Challenge: Make 2001 like "2001: A Space Odyssey"

Bull. The X-33 was progressing as planned until NASA demanded that they use composite materials for the fuel tank. Engineers were forced to develop very heavy joints for the composites to make the right shape. The tank ended up being heavier than it would have been were it all aluminum. The project was ended when it was about 90% complete. The demand for some stinking composite materials is what screwed the program over.

Look here for the management/budgeting disaster; in short, NASA didn't develop cost estimates for several years (!) after the program started, despite it being considered risky and difficult. So, the budget ballooned from $1.1 billion to $1.5 billion (with over $1.2 billion actually spent by Lockheed and NASA combined) by the time of cancellation at the same time that the satellite launch market collapsed, removing the main source of flights from the manifest. This would have made it extremely difficult for the VentureStar to pay for itself.

The design itself was riskier and more complex than the Rockwell or McDonnell Douglas proposals (particularly the Douglas one, as it was based on the DC-X), as noted here quite early on in the program. The infamous composite LH2 tank, for example, was so problematic because it had to be multi-lobed (very experimental, look here) And why did it have to be multi-lobed? Well, because the Lockheed design was a lifting body. The Douglas or Rockwell designs could easily have used an axisymmetrical tank, which would have been cheaper and a whole lot lighter--the composites probably *could* have worked just fine for them.

The composites were a very early part of the program (this article implies that they were chosen within months of the contract being let) and selected in part by Lockheed, not NASA; in fact, NASA dinged points off of the other designs because they didn't need or necessarily use composites.

Finally, while I don't seem to be able to find my source (though I suspect it might be found somewhere in here), I recall that the targets for the X-33 had dropped dramatically from 1996 to 2001. Something like a fall of 50% in target top speed, drastic fall in max altitude, etc. So the X-33 went from a reusable exotic high-speed aircraft that could venture into space to something much less ambitious and less able to serve as a progenitor for actual future SSTOs (which X-33 was not and was not intended to be).
 
Kennedy (Both of them...maybe.) would definitely have to be alive...perhaps no communist Vietnam? A peaceful U.S.? Nixon doesn't win? Lots of things involved, actually...
 

Archibald

Banned
No need to really change history - Floyd trip to the Moon could be done with technologies on hand as of today.

The Orion III would be the Kistler K-1 TSTO

The station would be half-ISS, half inflatable - Bigelow-style.

The lunar shuttle would be nuclear-VASIMR powered.

And what about the aliens ? The first exoplanet was found in 1995, six years before the date.

Earth-like exoplanets may be found very soon. Rate of discoveries is amazing.

Or their could be life under Europa ice crust.

no, really, really s not that bad when compared to 2001. In the book it is said that Earth population is 6 billion - very true. However Earth actually could feed those 6 billions, noone would starve, unlike the book.

and there's no 38 nuclear powers, rather a dozen.
 
Look here for the management/budgeting disaster; in short, NASA didn't develop cost estimates for several years (!) after the program started, despite it being considered risky and difficult. So, the budget ballooned from $1.1 billion to $1.5 billion (with over $1.2 billion actually spent by Lockheed and NASA combined) by the time of cancellation at the same time that the satellite launch market collapsed, removing the main source of flights from the manifest. This would have made it extremely difficult for the VentureStar to pay for itself.

The design itself was riskier and more complex than the Rockwell or McDonnell Douglas proposals (particularly the Douglas one, as it was based on the DC-X), as noted here quite early on in the program. The infamous composite LH2 tank, for example, was so problematic because it had to be multi-lobed (very experimental, look here) And why did it have to be multi-lobed? Well, because the Lockheed design was a lifting body. The Douglas or Rockwell designs could easily have used an axisymmetrical tank, which would have been cheaper and a whole lot lighter--the composites probably *could* have worked just fine for them.

The composites were a very early part of the program (this article implies that they were chosen within months of the contract being let) and selected in part by Lockheed, not NASA; in fact, NASA dinged points off of the other designs because they didn't need or necessarily use composites.

Finally, while I don't seem to be able to find my source (though I suspect it might be found somewhere in here), I recall that the targets for the X-33 had dropped dramatically from 1996 to 2001. Something like a fall of 50% in target top speed, drastic fall in max altitude, etc. So the X-33 went from a reusable exotic high-speed aircraft that could venture into space to something much less ambitious and less able to serve as a progenitor for actual future SSTOs (which X-33 was not and was not intended to be).

Well I'll give you that. NASA seems to have this annoying habit of killing anything that seems to have promise by reducing expectations and growing budget.

But perhaps the other X-33 proposals could have worked. Rockwell and McDonnell's would have avoided the lifting body problems, for example.

And if not, a stage-and-a-half design might work. There were plans to make one of the descendants of a Saturn V throw out 4 engines at a certain altitude and burn off the rest of its fuel with the last engine. The four starter engines are reused. It would have a payload about equal to Venturestar.
 
Well I'll give you that. NASA seems to have this annoying habit of killing anything that seems to have promise by reducing expectations and growing budget.

But perhaps the other X-33 proposals could have worked. Rockwell and McDonnell's would have avoided the lifting body problems, for example.

And if not, a stage-and-a-half design might work. There were plans to make one of the descendants of a Saturn V throw out 4 engines at a certain altitude and burn off the rest of its fuel with the last engine. The four starter engines are reused. It would have a payload about equal to Venturestar.

Oh sure. I'm not certain the Rockwell or McDonnell proposals would have turned out to be economical--SSTOs are very bleeding-edge, after all--but they were much more conservative designs, and far more likely to work out and provide useful information. In fact, I was actually thinking of doing a TL a while back where the POD was that Rockwell or McDonnell were chosen instead of Lockheed. That would have been even more space-geeky than my Apollo TL, if that's even possible :) I gave it up because I have trouble "following through" and there's almost zero information available on the 'net about either proposal.

And I'll grant that this is a controversy in spaceflight circles, but I think a TSTO design is about the best you can do for a reusable chemical rocket. The only way to do better is to get nukes or abandon rockets all together. So, your stage and a half idea would work fine. Indeed, *did* work fine--the Atlas was a fine stage and a half rocket with a decent enough payload.

EDIT: I should also say that in the book the Orions were like one of Phil Bono's proposals (except for the vertical landing thing). HTOHL, using a sled-launch system for the first stage.
 
*cough, Venturestar/X-33, cough*

The SSTO almost worked out, all hydrogen/oxygen fueled, fully reusable, twenty tonnes to LEO. NASA killed it because it didn't use some composites in the fuel tank. With an expanded budget, an SSTO or Stage-and-a-half can work out by 1990.
Yes,exactly,
Venture Star.
A project too much premature for our tecnology,like a manned orbital flight project in 1901.
 
Top