Clarke, Gatland and Mueller dream of a space airliner; a machine that could lift-off from a standard airport and climb to orbit and land at another ordinary airport. It was the astronautics Holly Grail as much as landing a man on Mars. Still, there were many ways leading to that Holly Grail; and each of the five men symbolized a different path.

Bono and Hudson went together pretty well. Gordon had known Bono for a very long time since they both worked at Douglas on reusable launch vehicles. He had been present the day Bono had presented his Rombus to the AIAA - the meeting at been held at Los Angeles infamous Ambassador Hotel later of The Graduate and RFK-assasination fame.

But so far the future of astronautics looked dire.

Not only NASA suffered from the lost of the shuttle. Europe space program had hit rock bottom, too.

The British government had canned David Andrews Black Arrow the very day it had succeded placing the Prospero satellite into orbit; Great Britain had been the sixth country in the world to achieve that notable feat, only to give up immediately !

The French hanged on to their Diamant, but it had been crippled by a failure.

Worse, the pan-european Europa based on Alan Bond and Val Cleaver Blue Streak, had also failed in a rather miserable way. With the british space program dead, Andrews and Bond (among others) had to work for the nuclear industry. Although the American party was more fortunate, the death of the shuttle meant a decade or more would be spent doing low-level studies.

But Cleaver and Gatland went unabated.

There was a luncheon afterwards, and Gordon was placed not too far away from Clarke.

The conversation was delightful; beside impeccable technical credentials, members of the British Interplanetary Society had a typical reputation of eccentricity.

Clarke was no exception, and the assembly had a very good moment learning of his - failed - efforts to recruit legendary writters C. S. Lewis and Tolkien (the very J. R. R. Tolkien of Lord of the Ring and Hobbit fame) into the BIS, in 1954.

"Go figure" Clarke said. "I managed to recruit the grand old George Bernard Shaw, aged ninety-one, but not these two. I did try to convince Tolkien and Lewis about the respectability of space travel, but in the end we fell appart over our respective opinions on christianity and faith."

Val Cleaver laughed. "I was there with Arthur, Tolkien and Lewis, in a famous pub. What a meeting that was."

"Surely, that was memorable. And my second meeting with Tolkien was equally good. With a glance at his diminutive publisher Stanley Unwin, he whispered in my ear - guess where I found idea for hobbits ?"

There was an eruption of laughter across the room.

During the luncheon a lot of informal ideas were exchanged. That brainstorming forged relations and friendships that would span for decades. The dream of the space airliner - with its prophets Bono, Salkeld, Bond, Andrews and Hudson and many other across the world - would not die.

University of Rochester, the same day

Robin Zubert was short of its twenty years and a sophomore pursuing a B.A in Mathematics. He also a deep rooted fascination for the space program, more specially for the planet Mars.

Well, over the last weeks he had been a happy young man. On November 14 Mariner 9 had disclosed a stunning world made of colossal volcanoes and canyons. To Robin surprise there had been a lot of informal meetings and discussions over the mission, as if Rochester University had a special connection to the space program.

Robin inquiry led him not too far from his mathematics hall, at the nearby biology department. There, he was told, was professor Wolf Vishniac, and the man had nothing less than a biology instrument to be flown to Mars surface aboard the Viking lander !

Before that, however, Vishniac and a student were preparing an expedition to Antarctica, because that place was Earth closest thing from Mars environment. Zubert did his best to made him useful to the incoming expedition. Antarctica and Mars - he loved that.

 

[Archibald]

final battles for the shuttle...

Washington DC
December 14 1971

Tensions between NASA and the Bureau of Budget had never been so latent. Low and Fletcher had been battling the BoB for five sterile weeks, and the situation was now explosive.

Low had gone to the Flax Committee fourth meeting, and drawn a diagram on a blackboard, demonstrating why the TAOS was now NASA preferred option.

Fletcher then sent a copy to the White House, with a cover letter.

"All of these configurations of the Shuttle can be developed for costs substantially below those we planned six months ago. We have progressed to the point where a decision to proceed with the shuttle in connection with the FY 1973 budget process is definitely in order. “

Alas, the elements of a consensus were nowhere in sight. The Flax committee was firmly against Mathematica's shuttle whatever booster it used. The orbiter was just oversized, period.
Fletcher recommended the Mark I/Mark II orbiter with the parallel-staged pressure-fed booster and four J-2S engines burning at liftoff – later replaced by SSMEs – with Mathematica TAOS as backup plan.

Flax bluntly answered Fletcher that in their opinion the Mark I/Mark II concept had never been more than an artificial stratagem to reduce peak funding by stretching out the development, while accepting serious compromises in design.

This tactic evidently irritated the hell out of Flax and its committee. Flax complained of NASA general attitude to Weinberger and the White House, and this made matters worse.
A moment of decision had apparently come on December 2, as the BoB sent Nixon a Memorandum for the President. It dealt with space policy, covering a range of issues.

The memo included a two-page discussion of the Space Shuttle, and presented the BoB's recommendation: "over $1.5 billion for developing the Big Gemini capsule and the Titan III-M, along with approximately $2.25 billion in recurring operational costs. This is the way to go.”

With a stroke of his pen, Nixon would grant his consent:
1. Initiate low-cost manned capsule program
2. Conduct Soviet docking mission
3. Conduct other manned earth-orbital missions – including a follow-on to the Skylab program
4. Apollo 16 and 17
- Cancel both missions
- Cancel just Apollo 16
- Reschedule Apollo 16 and fly both


The BoB's Memorandum for the President acknowledged NASA's recent design revisions, noticing the shift toward Mathematica's shuttle. It however called on the agency to accept a manned spacecraft that would be much less costly

Last year NASA was proposing a $10-12 Billion Shuttle. In response to questions from BoB and OST about whether the benefits justified such a large investment, NASA has since designed a $5.5 B Shuttle which can do all the missions of the larger, more expensive one because it has exactly the same payload capability. (We think both costs are underestimated, perhaps by 50%, i.e., cost overruns are likely on both but more likely on the more expensive version.)
In either case, NASA would plan to replace all of the U.S. expendable booster programs with the Shuttle. Thus, one program, the Shuttle, would dominate NASA for the coming decade, as did Apollo in the 1960's. This would make efforts to reorient NASA to domestic pursuits more difficult, and tend to starve unmanned earth applications missions for resources.
The Shuttle alternative that is chosen must balance costs, benefits and subjective considerations.
What are the Options? NASA, NASA contractors, OST, PSAC and the Bureau of Budget have all given consideration to alternatives to NASA's large Space Shuttle proposal. In summary these alternatives run the gamut from: large systems with partially reusable powered orbiters and boosters ($6 B) to small systems with a capsule and a Titan III non-reusable launch vehicle ($2.5 B).


The BoB proposal stated explicitly that the nation was to "retain the reliable Titan III expendable booster." Nixon took about a week before he read and accepted the OMB memo. Interestingly, he stroke 3. and insisted on this point.


This Saturday, December 11, Fletcher and Low met with Rice, David, and Flanigan.
Rice welcomed them with the following words.
"Felicitation, you saved America’s manned spaceflight program. President Nixon tell us yesterday he appreciated your efforts and the resulting TAOS concept. However he decided to go with a capsule, perhaps that Big Gemini or some uprated Apollo, together with an extended Skylab program."

Fletcher was shocked.

"I just can't accept this decision. We need the shuttle, even in reduced form. We brought with us many TAOS variations – pressure-fed or solid boosters, J-2S or SSME, varied payload and bay sizes. We summarized these variants into the following table" he added "Look at this !" he showed Rice a document


A visibly uninterested Flanigan briefly looked at the table, then said calmly

"You don't understand. We told you again and again that Titan III was cheaper that any shuttle; and Big Gemini or Apollo will preserve manned spaceflight for the future. Because they are less expensive than any shuttle, the President tell us that he wouldn't oppose a manned space station to complement the capsule. What's wrong with these proposals ? Why can’t you accept that ?”

"We don’t accept that because our mantra is cutting cost to orbit, not having a space station. Thus I can't accept such a decision - I want to see the President by myself". Fletcher insisted, his face like a tombstone.

"You can't and won't change his opinion " Rice answered, glacial. An enraged Fletcher finally left the room, warning he would fight for the Shuttle "to the end".

George Low now faced Rice, David and Flanigan alone. Flanigan voice was full of ice as he just said "He can't see the President like this." Low shivered. There was something decidly wrong with all the president men.

The Nixon White House

"He said WHAT ?" Nixon shouted in the phone
"He told us to go to Hell" Flanigan said
"You mean James Fletcher, a Mormon ?"
"Yes."
Nixon hanged the phone and took a reflexion.

"Damn those Mormons. I knew something was definitively wrong with them when I met George Romney in '68" Nixon cackled. "What a jerk"

George Romney was a strong supporter of the American Civil Rights Movement.
He briefly represented moderate Republicans against conservative Republican Barry Goldwater during the 1964 U.S. presidential election.
He requested the intervention of federal troops during the 1967 Detroit riot.
Initially a front runner for the Republican nomination for President of the United States in the 1968 election, Romney proved an ineffective campaigner and fell behind Nixon in polls.
Then there was that remark that his earlier support for the Vietnam War had been due to a "brainwashing" by U.S. military and diplomatic officials in Vietnam
Unsurprisingly his campaign faltered even more and he withdrew from the contest in early 1968.
After my election as president, I appointed Romney as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Romney's ambitious plans for housing production increases for the poor, and for open housing to desegregate suburbs, were modestly successful but often thwarted by me.

"Whatever, the shuttle is surely as dead as door nail. That, and that Lockheed bailout that passed only by the slimmest of margin."

Last week when I arrived at the Azores on the Spirit of '76, a Boeing 707, I saw parked in front of me a Concorde which had carried the President of France Georges Pompidou. Our Ambassador to France, Mr. Watson, pointed out that he had come from France at a speed three times as fast as we had come from the United States. I do not speak in envy; I only wish we had made the plane ourselves.

Made the plane ourselves ? or better ?

Preisdent Nixon took up the phone and dialed "John ? John Magruder ? how is that Boeing SST revival going ?"

 

[Archibald]

things are going downhill pretty fast...

Washington DC.
December 28, 1971


In the end it had been Caspar Weinberger, who was not present at the earlier, tense11 December meeting, that attempted to stop Fletcher.

George Low, puzzled, listened the heated phone conversation between the two men.

Weinberger evidently tried to reason Fletcher; but it was obvious at the same time that he wouldn't change his mind - he was fixed on his October 22 point of view. For half an hour the heated phone conversation continued over and again, with Fletcher and Weinberger arguing bitterly.

Finally a visibly pissed-off Weinberger said

“The President wants NASA to look at a manned capsule, period. You have to bit the bullet, and hang on." Weinberger insisted one more time.

And then, unexpectedly and to Low surprise, the usually polite James Fletcher went out of control.

“Go to hell !” he shouted. He hanged up the phone and furiously threw the document entitled Logistic spacecraft system evolving from Gemini on his desk.

“Look at the future of NASA. Enlarged Geminis. Apollo hardware. Expendable boosters. Thanks bastard Weinberger for that !” he shouted.
“What do we do next?” the NASA deputy administrator asked, puzzled.

Fletcher stared outside for a long moment. When he finally turned toward Low, his voice was as cold as the Washington winter.
“What can you do, George… I’m retiring. I don’t think I can politically survive this mess. I did my best to obtain the shuttle, and failed.

We will have to wait for years, maybe decades, before lowering the cost of transportation to orbit.”

Fletcher voice was all regrets. “And you’ll be my successor.”
“As the acting administrator, of course.” Low was uncertain of what to say.
“Oh, it’s much more than that. To get out this shuttle mess we need a person with a strong technical background, a person who'd exercised technical judgement over many years in a wide variety of areas.
I spoke to Thomas Paine some days ago, and he explained me the exact reasons why two years ago he made you his deputy administrator. And he convinced me you’re the right man to succeed myself.

I mean, not as acting administrator. So good luck George. You already handled NASA for a short period. You’re the right man for this agency. Do you best with what those fucking bureaucrats give you.”
“Thank you.” Low had difficulties believing what he had heard. "But I can't accept. I won't be the next NASA administrator. What you don't know is, before they chose you last February, I was among the list of contenders. And I refused. Yes, I refused to be the administrator a year ago, and my opinion has not changed to this day."
"But you've been a competent deputy administrator, and did an honest transition. The agency you handle me was quite in a good shape." Fletcher said. But Low just shook his head negatively.

"All I did was to immerse myself fully in day-by-day work. As an interim caretaker administrator, I did not wish to preempt my successor as administrator, since Nixon was expected to nominate a new administrator almost any time. Besides, campaigning for a space project, talking to members of the government and to the public, establishing personal contacts with congressional committees, and interacting on a personal basis with those who felt responsible for this nation space program, are definitively not my cup of tea.

To put it more bluntly: above all I'm an engineer and manager; I'm not good dealing with all the political garbage."
"So you refused."
"So I refused. I'm ready for yet another interim, if possible shorter, and to remain the deputy administrator after that."
He shaked Fletcher hand.

“We have to move forward. I don’t think any capsule will create as much jobs as the shuttle would have had…”
“It won’t. Even Big Gemini – I hopes you realize the name is a sale gimmick from Douglas – will break no ground in technology. It will be ready faster and cheaper than the shuttle would have, probably around 1977.

You’ll have to find another program in the medium term. Whatever happen, Marshall and North American will take a severe hit.”

“Without shuttle, emphasis will inevitably switch to a space station." Low stated. "That’s the only Space Task Group option we can reasonably hope for in the next future, now that Mars and the Moon are out of question and NERVA postponed sine die. Nixon needs to preserve jobs in California aerospace industry, that's why he mentioned a space station, a follow-on to Skylab."

"So you give up, George ? Won't you fight more for the shuttle ?" Fletcher sighed.
"It's not against you, James. Look, we can't change the presidential decision. I had doubts over the shuttle future since the day the OMB capped our budget to $3.2 billion per year for the next future and forced us to the one-billion-per-year shuttle. In my opinion the Glider, the "fat Dynasoar", was our fallback option if things went wrong with the OMB - and they did.
We failed when did not considered that fallback option seriously. We were left with nothing but Big Gemini or perhaps a block III Apollo - a manned capsule.

“I see. And the fucking military were sceptical on the shuttle since the beginning. Don’t expect any help from them” Fletcher was all rage.“The other day I discussed the Shuttle with the Director of defence Research and Engineering (DDR&E) - John Foster. Did you know what his opinion is ?”
“No”
“Well, Foster insists that the Shuttle had to be built along with a place to go: a space station. You have an ally there !” Fletcher said dryly.

“Well James, as much as I love the shuttle, the best we can do would be a mixed fleet – a 10 000 pounds-payload shuttle with Titan for heavier payloads.”
“That won’t work. Mathematica told us the shuttle needs 60 flights per year or burst. To achieve the flight rate we have to get ride of every expendable outside Scout – not only Titan, but also Atlas and Delta and Saturn."

Fletcher shook his head in disbelief.

"Now just consider this fact. If we go with Big Gemini, it will be the first time in the history of manned spaceflight that there won’t be a bidding contest. Be ready to face major opposition, notably from North American and many other contractors: Lockheed has the Corona, Northrop a couple of lifting body shapes. Martin Marietta will certainly want to complete the Titan with its own lifting body, a X-24 derivative. Boeing and Grumman have nothing yet, but scaled-down shuttles may be attractive, too, with all the work already done on the orbiter.”
“And DynaSoar.” Low added.

The two men felt silent. George Low knew that he would have to assume NASA leadership again – albeit he was not sure how long his stint would last this time. Finding a successor to James Chipman Fletcher might be a rude task for those concerned.

After the visibly broken Fletcher left George Low eye was caught by one of the documents on the desk next to him.

It was a tentative list of names supposedly better than the bland "space shuttle" moniker.

Earlier piloted spacecraft had carried names such as Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo, but they were unsure whether the new one would break with this practice or not. Low reminded that himself, Fletcher and Willy Shapley had prepared a list that included Pegasus, Hermes, Astroplane, and Skylark.

Flanigan had passed this list to White House staffers, who picked the name Space Clipper, which resembled Lockheed's Star-Clipper, the very concept Mueller had pitched to the British Interplanetary Society that day of August 1968, starting the space shuttle enchilada.

And now the list stood there, perfectly unuseful. A broken dream, the symbol of a spaceship that would never be.

There was another document on the desk, another broken promise.
It was a memo concerned with potential space shuttle launch sites - outside of Cape Kennedy and Vandenberg AFB, California.

The Space Shuttle Launch and Recovery Site Review Board, as it was known, had been chaired by Floyd Thompson, a former director of NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.

The Board got its start on 26 April 1971, when Dale Myers, NASA Associate Administrator for Manned Space Flight, charged it with determining whether any of the candidate sites could host a single new Shuttle launch and landing site as versatile as KSC and VAFB were together. The consolidation scheme aimed to trim Shuttle cost by eliminating redundancy.
The board had reviewed no less than 150 candidate Shuttle launch and landing sites in 40 of the fifty U.S. states !
A few were NASA-selected candidates, but most were put forward by members of Congress, state and local politicians, and even private individuals.

The proposed Space Shuttle launch and landing sites were a motley mix. Many were Defense Department air bases of various types (for example, Patuxent Naval Air Station, Maryland), while a few were city airports (for example, the Lincoln, Nebraska Municipal Airport).

Texas proposed two sites at the Big Bend of the Rio Grande River and Wyoming offered 11 of its 23 counties.

KSC and VAFB were on the list, as were NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, and Ellington Air Force Base in Houston, Texas, which had as its chief function to serve NASA’s Manned Spacecraft Center.
In its efforts to cull unsuitable sites, the Thompson Board focused most of its attention on the effects of sonic booms. Based on this and other criteria, the Thompson Board had recently trimmed the list of candidate single Space Shuttle launch and landing sites to just seven.

These were: KSC; VAFB; Edwards Air Force Base, California; Las Vegas, Nevada; Matagorda Island, Texas; Michael Army Air Field/Dugway Proving Ground, Utah; and Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho.

Before Weinberger cancelled the shuttle mid-October, many uncertainities remained with the booster, however - not only was it no longer reusable, it was also unpiloted or even unguided.
Pinpoint landings would be accordingly difficult, restricting the launch sites to desertic areas. Worse, some booster concepts could not even hard land - they would have to splashdown in the Atlantic, eliminating all non-coastal launch sites.
In the end the only site beside Kennedy and Vandenberg that presented all the booster safety requirements was Matagorda Island, Texas.

The Thompson Board then compared the cost of building and operating a single new Space Shuttle launch and landing facility at Matagorda Island, 65 miles south of Houston, Texas, with the cost of modifying and operating both KSC and VAFB.

It was impossible to launch in polar orbit from the Cape, for the simple reason that any launch north of 62 degree overfly populated areas.

Hence the need for Vandenberg. Matagorda had no such limitations. Matagorda Island however had no spaceflight infrastructure already in place - in fact it has no infrastructure at all !

Roads, railways, an electric grid, a harbor, an airport, waste treatment plants, and a water system would all need to be built new or expanded. Thousands of workers would need to relocate to the area in less than five years, placing enormous strain on local housing, schools, and what few amenities existed in the immediate area. At the same time, the communities around KSC, already under pressure as the Apollo Program drew to an end, would suffer catastrophic job losses. Needless to say, the Matagorda plan was found to be unacceptable !

 

[Archibald]

Why no European deep space probes in the 70's, 80's ? Because...

(One can ask why Europe didn't become the third major space power - why didn't the Europeans send probes to the Moon, Venus, Mars, the asteroids ?)

20 December 1971

Two sessions of the fourth meeting of the European Space Conference, on 22-24 July and 4 November 1970, did not succeed in reaching an agreement on the critical issues of launcher development and relationship with the United States.

The latent crisis that had for some years characterised the European space activities burst out at the second meeting, where "the disunity between the countries favouring a 'coherent policy' including an independent European launcher effort and the others reached such a magnitude that the meeting broke up".
By the end of the year 1970 all plans for a unified European organisation receded and the future itself of Europe in space appeared rather grim. Denmark and France went as far as to denounce the ESRO Convention in order not to incur financial obligations extending beyond the first eight year period.

The new Chairman of the Council, the Italian physicist G. Puppi, former Chairman of the ESC's Committee of Senior Officials, was given the task of negotiating a suitable compromise in order to drive the Organisation, as smoothly as possible, to its new institutional obligations in the application field and, at the same time, to offer European space policymakers new ground for negotiations.

After one full year of intense negotiations and several Council meetings, in December 1971 the compromise was worked out and it became known as the "first package deal".

The main aspect of the deal is the decision that ESRO should finally cease to be an organisation solely devoted to scientific research and undertake three application satellite programmes with different sets of Member States involved (optional programmes).

Here the four major Member States, Britain, France, Germany and Italy agreed to participate in three applications satellite programmes, thus establishing the backbone of what became known as the first package deal.

It took another six months, however, for delegates to agree on all the interlocking components of this package deal in which the science programme, along with its various components – satellites, sounding rockets (at ESTRANGE in Kiruna, Sweden) and basic research (at Esrin in Frascati) – was the major loser.

The final resolution on the reform of ESRO was, in fact, only adopted by the Council at its 44th session on 20 December 1971.

The 1971 package deal marked "the beginning of a new period in the life of ESRO".

The Organisation was definitely transformed into a space agency mainly devoted to application satellites with only a minor fraction of its jobs and funds devoted to science.

During the laborious negotiations which led to the compromise, "the whole scientific programme was put in some doubt", the chairman of the STC reported.
In the first draft of Puppi's package deal, in fact, it was suggested that the scientific programme should be made optional from 1974, a position strongly supported by France, and only with a drastic reduction of funds had it been finally agreed to keep it mandatory.

The sum of 27 MAU, however, fell quite short of scientists' expectations. The statement concluded that "the minimum level of funding required for a truly viable scientific satellite programme lies between 43 and 47 MAU".

Whatever, the budget was to stay flat at 27 MAU for a decade or more - imagine if NASA robotic exploration program was capped at 20 million dollar annually !

M.A.U = Million Accounting Unit
1 M.A.U = 0.75 dollar

 

[Archibald]

meanwhile in China...

(source; Sino-defense blog)


http://sinodefence.com/2015/07/22/china-manned-space-history-1/


...China briefly attempted to launch an artificial Earth satellite into orbit in 1958, but the programme was cancelled in early 1959 due to the country’s economic hardship.

By the early 1960s, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had instigated a series of corrective measures to recover from the disastrous results of the ‘Great Leap Forward’ campaign of the late 1950s.

By the mid-1960s, the country’s economy was back on track and the space programme was once again back on the agenda.
On 2 August 1965, the Central Special Committee chaired by Premier Zhou Enlai formally approved the China Academy of Sciences (CAS)’s plan for developing the country’s space technology, including scientific experimental satellites, application satellites, and manned spacecraft.
In March 1966, the National Defence Science & Technology Commission (NDSTC), which oversaw China’s nuclear weapon and missile programme, hosted a closed session conference in the military-run Jingxi Hotel in Beijing. The purpose of the conference was to develop the concept for a manned space mission.

A working group was set up during the conference to include Cai Qiao, Vice Director of the Academy of Military Medical Sciences; Bei Shizhang, Director of the Institute of Biophysics of the China Academy of Sciences; and Shen Qizhen, Director of the China Academy of Medical Sciences.
After some 20 days of intensive debates, the working group came up with a high-level plan for the manned space mission, including the launch of biological satellites or sounding rockets carrying animals to test the effects of microgravity and space radiations on humans.


The discussions then went to wider audience. During a conference in May 1966 for drafting China’s ten-year satellite development plan in 1966—75, Jia Siguang (Academy of Military Medicine) made a presentation to all conference delegates on the purposes of manned spacecraft. Xu Liancang (Institute of Psychology of the China Academy of Sciences) presented a plan for developing the manned spacecraft.

The ten-year development plan envisaged a three-step roadmap: to use scientific experimental satellites to validate the various technologies; to further develop application satellites for Earth-observation, communications, missile early warning, navigation, and nuclear test detection roles; and to develop a manned capsule based on the recoverable satellite technology.
Biology Sounding Rocket Launches

In 1963, the CAS Institute of Biophysics proposed the use of the two-stage T-7A sounding rocket for biological and high-altitude medical research. The Shanghai Institute of Machinery and Electronics (SIME) modified the rocket’s payload compartment into a pressurised capsule, equipped with onboard camera, oxygen supply, and electrocardiogram telemetry systems.



On 19 July 1964, a T-7A-I biology rocket carried a group of white laboratory rates for a suborbital flight that reached 70 km altitude. The rats were successfully returned to Earth alive. This was followed by two more successful suborbital flights also carrying white laboratory rats in June 1965.


In October 1965, the Institute of Biophysics proposed further suborbital flights carrying more advanced animals. The SIME made further modifications to the T-7A rocket, including an enlarged payload nosecone 600 millimetres in diameter and improved tracking and telemetry systems. The rocket also carried additional propellants, increasing its take-off weight to 1,325 kilograms.


On 14 July 1966, a T-7A-II biology sounding rocket was launched from the Guangde Launch Site. Its passenger was China’s first space dog Xiao Bao (“Little Leopard”), who was selected from a pool of 30 experimental dogs through a strict training and screening process. The dog was trained to accept confinement, spacesuit, noise, vibration and physiological sensors. The rocket reached an altitude of 100 km, before returning the passenger capsule safely to Earth. Two weeks later a second launch was conducted on 28 July, sending space dog Shan Shan into space and then safely recovering.


In August 1966, the Institute of Biophysics and the SIME began the preparation for new missions to send monkeys into space onboard the T-7A biology rocket. However, the project was soon brought to a halt by the political turmoils of the Cultural Revolution that began in that summer. With the scientists and engineers working on the biology sounding rocket denounced and even persecuted, the space monkey mission had to be abandoned.


Under the instruction of the Seventh Ministry of Machinery Industry (Ministry of Missile Industry), in March 1967 the Shanghai-based 8th Academy formed a team headed by Wang Xiji to develop a manned spacecraft. In September of the same year, Wang and his team drew up the concept of a one-man capsule based on the Fanhui Shi Weixing (FSW, “Recoverable Satellite”).

However, the design was vetoed by the Vice Minister of the Seventh Ministry Qian Xuesen on the basis that the one-man crew arrangement glorified ‘individual heroism’ — something unfavourable under the political climate at the time. Wang’s team went back to the drawing board and produced four revised designs with one, two, three, and five crew members. Qian also named the manned capsule Shuguang (“Dawn”).


In 1968, the Shuguang development programme was reassigned to the 501 System Design Department of the newly formed China Academy of Space Technology (CAST, a.k.a. the 5th Academy). As the design department voted most of its resources to the development of the Dongfanghong 1 satellite, little progress was made on the development of the manned capsule over the next two years.


In November 1970, the NDSTC and the Seventh Ministry hosted a conference to discuss the development plan in the next stage of China’s space programme. The 5th Academy presented to the conference the design proposal for Shuguang 1, a two-man capsule capable of flying in low Earth orbit for up to eight days. A full-scale mockup of the capsule was also displayed during the conference.


Shuguang 1 was similar in size and design to the U.S. Gemini vehicle. The spacecraft consisted of two parts — a habitable Crew Module at front and a Service Module at back. The Crew Module, also serving as the re-entry capsule, contained the pressurised crew compartment with two ejection seats and a control panel. In front of them was an equipment compartment housing the various flight instruments, radio equipment, the parachute and four retrofire rockets. The crew could control the vehicle using a control sticker handle. The aft Service Module would accommodate the orientation rocket engine, propellant tanks, batteries and communication antennas.


Like the Recoverable Satellite, Shuguang 1 would first jettison its Service Module prior to the re-entry, and then make an unpowered descent through the atmosphere, before lowering its velocity to an acceptable level using its parachute. The two crew members would then use their ejection seats to bail out the capsule before landing.


On 27 November 1970, the NDSTC submitted its plan for the development of the Shuguang 1 manned spacecraft to the Central Military Commission (CMC) and the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee. The spacecraft was to be launched atop the Dong Feng-6 (DF-6) intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) under development at the time.

The first unmanned test flight of the spacecraft was scheduled for 1973, followed by the manned mission in 1974.
Under the suggestion of Qian Xuesen, the Institute of Cosmos Medicine & Engineering Research (or 507 Institute in its code name) was formed on 1 April 1968 out of the Institute of Biophysics of the CAS, Unit 236 of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), and the Military Work Physiology Research Institute of the Academy of Military Medicine.

Primary responsibilities of the institute included conducting researches in space medicine and leading the selection and training of Chinese astronauts for future manned space missions.


In October 1970, the PLA formed a selection committee responsible for recruiting astronaut candidates. The committee first worked with the PLA Air Force to identify potential candidates from active-duty fighter jet pilots. The pilots were screened for their physical conditions such as age, height, weight, medical history, service records and performance, as well as their political loyalty and family background.



Out of the 1,918 pilots who were regarded as qualified, 88 were picked for further detailed medical examinations in Beijing beginning in January 1971.


The selection process lasted for several months and was conducted in extreme secrecy. The pilots were housed in the Air Force General Hospital in complete isolation, with no contact with the outside or their families allowed. Even the pilots themselves were not told what the selection process was for, and many assumed that they were being selected for flying an advanced fighter jet. The candidates were eliminated one by one through ten formal screening steps.



Eventually 19 candidates were chosen from the 88 to take part in the training programme to become astronauts.


In April 1971, the plan to develop and launch China’s manned spacecraft was officially approved by the Chinese political leadership, including Chairman Mao Zedong and his deputy the Defence Minister Lin Biao.

The 5th Academy was instructed to begin with the Shuguang 1 development. The PLA Air Force was ordered to collaborate with space institutions to establish an astronaut training group. The programme was given a code name “Project 714” to commemorate the date.


In April 1971, over 400 space professionals and officials from 80 research institutions across the country gathered in Beijing to evaluate and finalise the details for the manned spacecraft. The conference kicked off a series of researches including spacecraft materials and heat protection in the following months.


On 13 May, the PLA Air Force activated a 500-man unit headed by Xue Lun (Commander of the 24th Air Division) to provide support for astronaut training. The unit headquarters, known as Project 714 Office, was situated inside Building No.49 of the Air Force College.

The 19 astronaut candidates were asked to report to the unit no later than November to commence a two-year training programme. In the next few months, Xue and his team rushed to build training facilities and develop training plans in preparation for the upcoming training programme.


In August 1970, construction work began in the mountains near Xichang, Sichuang Province in central China for a new rocket launch facility to support the manned space mission. The site is situated on 28°N latitude, much closer to the Equator than the existing launch site at Jiuquan (42°N) in order to gain the maximum payload advantage from the Earth’s rotation speed.


On 13 September 1971, China’s number two leader and Chairman Mao Zedong’s chosen heir, the Defence Minister Lin Biao fled the country and died in a plan crash in Mongolia en route to his defection to the Soviet Union, following an alleged unsuccessful coup to overthrow Mao. China once again descended into political chaos. In the aftermath of the incident, Lin’s closest supporters including the Air Force Commander were purged systematically for taking part in Lin’s plot.


The investigation also extended to lower levels of the military apparatus. Xue Lun and other members of Office 714 were detained for sustained interrogation that lasted for nearly a year.

The 19 astronaut candidates reported to the office in November 1971 as required but could not begin their astronaut training. Soon the astronaut group was disbanded, with the pilots returned to their original units.


Construction of the new launch site at Xichang had been progressing very slowly due to unclear and frequently changed objectives. By late 1971 the 12,000 engineering troops had stopped the building work while waiting for new instruction from the military headquarters in Beijing.


Faced with no budget and enormous technical difficulties, the Shuguang 1 development also slowed down and eventually ground to a halt in early 1972. The cancellation of the DF-6 ICBM development in 1972 was another major blow to the programme as Shuguang 1 lost its proposed launcher rocket.

Half of the design team were reassigned to the Shi Jian 2 satellite development. By late 1973 the development became unsustainable and the programme manager had no choice but to release his staffs. Soon there was only one person left in the entire design team.


On 23 October 1974, the Seventh Ministry and the NDSTC jointly reported to the CMC on the status of the manned space programme. Heads of the two departments admitted that the Shuguang 1 development had made little progress since its launch in 1970, and called for ‘necessary adjustment’ to the programme by postponing the first launch to the late 1970s.


Unlike its grand launch in 1970, there was no definitive ending to Project 714. Since the project was personally approved by Chairman Mao, nobody would dare to ask it to be cancelled. The programme simply died out as a result of the country’s weak economic strength, poor industrial capabilities, and unfavourable political climate. Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai was later quoted saying that China shouldn’t join the Soviet Union and the United States in their space race, and that the country should focus on things on Earth first.

 

[Archibald]

1972 is coming ! Brace yourself for an eventful year in NASA history...

“…Yet another extrapolation is what McDonnell Douglas call the Advanced Skylab. Using the back-up orbital workshop as one component of the new design, NASA would need to convert a redundant S-IVB stage for mating to the existing tank of the Skylab craft at the forward end.

The docking adapter and airlock module of the current spacecraft would be deleted and a supply module, delivered by a Big Gemini, would provide a longer lifetime than the present design, where consumable items are the limiting factor.

Obviously this particular proposal, unlike the previous suggestions, is ideally suited to succeed the cancelled shuttle, and the annual financing is reduced owing to the slower pace of development.
There are many virtues to such a proposal.

It would provide genuine multi-national participation in scientific experiments and support a broad spectrum of Earth orientated investigations.

It would also enable good use to be made of existing hardware at minimum cost by providing a continuation of Skylab experience on the basis of missions already planned.

But even more important, it would provide valuable experience for astronauts and cosmonauts in working together in space, cementing the very best in international co-operation.
In all these major proposals, however, the continuation of manned space operations is the driving force. There is much to be said for allocating a small portion of the budget to a well-balanced investment in a continuation of manned orbital flight.

Many influential and knowledgeable scientists endorsed the NASA plans to invest so much of its funds in a reusable transporter. But the ending of flights could be unwise at a time when NASA is hard-pressed to retain the nucleus of an experienced team in these financially lean years.
Nevertheless, not all the equipment, although man-rated, need be used for costly missions. By incorporating redundant hardware into planetary, astronomical and Earth-science research, the remaining, mothballed heavy launchers of the Apollo era can be used to lift valuable payloads to space.

For example, both the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Ames Research Centre have expressed great interest in a Jupiter orbiter mission. Both organisations are heavily committed to supporting planetary exploration, being responsible for the Mariner and Pioneer fly-by spacecraft respectively.
Using a Saturn IB/Centaur/ Burner-II combination the space agency could launch a 2,3001b Mariner spacecraft toward Jupiter in September 1978. Thirty months later the spacecraft would go into orbit around this giant planet to continue the exploration begun with Pioneers 10 and 11. The only other launch vehicle suited to such a mission is the Titan IIID/Centaur/ Burner II, which would require expensive uprating to perform the flight.

Astronomical sciences are to be served by the Large Space Telescope, a 20,0001b-25,0001b craft which will be placed in a 350-420 nautical miles orbit at a 28-5° inclination. It had been assigned to one of the early shuttle flights; with cancellation of the project, the LST might be launched by a Saturn IB without modification, and housed at launch within a conventional 260in diameter Skylab shroud.

The only other suitable launch vehicle is the Titan III, but the weight in this case would be limited to 18,0001b and the circular orbit reduced to 330 nautical miles, reducing the experiment payload within the spacecraft and shortening its life.

Skylab launchings are scheduled from November, 1972, to May, 1973, and the project will likely get about $500-million in next year's budget-up from $405-million in fiscal 1971.

Much of the increase NASA seeks for the unmanned part of fiscal 1972 budget will be carved out for the Viking program. Viking, on which Martin Marietta Corp. is prime contractor, could receive about $185-million next year, up from $28-million.

Even when the shuttle was alive, NASA did not stopped planning capsule missions - if only to use remaining Apollo hardware. Skylab and the joint flight with the Soviets will expend four Apollo ships; yet three more remain. They are, respectively a Skylab rescue vehicle and two lunar spacecrafts build for the cancelled Apollo 19 and Apollo 20 landings.

What to with these ships has been the subject of interesting brainstormings.

The remaining Apollos could perform more flights to Skylab - either a fourth to Skylab A, or three to the backup vehicle known as Skylab B.

Alternate joint flights with the Soviets have been considered, involving Salyut or Skylab itself, or a combining of Apollo, Soyuz and the two aforementioned space stations.

It has also been proposed Apollo flew alone - on remote sensing missions. In this case the Apollo would carry multispectral cameras into the SIM bay, an instrument recess on the side of the service module.

An alternate fly-alone mission would have tested shuttle hardware, for example the robotic arm. It would have been carried on the service module, and could even have been flown on the internaional flight. In this case the arm would be used to remove the docking module from Apollo nose.

An Apollo moonship could also test the shuttle thermal protection system - made of ceramic tiles - or even fly precursor "sortie modules".

The sortie lab is a pressurized canister carried into the shuttle payload bay, essentially a surrogate space station for which Europe shows some interest. Which in turn bring the concept of european astronauts flying aboard an Apollo, a somewhat fascinating prospect.

It remain to be seen whether one of these concepts may return, one way or another... put together they form a viable nucleus for a non-shuttle manned spaceflight program.


Source : ADVANCED SKYLAB ? Flight International, January 20 1972

 

[Archibald]

1972 - NASA at crossroads

***


"Large Space Telescope systems, such as power supplies, data storage units, and transmitting equipment, as well as components from the telescope itself, must be extremely reliable over a long period of time (...)

In view of the cost and magnitude of the initial installation, the telescope must be capable of full operations for many years.
To meet these requirements, manned servicing of the facility seems unavoidable.

The presence of man, at least at intervals, appears essential for three many functions: initial alignment, adjustment, and checking of the telescope and of the scientific and support equipment; maintenance of the equipment, including periodic inspection and repair, and modification of the system, particularly replacing replacing and updating the instrumentation as the scientific program demand.

If man is considered essential to the long term operation of the LST, the telescope should be designed so that all its components can be maintained, replaced or repaired in orbit. Further, since precision work is extremely difficult in a space suit (...) a manned space station nearby, with full life support equipment, would probably be required also. "

(Excerpt from: Scientific uses of the large space telescope National Research Council - Space Science Board Ad-Hoc Committee on the Large Space Telescope - 1969)


***


“What kind of program can we run?” Joe Muldoon asked Phil Stone. He riffled a pile of photostats, journals, and books on his desks.

“If I could eat proposals, I’d be a fat man; the one thing we’re not short of is ideas.

Should we go back to the Moon and start mining it for minerals?

Or maybe we should capture an asteroid, toss it in Earth orbit and mine it for rare metals.

Maybe we can build colonies at the libration points of the Earth-Moon system.

Maybe we should have factories in space, making crystals, or drugs, or perfect, seamless metal spheres.

Maybe we could build huge hydroponic farms in space, where the sun always shines.

Or maybe we ought to put up square miles of solar arrays, for clean power.

Maybe we could mine the Earth’s upper atmosphere for lox…”

NASA wasn’t short of visionaries, and new ideas, and proposals of all sorts. But there was no unity.

(Stephen Baxter, Voyage)

 

[Archibald]

dawn of a new era

January 24, 1972

George Low rapidly rattled through the pile of notes and technical memorandums that had landed on his desk. He worked his way rapidly through the documents, analytic. And what the notes were telling him, the conclusions he made, smelled bad.

The situation was overly complicated.

NASA had too much large projects on its plate. Competing were the space shuttle, the space station with a crew capsule and the NERVA nuclear rocket, all for manned flight; unmanned spaceflight was no better, with Viking, that Grand Tour, and a new start: the Large Space Telescope.

Six large projects ? Hell no. The shuttle's already dead. First casualty, and it might not be the last.

Viking was essentially safe, although it had been pushed back by two years, to 1975. Serious difficulties and cost overruns plagued, not the entire program, rather a part of it: the life seeking package. They would probably have to cancel one out of five experiments, infuriating many scientists in the process…

The Large Telescope was only beginning, so it was not a problem yet.

The real competition opposed a large unmanned project, the Grand Tour, to the manned spaceflight next big thing - be it the shuttle or a more balanced combination of Space Station and manned capsule.

The Grand Tour consisted of four bleeding-edge technology probes to be send across the outer solar system, from Jupiter to Pluto.

And, to complicate matters further, a third large project came on the heels of Grand tour and manned spaceflight: that NERVA nuclear rocket could push altogether Grand Tour-like probes to the outer solar system or manned expeditions to the Moon or Mars !

Politics made things even more murky. The Senate had had a dedicated committee devoted to space; its chairman, Clinton Anderson, was a die-hard fan of NERVA. Not that nuclear energy or spaceflight mattered much to him: the harsh truth was that the nuke employed many peoples in New Mexico, the very state Anderson was senator.

Another supporter of NERVA was the Nevada senator, nothing surprising again since the nuke testbeds were located high on the desert there. And there was also representative Chester Holifield, a nuclear lobbyist and representative of California altogether. Holifield massed as much power as Anderson, reigning supreme over the Atomic Energy Commission and its big nuclear labs - Oak Ridge, Livermore and Los Alamos.
Low knew that better than anybody else. A year before the nuclear lobby in Congress had grilled him over the agonizing NERVA.

"Now, let's get to this question that you have raised that the shuttle is the only vehicle that could launch the NERVA. The NERVA was not originally proposed as a part of the shuttle program, was it?"
"When NERVA was originally planned, and until about 2 or 3 years ago, NERVA would have been launched into space using a large conventional booster like the Saturn V. However, we have now made a decision, which we discussed with the committee last year, to suspend production on the Saturn V. We only have enough Saturn V's available for Apollo, Skylab, plus two spares beyond that. So the only vehicle in our planning in NASA today for NERVA is the shuttle.
"But this committee last year told you to take whatever action was necessary to try to match up the shuttle with the NERVA,
"And that has been done.
"Yes; but that is not the only alternative. It would still be possible to launch NERVA on an upgraded Titan III, would it not?
"I do not know whether an upgraded Titan III could lift the NERVA engine. I will have to ask Milton Klein on that.
"Well, Mr. Klein, then?
"Senator Cannon, it does appear that an upgraded Titan would have the weight lifting capability to launch the NERVA engine. It would require a modular approach similar in nature to that we are planning in conjunction with the shuttle mission and program standpoint, there are, of course, other factors which make the shuttle the attractive."


Damn the congressmen, and damn the politics. Low just hated that stuff, it was the core reason why he had refused the job of administrator.

He had also heard a rumour that NASA best ennemies Walter Mondale and William Proxmire were bracing themselves for another anti-shuttle campaign - although, as far as Low was concerned, they would now beat a dead horse. He had no issue with that provided that kept them away from the space station.

Now another actor had entered the shark pool of politics: NASA own center, Marshall, apparently had decided to play the wild card.

Eberhard Rees had been von Braun right arm and immediate successor at the Redstone Arsenal. Rees obviously wanted as much work as possible for its center, rightly fearing it might been closed after Apollo wound down.

Rees had all too well understood how all the six large endeavours – the shuttle, the space station and its capsule, the NERVA, Grand Tour, Large Telescope, and Viking – weighed over, and in far greatly exceeded, the NASA budget for the next fiscal years.
So Rees had cooked its own recipe from these elements, and lobbied Low hard to impose his solution, enraging many people in the process.
According to Rees, Marshall could play a major role in every of the six big programs.
If NASA ever build the shuttle, Marshall could play the card of its sophisticated engines – after all they had certified Apollo F-1 and J-2.
If NASA ever build a space station, well, Skylab was already a nice foray in this direction, wasn't it ?
Marshall also proposed a smaller NERVA as a space tug and, of course, upper stages of a new batch of its cherished Saturn boosters. The fact that NASA had been forced to use the Air Force Titan made Rees mad: he couldn't believed Saturn would not ultimately won the day.
With a nuclear upper stage a Saturn could either boost a heavier Large Space Telescope to a very high orbit, or launch the Grand Tour probes onto very, very fast trajectories toward the outer planets or even boost all three Vikings to Mars into a single launch !

Rees message was crystal clear.

Can't you see ? Marshall can fold every big space project you want into a single, coherent program. The very objective the Space Task Group failed miserably at in 1969

The problem was that Rees was going over many asses doing that, angering a lot of peoples in the process.

Johnson was furious since Marshall intruded into its manned spaceflight turf.

Goddard was furious since Marshall intruded over the space telescope business.

JPL was furious because Marshall interfered with Grand Tour and Viking altogether, probes that had already booked their ride to space a top Titan rockets.

The space telescope thing was worrisome. Truth be told, Goddard had way too much projects on its plate; the center was seriously overloaded with science and applications satellites. So Marshall had proposed itself, not only for the future telescope, but also for a near term forerunner, the HEAO – High Energy Astronomical Observatories.

In 1969 Marshall had been made lead center for that program, but since then and under Rees influence, HEAO had become four huge, expensive satellites: yet another expensive program on NASA plate.
So Low had now to deal with Marshall fierce activism, along with the sheer weight of seven large scale projects that together busted the limits of NASA shrinking budget.

There will probably be no real winner, he thought.

The shuttle was already dead, NERVA was moribund and would probably not survive for long. The space telescope and Viking would probably not be affected, being, one too early, the other too late, in their respective developments. The space station decision had not been made yet, only a dumb capsule that would probably weight very little over the next three years.

That made the Grand Tour a notable winner; it was, however, a pyrrhic victory. The National Academies Woods Hole meeting, held in August 1971, had recommended a downscaling of the project to a couple of improved Mariner probes, with an eventual third, backup probe to be launched later, completing the earlier mission.
Downscaling the Grand Tour meant that the funds earn there could go to Viking; perhaps they could stuck with the five life-seeking experiments planned earlier. The Space telescope could also be accelerated, perhaps tied to the space station for limited on-orbit servicing since there would be no shuttle to retrieve it and bring it back to Earth for checkout, maintenance and uprating…

Another urgent problem was that Low was essentially driving NASA alone since Fletcher departure. He had already made a stint as acting administrator a year before, filling a seven months gap between Tom Paine and Fletcher. He very much doubted Nixon would undergo again the excruciating, painful task of finding another external administrator.

But he didn't wanted the job.

And then the phone rung. President Nixon himself.

"We reviewed again the short list of potential NASA administrators we had a year ago – minus Fletcher of course. You, Jameson of Teledyne, and my under-secretary of transportation, are the top-ranking candidates.

We don't like Jameson very much – too aggressive and arrogant, he might be a new Tom Paine.

So that let you and the other man. We want you, since you've been at NASA for such a long time… say yes, and you'll be administrator."
Here we go again.
"I can't accept. But I think James Beggs is the right man."
There was a very brief silence on the phone. Yes, I knew the name of your undersecretary of transportation, mister President...
"I swear you refuse, then ?"
"Indeed. But I'm quite sure Beggs can do the job, and I'll remain his deputy administrator as long as needed."
Nixon spoke for a minute, then the conversation ended.

So it would be Beggs. Good luck to you. With NERVA agonizing and the Shuttle dead, it was obvious that unmanned spaceflight had won the day.

What was left of manned spaceflight ?
Skylab, the last two Apollo to the Moon, and a new manned capsule that ensured future of manned spaceflight, perhaps packaged with a new, modular space station. While the shuttle costs did not allowed any space station beyond Skylab, the much less expensive Big Gemini did.
Big Gemini ? It occurred to Low that even that one was nothing but secured. North American Rockwell had protested loudly, and they had been heard by Congress. A new bidding process would be held; the Request For Proposal had already been send to the contractors.

Sure enough, the year to come promised to be a difficult one. NASA was starved of political support; they desesperately needed new allies in Congress to secure a project bigger than Big Gemini or any capsule - probably a space station.

But the space station, much like the shuttle before it, lacked apeal in Congress. By contrast the NERVA, agonizing as it was, still had a very robust political base. Perhaps they should try to play that political card; perhaps they could try and sell Congress a small NERVA as a nuclear space tug to push satellites into geosynchronous orbit... later that tug would be a backdoor to future manned missions to the Moon.
Low had heard a rumour according to which Ames director Hans Mark and Wernher von Braun himself were leading a desesperate charge to save the space shuttle, arguing it was paramount to man presence into space.

In turn, von Braun pledged that people were absolutely essential if NASA was going to conduct really sophisticated space operations. There was no real substitute to human judgement and imagination on the spot, and only people can take advantage of unexpected opportunities and deal with emergencies.
All good arguments, George Low felt, but not receivable at the time. It was too late for the shuttle, but there was still hope for man in space - if only because of Weinberger pledge of August 1971.
Von Braun was on the way out of NASA, to a post at Fairchild. As for Hans Mark, if he wanted to save his head and his center programs he would have to tune down the rethoric. The fact was that Ames could have made some interesting contribution to the shuttle, and the loss of it would be heavily felt there.
The center had very diverse programs - aircraft laboratories, the Pioneer planetary probes, and a thing called PAET - Planetary Atmosphere Experiments Test, a capsule to be boosted by a Scout rocket on a dress rehearsal of future planetary entry probes. That was damn expensive for a single test, so Hans Mark searched for spinoffs.
Ames Pioneer once competed with JPL Mariners, but the two were expensive, so the Pioneer program was being cut instead into a low-cost probe to complement JPL expensive space Cadillacs.

In 1968, the Academies had recommended that NASA initiate now a program of Pioneer/Interplanetary Monitoring Platform-class spinning spacecraft for orbiting Venus and Mars at each opportunity, and for exploratory missions to other targets.
Which meant that Ames Pioneer no longer competed with JPL Mariner but with Goddard Explorers satellites that went farther and farther (the Interplanetary Monitoring Platforms), some of them as far as lunar orbit. Which in turn made Goddard a new competitor in the planetary race !
So the low-cost probe competition would boil down to Goddard IMP versus Ames Pioneer. A universal planetary bus, following a Delta launch, could deploy a variety of scientific payloads, including atmospheric probes, landers, or orbiters.
Low felt Hans Mark did not fully supported the Pioneer program. Perhaps von Braun had convinced him robots were crap and only men could do a proper job. If this is really the case, Low thought, I ought better shut down Pioneer and give the low-cost planetary probe to Goddard. But then I'll have to found a new spinoff to that PAET.

Perhaps the space station crew could drop experiments down to Earth aboard diminutive PAET capsules - lots of them. Kind of space courrier. That would please Mark anyway, since the job would imply astronauts.
Mark had in fact send Low a memo where he made clear he wanted to shut down the Pioneer probe program.

He gave three reasons for that.
The memo first went on to say “in the last decade, the United States has spent on the average a half a billion dollars on space science. I personally find it difficult to believe that we have a cultural or intellectual justification for continuing our space science effort at the same level for the indefinite future. The results of space science to date have not been of major significance.”

The second reason followed “I see space exploration as a luxury that may soon be canceled due to the though times we currently live in. So I think my center should embrace military missions. Defence isn't a luxury.”

The last reason was obviously Von Braun himself, a man that greatly impressed Mark. Von Braun liked men in space, something the Pioneer robots were definitively not.

Well, ok, Hans, if you think shutting down the Pioneer is fine, let's do it. But that may give JPL a complete monopoly over robotic planetary exploration...

 

[Archibald]

tying up the loose ends - Mathematica, Heiss, and Morgenstern

January 28, 1972
Princeton
Klaus Heiss looked exhausted.
Damn, how many times since the man did not slept ?

Oskar Morgenstern worried about the young Austrian economist.
Heiss was evidently on the brink of collapse. He had spent every drop of energy defending his economic case for the shuttle – to no avail.

The full report was to be issued this very day of January, but it was dead on arrival, just like the shuttle it defended.
"I face a brick wall." Heiss complained. "Fletcher is out, and George Low is not the right man – guess why he refused the job ? He is not a political wizard like James Webb. And now fucking Walter Mondale is campaigning again, with its usual load of angered space scientists – frustrated astronaut Brian O'Leary, frustrated Apollo scientist Tommy Gold, and of course the grant old James van Allen. Damn them all ! That, and you have to figure than even within our ranks there are vibrant critics. Do you remember that bright engineer we hired for the technical side of our study, since you and I are economists, not rocket scientists ?"
"Hell, yes. James Preston Layton."
"Yeah, Pres Layton. Well, can you believe it ? He picked up some holes in my analysis !"
"What kind of critics ?"
"He told me I was naive, that although my calculation were by themselves right, the raw data I worked from was wrong.

Listen: when NASA Bob Lindley committed ourselves - Mathematica - to an analysis of the shuttle economics, I told him I needed data.

So Lindley turned to the Aerospace Corp., which had strong ties to the Air Force and was widely known as a center of expertise.

Lockheed, builder of the Corona spacecraft, took charge of work on payload effects. My analysis is based from these companies data. Well, Layton told me that data I used was incorrect at best.
Takes Lockheed, for example: they told me rides on shuttles would be so much smoother than expendables that satellites may be build from very ordinary components - not space-hardened.

Preston Layton told me this was foolish. Similarly, Pres had its own inquiry with Comsat and civilian satellite builders, and according to him they are not very interested in retrieve and repair of their birds. So I went to my NASA supervisor Robert Lindley, told him about Layton worries, and he just laughed in my face.

So what should I do ?"
"Well,Klaus, we are working for NASA and not for Layton. No ?"
"My point exactly. But Layton took it pretty bad – our friendship stopped right there."

Heiss had regrets in his voice. What a mess.

"And then come the AIAA – the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. With the SST and the shuttle dead, and Lockheed on the brink of bankruptcy, they decided to be more active, and to conduct technical assessments of big projects.

Guess what they chose to assess first ?"
"Let me try. The space shuttle ?"
"Correct. And, as you probably understood, they picked up our very Pres Layton to conduct that assessment. He is a prominent member of the AIAA, you see.
"But the shuttle is on hold for three months now. Will the AIAA really beat that dead horse ?"
"Hell, no. They have apparently given up."
"So, what's the problem with Pres ?"
"Oh, in the process he enlisted Jerry Grey, and together they picked up some disgruntled anti shuttle people that feel free to talk now that is had been cancelled. Last week NASA put juicy Phase C contracts – when you actually start to cut metal – on hold indefinitely.

Meanwhile while doing preliminary work on that doomed AIAA assessment Grey find NASA own Pres Layton - the whistleblower no one listen.

Adelbert Tischler – that's the man. Together they dropped the technical assessment in favour of a popularly-written book to be published as soon as possible. Their enterprise is made easier by the shuttle cancellation, since aerospace workers no longer fear to damage a now cancelled program.
“I can tell you that this Grey - Tischler - Pres Layton trio might be devastating especially if it intersect with Mondale own anti shuttle campaign. And all those bastards are throwing shit at my shuttle analysis !" Heiss shouted, his face twisted in disgust.
Morgenstern spoke quietly.
"Klaus, you're the brightest economist I've seen for a long time. I won't betray you. Yes, the shuttle is lost. But you still have to defend yourself and all the work you've done.
The reality is that NASA is a pain in the ass to deal with. Plus, who can really prove your analysis wrong ? For God sake, you were the first to tackle an awfully difficult economic case - trying to determine the break haven point between expendables and reusable space launch vehicles. Noone did this before you !"
Heiss looked at his boss, his morale evidently higher.
"Indeed. Damn the shuttle, and damn NASA; it doesn't matter. The truth is, the core of this analysis show that the RLV thin line is around forty flights or payloads a year.

Below, you need expendables; above, reusable launch vehicles works better.
Until my last breath I'll never change a line of the analysis there, on your desk." Heiss thumped on the pile of volumes with his fist.

"Whatever amount of shit they throw at me, I have the conviction that the work was done correctly. It was NASA that didn't knew what they wanted."
"And don't forget they loathed us from day one" Morgenstern tone was glacial. "It was Weinberger bureau of budget that committed NASA to ourselves. Don't you remember ? before October 1971 they didn't cared about our work, obsessed as they were by their Shuttle – Saturn hybrid.
"And then, suddenly, when Weinberger chose Big Gemini, they panicked, and hurried toward our shuttle – the cheapest full-size orbiter in town" Heiss answered. "What a bunch of assholes. It's kind of funny they ended trapped with what they loathed so much – another dumb capsule !"

He laughed, evidently relieved. Morgenstern was also smiling.
"Klaus, still interested by that job at the Morgan Bank ?"
Heiss took a deep breath. Despite all the suffering he had endured doing the damn shuttle study, space was still appealing him. Space, yes, but not NASA. Enough was enough. Geronimo.
"Count me in !" He shaked Morgenstern hand.

Grey - Tischler - Layton OTL (1979) book, Enterprise. Highly recommended.

 

[Archibald]

This one for Ranulf - Titan III and alternatives

"The Johnson Space Center (JSC) heavily insists on uprating at least part of the Saturn IB fleet with the high-performance XLR-129 (to replace the Apollo era J-2).

The reason is the Air Force advanced rocket engine remains the closest thing from the lost Space Shuttle Main Engine - with two major caveats. First it lacks thrust, 250 000 pounds instead of the shuttle target of 350 000 pounds.
More annoyingly before the shuttle cancellation the SSME contract had already been attributed to Rocketdyne and not Pratt&Whitney, although it was the latter that tested the XLR-129.

Six months ago a minor controversy erupted when Representative Cotter bluntly charged NASA Dale Myers (and former Rocketdyne employee) of favorizing his former company. These allegations however were rapidly quashed by the Government Accounting Office.

Ground testing of the XLR-129 may resume soon, and JSC clamour for the integration of the advanced engine into the fleet of spare Saturn IB.

There are many issues with that scheme.

Integration of the engine would be extremely difficult and costly; the stock of Saturn is barely sufficient for an eventual space station buildup.

In this context the ARES 1B option has recently gained a lot of traction.
...
"Without the space shuttle NASA is essentially stuck with capsules, yet another issue is what launcher for these capsules. It boils down to Titan III-M versus Saturn IB, although two alternatives have recently emerged – which are somewhat members of the enlarged Saturn family of launch vehicles.
Both alternatives are the result of issues with Saturn S-IB or first stage. A cluster of tanks from the long gone Jupiter missile, the S-IB is rather heavy, inefficient, and expensive to build. Its elimination would results in large savings.
…
Alternative 1 has the S-IVB riding on a downrated (3*F-1A )Saturn V first stage, which remains expensive, oversized and overpowered; that's the Jupiter 120, where the number 120 stands for 120 000 pounds into orbit. For the record, a fully fuelled CSM weights 70 000 pounds - with all that SPS fuel perfectly unuseful for low Earth orbit missions. Consideration has been given to a very large payload module that would be picked up, LM-style, through a 180 degree transposition manoeuver.
…
His name an hommage to Von Braun early missile, the Jupiter 120 is in fact at the center of a whole family of new launch vehicles. Among them is the Jupiter 232, essentially a direct return to the Saturn V launching as much as 232 000 pounds into orbit. Modularity, or a so-called building-block approach, is key to the concept.
…
Alternative 2 is, somewhat ironically, a breeding of Titan and Saturn: a cluster of Titan large solids with Saturn' S-IVB on top. The Titan boosters might be recovered at sea for reuse, lowering launch costs – a system known as the Advanced REcoverable Solid, or ARES. According to a source within NASA astronaut corp that concept has been christened Satan - a portemanteau of Saturn and Titan. As a sidenote, that nickname by itself clearly show astronaut opinion about that launch vehicle.
…
The Ares-Saturn IB, usually shortened the Ares 1B is clearly of interest to NASA. The civilian space agency so far show an evident lack of enthusiasm flying the Titan III, a military space vehicle the Bureau of Budget forced them to use essentially because it is already there.
…
A hybrid of Titan and Saturn that preserves the S-IVB translunar stage, the Ares 1B is certainly an attractive option. Experts however warns the solids performance is too low, and that the J-2 can’t fill the gap.

In this case it would take the new XLR-129 to lift a decent payload to orbit - hence JSC pressing lobbying for it.

This very advanced rocket engine remains a strong candidate to power a reborn shuttle, perhaps in the next decade; but it has not be fully tested yet. Unlike the J-2, it was not designed to be air-started in-flight; cost of the modifications might be prohibitive.
…
It is interesting to note that the XLR-129 formed the core of the Space Shuttle Engine proposals; making the Ares 1B a possible forerunner of a new shuttle.
…
Astronauts are known to be reticent to fly on solid-propelled boosters, which tend to suffer destructive, unpredictible destruct events that can easily outrun escape systems – and kill the crew.
…
It remains to be seen, however, whether Congress and the Bureau of Budget will allocate funds for another launcher which performance essentially duplicates the existing, proven Saturn IB and Titan III.
...
with the death of the Saturn V and space shuttle, NASA might get out of the launch vehicle business sooner than later…something the Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama, might suffers from.”

(excerpt from Flight Global, February 1 1972: Jupiter, Titan, Saturn and Ares launch vehicles considered)

PERSONAL NOTE: that part was fun to write because it is crammed with hints to OTL projects - Kudos to those who identify all the references

 

[Archibald]

For a minute, let put the reader into George Low shoes. The month is February 1972. The space shuttle is dead, but Weinberger assured that manned spaceflight should continue.
All the options explored by the 1969 Space Task Group are dead on arrival - the shuttle was the last piece in existence.

So you have to rebuild a manned space program from zero.

Below is a short list of all the possible options in varied domains.

LAUNCH VEHICLES

• Saturn IB
  
  
• Titan III-M
  
  
• ARES - SaTan (three Titan solids topped by Saturn S-IVB)
  
  
• Jupiter 120 (Saturn INT-20 : 3*F-1A S-IC + S-IVB)
  

MANNED CRAFTS

• Big Gemini
  
  
• Block III CSM
  
  
• General Electric D-2
  
  
• Lockheed Corona
  
  
• Grumman subscale Shuttle
  
  
• Boeing revamped DynaSoar
  
  
• Northrop HL-20
  
  
• Martin Marietta X-24D
  

SPACE TUGS

• NERVA
  
  
• OTV
  
  
• Centaur
  
  
• Transtage
  
  
• Apollo Service Module
  
  
• Delta stage 2 (AJ-10 or TR-201)
  
  
• Lockheed Agena
  

SPACE STATIONS

• Skylab B
  
  
• wet workshops
  
  
• S-II dry workshop
  
  
• Big Gemini 15ft cargo module
  

LARGE PROJECTS

• Viking
  
  
• Grand Tour
  
  
• Large Space Telescope
  
  
• HEAO (High Energy Astronomical Observatories)
  
  
• Space station + crew ferry
  
  
• NERVA
  
  
• Apollo 16, 17, 18, 19 and 20.
  

That spoil a little bit, but it doesn't matter. IT shows how the year 1972 will be a complicated one for NASA. Kind of an enbarassment of riches !

 

[Archibald]

the empire strike back

February 6 1972

“William, I need you in my office, right now. You really have to read some documents I’ve found”

Walter Mondale called his Committee on banking, housing and urban affairs colleague William Proxmire.

“Tell me what you think about this” he threw a thick report on his desk.
“Jesus. So that’s the famed Mathematica study ?”
“It is. William, as you know eighteen months ago on July 6, 1970, NASA awarded a cost-plus-fixed-fee contract to the Mathematica Institute, Princeton, Virginia, for an independent analysis of the economic benefits of the shuttle.
"Three alternative space transportation systems were considered in this analysis: current expendables, new expendables, and space shuttle systems - originally a two-stage, fully reusable system. The first part of Mathematica's analysis was summarized in a report dated May 31, 1971, to no avail.
"Thus NASA extended the analysis to include an evaluation of alternative space shuttle configurations--i.e., space shuttle configurations that could be developed within the peak-year funding constraints anticipated through the coming decade.
“Yes, that was after Nixon Bureau of Budget capped their annual budget to $3 billion per year – of which the shuttle swallowed $1 billion.”
“Well, the second part has been issued last week – January 31, despite cancellation of the shuttle project.”
“So, what is the point ? As of today NASA is on the way to Big Gemini, and they try their hand at a space station. The shuttle belong to the past no ?”
“Well, I fear no. And that’s the point I want to make: I want to demonstrate that the Mathematica study is unrealistic. This should bury the shuttle for the next ten years. I will request that the General Accounting Office (GAO) review the cost-benefit-analysis used by NASA in support of the Space Shuttle Program. I want to ask them to review the cost estimates for Mathematica’s shuttle and Big Gemini / Titan III-M.
"What bother me most in this Mathematica report are some assumptions and other areas that might have significantly influenced the estimated cost of the Space Shuttle Program. Those critical areas are Launch system cost, Number of flights, Cost per launch, Payload retrieval and Range of contractors estimates.”
Proxmire, too, had had doubts
“NASA never answered clearly to some questions I had on the shuttle – notably the estimated number of times that the orbiter could be reused and the estimated time between flights. And what about the estimated booster engine recovery and refurbishment costs ?

Mathematica talks about dropping boosters on salt-water, under parachutes. They also talked about retrieving, refurbishing and re-launching broken satellites. Is this really worth the price ? “
Mondale smiled.

“William, imagine I show you an article criticizing the shuttle as early as 1969. Imagine that the article was written by a NASA engineer, a high-ranking one, a veteran of NACA days.”
“Are you kidding ?”
“Thrust me I’m not. Look at this.” Mondale handed Proxmire a small folder. Proxmire red avidly, commenting.

…There are two obvious ways to get low-cost space transportation systems. One of these is to reduce substantially the cost of expendable launch-vehicle stages. The other way is to quit throwing the system parts away i.e. design and perfect recoverable and reusable space transports.

“Hmmm, sounds like Titan vs Shuttle.” Proxmire nodded.

The first drives the system concepts towards simple (minimum test and checkout) stages in which engineering refinement is secondary to production cost.
The reusable system, on the other hand, capitalizes on the ability of the aerospace industry to develop and produce refined high-performance equipment. Because of the need for carrying recovery gear, which chews a large bite out of payload capability, performance and mechanical refinement take precedence over production cost. In theory, however, as only a few units would service the requirements of the nation, unit production cost does not become a dominant factor. In this approach design and development investment are high; operating costs are low. High launch rates favor this approach.

“Yeah, 600 flights over twelve years sounds enough, as Mathematica told us.” Proxmire grinned.

I believe a recoverable launch-vehicle system must come as soon as the technological state of the art will permit developing it without defeating the primary purpose of low cost. For this, two conditions must first be met. The space program must develop a traffic rate that will amortize the initial investment in reasonable time and a sound base in technology and in precursor flight and operating experience must be created to assure straight forward development.

“Ouch. This guy know his NASA better than any of us.“

I have the opinion that even in this era of unprecedented technological progress, too large an attempted technological leap can cause us to stub our toes by forestalling the availability of the new system, increasing its costs at the expense of other parts of the total
space program... A proper transportation system can not be selected in the absence of a definitive picture of payloads in each mass class, their orbit or trajectory path, and their rate of launch. Such a survey of mission requirements must include all prospective DOD as well as NASA uses. The idea that a reusable launch-vehicle system will serve a single purpose is preposterous.

“Darn !”
“Well, read what follows” Mondale had visibly enjoyed the paper a lot

The desire of the aerospace industry, which includes members of government agencies, to build exquisite and innovative equipment does not of itself justify spending the taxpayer's money.

“Sweet Jesus.”

“...either of these recoverable systems is very sensitive to degradation of performance, either in the engine specific impulse or stage mass-fraction (amount of useful propellant they can carry relative to total mass). For example, a 5% degradation in engine performance knocks out ***all*** of the payload capability of a fully recoverable two-stage vehicle.

Under these circumstances, particularly since we have inadequate experimental proof of the validity of present design extrapolations, there is a real hazard that the already-low payload fraction, which is only 1.5% of takeoff mass, may become so small as to make use of such systems questionable in terms of economy, or it may even disappear altogether. This situation is analogous to the supersonic transport problem. If you fall short of the design requirements, you have the option of flying part of your passengers all of the way, or all of your passengers part of the way across the ocean.”

Proxmire was visibly stunned by the last sentence.

“That should remind you of a certain Boeing project which got canned last year, thanks to you”

Mondale talked about the Boeing supersonic transport (SST). Back in march 1971 Congress had refused to fund the program further. Proxmire had led the successful battle against the SST.

Proxmire continued reading rapidly through the folder

“...the relatively low design and development investment in modifications of existing launch-vehicle equipment or in adoption of simple expendable stages largely offsets their high recurring cost and makes such transportation systems attractive for a small total of flights.

“… Economic studies say that the break-even point between expendables and reusables comes somewhere between 100 and 200 flights. But if my assessments of the costs of the more advanced systems are wrong by a factor of two, the break-even point goes out beyond 600 flights !

“The justification of recoverable launch-vehicle development resides in the idea that the traffic rate will build up as the cost comes down. Of this there is really little doubt, but mundane problems of funding, developing, building and preparing payloads are likely to pace the use of space transportation.”

Proxmire concluded on this sentence, hold his breath for some seconds, and turned again toward Mondale.
“Please, tell me who is the author of that. And when did he drop such bombshell !”
“His name is Adelbert Tischler.”
“Albert what ?
“A-del-bert Ti-schler.” Mondale spelled “Mind you, he has impressive records. A veteran of NACA days, he worked on the F-1 engine, and early Saturn concepts. You certainly heard of George Mueller didn’t you ?”
“Of course. He’s the man who forged the concept of the space shuttle four years ago. Damn him !”
“Well, James Webb hired Mueller in 1963 as top manager of the Apollo program, which at the time was questioned. First move of Mueller in September 1963 was to commit a study on Apollo cost and management.
He asked two veterans the following question: in the actual shape of things, can we land a man on the Moon before the decade is out – in other words, accomplish what Kennedy asked us. “
“And Tischler was one of these two veterans.”
“Exactly ! His answer was quick, loud and clear – NO !
In response to that Mueller moved to all up testing of Saturns – dummy stages were scrapped. The rockets would fly with all functioning stages. First Saturn V worked perfectly, the second flight was a near disaster, and despite that, the third Saturn V flight carried the first men around the Moon."
“So, what Tischler did of remarkable other than that ?”
“Mueller was happy with him, and send him to Headquarters, in Washington. For eight years he was in OART – NASA Office of Advanced Research and Technology. Thanks to this position, his excellent evaluation on Apollo, and early works on the F-1, he had a global vision of the shuttle program in domains as different as economics, technical and propulsion matters. Hence the excellent essay you red.”
“Which was published when ?”
“On August 25, 1969.”
“Jesus. At the very early planning stages. Shuttle phase A contracts had been barely issued to contractors at that time ! Talk about a visionary. Walter, we have to find this guy, meet him and discuss. He could be a precious ally; he could testify for the GAO study I mentioned earlier.” Proxmire said.
"I already did my little inquiry. Back in the 1960s, Del had assembled his own handpicked dream team of propulsion experts at NASA to monitor the Apollo propulsion effort. No NASA field center, not even von Braun's highly acclaimed Marshall SFC, could match them man for man.
"There was no way those people could snow my people, either technically or managerially." That what he said.
Sadly, von Braun & co. resented this and managed to convince the incoming Director for Manned Space Flight (George Mueller) to break up Tischler's team.
In return, Del was transferred to the OART where he promptly assembled a new, equally talented team that managed to make further significant contributions to Apollo engine development. Unfortunately, lack of support in his own organization meant Tischler was unable to keep his team together."

"What's OART, anyway ?"

"The Office of Advanced Research and Technology. The aeronautic side of NASA, what's left of the old NACA the space agency replaced in 1958. For obvious reasons they are much less obsessive than the manned spaceflight centers such as Marshall, houston and KSC.. They have all kind of interesting studies there."

 

[Archibald]

February 10, 1972
"George, we have a problem." James Beggs said. "It looks as if Proxmire and Mondale are recruting NASA insiders to grill us over the shuttle debacle. They have set their attention on an engineer, Del Tischler."

"I heard this name before, but can't remember exactly who he is."

"I know him from my days at the head of NASA aeronautic branch, the OART. He was the head of the chemical propulsion division there, and one heck of an engineer, although a little abrasive at times. Oh, and he also assessed the Apollo program for George Mueller a decade ago."

"Now I remember him. Damn, his estimation was we had one chance out of ten to accomplish Kennedy deadline. The report was so explosive Mueller ordered it was destroyed so it never leaked to the outside world - and, more intelligently Mueller also ordered a huge shakedown. That included all-up testing of the Saturn without any dummy stages, to von Braun dismay. You say Tischler did that ?"

"Yes, with another veteran, John Disher. Well, we have to take him under control fast." Beggs said.

"Don't worry. He is extremely loyal, although he ruffled a lot of feathers with his shuttle criticism. He supported it but never minced words about it.
Whatever, today he is somewhat out of job since he was director of the OART shuttle technology office. I wanted him to direct a task force over possible standardization of satellite components to drop their costs.
Tischler rightly noted the low-cost shuttle would be of no use if the payload themselves were not cheap (thus standardized). I felt he was right, and planned to made him the director of a Low Cost Systems Office. Of course without the shuttle all this become moot."

"Sure. Now we need to find a job for that Tischler, and in a hurry. He is too much of a loud mouth."

February 13, 1972

George Low knew Del Tischler from a long time; after all they were both veterans from Apollo and even from the NACA days, before a space agency ever existed. The meeting promised to be memorable.

Tischler had a lot of things to say over the shuttle failure, and he did not minced his words.

Low let him blew his stack, then the two went to the reason of their meeting.

"When working at the OART last year I heard of a peculiar study that may be of interest for you now that the shuttle is dead. A very interesting study of a serie of Skylabs running until 1987 and serviced by modified Apollos. I did a short summary of it."

Tischler paused.

"A year ago on 6 April 1971, eight engineers at the OART (most of them from Ames Research Center) completed a blueprint of NASA’s future." he started.

"That date" Low noted. "Exactly two weeks before the Soviet launch of Salyut 1. Is that a coincidence ? I don't think so. The Soviets have made known publicly - most notably in an October 1969 speech by Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev - their intention to establish Earth-orbiting stations. In fact last year the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency completed a report in which it suggested that the Soviets might construct a series of stations, each larger and more capable than the last, culminating, perhaps, in a $5-billion, 150-ton station between 1976 and 1980."

"The OART engineers did not, however, mention the Soviet space program in their report. Whatever the reason behind their study they proposed the ISS..."

"The what ?" George Low interrupted. For some reason he couldn't explain that accronym rang a bell.

"The Interim Space Station program. It is in effect, an evolutionary extension of Skylab.

"Why interim, anyway ?"

"The OART engineers applied the term interim to their eight-and-half-year program because they intend for it to lead from Skylab to a permanent Space Station through evolutionary, gradual, and step-wise spacecraft systems development.

"Beginning about three years after the third and final Skylab crew returned to Earth, a new interim station would reach LEO every two and a half years. Each would be staffed continuously for from 360 to 420 days." Low had a mixed expression on his face.
"Gimme a break. You are talking about, what, four more Skylabs ? With what Saturn V ?"

"Hum, well, their solution was to end U.S. lunar exploration with Apollo 15 so that the Saturn V rockets earmarked for missions 16, 17, 18, and 19 could be used to launch all these Skylabs."

To Tischler surprise Low was not upset. "Those guys are visionnary." he sighed. "I can tell you Nixon advisors intended to do that - stop Apollo after Apollo 15. Me and Fletcher fought that decision to the very end. At the expense of the shuttle and Fletcher himself." Tischler was aghast. Though bargaining, he thought.

"And now the best part." he continued, smiling. "They went so far as to acknowledge that the Station/Shuttle Program might be delayed or abandoned in favor of some new space goal before the interim station program ran its course."
Low face as Tischler spoke those words was memorable. "For planning purposes, however, they offered a timeline in which NASA’s permanent Station became operational in late 1987, about six years after the Shuttle’s maiden flight and a little more than three years after the last interim station crew returned to Earth."

"Wait a minute, they said the shuttle would fly only in 1981 ?" Low had a bizarre feeling that once again he could not explain.

"Yes. Based on their own NASA flight schedule, the reusable Space Shuttle would begin flights in late 1981 only.
In keeping with this year budget, the OART engineers assumed a steady NASA annual budget of $3.3 billion throughout the interim station program. They estimated that each interim station would cost $2 billion, of which about $330 million would be spent on hardware development, $500 million on experiments, and $1.6 billion on spacecraft hardware. Their program would cost an average of about $500 million annually"

"Fine calculations. Skylab cost $2.5 billion and a production run, even small, would have unit cost drop. How many Skylab did they foresaw ?"

"Four of them - called Interim Space Station -A, -B, -C and -D.

"ISS-A would operate in a a 245-nautical-mile orbit inclined 28.5° relative to Earth’s equator. In fact it would be built from Skylab B itself. There would be no Apollo Telescope mount and it would weight 57 tons plus a 30-ton growth allowance."

"What would the logistic vehicle be without the shuttle ?"

"Apollo command and service modules."

"What launchers ? Titan IIIM or Saturn IB ?"

"None of them, rather an hybrid of the two - three Titan solids with a Saturn S-IVB above them. They say it would cost $80 million to develop, to launch as much as 28.7-ton to a 245-nm orbit at 28.5° of inclination. As for the Apollo its service module would be transformed. Forget the six fuel tanks grouped around a big engine; a couple of smaller tanks and engine borrowed from the Lunar Module would do the job. With only two tanks four bays would be available for cargo. The Apollo would be capable of transporting a total of about 10 tons of supplies and equipment."

"10 tons" Low said, surprised. "How about that." It stroke him as the shuttle original payload before the Air Force come into the program.

"Yeah. And it would cost $100 million to develop. Cargo items as large as 3.5 feet wide by 12 feet long could be removed from the Service Module bays and moved into the space station.
The issue however is that cargo could only be transfered by spacewalking astronauts. Or perhaps they could use a robotic arm ?"

Low nodded. Test of the shuttle robotic arm on an Apollo had been proposed.

"I suppose that, as usual without a shuttle the only items retrieved from orbit would have to be small enough to fit into the Apollo along the astronauts." Low sighed.

"Spot on. And now the schedule and missions.

"ISS-A would be launched early 1976 and dedicated to biotechnology research - a centrifuge and a behavioural laboratory. Three missions would man it for a year after what much like Skylab it would be worn out and abandonned in favour of ISS-B.

"The first three-man ISS-B crew would arrive for a 90-day stint beginning in July 1978, then a second three-man crew would reach the station a month later (August 1978).
The resulting six-man crew would work together for 60 days (September - October), then the first three-man crew would return to Earth.
A third three-man crew would arrive almost immediately (early November) to replace them. Thirty days later, the second crew would return to Earth and a fourth would replace them.
The station main mission would be to perform experimental Earth surveys - agriculture, forestry, geography; geology/mineralogy; hydrology/water resources; oceanography and meteorology. The station would revolve around the Earth in an orbit inclined 50° relative to the equator, so that it could pass over the “most populated and agriculturally productive areas of the Earth. Aboard would be 19 experimental sensors covering the spectrum from ultraviolet through visible light to infrared and microwave. The crews would also continue biomedical experiments.
The seventh three-man ISS-B crew would return to Earth in July 1979 and not be replaced, and the eighth and last three-man crew would splash down a month later, about 390 days after ISS-B reached space."

"So ISS-B would be over in, what, September 1979 ?"

"Yes. Replaced by ISS-C, scheduled for launch in January 1981 with ISS-D following it in orbit in July 1983."

"On what would be the last Saturn V rocket." Low gruntled.

"That's it. ISS -C and -D are pretty similar. Each would have a full crew complement of nine, making more challenging NASA’s reliance on the three-man Apollo for crew rotation and resupply."

"Still no Shuttle ?" Low asked. "I thought those pessimistics had it fly in 1981. Or perhaps in their universe it was also abandonned." he said dryly.

"Nope. Aparently they elected - in their own words, for the sake of simplicity - not to consider using it for ISS-C and ISS-D crew rotation and resupply.
Which results in monthly Apollo launches in January, February, and March 1981 to bring the station population to nine.
Only a month after its third crew arrived, its first crew would complete its 90-day stint on board the station and would return to Earth. NASA would immediately launch a fourth crew to replace them. ISS-C and ISS-D would each receive 12 three-man crews. The stations would support nine men for 360 of the 420 days each was occupied."

Low made rapid calculations. "36 Apollos over a decade. Pretty hefty flight rate."
Tischler nodded.

"So we have an ISS-A for biotechnology research and ISS-B for Earth survey. What about the other two ?"

"ISS-C - materials processing and manufacture. Taking advantage of weightlessness and nearly pure vacuum, the astronauts would manufacture large crystals, exotic composite materials, and biological compounds impossible (or at least very difficult) to create under terrestrial conditions. Oh, and they would also try artificial gravity by spinning the spent S-II. There would also have some Isotope Brayton nuclear power units aboard to boost the station electrical power by six to fifteen kilowatt.

"ISS-D then ?"

"Astronomy, with a trio of free-flying astronomy modules as well as instruments mounted on the station - cosmic rays, solar and stellar astronomy with some big 3 meter mirror."

"And all this end in 1987, in fifteen years. That's impressive. An interesting blueprint for the future"

"Surely. NASA would have accrued the equivalent of more than two years of permanent Space Station biomedical data and operations experience from its four interim stations. This would, they concluded, constitute the interim station program’s chief benefit to U.S. spaceflight."

Tischler did not knew what to say. But Low had taken notes, and obviously his brain was already at work.

"Thank you Adelbert. Tell those OART guys they did an excellent work, somewhat prescient at times. Their schedule may be pertinent." Tischler approved and left the room.

Now alone, for a couple of minutes George Low stood near his office window, staring at the Washington landscape outside. Two months before - the day the shuttle had died - James Fletcher had stood there, too, trying to guess what future of NASA would be.

Low felt the OART plan was a good start - a serie of evolutionary space station, Salyut-style.
Skylab however had two major flaws. It had deliberately be designed as a very short life space station. That issue could be solved.
There was a bigger problem, however.
Skylab was born at Marshall, and that was not acceptable in Houston. Low knew that Faget and his clique had little consideration for Skylab - it fact they had thrown that bone to Marshall only because they were extremely busy with Apollo (and hopefully, with the shuttle).
If NASA next great thing was to be a space station, there was no way Houston wouldn't be at least lead center of that program.
Then if the station was also a derivative of Skylab, there was no way Marshall wouldn't be lead center either !
Low sighed. The last thing NASA needed after the shuttle debacle was a sterile inter-center knife fight. He was not sure Beggs clearly realised how serious the situation was. They HAD to keep Marshall and Houston under control at any cost.

Nota Bene: this is adapted from David Portree WIRED blog entry here

​

 

[Archibald]

February 28, 1972

Back to Williamsburg – here we go again. Another round in NASA human spaceflight program fight for survival, started in 1968.

For Jim Gordon it was the second trip to Virginia in exactly a year. Twelve months before a similar big meeting had been held, with NASA, contractors and Air Force guys debating for two days.

One year ago we were struggling to define a fully-reusable Shuttle – twelve months later, all left are capsules and lifting bodies riding Titan IIIs.
Time is flying.

The conference had just begun, and would last all the day.

Another conference would happen the next day. USAF was absent, leaving NASA facing worried contractors alone.

James Beggs had been just confirmed as administrator of NASA.

“…NASA will fly Apollo with required upgrades until 1975, for Skylab and a joint flight with a the soviets.

Work on a proposed first-generation reusable launch vehicle has been put on the backburner, with activities limited to research, in a major change to our agency's earlier Space Transportation System.
“NASA will now push ahead with the development of six-men Crew Transfer Vehicle, launched on a Titan expendable booster to act as Space Station taxi within eight years. This will also have the potential to act as the permanent Crew Rescue Vehicle (CRV).
NASA considers ordering some more Apollo to fill the gap with the CTV. As an alternative Apollo flight schedule to Skylab could be stretched to 1975 and beyond.

"I understand that, you, contractors, have been worried about the Office off Management and Budget decision to scrap the shuttle. The Crew Transportation Vehicle is set to enter service in 1976, launched to low-Earth-orbit manned with a crew of four.

By 1980, the spacecraft will ferry six crew members to a new space station. Work on a the Shuttle will continue under the Next Generation Launch Technology programme, with a decision on development delayed until 1978 at best.

“The CTV requirements are driven by the need to increase the science performed on Skylab and to improve the safety of crews compared to Apollo.

We set up the following criteria.

The Launch vehicle should be an uprated Titan III; bidders must derived their vehicle from existing vehicles or proven shapes such as Corona or Apollo; land-landing is mandatory; on orbit duration of sixty days when docked to a space station; payload is housed in an expendable cargo module.

A crew of four is mandatory, with higher safety-levels than current Apollo, notably a two gas atmosphere. Initial operational capacity should be 1975. An upgrade to a circumlunar mission mode with a Centaur Earth departure stage would be highly desirable. This day will be dedicated to bidders entries for the CTV."

Martin Marietta representatives went first on the scene. Martin was the big winner of shuttle cancellation – its Titan had not only ousted the shuttle, it also bet the pants of the Saturn IB.

Martin lifting bodies, by contrast were fresh concepts with very little flight experience. At a time when NASA was pressed by time lifting bodies stood little chances of being chosen.

Then it was Northrop, Martin competitor for lifting bodies with their HL-10 and M2F2. Both had had agitated development paths.

The M2F2 had suffered an horrendous landing crash in May 1967, injuring test pilot Bruce Peterson “also known as the six billion dollar men”. Gordon smiled.
Lifting bodies were hard to control at landing speeds; they were even draggier than shuttle shapes, themselves known as “turkey” or “flying bricks” by aerodynamicists.

On the stage, the brave Northrop guy continued its presentation.

“…we decided to go with the more stable HL-10. As of today it is considered by Edwards test-pilots as the best lifting-body in the serie. [FONT=serif, 'Times New Roman']Our proposal called HL-20, is a scaled-up variant of the HL-10.

During launch the spacecraft would have had solid rocket motors for launch abort, with parachutes for a tail-down water landing. The space available inside for the crew and passengers would be more than found in today's small corporate business jets…"
"Lifting bodies can certainly sustain reentry at interplanetary speed." To back their claims the lifting body crowd cited project LUNEX, the Air Force moon plan that had lost to Apollo ten years before. The Northrop guy dug out a view of an ungainly aircraft with a huge conical propulsion module on the back.

Boeing and Grumman proposals were vague; Boeing presentation focused on an enlarged DynaSoar, the mythical USAF spaceplane cancelled in December 1963, eighteen months away from its first glided flight.

DynaSoar was a black, delta-shaped dart with twin tail fins and skids for landing. Unlike the cancelled shuttle, and much like old X-15s, DynaSoar did not used a heatshield.
The structure was build from inconel and titanium, and actually absorbed heat. The pilot, payload and other sensitive pieces were housed in water-cooled compartments.

Boeing and Grumman also had a study of a subscale variant of their joint H-33 shuttle design, a delta-winged orbiter with internal liquid oxygen tankage and one throwaway liquid hydrogen tank over each wing. The CTV got ride of any internal propulsion system outside small attitude thrusters.

"At the time of the shuttle cancellation studies were on the way of lunar mission for the space shuttle" they told the crowd. Their first slide entitled Cislunar Application of the Space Shuttle Orbiter showed a glowing-red shuttle reentering from interplanetary space.

Grumman and Boeing representatives also had a subscale shuttle model: an airplane shape, with a chunky body and an elegant, curved delta wing.

"We plan to add ablative heatshield over the silica tiles, or split the reentry in phases." they added. "The orbiter would perform a braking burn halfway to Earth to reduce its atmosphere entry velocity to about 31,000 feet per second.
Upon reaching Earth, the cislunar orbiter will perform an aerobraking manoeuvre high in the atmosphere to further reduce its speed and capture into orbit. First, the orbiter will descend at a constant velocity to an altitude no lower than 250,000 feet, taking care not to exceed its maximum allowable heating rate. Next, it will maintain a constant altitude as it slows. After that, it will pull up and enter a 100-mile-high circular orbit about the Earth finally firing its braking rockets to begin a normal Shuttle reentry."

The whole concept looked dubious to Gordon.
Now its time for backward capsules to size their revenge Gordon thought, as the Lockheed representative come on the scene.

“Our CTV vehicle - internally known as CXV- is a simple capsule design based on the Corona reentry vehicles used by the American intelligence community to return film from orbit. The aerodynamics and flight characteristics of the capsule are well known, with more than 50 reentries having taken place over a period of more than 12 years.”
Early spy satellites dropped their precious photos of USSR into Corona capsules, which after reentry were snapped in midair by large aircrafts. Had NASA not taken over the manned spaceflight business in 1958, USAF may had flown manned Coronas with military astronauts.

“The CXV's shape provide for carefree reentry of the capsule. Similar to a badminton shuttlecock, the spacecraft automatically rights itself as it descend into the atmosphere regardless of its initial orientation due to the aerodynamic loads. As a result, neither human nor computer intervention is needed to stabilize the vehicle in the event that the vehicle is not perfectly aligned for reentry..."
Gordon liked the concept, but remembered a problem common with the use of a Discoverer-type capsule for crew re-entry. The direction of G-forces during launch and re-entry areopposite. The Lockheed proposal solved this through use of an innovative seat design - a type of suspended semi-rigid hammock - that could rotate 180 degrees within two seconds in order to keep the astronaut correctly oriented regardless of g-force direction.

Another dubious concept – it can certainly works, but it will take time, of which NASA has not. By the way we have better capsule than Corona.

On top of that was Lockheed dire situation, near bankruptcy. Over the last decade every program started by the firm had backfired or failed, to the point it was on the verge of sinking.
Tristars airliners did not sold, and their turbofans had nearly sunk Rolls Royce.
The Cheyenne, YF-12 and D-21 cutting edge marvels had been plagued by technical problems. The Galaxy scandal was raging – cracks on wings and immense cost overruns plagued USAF big cargo plane.
In an unprecedented move Lockheed had been kept on life-support by the Nixon administration - only because their Poseidonsubmarine launched missile represented a vital asset against the Soviet Union.

To this point, Lockheed proposal is certainly the most interesting.But here come the big boys, entering the arena. Rockwell and us - McDonnell Douglas.

Gordon somersaulted when he saw Rockwell representative.

My god - they have called Harrison Storms back, he thought. They really want this contract.

Stormy was a legend, the father of an impressive number of superb flying machines and rocketships. The Apollo program, however had nearly carbonised him. Having brought both the S-II and Apollo contracts to Rockwell, he had worked a gruelling eighty hours a week for a decade, facing immense pressure from NASA, two heart attacks and a wife attempting her life.
Storms looked battered, but he fought with energy. It was obvious he would do his best to bring the CTV to Rockwell, in the form of a Block III Apollo.

“We are the most experienced bidders. We prevails experience from the Apollo program, and we were a strong contender for the Shuttle orbiter contract. North American studied 6-men, ground-landing Apollo spacecrafts as early as 1963. These studies were grouped under the designation of MODAP. Six-man, land-landing Apollo studies continued into Apollo Extension Series (AES) in 1966, then Apollo Application Program (AAP) in 1968. They included steerable parachutes.

“As of today retrorockets sounds the most efficient system to cushion ground impact, but consideration should be given to air bags. Apollo CM shape, as Corona, has been proven over and over. It offers a lift-to-drag ratio of 0.25, enough for a cross-reentry of 18km. Truth be told, since 1968 Apollo crews have landed closer and closer from their recovery ships, to the point that NASA recently worried about possible collisions !

We recently modified an old block.1 CSM into a mockup of the new internal layout. To access the cargo compartment we first considered the option of a hatch trough the heatshield. This option was rejected on safety grounds, but also because the six-men crew Block III is too cramped for a second hatch. Our vessel will have three sections, fore to aft.

First, a six-man Command Module with modern avionics, lighter heatshield and a land-landing system.

Then a new, very light Service Module.

Third, a so-called MultiPurpose Logistic Module (MPLM).

Just after orbital injection, Apollo will detach, makes a 180° turn and pick up the MPLM very much like the Lunar Module.

The logistic module has a hatch at each end. Apollo will dock via the MPLM, the astronauts crossing the cargo module to enter the station.

We consider our option as the cheaper and easier to achieve - Apollo will fly to a space station as early as 1973. The Command and Service Module is NASA current manned spacecraft, and proved its worth”

According to the Rand Corp "THE SPACE SHUTTLE AS AN ELEMENT IN THE NATIONAL SPACE PROGRAM" dated October 18 1970,

"for those alternative space plans in which the shuttle operation would be delayed or in which there would be no shuttle, a six-man modified Apollo spacecraft would be used.
This vehicle would have a gross weight of 20,000 Ib, a development cost of $1billion, a first-unit cost of $300 million, and a launch-operations cost of $73 million." Storms quoted.

"A Titan III-M with the 7-seg segment solids can orbit can orbit 37 000 pounds - which mean the MPLM could mass as much as 17 000 pounds." he concluded.

Yeah, but Apollo has been tailored for lunar missions, not as a space station ferry, Gordon thought as he went to the stage. That service module - even trimmed down to the bones - is just unuseful. Now was perhaps the most important moment in his life.

He stared at the audience, a sea of engineers and heavyweight past and present NASA officials – former administrators James Webb and Thomas Paine, Robert Seamans, Werner Von Braun, George Low, and many others.

“The Big Gemini spacecraft is a scaled-up Gemini with a crew of three to nine. Big Gemini itself appeared for the first time late 1967. It had grown from a logical need outside Apollo – the need for a twelve-man ferry to a space station in the early 70’s. Apollo maximum capacity is six men without cargo, while the shuttle promised lot of technical uncertainties, making it unlikely before 1977 at best.
Let me quote a document

"Our existing spacecraft, being two- or three-man size, cannot economically meet space station logistic needs. Lower operational costs are essential for the future. The Gemini structure itself being an aircraft type construction readily lends itself to this add-on passenger compartment. The spacecraft was designed for low earth orbits.
To describe it in a little more depth, about 75 percent of the Gemini B flight hardware is used in the Big G spacecraft.
We have studied the development time for the Big G and we have compared it to the projected Apollo Applications Program and to a potential future space station.

Based on a 1971 beginning of operations for the workshop, and a possible followup at a later date with either additional wet or dry workshops, and sometime in the mid seventies a major new station we see that the Big G can be available in late 1972 if we assume a hardware go-ahead in 1970.

We feel the Big G is an optimum way to proceed quickly and at low development cost to a new spacecraft. It will introduce lower cost per passenger in orbit than we have seen before.

This date back from 1970, and remain pertinent today.

To house 12 men, McDonnell changed Gemini service module into a kind of passenger section – a fixed extension of the two-man original capsule.

"Two-man-Gemini’s ejection seats and hatches have been deleted. The crew enters Big Gemini crew module through two large hatches set above the passenger section.

"A cargo propulsion module is attached to the crew module for up cargo and orbital operations. Orbital transfer, rendezvous and docking, attitude control and deorbit propulsion functions are all performed by a single liquid propellant system.

The cargo block is a large, pressurised cylindrical section. It is dropped at the end of the mission, and usually burns in the atmosphere. At the aft end a pilot's station is equipped with controls and windows for manual docking with the space station.

"Although the launcher is now a stock Titan III, we made studies of Big Gemini riding atop a Saturn INT-20. It gives Big Gemini a payload and flexibility similar to the defunct shuttle through the Space Shuttle Cargo Delivery Module. The SSCDM is nothing more than an expendable shuttle cargo bay left in orbit after Big Gemini reentry module goes back to Earth.

Morphologically Big Gemini is closest from the shuttle than any proposals seen this day. A six man crew cockpit flanked by a large cargo section results in high flexibility for space station resupply.

"We studied several recovery options such as externally deployed parawing and bicycle landing gear supplemented by outriggers. Despite the paraglider fiasco we continued our research in gliding parachutes. We understood that a rigid delta wing was too difficult to deploy at landing. Flexible, lift chutes were the way to go.

“Difference between a paraglider, a parasail and a parafoil is not always easy to grasp. The paraglider as consider for Gemini was an inflatable, rigid delta wing as patented by Francis Rogallo. It had a mettalic, rigid structure - which was nearly impossible to deploy rapidly during flight.

A Parasail is a round chute - only made of cloth, without any metallic structure. It is thus much easier to deploy, with some aerodynamic tricks that give the pilot limited control; it can be steered to a precise landing area.

A parafoil is a mix of the two. Like the paraglider, it is a winged-shape, although a much different design that makes it easier to deploy. Like a parasail a parafoil is essentially made of cloth and is inflated by ambient air.
Final selection opposed a parasail with retrorockets to a parafoil with skids or undercarriage. Parasail can land a capsule on every ground; skids limit it to flat land; undercarriage obviously mean runway.
"Recovery of the crew module is by parafoil and a three skid landing gear extends from the bottom of the crew module. Design and analysis of the parafoil and landing mode were accomplished by Northrop-Ventura under a subcontract. Launch escape is provided by an Apollo-type solid rocket escape tower mounted on the spacecraft nose.

"A flight test Min-Mod vehicle could be launched 37 months from go-ahead and first operational vehicle could be launched 43 months from go-ahead. The Advanced Big G schedule add three months to these figures.

"Cost estimations are $1.5 billion for developing the Big Gemini capsule and its launcher, along with approximately $2.25 billion in recurring operational costs, for a total of $3.75 billion. Late 1969 the Bureau of Budget agreed that Big Gemini reduced development cost allowed the parallel build-up of a space station in the year 1980, even if NASA budget was cut to $2.5 billion per year over the next decade…”

Gordon had noted some nervous laughs in the assistance, and he knew why. The name Big Gemini really sounded bad – fat Castor, big Pollux ! He had the answer to that. He had found it late December, in a chat with Chamberlin.

“Jim, now that we have a spaceship to replace Apollo, we’re going to need a new name. Something to link this ship to former capsules – Mercury, Gemini, Apollo.We just can’t really stand with Big Gemini – or else some day some facetious journalist will call it fat Castor !

“So, how did the capsules names came about ?”

“Mercury and Apollo were picked up by Abe Silverstein in 1958 and 1960. At the time early Apollo blocks were to succeed Mercury – Gemini come later, after Kennedy trumpeted the Moon as NASA great endeavour for the decade. The name Gemini was picked up by some obscure McDonnell technician, on the ground that Gemini was a two-men Mercury.”

“What were the reasons driving Silverstein choices then ?”

“Well, Abe dabbled on classical myths. Plus the fact that Von Braun named its rockets Jupiter and Saturn”.

“But Von Braun chose those names from planets, not because of Greek gods.”

“Yep, you’re right. And Silverstein missed this point. Mercury was the son of Zeus and grandson of Atlas.
It had winged sandals and helmet and caduceus. Had a mythologist been consulted, perhaps the additional associations of Mercury with masterful thievery, the patronage of traders, and the divinity of commerce would have proven too humorous for NASA.”

“Indeed. What about Apollo ?”

“In Silverstein own words the image of the god Apollo riding his chariot across the sun gave the best representation of the grand scale of the proposed program." So Apollo it was. Now, what alternate names do we have ?”

“Well, if we ever go back to the Moon, Artemis might be appropriate, as goddess of Earth satellite.
And if we reach Mars, the name Ares just fits like a glove to any ship going there.
But we are not going to any of those destinations, not now.
So, what other Greek deity may fit to our ship ? We can’t seriously call it Dionysus, nor Aphrodite !”

Gordon looked at the assistance.

With the shuttle dead, the future of manned spaceflight hanged to the proposals made this day. Because of that, even Boeing or Grumman dubious, vague projects were of interest.

He took a deep breath and concluded its presentation.

“I’m very aware that Big Gemini sounds bad. So we checked the Greek mythology to find a better name.

Once upon a time was a god. The son of a Titan, he was closely identified with Apollo. Each day he drove the chariot of the sun across the sky, circling Earth.

Not only he drove the chariot, he was identified with the sun itself. Thanks to his location right in the middle of the sky he had an eye on everything happening on Earth.”

"Gentlemen, we will name our ship Helios.” He had finished with his presentation.

The room was noisy; everyone thought the day was over, but there were still a last presentation to be heard. Gordon was surprised when he heard that General Electric was also in the race. Their presentation was brief, although intriguing; it dealt with an original ship that consisted of three modules latched together.

"Unlike aircrafts rockets makes large use of expendable stages. It has been found that the optimal number of rocket stages is three to four; this max performance. Well, not only rockets benefits from staging; for a manned spaceship it give the crew more volume for an overall lower weigh. Our D-2 consists, fore to aft, of a large orbital living module, a small reentry bell-shaped capsule, and a service and propulsion unit."

What the hell ? Gordon thought this thing's a Soyuz !

He was stricken by the weight summary data, and tried to ran some maths in his head. Others contractors were deriding the concept.
How do you abort with a massive module above the astronaut heads ?The more separation or staging events, the higher risk of failure. We don't want to fly American astronauts aboard a clunky Soyuz. Leave that for the joint flight, ha ha !

Gordon took rapid notes.

The launch abort system stood on top of the rocket payload shroud, and the shroud was linked to the three-module ship, from top to bottom: a roomy orbital module, the astronaut can, and an unmanned service module located at the base.

During an abort the escape tower would pull the shroud - and the two upward modules linked to it - out of the failing rocket. Then once at a safe distance the astronaut tin can would literally separate and fall like a rock through the shroud open base - before deploying the landing chutes and retrorockets.

And then everything else - the orbital module, shroud and escape tower - would be left crashing into the ground.
It was a clever, if not complicated, abort system. Gordon had never heard of anything like that before.

The day was over. James Beggs had a kind word for everyone, and a brief elocution that concluded the first round. For contractors a hellish bidding race had now started, although it was rather obvious that Apollo and Big Gemini were over the rest of the pack.

 

[Archibald]

small Europe update

"The attention of the second ESC-NASA joint group of experts which met at Neuilly (Paris) from 8 to 11 February 1972 took account of the changing context of US-European cooperation. As of December, apart from the prospects of European participation in the shuttle even in reduced terms, two other areas of cooperation had been envisaged:
1. the tug system, on which ELDO had issued a Phase A report since the first meeting;
2. an orbital system or module and some studies on experiment definition.
From the beginning of 1972 the various orbital system concepts had crystallised in the form of a "sortie module", i.e. a laboratory transported by the shuttle that would remain attached to it throughout its stay in orbit.
It happened that within a space station program both elements might survive in some form or another. The sortie lab would evolve into a fully-fledged station module, probably derived from Big Gemini cargo section.

The real surprise was NASA change of attitude over ELDO involvement in the space tug. From the very beginning this had been the part of the post-Apollo programme in which Europe could have best profited from technology transfer; yet in shuttle days NASA had been markedly reluctant.

The reason officially given were mainly technical. This, it was said, was the less advanced project, in terms of the development phase, of the post-Apollo programme; it was not clear how, when and indeed if ever it would be built.

The secondary literature gives additional reasons including:
1. American scepticism, widely shared in Europe, over Europe's technical ability to develop the tug on its own, especially as far as propulsion was concerned;
2. The necessity for the USA not to transfer sensitive and/or economically valuable US technology;
3. NASA's concern over the safety of housing a tug with its planned cryogenic fuel in the shuttle's payload bay;
4. Military willingness to take complete control over the device.
5.The cost of the Sortie lab was then estimated at $200 million, against an estimated cost for shuttle tug of about $500 million for prospect of a production line of 20 to 30 units over a decade.

This difference has been considered to be an important element in the launcher-versus-post-Apollo dilemma.

In the end the much less expensive space station tug freed relevant European financial contributions in favour of Ariane just like the sortie lab would have.

The new tug was indeed a different beast than its shuttle predecessor.

Tug missions now amount to bridge the distance between orbital injection by the launch vehicle and the space station itself, including docking.

The tug would no longer be carried by a manned vehicle; cryogenic propulsion was deemed totally unnecessary; and the military had no longer interest in the project. It was on this renewed basis that NASA encouraged ELDO involvement in the space tug.


Excerpt from: A history of the European Space Agency, 1958 - 1987

 

[Archibald]

here come the post-Skylab space station

This is going to be a very big entry, the largest in the TL so far. After all the new space station is the centerpiece of NASA future.

April 20, 1972

Maxwell Hunter of Lockheed space division went to the stage of the little conference room located in Building 1, Johnson Space Flight Center, Houston, Texas.
On the view graph machine appeared a foil with a title:

AN ARCHITECTURE UTILIZING EXISTING APOLLO ASSETS TO COMPLETE AND RESUPPLY THE 1980 SPACE STATION.


Hunter faced the little group gathered around the table. There were NASA Administrator James Beggs, his deputy George Low, Eberhard Reese from Marshall; Kurt Debus, of the Kennedy Space Center.

There were also representatives from Martin Marietta, the builder of the Titan launch vehicle. Former MSC director Bob Gilruth and his successor at the head in Houston, Chris Kraft, were also present.
To Hunter surprise retired USAF general Bernard Schriever was also there. Schriever: the man behind the formidable build-up of America’s missile force in the 50’s.
Beggs introduced the meeting.
“Future of the human spaceflight program is now assured beyond Skylab and an eventual joint flight with the soviets, the last Apollos. We have a manned ship. We have plenty of options from contractors; lifting bodies, winged ships, and capsules – Corona, Apollo, and Big Gemini.We will pick a winner in August. Whatever manned ship it carries, Titan III-M, being mostly buy off the shelf from USAF, is too little work for our large Apollo workforce.
We have reports of former engineers of ours driving taxicabs, and the Florida space coast looks devastated.

Even if we manage to secure a space station, many Apollo ground-based assets are threatened. Marshall and Launch Complex 39 may fell victim of bean counters, just like the shuttle.
George Low went to the view graph machine.
“As you can see as early as February early sketches of the so-called 1980 space station show a modified Skylab with Crew Transfer Vehicles, and pressurised logistic modules that are gradually added to the workshop, extending its capabilities."
“However our hopes of using the two workshops as the core of the future station are rapidly vanishing.

Skylab A construction is far too advanced, while Skylab B is to be kept in reserve as backup. Beyond that, the Skylabs are not build for resupply, and use outdated Apollo subsystems.

We have four space stations and only three Saturn V to launch them. Or we cancel another Apollo mission, or the second Skylab will have no launcher.
“I suggest that if the first Skylab fail in orbit, parts of its lost experiments should be flown on early Crew Transfer Vehicles, or space station missions, and not on Skylab B." Low continued.
"Another issue is how to emplace the space station modules on the core; how to fly them from orbital insertion to their final destination.
Integration of the propulsion and navigation systems within the modules would make them too heavy for the Titan; we need a separate space tug instead, although much different from the shuttle vehicle.

We did a quick review of existing upper stages - solid-fueled kick stages plus the Agena, Transtage and Centaur.”
“The solid-fueled stage are extremely cheap, but lacks flexibility – no restart. The Transtage is just too big. As for the Centaur...” Beggs marked a pause.
"The Centaur," Gilruth interrupted "should be considered further, if only for long term manned missions to geosynchronous or low lunar orbit.

We could stage such missions from the future low earth orbit manned platform.” He paused.

“I tend to think that, if ten years ago we had started with a space station instead of the race to the Moon, it would have been easier to sustain public support over the long haul. If only we had used it as a platform to support a Moon landing !

As Apollo close from conclusion, we are left with a “what next?” problem that NASA really has to solve. A space station at that point sounds a bit anticlimactic - unless we try and found a way to tie to a manned deep space program."
Beggs was half convinced by the argument.

“So you're telling me the Centaur allows us to extend the range of our manned space operations up to cislunar space." Gilruth nodded. "Fine, but it is still a big step backward compared to Apollo surface operations. We can't even use the Centaur with an ordinary Apollo, first because the ship is too heavy, secondly because the Centaur is not man-rated - a fragile bubble of metal wrapped around very cold liquid hydrogen. That's how I see it. George won't contradict me"

Low was cornered by its past comments on the Centaur reliability, or lack of. "In the end the Agena apeared to be the most reasonable approach. It is small, it is versatile. To you, Maxwell.”
“Let me first summarize the current situation.
"NASA expected to be able to utilize the Space Shuttle to fill the role as the primary crew and cargo delivery system throughout the life of an eventual future space station. However, last October under pressure of president Nixon’s OMB the shuttle effort was put on hold.

We sought alternate means to perform assembly of a space station.
“We imagined that the manned crew capsule could be launched together with a module, and ferry it to the core space station.
“This way of building a space station, however, has been established when the shuttle was assumed to be the primary manned delivery system for NASA. As a result missions as currently planned will not be able to fully meet the 1980 space station non-shuttle cargo delivery requirements, not mentioning the crucial problem of station assembly.

“NASA estimations of the Crew Transfer Vehicle show a mass of 6200 kg, a mass to be shaved of Titan III payload to the space station orbit, around 12000 kg.
This is not acceptable, and Lockheed has been developing a low-risk cost-effective approach for delivering assembly elements, then outfitting hardware, science payloads, and re-supply cargo to the 1980 space station in the incoming non-Shuttle decade.

We adapted our Shuttle Agena tug to the new paradigm.

“Rather than developing new space vehicles, Lockheed’s approach leverages existing Apollo assets to satisfy the projected annual upmass requirements of the 1980 space station.

This ensures maximum utilization of the more than $20 billion of U.S. taxpayer and corporate investments in developing Apollo space systems, launch vehicles, ground infrastructure and processes, and trained personnel. Further, utilizing existing, proven, and operational space assets minimizes development costs and risks.

“Existing Apollo ground infrastructure assets include NASA’s extensive manufacturing, production, integration and launch facilities at Michoud (Louisiana), Huntington Beach in California and the Kennedy Space Center (KSC). NASA’s operational launch site infrastructure at Kennedy Space Center includes Launch Complex 39B for Saturn IB, which would be used to support space station assembly mission requirements.

The payload processing requirements in support of space station module assembly missions are compatible with the Skylab facilities available at KSC for the pre-launch servicing and integration with Saturn V.”

Hunter was now in full sale-pitch mode.

“Last year NASA accorded Lockheed contract NAS9-11949. The object was a study of Agena potential as space tug for the space shuttle. The report was issued February 25, 1972.

Before that - when the shuttle was cancelled - we started running an internal study as how to use the Agena for the build-up of a space station, its logistics, and many others missions. Results have been extremely promising."
Hunter paused.
"So here’s the Agena Service Module. “

The view-graph showed the distinctive shape of the Agena: a slim, silvered cylinder with a squat truss assembly housing varied subsystems.

Others views showed Agena-based missions: the SERT-II electric propulsion testbed, and a Gemini Target Vehicle.

Back in 1965 manned Gemini capsules had performed orbital rendezvous and docking with Atlas-launched Agenas, followed by boosts to higher orbits, Gemini 11 climbing as high as 800 miles.

“For space station assembly the Agena will ride an uprated Saturn IB, which is currently the widest operational U.S. launcher capable of lifting 6.60m large modules to the space station LEO transfer orbit - nominally 300 km circular at 51 degrees inclination.

"In a typical assembly mission the Agena service module - ASM - would be mated to the station module, both being encapsulated in a 6.60m Skylab shroud and mounted atop a Saturn IB launch vehicle.
The ASM and its payload would then be launched into an insertion orbit and join the space station planned 51.6 degree, 250 nautical mile low Earth orbit.

Once in orbit, the Agena, under ground control, would rise the orbit and manoeuvre to bring the module to the vicinity of the space station.

Once close from it, a sophisticated, automated system will perform the final approach and docking manoeuvres. Such system consists of a spaceborne laser radar (LADAR) configured to meet the requirements for rendezvous and docking with a cooperative object in low-earth-orbit.”

“We initiated research on such system for the Shuttle tug, the study I mentioned earlier.

“The LADAR we studied used existing pulsed CO2 laser technology. We analysed the performance of a family of candidate LADARS, and performed tradeoffs studies as a function of size, weight, and power consumption were carried out for maximum ranges of 50, 100, 200, and 300 nautical miles. 50 miles was considered enough, and is now the preferred option.

The investigation supports our contention that a rendezvous and docking LADAR can be constructed to offer a cost effective and reliable solution to the envisioned space missions.

“Logistics will be provided by derivatives of existing boosters such as Atlas, Delta and Titan, If expanded to leftover Saturn IB and Europe future L3B, a very large range of missions might be covered.

Delta, Atlas and L3B might launch stretched or shortened Agena service modules, to be used for space station reboost. This may be used as basis for International flights. The Agena can easily be stored in space; clusters of cheap Agenas might provide a low-cost Earth-Moon Transfer Stage.”

George Low simply asked “Tell us more about the Agena itself, and how do you intend to accomplish the mission with it”

Hunter continued

“The existing Agena D is 5 ft in diameter, weighs approximately 15,000 lbs and uses Acid/UDMH propellant. As conceived, the Agena is a core stage to which mission peculiar equipment is attached.

Off the shelf "peculiars" include two versions of secondary propulsion systems (SPS), cold gas attitude control kits, various battery and power options, as well as communication options.

The Agena has been used as a stable platform providing power and commands to many varied types of payloads--maximum injected payloads have exceeded 8000 lbs. The present Agena engine system using the Bell Aerosystem 8247 engine can restart at least fifteen times in space.

"Back in 1968 Lockheed was developing an advanced Agena using the Apollo propellants. It was a new stage using Apollo propellants having a higher performing Bell engine.”

Hunter shuffled notes, foils and view-graphs charts.

"Gentlemen, the idea of using Agena for a space station is not new. It is at least four years old !” On the view-graph machine appeared the front page of study.

BELLCOMM, INC.
1100 Seventeenth Street, N.W. Washington, D. C. 20036
SUBJECT: A Titan-IIIM Launched Space Station
DATE: July 23, 1968
Program -Case 710
FROM: E. D. Marion and J. A. Schelke


ABSTRACT

To achieve some understanding of the range of orbital programs available in the post-AAP period, Bellcomm initiated a study to see if a space program could be constructed using a series of small specialist space stations. The experiment requirements from the Saturn V Workshop Study were used to size the small space station modules.

The results showed that a group of small space stations could economically support the maximum experiment package. These spacecraft would be launched on a Titan IIIM, and be assembled in space through rendezvous and docking. The crew ascent and return vehicle was the Gemini-B modified to permit aft-end docking. An unmanned logistics vehicle, flying on an Atlas-Centaur class vehicle, proved to be the most economical approach to resupply.”

“As you can see, the idea of a Gemini Agena -serviced space station had been floated many years ago” Hunter added triumphantly.

“Istate that the first Agena in a production group for NASA purposes can be available 18-to-20 months after go-ahead.

Each succeeding bird would require 13 months; less time if mission peculiar subsystems become standardized.

Just think about the potential of such spacecraft !” Hunter enthusiastically added.

”A standard Agena on top an Atlas or a Titan IIIB could reboost the station on its orbit. Again the Bellcomm study we dug out describes such operation.” Hunter added, showing another chart

“(…) the rendezvous capability is included in the Agena vehicle, although the manoeuvre is controlled from the manned station.

A large pressurizable transfer tube connects the cargo compartment to the space station cabin.

Umbilical connections to the logistics vehicle fuel tanks can be made in several ways.

The docking operation itself could join two quick disconnect fittings outside the transfer tube or fittings inside the tube could be connected manually by the crew.

The first operation is to transfer propellants. When this is completed, the propellant tank is severed and the Agena backs away, carrying the propellant tanks and some of the docking structure with it (…)

We discovered that the Agena could perform many missions.
Just think about it !

We could test this tug using the old Skylab workshop and eventually reboost it.

We could desorbit the workshop properly, without risking a crew’s life.

We could add a small pressurised module to the Agena and create a very cheap logistic spacecraft, as described in this study.

We could plug Big Gemini nose into an Agena and boost the ship to higher orbits. The military would love that.

“Agena presently is required to be propulsively desorbited at mission completion. This last firing has been routinely accomplished after orbital durations in excess of 3 months. No restart problems are anticipated in mission times over a year, although we strongly recommend a thorough reexamination of engine components – seals. We could actually store Agenas in orbit !"

Hunter exclaimed.

“In conclusion I would say that an Agena can easily be made into an active rendezvous stage with translation and soft docking capability. In fact, a stage having almost this capability have undergone qualification in an anechoic chamber in 1968. Details are classified”.

"Any comments ?" Beggs asked. "Eberhard ?"

Rees noted “You can’t reboost Skylab with your Agena, not with the main engine. The workshop structure won’t resist, as we found when we envisaged to use Apollo big engine, which has a similar thrust level.”

“So, how will you reboost Skylab ?” Hunter replied

“We will use the Apollo reaction control system. Well, you told us that Lockheed planned an upgraded of the Agena with Apollo RCS, so the Agena might work as well.”

“Indeed. Beyond that we have more ambitious plans” Hunter continued

“The first is the AMV – Agena Manoeuvring Vehicle. This is an Agena without the main engine only RCS thrusters remain. This vehicle will catch platforms in the immediate neighbourhood of the space station, and dock them.

"An extension of this concept is the ATV – Agena Transfer Vehicle. It’s a space tug, much like the cancelled shuttle reusable upper stage. In conclusion, the Agena can perform many unmanned missions, and would be an ideal complement to Big Gemini.”

“Thank you. This Agena looks an interesting, well-thought solution. However your idea of using a Saturn IB, not a Titan III, as launcher, is intriguing at least. Can representatives of Marshall tell us more about current situation of the center, and how many Saturns are left ? Eberhard Rees maybe ?“

“Well, we have hopes that the Shuttle is not totally dead; maybe we will revive the program once the station orbit and completed, around 1983. However my center need work NOW, and in a hurry, if we want to survive the present decade. Shall I remember you what Nixon options mentioned back in 1969 ?"

Two other options, at $2.5 billion, also permit flight of Skylab with its three visits. There could even be a space station in 1980, with Titan III-Gemini for logistics. However, there will be no space shuttle. NASA-Marshall will close, while activity at the Manned Spacecraft Center (Houston) would fall substantially.

“This paragraph was part of an OMB larger review of President Nixon space options for FY71 and beyond. Well, the shuttle had been canned, so over the last six months I attempted diversification, with mixed results.

Marshall attempted to capitalize on Skylab solar observatory success for the Large Space Telescope, but the leadership went to Goddard.

Rees continued

"The Agena might be of interest for us. Indeed it was Marshall that was responsible for the Shuttle space tug – and your mention of the L3B reminded me that the Europeans were very interested by a cooperation.

But the military were reluctant, they didn’t wanted any foreign involvement because of their use of the Shuttle and its tug to ferry some of their classified satellites. At least this problem disappears if we use the tug for assembly of a civilian space station.”

“Indeed. We should discuss further of possible cooperation with ESRO on the subject of the tug.” Beggs answered. “Now tell us, how many Saturns are in existence ?”


Ach so ! That the moment Reese had been waiting for so long.
Fuck the shuttle.
Fuck the Titan.
Long live the Saturns !
It is the last opportunity to return the Saturn to production status.
Don't fool it !
“Of the fourteen Saturn IB build before closure of the production line in 1968, four have been expanded in unmanned tests, and one has been used for Apollo 7.

Three more will boost Skylab crews to the station, and the ninth (AS-209) is held in reserve as rescue vehicle.”

“And so remain five Saturn IBs that have been build for Apollo Applications Program missions now cancelled.

AS-210 will be expanded in a join flight with the soviets; however AS-209 won’t fly if no accident happens, so this rocket will be available as soon as Apollo-Soyuz will land safely, in 1975.

In conclusion five Saturn IB are available, barely enough to build a space station.”

Nobody noticed that Rees had made a major mistake. It was not five, but seven Saturn IBs that had been left.

The procurement of long leadtime components for four additional Saturn IB Launch Vehicles (SA-213 through SA-216) was approved in August 1966.

This approval was granted to retain the option to continue uninterrupted production of the Saturn IB Launch Vehicle if the requirement for additional launch vehicles became firm. The procurement of these additional launch vehicles (SA-213 through SA-216) was approved by Mr. Webb, NASA Administrator, on January 18, 1968. follow-on Saturn IB Launch Vehicles.

Some long leadtime components such as tanks, structures, etc., have already been fabricated for vehicles 213 through 216. Steps are being taken to reorient the production and support activities to give the most economically sound program feasible that will result in qualified, flightworthy launch vehicles.

To Rees credit, these last two Saturn IBs were nothing more than some first stage structure elements and Redstone tanks that had been manufactured and stored at Michoud, but never assembled into stages. Plus their S-IVBs had never been build. Rees later remembered this fact, but it was too late to save Marshall.

“I suppose that these Saturns should be modified to received the Agena. Are further modifications needed ?”

Excellent !

“We discussed of such problem since the shuttle had been cancelled. Result is the Saturn Life Extension Program – SLEP.

Saturn IBs stored at Marshall will be disassembled and their stages send back to Michoud and Huntington Beach for upgrade.

Mods includes Minuteman strapons and Agena integration above the S-IVB - a handful of S-IVBs might be transferred from Saturn V to Saturn IB, to complete the last three clusters.
“Hmm, that’s may be expensive… why not simply add the Agena, or use a Titan III ? In other words how on Earth will we justify to Congress the expense of two similar rockets – Saturn IB and Titan III - flying from launch pads only kilometres away, for years ?” Beggs asked dryly.

That was the very issue, but Rees had plenty of arguments to shoot that one down. Representatives from Martin Marietta, however, shot first.

“The Titan is cheap heavy lift. Back in 1961 the Department of Defence envisaged up to 72 space launches a year from three Titan III pads at the Cape. Yes: seventy-two.

As planning progressed, one pad was eliminated and maximum launch rate cut to five a month. The idea was that the DoD would be launching large numbers of manned and unmanned military spacecraft from the Cape during the 1965 to 1975 period and that such a launching rate would require a rapid-fire assembly and checkout complex.

“As it turned out, only three Titan 3Cs were launched per year in 1965 and 1966 and an average of two flew from the complex over the next years.

Launch rate is not expected to go beyond three or four per year in the next future. Thus as of today an excess of Titans exists, and it is apparent that the costly Titan 3C launch complex will never be used to its full capability.

“Our cost analyses showed that such a facility would save money if a launch rate of 18 per year was achieved.

We expected the Titan 3 family production rate to be 18 vehicles per year from 1970.

A Titan bird for use by NASA, built from scratch, could be made available within 24 months - if pulled from a production line, the availability could be improved to 13 weeks from order.

“However the 1970 production rate we described represents half the plant and tooling capacity.

Obviously this extra tooling has been mothballed. We are not talking about airframes here; contractors have similar overcapacity. Aerojet, for example, could build plenty of Titan engines. At a production rate of 18 per year, Martin-Marietta will deliver Titan IIIs for only $9 million per unit.

“Then we have to clear another interrogation. What solids for the man-rated Titan ? should we use the five segment or the more powerful seven segment rocket motors ?

Favouring the seven segment motor is the fact that USAF consider Titan III-M as man-rated.

Unmanned spaceflight would certainly benefit from more lift-off thrust: Mariner Jupiter-Saturn and Viking could be heavier or faster.

The seven-segment motor, however, should be stacked on the pad, not on the current building, with modifications to the launch pad. Costs could be shared with the Air Force. The five segment main advantage is, well, that it is already in use.”

George Low sighed

“I’d prefer the seven segment solid. Maybe USAF could be involved through Big Gemini MOL-like missions. They have an unfinished pad at Vandenberg they built for the Manned Orbital Laboratory.”

“Flight rate estimation is a difficult problem. Eberhard, any word on the Saturn IB ? How do we justify the use of it to carry the space station modules when Titan is such a bargain ?”

Rees had patiently waited the end of the Marietta rant.

“The first thing to remember is that we only use spare Saturns. We won’t reopen the production line - not immediately.

Secondly, obtaining a space station won’t be easy, unless we draw heavily on Skylab.
In fact Skylabs might be key, even if we can’t really build the station directly from it. Here’s my argumentation for the 1980 station, based on Skylab.

“We can argue we need Saturn V to launch the 1980 space station because it’s a Skylab derivative.
“We can also argue we need the Saturn IBs because Skylab is build from an S-IVB. Station modules could be derivatives of the Skylab workshop – light enough to ride on a Saturn IB if we get ride of the large supply on board, and airlock.
“We can argue that North American Rockwell Space Division need something to replace both the Shuttle orbiter and the Apollo – why not a dry workshop S-II ?

“As Maxwell showed us the Titan is hampered by the CTV reentry module mass. Even with the Agena and a payload equal to Saturn IB, the Titan can’t lift an orbital workshop because Skylab is too wide.

“We have a large stock of Saturn, and we should use them, even if our manned capsule ride to space on top of a Titan. I see no contradictions in that.” Rees added “Otherwise there will be massive layouts, and not only at Marshall. Kurt ?”

Kurt Debus was boss of Cap Canaveral, and an ally of Reese.

“We really need something to fill Launch Complex 39 in the next years. We can’t just demolish such huge infrastructure !

In my opinion, even if we obtain more Skylabs, that’s only two or three more Saturn V over the next ten years, before an eventual shuttle. Saturn V are expensive and scarce, while smaller Saturn IBs are many and cheap.

We already have modified LC-39B for Saturn IB with the milkstool. Adding Saturn IB to Saturn V schedule would give us six to eight launches, depending on how many Saturn V we will use to build the 1980 space station. “

Reese jumped on.

"Gentleman, we have to remember my fellow von Braun opinions about manned spaceflight. Rule of thumb is to never fly astronauts on a launch vehicle with solid rocket motors. Destructive events are generally violent and very fast, overtaking launch escape systems. That why I suggest a gradual path to return Saturn IB to production status."

He took a deep breath.

Don't fool it up !

"I told you five Saturn IB remained in storage. We should launch space station modules with them, introducing gradual upgrades in the process before reopening the production line.

Then, I suggest to lower Saturn cost by sharing technology with the Delta booster. The Delta 3000 features nine small graphite epoxy solid rocket motors, and Apollo engines on its upper stage. We could cluster eight Deltas to create a new Saturn cluster ! The S-IVB second stage would first be modestly upgraded with the J-2S; later the XLR-129 would result in a massive performance boost.

We plan to use that latter engine in the shuttle; flying it on the Saturn first would provide valuable data.

Every step in this process - the small solids, Delta cluster, and XLR-129 - is gradual and flexible, the end result being a very powerful and reliable launcher.

The Delta, like the S-IVB, is build by Douglas; this contractor would thus takeover production of the full rocket."

"Now I would like to talk a little bit more of the S-IVB itself. For its huge size it can nonetheless be made cheap.

A Bellcom memo of April 1969 discussed the matter, and the conclusions remain pertinent even today.
The subject of low cost low earth orbit (LEO) transportation systems is under extensive study throughout NASA, the military and the industry. Approaches under study have included launch vehicles which vary from near term expendable configurations based on Saturn hardware to completely flyback recoverable concepts such as that proposed by General Dynamics/Convair Division.
A major option under consideration is development of a near term intermediate launch vehicle (ILV).
A technology aspect which deserves consideration is a cheap version of the S-IVB Stage 2 which is proposed as the second stage of all candidate neaz term ILV configurations.

The SIVB stage is the only operational manrated cryogenic high performance stage of a size concomitant with an ILV. NASA Marshall has recently funded McDonnell Douglas to initiate design of a "scrubdown" version of the SIVB.

In a recent study the Aerospace Corporation estimated the cost of the NASA 260-inch diameter solid /S-IVB rocket at 260 $/Ib to LEO on the basis of a 15 vehicle buy, launched at a rate of five per year. It may be deduced therefore that SRM/SIVB vehicles are indeed competitive to Air Force configuration SRM/ liquid upper stages.
It is apparent that the SIVB stage is a prime candidate upper stage for a near term ILV. The SIVB is man-rated, in the inventory, and competitive in cost with a new stage when installed above either clustered solid rocket motors of whatever diameter (120 inc, 156 inch or the monster 260 inch).

A cheap S-IVB ?

In all candidate ILV configurations with the exception of the INT-20, the S-IVB is by far the costlier piece of hardware according to the cost analyses which have been carried out. The S-IVB under existing ground rules has been priced out at twice the cost of a typical solid first stage. At the present time however there is abundant evidence that the SIVB can be available at substantially reduced price, in a configuration which also eliminates the need for a separate instrument unit.

On a production basis of 60 vehicles at 12/year (half for Saturn V use), an SIVB for use on a Saturn IB was priced at $4.5 million a copy (launch costs not included). Including J-2 engine the stage cost was roughly $6.5 million.

In the end it might be possible to launch a typical SRM/SIVB (say from E'TR not KSC), for (1969 dollars) $20 million per launch or 200 $/Ib to low earth orbit.

Even in 1965 it was recognized that a "cheap" S-IVB must be as close to a "production run Chinese copy" as possible. The SIVB stage now has demonstrated satisfactory reliability. If low costs are to be attained, testing, instrumentation, inspection procedures, documentation, etc. must be eased in accordance with moving out of an R&D phase and into a true production phase.
More recent MDA studies show that more automated manufacturing techniques and redesign to reduce the number of (sub)assemblies are principal tools to further reduce recurring unit costs. As stated previously, one of the keys to cheap hardware is the "hands-off," minimum inspection, minimum test "Chinese copy" production line.

It is highly probable that the Air Force may be the forcing function behind an ILV program. Previous discussions have shown that there is no apparent reason why a solid / S-IVB launch vehicle could not be used from Vandenberg. The present Cape Canaveral Integrated Transfer Launch (ITL) facility used presently for Titan operations might well be expanded for the ILV operation.

The preceding sections briefly state the utility of a cheap SIVB. However, it is well understood that "cheaper" costing, necessitates a new way of doing business at NASA.

The Saturn V production gapping provides the ideal time span to "phase program plan" a cheap SIVB. One might concede the "maintenance of caPability" concept as necessary or that a reasonable contractor support effort is justified to support Saturn V flight operations. If true, the level of support required to "keep" the MDA facility open at Huntington Beach might well fund a cheap SIVB to the end of Phase C (design) of a phased program plan. A three year program is possible which would probably not require special funds until program approval--say at the end of 2 years (FY71).
The reduction of launch costs of a S-IVB Intermediate Launch Vehicle to say $200/Ib would be in itself a worthy achievement. For the sake of comparison the space shuttle launch cost target is 100 dollars per pound launched to low earth orbit."

"There is a lot of good points made in that report - with the exception of the solid cluster. I suggest instead to use a cluster od Delta rockets."

Reese concluded its sale pitch, and awaited critics and feelings.

They were mixed.

"Shall I need to remember you the Saturn production line was closed five years ago ? And the bureau of budget made clear he wants that Titan III."

George Low noted.

"Many payloads are going to orbit a top a Titan these days, including military satellites.

A sticky point is that the Saturn lacks a third stage to go beyond low Earth orbit. The Centaur is evidently the best choice, but we lost that battle five years ago; Viking will go to Mars atop a Centaur, but that Centaur will be boosted by a Titan, not your Saturn.

This decision is impossible to reverse !"

Reese knew that better than anyone else.

"Indeed. but we could introduce the Centaur at a later date, and fill the gap with different upper stages; for example the Apollo service module, or a stripped down two-stage Lunar Module !

Again, the Delta already features surplus Apollo engines on its second stage... just think about it. Calculation show that a four stage Saturn with all the upgrades I described earlier could be a match for the Titan, even without the high energy Centaur !"

Faces around the table were dubious.

"We should discuss of Saturn and Titan launchers at a later meeting. We can now define a tentative roadmap for the next ten years.” Beggs continued. “We will build a space station from Skylab and S-II stages.

"If Skylab A works, then we won’t need neither Skylab B; I suggest we turn Skylab B into a ground-based mockup of the future space station.

"If Skylab A fails, then we will flown most experiments on a month-long early CTV mission augmented by a logistic module, probably circa 1977, or on the space station at a later date. The CTV will ferry cargo and astronauts to this station, completed by unmanned Agenas. We will fly the remaining Saturn IBs and try to restart the shuttle program, probably in the 80’s.”

The meeting was over, and most people left the room – excepted Beggs, Low, and General Schriever.

So that’s the reason Schriever is there. What will USAF decide… ? Maxwell Hunter really wanted to know. But he was to go.

Once the three were alone, Beggs turned toward Schriever. The Air Force General had returned from retirement to manage the military manned space program – or what was left of it after the shuttle fiasco.

“What a fine meeting that was.” Schriever poked. “That’s a nice future you’re building. As for us military – without a shuttle we will stuck with the Titan III for the next future, trying to drop costs down by flying more missions.

We could also reuse the large solid rocket motors if we parachute them in the ocean. It may save some money.”
“Every program I pushed in the past decade – DynaSoar, Blue Gemini, Manned Orbital Laboratory, all cancelled, aimed to put USAF pilots in orbit.
In November 1966 we placed a MOL mockup in orbit with a Titan.

We reused the Gemini 2 capsule, cut a hatch through the heatshield, and recovered it. I strongly recommend to launch a similar Big Gemini mockup.
It could be Gemini 2 again, or you should cut a hatch through an Apollo heatshield, and bolt it to a boilerplate Big Gemini crew module.

"When the Manned Orbiting Laboratory was canned in June 1969 the first pathfinding flight was tentatively scheduled for February 1972.
It would have been conducted by two Air Force pilots: Commander Jim Taylor and Pilot Al Crews.

Further two-man teams would then have been despatched at nine-month intervals for roughly 30-day orbital stays until the fifth and final manned mission in February 1975.

At least one MOL flight, it was expected, would carry two US Navy officers, probably Bob Crippen and Dick Truly.

So I say - we could bring that program back on the cheap by buying some Big Geminis of yours." Schriever said. "If you ever pick Big Gemini of course !
Whatever, the spaceplane problem will remain unresolved in the next future. DynaSoar might have been a useful testbed for the shuttle, but McNamara cancelled it in December 1963. This marked a serious setback for our strategic reconnaissance systems.

“Gary Power U-2 shot down over USSR in May 1960 meant than even our mach 3 Blackbirds or Oxcarts could no longer overfly USSR.
I thus pushed for a suborbital spaceplane called ISINGLASS. Mach 20, 400 000 ft, dropped from a B-52. Pure rocket – no airbreathing engines. We developed a marvel called the XLR-129 with four time the performance of the J-2. Very high pressure.”

“Thank you, General. The XLR-129 was not exactly suited to the space shuttle; it had not enough thrust. However it formed the basis for the SSME.”

Beggs continued. “We should develop this engine at prototype level, a demonstrator. We will perfect our baseline shuttle in the next years.”

Schriever evidently had not finished yet.

"What about a successor to the X-15 ? Might be useful to gather some data on shuttle reentry or hypersonic regime."

"We have nothing to date. Perhaps it will be a lifting body; we are currently modifying a X-24A into the sleeker X-24B.

Still modestly supersonic, however. Perhaps an eventual rocket powered, mach 8 X-24C could be build, but we lack money. Time is hard for high-speed flight. You saw this with your ISINGLASS..."

"Hell, yes. Perhaps we should blend together a reborn ISINGLASS and your X-24C; both are rocket powered and dropped from a B-52 mothership. The XLR-129 would be perfect."

Schriever continued

"Now let's talk about this Agena tug you described. You ought to know the Agena is a cornerstone of our military space assets. We had and still have many classified projects involving Agena either as upper stage or satellite bus."

Schriever blue eyes narrowed

"those programs are heavily classified; NASA shall and will not interfere with our activities. If you have to use the Agena in the future, we will have to set clear lines that will never be crossed.

The soviets should never be able to gather data on military satellites through civilian programs involving Agenas. Is this clear ?"
Schriever tone left no place for doubt.
"But NASA already used Agena in more sensitive times, for Gemini. USAF and NASA had a workable agreement" Beggs protested.
Low analysed Schriever slightly menacing tone he did not understood immediately. Then he reminded the SAINT program - an Agena was to carry a reconnaissance package in orbit, inspecting satellites with a television camera, reporting to the military on the ground. Next step was obvious - destroy the red satellite ! But Eisenhower had vetoed the idea.

Satellite inspection, by the way, might also be of interest for NASA.

“We really hoped to fly military astronauts onboard the shuttle to deploy satellites. By contrast your Crew Transfer Vehicle might be of little interest to us – with the exception of Douglas entry, what you call Big Gemini.”

What ?

“Big Gemini is similar enough to MOL so that we can fly some military missions from Vandenberg SLC-6. This pad is currently in mothball, finishing it for Big Gemini operations should be straightforward; overall the ship is similar to the Manned Orbiting Laboratory.”

Shit. Old general Schriever is telling us what CTV proposal the military would prefer. He wants the MOL back through Big Gemini. How about that.

George Low waved his arms at the growing tension.

“Now let me says it starts looking like a balanced space program” he noted. “F-1A and XLR-129 engine demonstrators for a future shuttle. CTV flights to a Space Station build with spare Saturns and Agena tugs. Agena unmanned resupply flights. Maybe we could involve the Europeans in this scheme since they were interested in the space tug... thank you, General.”

Schriever walked away.
Beggs had a little discussion with Low.
"That Schriever – Jesus, he is frightening. To think he was nearly NASA administrator in 1969.” Beggs said.

“Yeah, he was and still his a good friend of Nixon.”

With him at the controlsGod know what would have happened to the civilian space program. Low shivered.
“Well, the hell with that cold war General. George, we will need a renewed space station task force.
I, have two names ontop of my list to chair that group.

First is George Mueller. The other is the Ames director, Hans Mark.
Incidentally, we don't know what to do with Ames, they had that PAET - Planetary Atmosphere Experiments Test last June flying on a Scout rocket: a technical success but also a budget buster."

"Didn't Ames planned to fly operational PAETs on a low-cost Venus mission ?"
"Sure, but the project has been put on hold last January. George, is there any interest in having unmanned return capsules on a manned space station ?"

"Perhaps. We should take this into consideration."

In the afternoon Low and Beggs discussed space station costs with George Mueller
Mueller had retreated from NASA late 1969 for a post into private space industry.

On demand of Low since March he had compiled various space station studies made at NASA over the last decade.

“Look what I’ve found” Mueller started enthusiastically “a dozen of space station report and concepts…” he started to pile-up volumes of paper on Low’s desk.

“This is Douglas EOSS – Early Orbit Space Station, kind of six-man Skylab from 1967.
"This one is the SLA workshop, a station build within the Saturn Launch Adapter –how about that ?
"Now have a look at the MORL – Manned Orbiting Research Laboratory, a Langley project.
"The Manned Orbiting Laboratory was the USAF military station, launched atop a Titan III. Boeing concepts are also of interest. This is the Orbital Launch Facility… a single launch, four decks, 33ft space station…

"Lockheed 1965Modular Space Station proposal suggested that future space stations be constructed out of a common 460cm (183in) diameter building block designed to be mounted in the LM adapter of the S-IVB stage… and we have as many as fifty proposals based on Skylab.

“Quite a lot of interesting studies.” Beggs interrupted the flow. “But we are pressed by time… what does these studies tell us about our future space station ?”

“They tell us first that uprated Saturn IBs can launch 22 ft-wide modules.

We can certainly build those modules from S-IVBs, just like Skylab.
We can build a reasonably cheap modular space station with a strong science content. Look at this report” he added, adding another paper entitled Workshop costs estimates based on EOSS and MORL to the pile already menacing George Low desk by its weight.

“$2.5 billions for the MORL, as much as Skylab. MORL was smaller, but a clean sheet, much more sophisticated design. The Langley guys really invented Salyut long before the soviets… we can build something similar.” Mueller added.

“Have a look at the Modular Space Station final reports issued last month. There were two variants: one with very large modules launched by Saturn Vs, another with modules scaled-down to fit in the shuttle payload bay. I recommend the Saturn V launch 12-men space station…

In my own view - Boeing’s four decks, 33ft space station core with four MORLs to complete it. One Saturn INT-21, four Saturn IBs, Helios / Titan III for logistics. Put as much Skylab as possible in the design, and there you are.”

Mueller went away, leaving Low and Beggs facing each other.

"Mueller did a good job - there's no lack of space station concepts, and now we have some idea about how much do they cost."

"Sure. This is not an issue. You know where the real trouble is." Low said.

"You mean, I am - you are - literally assaulted by Marshall and Houston representatives ?" Beggs raised his eyebrows.

"This. Do you really think one of the two centers will give ground ?"

"I give up any hope." Beggs sighed. "The situation is totally deadlocked."

"We need two things." Low said. "We need either a bulldozer or a referee to end that turf fight. A bulldozer to knock the two fighters; or a referee to try a mediation. Pick your solution."

"Do you have something in mind ?" Beggs, like many people, admired Low no-nonsense pragmatism.

"Yes. We need Rocco Petrone as our bulldozer; and we need Bellcomm as a neutral referee."

"Bellcomm ?" Beggs was surprised. "Didn't we disbanded that team ?"

"...Bellcomm" Low muttered with admiration in his voice.

"I consider it one of Jim Webb strokes of genius. He just conjured that we’re going to have problems in communicating with astronauts, and that takes a lot of engineering and a lot of communication expertise. Who has that kind of thing?

"At the time AT&T was the main place for all of this high-caliber engineering. So Jim Webb wrote a letter to the chairman of AT&T requesting the company assistance in the nation’s quest, and asking the company put together a team to work with NASA to resolve all the problems of communication that we were going to encounter, not just with the astronauts, but from the Moon, behind the Moon, because we don’t know what we’re going to deal with.

It seems that the chairman of AT&T took this to the board and the board loved it and they all voted absolutely, put all your best into this thing.

They agreed to get all of the big minds of AT&T with their own support teams and move them lock, stock, and barrel to NASA Headquarters as part of NASA Headquarters to work for cost, because this is working for the nation. It was a national quest we were working on, so there should be no profit in this. The Bell labs did it for the good of our country."

"Amazing" Beggs said.

"So Bellcomm was then put as a component to support NASA Headquarters to work for cost plus $1 a year.

That was in the contract, and Bellcomm did such a good job that the contract has been renewed again and again, until in June 1970 we told them it was the last time. You have to understand that the deal between NASA and AT&T is akin to
“I’m going to give you all those people that you need for as long as the Apollo program is on. The day Apollo ends, goodbye, because these are my own people, I want them back home.”

This is the deal.

"You mean that, by Apollo 17 time - when came the splashdown of Apollo 17 - Bellcomm will fold ?" Beggs said.

"Spot on. But Apollo 17 isn't planned before December of that year." Low noted. "You’ve got to realize Bellcomm is not an experimental laboratory organization. It is a people organization supplying talent to NASA Headquarters to conduct studies, analyze issues and problems, look at what the NASA programs are doing, critique those. They are in a strange role in a sense, it is very unusual. That in itself created some early problems - or solved some, it is just a matter of point of view."

"Which bring us back to our issue of the Marshall / Houston turf war, I suppose."

"Yes. You are well familiar with the Manned Spacecraft Center. The last thing Houston ever wants or needs is more insight and advice from us - from NASA Headquarters and their cronies.

Well, it took a couple of years, but those Bellcomm people were ultimately accepted by the Houston - and Marshall ! - mafias."

"I can imagine their suspicious figures and grumpy comments" Beggs laughed. "What are these outsiders doing? What do they know? We’re the experts.” Low approved.

"Headquarters has always been looked somewhat suspiciously at by the Centers. We all know the usual tete-a-tete that goes on between the field and NASA Headquarters, don't we ?"

Low smiled wyrily.

"Well, in Apollo that was all pretty well overcome, largely I think because Bellcomm has people who, number one, aren’t trying to pretend that they are running the show, but are working with the centers to help define and ensure that everybody are getting the data that supports the Apollo landings. Even if the Bellcomm employees works in the name of NASA Headquarters."

"Amazing." Beggs repeated. "Now that what I call an achievement."

"Webb was a management genius. As for Bellcomm, the real genius behind it is that these people in Washington DC, are not NASA employees but AT&T - and this is paramount.

None of these people have a boss right there, so when Bellcomm employees are asked something by Houston or Marshall directors or managers they answer for the good of the program - not for the interest of the center.
Beggs evidently appreciated the idea.

"Regardless of whose idea it is, who in NASA Headquarters would like it, and who would not like it." he said. "It is irrelevant. It is for the good of the program, period. When back at NASA Headquarters, they can say anything to the Apollo program director, to the NASA Administrator, to anybody in the group, to the engineers, to anyone, for the good of the program, because he has nothing on them."

Low approved and continued.

"When Bellcomm employees work with the Centers, when they goes to any of the Centers, they have a badge that said NASA Headquarters. They have a kind of one-upmanship with people at the Headquarters with the Centers, because they represent NASA Headquarters. That way they can get things done outside of the realm, within the structures at the Centers, because they are outside.

"It is unreal. I’ve never seen anything like it before." Beggs approved.

"In the end Bellcomm big strength is - it’s not aligned, there is no jealousy from within NASA and, most importantly, no pressure."

"Spot on."

"Excellent then, makes one think. How about our bulldozer now, that Petrone ?"

"The way it works is that Bellcomm offices are always in the same building, and in many cases on the same floor as the Apollo Program Director.

Which, incidentally, was (and still is) Rocco Petrone - since August 1969, when he replaced Sam Philips, you see."

"Here we are."

"Rocco Petrone was one of the major dynamos behind the success of Apollo. He was once an Army officer, football player, big and bulky, as tough as nails.

Also smart - he has a PhD even though he was a football player and in the Army. Petrone has another interesting aspect: much like the Bellcomm fellows, he is neither on Huntsville nor Houston side. He managed the Kennedy space center, then he went to Headquarters."

"So he may be our troubleshooter." Beggs suggested.

"Absolutely. I have no worries he will shot any trouble on its way. Fletcher once told me he wanted to send him at Marshall to throw a wrench into the German thoroughly planned dynasty - von Braun was replaced by Rees that was replaced by Lucas, and all maintained statu quo..."

"There's no reason for Marshall alone to endure the wrath of Don Corpetrone." Beggs smiled.

"We are going to make Houston and Huntsville an offer they won't be able to refuse.

Bluntly, if they don't listen our Bellcomm missi dominici, we will send Petrone as a hitman or troubleshooter. Dare I say, it will be Bellcomm last stand.

Just one last question - are they allowed to discuss the space program past Apollo itself ?"
"Of course they are. Unmanned spaceflight, Mars landers, Saturn upgrades, space stations - no taboo. They even assessed the shuttle recently." Low concluded, thinking - the next weeks are going to be fun, for sure.

 

[Archibald]

back from Coventry (why Conventry ? I don't understand)

"Tucked away in last year’s NASA authorization act is a provision calling for a permanent group to review space science on a regular basis.

In fiscal year 1973 a NASA Science Missions Board will be set forth which shall contract with the National Academies for a review of the goals, core capabilities, and direction of human space science, using the goals set forth in the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958, the goals set forth in this Act, and goals set forth in any existing statement of space policy issued by the President.

The study’s scope, timeframe and use of the National Academies has caused many people to liken this to the decadal surveys used in various space science disciplines, such as the recently-released planetary science decadal survey by Charles Townes.

The NASA Science Missions Board will be an advisory committee of outside scientists to succeed the disbanded Lunar and Planetary Missions Board and Astronomy Missions Board. Unlike those groups, which members were appointed by the administrator, board members will be picked up by the agency chief scientist - also head of the Office of Space Science and Applications. The executive director, as required by law, will be a NASA employee detailed from OSSA. Unlike the Academies Space Science Board, its members will have access to NASA internal documents..."

Excerpt from: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists - May 10, 1972.

***​

​

During Jerry's senior year at Cal Tech, Rob had held his nose, sighed, and taken the job of manager of the Advanced Maneuverable Bus project. "It's that or join the army of the unemployed" Rob insisted wanly. "Besides, it's not as if the damn thing doesn't have potential civilian applications"

The AMB was typical of the myriad low-profile cheap projects related to Star Wars. The AMB was basically an upscaling and redesign of the MX "Peacekeeper" ICBM fourth stage warhead bus, supposedly to be used to deploy scores of cheap little orbital interceptors, at least as far as Congress was concerned.

But what the Air Force had really commissioned behind that smoke screen was a platform that could be launched into LEO with a variable mixed payload of at least twenty reentry vehicles and/or boost-phase interceptors. It had to be able to station-keep for a year without refueling, change orbits up to a point, juke and jerk to avoid satellite killers, and launch its payloads with a high degree of accuracy.

"Shitcan the warheads and interceptors, give it a big fuel tank and corresponding thrusters, mount a pressure cabin on it, and you've got yourself a space jeep to take you from LEO to GEO. Rob would muse dreamily.

When Jerry graduated, Rob was able to hire him on as an entry-level wage slave on the AMB project. But even a naif like Jerry could see what Rob was doing once he got to Rockwell.

What was going on was that Rob , like the Air Force itself, was pursuing his own hidden agenda. He was using the Air Force funding to design a low orbit to geosynchronous orbit ferry with the capability to take crews to a GEO space station that didn't exist – in the guise of giving them their AMB.

The thrusters were far bigger than anything a warhead and interceptor bus needed. The so-called refuelling colar was being designed to take a large fuel tank neatly balanced along the long axis to handle a 1-G thrust. The bus platform itself was being designed to accomodate forty interceptors so that a pressure cabin have room atop it. And so forth.

Norman Spinrad, Russian Spring

***​

​

​

"The space tug is undergoing a major shift in its possible roles. With the shuttle on the backburner satellite ferrying to geosynchronous orbit has been replaced by space station assembly in low Earth orbit.
As such high-energy propellants are no longer necessary.

NASA has published a new set of mission requirements. One of the most demanding missions is Large Space Telescope retrieval, servicing, and reboost, because the space tug has to be able to propel the 11-tonne observatory with unfurled solar arrays, constraining the propulsion system to 0-002g acceleration.

The other design reference missions were:

• payload placement; delivering 1,590kg to a 630km higher orbit and returning it in event of failure, with a 1° plane change each way;

• multiple payload; delivering a 2,268kg satellite 157km higher and then a 4,536kg payload 46km further;

• payload retrieval; returning a 4,990kg satellite from 408km higher with a 1° plane change;

• payload reboost; docking with a 11,340kg satellite 185km higher and boosting it 204km further;

• module transfer; raising a 22,680kg module 204km with a 0.5° plane change, and returning a similar module (this is a propulsion system driver);

• payload deorbit; docking with a 34,020kg payload in a 296km orbit and dispatching it towards re-entry (this defines propulsion system upper thrust limit);

• sub-satellite mission; Space Tug with 2,268kg payload becoming a free-flyer for up to seven days and 180° away from base in the same orbit;

• in situ servicing; where a 2,268kg servicing mission kit is flown 740km higher and returned;

• payload viewing; rendezvousing with and imaging a satellite 1,556km higher during a flyaround (this defines reactioncontrol- system propellant requirement)

Many expendable upper stages were considered for the role. Solid-fuel stages like the Burner lacked flexibility and performance; they couldn't be restarted.
That left four contenders. They were the Delta second stage; the Agena; the Transtage; and the Centaur.

After a brief hesitation NASA decided the space station would be in Earth orbit; a lunar orbit space station was a step too far and has no practical interest.
Because of that, the space tug role shrunk to ferrying space station modules around Earth – from an injection 100 miles high to a docking 300 miles high.

The Centaur is totally overkill for such job; it is fragile, and its cryogenic propellants are hard to handle.
This left only three hypergolic contenders. Among them the Transtage is the biggest; it takes a Titan III to haul it into orbit. Much like the Centaur the Transtage is just too big for the job.
The Agena and Delta stage 2 are much smaller, and they were retained as finalists in the competition.

The Transtage bid has an interesting backstory.

There, Martin Marietta teamed with Boeing. The two companies had their space tug proposal interwined with the manned spacecraft competition that ran in parallel – with Martin Marietta Transtage mated to Boeing DynaSoar space plane. While a Titan IIIC can orbit 30 000 pounds, the DynaSoar glider by itself barely weighs 15 000 pounds.
The difference is filled by Titan III partially fueled Transtage upper stage that remain attached to the DynaSoar "glider". It acts as an extremely powerful booster that allows for all kind of large orbital manoeuvers – such as climbs up to 1000 miles !

Boeing pitched a revamped DynaSoar as a “poor man's space shuttle” but NASA did not cared.

From 1962 onwards Lee Scherer had an impressive career with NASA. He was first Lunar Orbiter program manager at Headquarters until 1967, when the program ended. He was then director of George Mueller Apollo Lunar Exploration Office.

In spring 1971 Sherer become Director of the Dryden Flight Research Center, California. Then a set of events happened that changed Scherer career forever. The space shuttle was canned in the fall of 1971.
Because the now defunct shuttle had been the last piece in the 1969 Space Task Group plan to survive budget cuts, a whole new manned spacecraft program had to be rebuild from zero.

Unbestknown to the public, Scherer Lunar Orbiter was nothing less than a failed spy satellite. In the early 60's the highly secret National Reconnaissance Office had build the Samos E-1 satellite to image the Soviet Union at a very high resolution. But for a hosts of reasons, the Samos E-1 never worked properly, so the NRO tried to get ride of it.

In the end the very secretive military agency offered Samos to NASA. The failed spy satellite was still good enough to map the Moon at high resolution to pick Apollo landing sites from the frames. As the Lunar Orbiter manager Scherer knew its origins as a spysat. Of course he had been sworn to secrecy by the NRO. Scherer, however, could see how tense the military was.

They logically feared of NASA used of a spy satellite. They feared it might disclose the highlysecret NRO to the public – and Soviet – eye. Scherer however was an outstanding manager and he very skillfully handled those tensions, reassuring the NRO by all means.

That experience was to prove extremely useful a decade later, in 1972 when NASA picked up the Agena as its space tug against the Delta second stage. The military had hoped NASA would pick Delta stage 2 as a space tug; they had good reasons for that.
But NASA chose the Agena instead, triggering a storm of protests from the military. The issue was, well, that all of the NRO spy satellites – Corona and Gambit - had been designed around the Agena. As a result, massive use of the Agena by a public, civilian agency made the NRO extremely nervous.

This explain why, in spring 1972, new NASA administrator James Beggs hand-picked Lee Scherer from his post of Dryden director to the newly created Space Tug (later piloted science) Program Office.

Over the next decade, as use of the civilian Agena extended further and further from NASA to private companies, Scherer had once again to manage growing tensions with the NRO.

The Agena-based KH-4 Corona has been withdrawn from service in May 1972, so that was no longer an issue.

Yet the KH-8 Gambit, also based on the Agena, was to remain in service for years to come.
In the end the NRO chose to abruptly withdrawn the KH-8 early on (by the mid-70's) by fear civilian use of the Agena might disclose the Gambit to the public eye. Scherer had to manage that crisis from the civilian side, and he did it with talent. For the record, existence of the NRO was only made public after the Cold War ended, in the late 90's !

 

[Archibald]

meanwhile on the other side of the Iron Curtain...

Spring 1972 The massive Salyut sat in the background, with technicians buzzing around it. Launch was planned for July.

Vasily Mishin stood in the huge hall. He hesitantly raised his hand in the direction of Chelomey.

He was not sure what would happen next, but Chelomey smiled and shook that hand. Their contract was a go.
"I agree with all this. Make sense, not only for you and I but for the whole program. That Salyut heresy has to stop." Chelomey says.
"So I give you all four Salyuts..."
"And I blend them within the Almaz program, as was the case before Ustinov silliness in 1970."
"Good. Then no more Salyuts, just Almaz, and that's it." Mishin approved.

"Because I manage all the small space stations, you are free to work on the massive programs, the lunar L3M and that huge MOK space complex - with the MKBS, the Multipurpose Space Base Station serving as an orbiting garage."
"Indeed. The idea so far is the satellites in the constellation to be serviced either at the MKBS or regularly be visited by MKBS-based crews flying light versions of the Soyuz outfitted with a manipulator arm. The satellites themselves will be orbited by expendable rockets."
"But that MKBS is much bigger than my Almaz... or Salyut. So you need a bigger and better crew and cargo vehicle than Soyuz."
"You mean, a space shuttle like the one the American have just killed ?" Chelomey asked hesitantly.

Mishin did not answered immediately.

Late April they had both atended a meeting at TsNIIMash - the Central Research Institute of Machine Building, near Moscow, to discuss reusable launch vehicles. In the wake of the American shuttle fiasco, the meeting conclusion had been obvious. Reusable launch vehicles were less efficient that expendables on the way up - as for the way down, there was no need to bring satellites down to Earth surface when they could be repaired at Mishin MKBS.

Even Glushko agreed with Mishin and Chelomey on that conclusion, and that fact by itself spoke volume.

"No." Mishin continued. "No need for a shuttle, not with that vehicle you are currently building - the TKS." Mishin smiled. "May I borrow it for the MKBS ?"

"Of course you can. We could introduce reusable transportation systems later." "Spiral, for example, if Mikoyan ever overcome the technical craziness of his space plane."

"So we agree on everything. How about that. Let's send that document, that contract, to our supporters - Andrei Grechko and his deputy, the big hammer, Serguey Afanasyev.

I just can just imagine Ustinov figure when he will found the fait accompli. Delightful." Chelomey said with a wryly smile.
"Glushko will be equally devastated." Mishin noted.

Chelomey suddendly reminded that, a decade earlier, Glushko had stabbed Mishin late boss Korolev in the back by refusing to build big engines for the N-1.

We have many things in common, Chelomey told himself.

As Mishin departed, he called him back. "I have another idea to make Glushko and Ustinov mad."

"What ?"

"The joint flight with the Americans. Apollo was to dock with a bloody Salyut. But it is not ready. We need an alternate plan."

Mishin was surprised.

"Are you seriously suggesting we dock their Apollo to an Almaz or to the TKS ?"
"No. But how about your Soyuz ?"

"Good idea. Perhaps we should add an post-scriptum to that contract before it goes to Grechko and Afanysev."
...

"The Americans' basic purpose for these meetings in Moscow had been to obtain assurance from the Soviets that there could be agreement on the organizational structure to conduct a joint mission and that the mission could be carried out according to a specified timetable. Low in his opening remarks on Tuesday, April 4, 1972 told the Soviets that NASA was sure that a joint mission was technically feasible, but the agency was not sure that in managerial terms it was possible. Before the two sides pursued this point further, Kotelnikov said that he had an important statement that he would like to make.
Kotelnikov told the NASA people that in re-evaluating the proposed test mission the Soviets had come to the conclusion that it would not be technically and economically feasible to fly the mission using Salyut. Salyut had only one docking port and the addition of a second port would be very difficult technically and very costly in both time and money. Therefore, the Soviets proposed to conduct the test flight using Soyuz, which could accept all the modifications necessary for such a mission. They were quite forceful in stating that there would be no changes in any of the agreements made thus far.
Surprise was perhaps the mildest word for the Americans' reaction. Nevertheless, Low quickly responded and told Kotelnikov that barring any technical difficulties, the switch from Salyut to Soyuz would be acceptable. He turned to Lunney and asked him if he saw any technical reason for opposing such a change, and Lunney could think of none. Operationally, this would present a simpler mission since it would involve only two coordinated launches - Apollo and Soyuz and not three - Apollo, Salyut, and Soyuz. Low and Frutkin tried to think through any "political" implications and found none. It would still be possible to exchange crews, which would be the major public impact of the mission, and such a mission would give the Americans an added advantage - not calling attention to the fact that the Soviets already had a space station flying and NASA did not."

(excerpt from: NASA history series - SP-4209 The Partnership: A History of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, 1978)

...

And indeed Dmitryi Ustinov was all rage, and he knew Glushko shared a similar feeling.

It happened that their best ennemies Vasily Mishin and Vladimir Chelomey had joined forces. Against them.

The unexpected alliance was kind of landmark since Soviet rocket designers - the Ustinov, Korolev, Mishin, Yangel, Chelomey, Glushko- rather killed themselves than working together.

To Ustinov, it was very much the alliance of the soviet space program underdogs.

Just six years before, Vasily Mishin had had the daunting honor of replacing the legendary Serguei Korolev of Sputnik and Gagarin fame - and he had mostly failed at the task. So far his record included dying astronauts, crippled space stations, and lunar rockets immense explosions akin to tactical nuclear bombs over the steppe.

Just eight years before, Vladimir Chelomey had been Krushchev favourite rocket designer, and as a result his projects had been ruined by Brezhnev and its supporters. Chelomey rocket plant would have been erased from the face of the Soviet Union had he not been supported by the ministry of defence apparatchiks - Andrei Grechko and Viktor Afanasyev, that somewhat protected him from Ustinov.

Damn Grechko - damn that man. I have to be patient - he beat me to the post of Defence minister in 1967, but we won't last an eternity.

And when he will die, I will destroy both Afanasyev and Chelomey.

And now Mishin and Chelomey had joined their forces.

Such old rivalries and hatred had cost the Soviet Union the Moon.

 

[Archibald]

Glushko biography - with a twist

Glushko, Valentin Petrovich (1908-1989)

Soviet Chief Designer, responsible for all large liquid propellant engines for missiles and LVs.
Led Glushko bureau, 1946-1974; Headed OKB-52 1974-1989, directing development of Buran launch vehicles, TKS spaceship, RD-270 engine and Salyut / Almaz space stations.

Soviet rocketry pioneer. Chief Designer and General Designer 1946-1976 of OKB-456.
Preeminent Soviet designer of rocket engines for missiles and launch vehicles.

Glushko was born to Ukrainian parents of Cossack and Russian peasant stock. In the spring of 1921, at the age of 15, he began reading the works of Jules Verne. From the Earth to the Moon and Around the Moon made a particular impression on him.
He began to devour astronomy books, notably those by Flammarion and Klein.

By 1922 the teenager was involved with the local observatory through a youth group and began work on a (modest!) book – ‘Historical Development of the Idea of Interplanetary and Interstellar Travel'.

Glushko next traveled to Leningrad (St. Petersburg, Russia), where he attended Leningrad State University to study mathematics and physics. He left before graduating in April 1929, having found the programs uninteresting.

He soon joined the Gas Dynamics Laboratory to study the design of liquid and electric propellant rocket engines. By 1931, he joined RNII (Reaction Propulsion Scientific Research Institute), which was formed from Korolev's Moscow-based GIRD (Group for Investigation of Reactive Motion).

Glushko was made supervisor for development of liquid rocket engines there.

Glushko’s life might have continued on relatively smoothly but for Stalin, who organized the “Great Terror” in the late 1930s to supposedly fend off the scourge of “Trotskyites” (Trotsky, the ex-War Minister of the USSR and living in exile in Mexico, was once Stalin’s greatest rival before being pushed out of power).

Glushko’s life turned a dark corner on March 23rd, 1938, when Stalin’s secret police (the NKVD) arrested him.

He was afterwards imprisoned in Butyrka Prison, and by the 15th of August 1939 was sentenced to eight years in the Gulag.

It was supposedly during this initial time of imprisonment that Glushko, most likely under duress, denounced Sergei Korolev.

Korolev was arrested on the 22nd of June, 1938, and also sentenced to work in the Gulag. It was his time in the Gulag that ruined his health and was to lead to his premature death in 1966.

Korolev might very well have died in Kolyma's gulag - and God know how different a space race would have unfolded without him

In contrast to Korolev, Glushko had a relatively easier life working on aircraft projects alongside fellow imprisoned engineers and scientists.

By 1941, Glushko, despite still officially being imprisoned, was running his own design bureau in charge of developing liquid rocket engines. It was only in 1944 when he was finally released by a special decree because of the USSR's need of his talents.

He had demonstrated these with his successful development of the RD-1 liquid rocket engine while imprisoned. Glushko and Korolev, whose relationship was to vary from cordial to frictional, were put to work together on designing the RD-1 auxiliary rocket motor. It was tested on a piston-engined fighter meant to protect Moscow from high-altitude Luftwaffe bombing sorties.

He was sent with Korolev, along with many of the USSR’s top rocket scientists and engineers, to Germany in the war’s aftermath to study the German V-2 rocket.

By 1946, Glushko was officially the chief designer of his own bureau (OKB 456), which he would remain as until 1976.

He was to become Russia’s foremost authority of liquid rocket engines while working there. The bureau’s early work included the RD-101 (used on R-2), the RD-110 (on R-3), and the RD-103 (used on R-5).

Glushko and Korolev, despite their frictions, successfully collaborated on the designs of the R-7 (the first ICBM and satellite launcher) and R-9 (an improved 2-stage ICBM), with Glushko’s bureau designing the engines and Korolev’s bureau the rockets.

Variants of the RD-107 engine on the R-7 still power Soyuz rockets today. Glushko’s bureau also produced engines for Mikhael Yangel’s R-12 medium-range ballistic missile, which was one of the rockets sent to Cuba that helped precipitate the Cuban Missile Crisis.

In 1960, Glushko’s bureau began design work on an engine that used propellants that burned on contact (AKA hypergolic propellants). This simplified engine design and would allow the Soviets to launch ICBMs at the US at any time.

Glushko’s bureau was commissioned to deliver the engines for a new mega ICBM, called the UR-500. Wanting more performance, his bureau delivered the RD-253 engine, which was the first in the world to combine the staged combustion cycle with hypergolic propellants.

The UR-500, later to be known as the Proton rocket, was designed to deliver a 100 mt warhead. It was initially unreliable and proved too large as an ICBM, but later would prove itself as the USSR’s heavy launcher.

While working on the Proton’s engines, Glushko’s bureau pressed ahead with a much larger staged combustion hypergolic engine, the RD-270, in 1962.

Korolev and Glushko's relationship came to a low point, according to Korolev's colleagues, when the USSR began looking into building a moon rocket, the N-1.

The preliminary work for the project started in 1959, and it was only formally initiated in 1960.

Its design outline was approved in 1960, and had the USSR begun devoting major resources to it then, they might have gotten to the Moon first.

As it happened, funding for the N-1 and its attempt to go to the Moon did not arrive until 1962, and it was meager compared to the resources spent developing the Saturn V.

According to Korolev's colleagues, Sergei Pavlovich Korolev wanted two things that Glushko refused to deliver for him: sizable kerolox booster engines (though under 600 tonnes-force in thrust) and hydrolox engines for the rocket's Earth Departure Stage.

Countering this claim are official documents from the USSR archives showing no such engines were ever requested of Glushko's bureau by Korolev.

Glushko certainly had made no secret of his dislike of such large kerolox engines, citing the dangers of combustion instability, and also scoffed at hydrogen's suitability as a rocket propellant.

One can almost imagine the gnashing of Korolev’s teeth at Glushko’s anti-hydrogen bias, particularly as the Americans’ were already launching hydrogen-powered upper stages by 1965.

Unsurprisingly Glushko thought Chelomei's hypergolic UR-700 monster a better, quicker, cheaper-to-develop option with more likelihood of success, and his bureau openly developed the engines needed for this rival HLV. Korolev perhaps not too surprisingly decided instead to work with Kuznetsov's bureau, which would have large consequences later on.

Vladimir Chelomei's UR-700, based around Glushko’s massive 1.4 m lbs-force (6.27 MN) RD-270 engine, was a far more compact but potent design than the N-1.

The UR-700 had a height of 76 m, a diameter of 17.6 m, and a gross lift-off mass of 4,823 metric tons, or 10.632 million lbs, and would have topped even the legendary Saturn V in capability.

Designed to be modular and rail-transportable (thanks to its tri-core layout), it was still reportedly projected to be able to launch 151,000 kg to LEO, and some 50,000 kg to lunar orbit.

The UR-700's first stage consisted of six 4.15 m diameter modules in pairs, while the second stage consisted of three 4.15 m modules, and its third stage was made of a core 4.15 m module with three 1.6 m diameter tanks.

Glushko's engine for this monster was to be the ultimate in hypergolic engines, featuring both a full-flow staged combustion cycle and thrust nearly equal to the Americans’ F-1.

Korolev was adamant that the toxic propellants needed to fuel such engines were not appropriate for a manned rocket.

It was only when the N-1 ran into problems in 1965-1967, that the UR-700 project was seriously considered as an alternative.

Unlike with the Saturn V and N-1, the UR-700 was designed to enable a lunar direct ascent mission, which Chelomei felt was safer than Korolev's preferred lunar-orbit rendezvous approach.

So capable was this rocket, thanks to largest single-chamber engine ever developed in the USSR, that Chelomei envisioned creating a lunar expeditionary base with it.

Other possible missions he imagined (and hoped the USSR would fund) for the hypergolic monster rocket were ahead of their time, including an automated Mars complex, Mars soil return, a Jupiter orbiter, Saturn probes, manned flybys of the Sun, Mars, Venus and Mercury, a piloted Mars orbiter, a Mars surface expedition, manned orbital battle stations (for destroying ICBMs and enemy satellites), geosynchronous "civilian" radio jamming satellites, heavy commercial communications satellites, and heavy spacecraft meant for space combat.

Tellingly, Chertok once asked Chelomei what would happen if, God forbid, such a booster exploded on the launch pad. "Wouldn't the entire launch complex be rendered a dead zone for 18 to 20 years?" Chelomei's reply was that it wouldn't explode, since Glushko's engines were reliable and didn't fail. That is amazing faith in an engine manufacturer, but probably too optimistic an assessment of the chances for an explosive failure.

By 1966 Korolev was dead, and his less competent deputy, Vasily Mishin, was put in charge of the USSR’s manned space program. Vasily Mishin oversaw the development of the underfunded N-1, and meanwhile the numerous critics of the UR-700 (including Mishin) managed to convince the Politburo to cut funding of Glushko’s RD-270 engine and the rival UR-700 rocket in 1969.

Their funding was totally cut by 1974.
There were of course many good reasons for doing this, including the danger of such a large hypergolic exploding on the pad and also the needless waste of funding two rival HLVs.

Mishin’s fortunes would soon be crushed by the Americans’ success, the four failures of the N-1 rocket, and the loss of four Soviet Cosmonauts during the initial flights of the Soyuz spaceship.

Following these failures, in 1973 Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev wanted to consolidate the Soviet space program into a single bureau.
With Ustinov help, Glushko was ready to head that bureau.

But Glushko was too ambitious and first set his conditions to Ustinov.

Glushko’s very first act would be to fire Vasily Mishin, and Ustinov had no issue with that.

Things come to halt, however, when Glushko said he would suspend the N-1 program as soon as possible (somewhat ironically Glushko may have been a big part of the reason why the program failed).

There Ustinov disagreed for the simple reason that, since the American had cancelled the shuttle and mothballed a pair of Saturn V, the N-1 remained an adequate answer.

Worse, the N-1 was to launch the MKBS giant space station; and its upper stages could replace both Proton and Soyuz rockets (N-11 and N-111 boosters).

That's how OKB-1 was saved, with Mishin replaced by Boris Chertok.

A furious Glushko was given instead the Chelomei design bureau, OKB-52.

Glushko inherited the Proton rocket he had designed the RD-253 engines a decade earlier.

He also inherited the Almaz small military station.

Meanwhile Chertok OKB-1 dumped Salyut back to OKB-52 to work on the much larger MKBS.

So from 1978 onwards Glushko had the Salyut, Almaz, the latter TKS manned cargo ship, and the huge RD-270 engine.

Although he could not formally kill the N-1 as he wanted, Glushko killed it indirectly.

Indeed Ustinov decided that, while the N-11 and N-111 preserved the N-1 by flying its upper stages, a new first stage was to be build to replace the thirty-NK-33 kludge, although this was given a low priority since NASA didn't build any new Saturn V.

Glushko was thus allowed to resume work on the RD-270, with a condition: that he switched from hypergolics to the more begnin kerolox propellants.

Building from Almaz, Salyut, the TKS and the RD-270 Glushko ran his own space program, although his ambitions were largely cut by lack of funding.

In the 80's most Soviet space funding was channeled into the huge MKBS space station; what little funding was left went to the "Universal rockets" N-11 (that replaced Proton) and N-111 (Soyuz successor).

Glushko died in spring 1989, never ruling entirely the soviet space program as he longued for. Chertok OKB-1resisted until the end of Cold War.

 

[Archibald]

wings into space

May 16, 1972

... and then, at last, come winged shapes.

They were at first thought to be dead on arrival – if only because of the shuttle fiasco. Grumman courageously proposed a subscale shuttle orbiter model. While their proposal doesn't stand much chance of being picked up as NASA next manned vehicle, it could instead be fund as an entirely different project.

At the time when the shuttle was cancelled NASA Langley was pitching a subscale (1/4 the size) shuttle orbiter to be flown as a piloted, supersonic X-vehicle – the X-27. The military enjoyed Langley proposal – and shown interest in an unmanned, orbital variant of the X-27.

The latter bring us to the very major surprise that has come from Boeing. Incredibly, the Seattle company entered NASA manned craft bidding war bringing back a legend – DynaSoar ! The very same X-20 DynaSoar that was canned by SecDef McNamara nearly a decade ago, on December 10, 1963.

In the wake of their sale pitch to NASA Boeing made stunning revelations about the long lost space glider. Very few people realize that not only was there a full-scale X-20 mockup that was displayed in public, but also that the first flight article was well under construction by Boeing in Seattle and it was at least 60% complete at the time of cancellation in December 1963.

A full scale mockup of DynaSoar was build and it was proudly shown to the public in Las Vegas in September of 1962 during the Air Force Association annual convention.

A decade later it seems that Boeing had that DynaSoar mockup taken out of storage. It forms the nucleus of Boeing entry into NASA bidding war.

According to British aerospace journalist David Baker, somebody at Boeing told him last summer- about the time the Shuttle was running into trouble - that the front end of the DynaSoar mockup was to be cut off "soon" to be used for an ergonomic cockpit design applicable to a possible spaceplane proposal the company was mulling for NASA and the DoD at the time.

Which in turn mean that the mockup must have been in storage someplace at least until then, for as much as eight years (1963 to 1971). Baker Boeing source later told him the shuttle was canned before the DynaSoar mockup was actually hacked off.

Then Boeing found itself pitching a reborn DynaSoar as NASA next manned ship.

The real surprise however then come from a Boeing employee with the name of Andy Hepler.

Hepler had worked on DynaSoar. After he learned of the full scale mockup being brought back he guided puzzled Boeing managers to a remote hangar.

There, in a dusty corner, and covered with plastic tarps, stood the unfinished very first, unique DynaSoar prototype.

It was 60% complete and, in an alternate universe, might have been dropped from under the NB-52B wing as early as summer 1965.

It seems that NASA next manned ship competition (a winner is to be announced in August) might have an unexpected spinoff.

The winged shapes and lifting bodies entries may be diverted to a whole different program – a military unmanned space plane !

Competitors would be: Grummann subscale shuttle (as pushed by NASA Langley, either with Faget straight wings or the Air Force delta shape); Boeing revamped DynaSoar; Martin Marietta X-24 and Northrop HL-10 lifting bodies.