#1 i had to trim the pic to get it to upload.
#2 if you find it can you post it here?
[ thread in my sig would be good if you don't want to post here.]
#1 i had to trim the pic to get it to upload.
#2 if you find it can you post it here?
[ thread in my sig would be good if you don't want to post here.]
I've seen that map myself. It was the expansions they'd need for all the launches they'd have as part of the Mars program that was certainly going to follow Apollo.
In the end, even building LC39C wasn't worth it. Like I said, it's not viable in this TL. I think the most I could see in any reasonable timeline would be getting LC39C built if they went EOR and couldn't cram it all on two Saturns.
Post 20: Spacelab missions 1978 through 1979, Spacelab 4-Spacelab 7. Launch of the first ESA astronaut, Ulf Merbold, and addition to the station of the Airlock Module and the European Research Module
All right, sorry this took so long. In some repayment, it's a bit longer than normal.
Eyes Turned Skyward, Post #20
With the launch of Spacelab, projects that had been underway for years began to show results very rapidly. Most news-worthy was the tensions that came about in the ASTP II mission, but the following missions were no less critical. In fact, for all the political and diplomatic implications of ASTP II, it had involved mostly technology barely different from that of ASTP I. However, missions planned in 1979 and 1980 were to push the state of the art in Western space station operations far beyond what Skylab had already established and narrow the gap between Soviet and American experience in space. These advances occurred in two major areas. The first was in the realm of the crew itself, with regular flights and increasing durations, culminating in experiments with continuous manned operations. The second was in logistics and supply, with increased developments and experience in unmanned support flights coupled with the world’s first use of modular station assembly.
The first use of modular techniques actually was a disassembly with the end of the Soyuz 29 visit to Spacelab as part of ASTP II in 1978. On their departure, the Soviet crew used their craft as a tug to pull away the now-unnecessary Docking Module which had served as a quasi-airlock between the Soviet craft and the rest of the station. This cleared the zenith port on the MDA for the Airlock Module, already being prepared on the ground for a launch in 1979. After the departure of their Soviet co-occupants, the Spacelab 3 crew spent a week tying up loose ends, including using the Aardvark’s engine to begin the process of raising the station’s orbit to the same low-drag 430 km circular orbit that had been used on Skylab, as opposed to Spacelab’s original 225 km orbit, which had been selected for access by Soyuz. With this complete, the Aardvark was undocked and guided to entry by remote control, and the Spacelab 3 crew followed within two days.
The Spacelab 4 crew, consisting of Apollo veteran Stuart Roosa (who had delayed his retirement in order to serve as station commander), accompanied by rookie pilot Gordon Fullerton and Dr. William Thornton, launched to the station in November of 1978 for a stint that would last through January of 1979. On his flight, Thornton (the first medical professional to fly to space) largely dealt with experiments that focused on his specialty, the long-term effects of spaceflight, including following up on work with Space Adaption Syndrome that had been begun on Skylab 5 with Rusty Schweickart. On the technical side, the station crew received an Aardvark load of supplies, and set to work on improving the makeshift sleep stations in the laboratory annex that had been used by the Soviet cosmonauts during ASTP II. Originally intended to be temporary and removed after the flight, the now-planned Block III+ and five-person crews to come meant that the additional sleep stations were instead modified to be permanent with improved space and better air circulation. Roosa’s crew also made similar modifications to the station’s air processing systems to ensure that they could handle the load of a five-person crew for years to come. Finally, they used the Aardvark’s engines to complete raising the station’s orbit to 430 km.
With three weeks left in their time on-station, the crew was finally ready to conduct the first modular assembly operation in spaceflight history. Using an Aardvark bus (an Aardvark minus the pressurized cargo module with an added payload adaptor), the Airlock Module was launched from Kennedy Space Center on a Saturn 1C rocket and brought to rendezvous with the station. With the experienced hand of Roosa controlling remotely from the station, the module was brought gently into a docking with the zenith port on the MDA using the same probe-and-drogue system as used on Apollo and Aardvark. After letting vibrations from docking damp out, the crew checked seals and waited hours while ground operators checked out the module’s functions. Finally, the crew opened the hatch, connected power and data cables, and strung ductwork to circulate air into the module. With their job complete, Spacelab 4’s crew made one final piece of history as they welcomed the Spacelab 5 crew aboard the station in late January (the first time two separately-launched US crews had ever occupied the same spacecraft), with Stuart Roosa formally turning over the station to the Spacelab 5 commander, fellow lunar veteran Joseph Engle in a change-of-command ceremony that would set the tradition for future operations.
After Spacelab 4’s departure, Spacelab 5 undocked from the zenith port of the airlock module, withdrew several hundred meters from the station, and maneuvered to re-dock at the now-open nadir port on the MDA in a port-swap maneuver that would over time become routine. In addition to Engle, the Spacelab 5 crew consisted of pilot Karol Bobko and the first ESA astronaut to fly, Dutch physicist Wubbo Ockels. During their mission, which would push the standard duration from 3 months to 4, they would continue work on biomedical experiments and do trial EVAs using the new airlock to place experiments on new exposed pallets on the airlock module itself. However, other than being a point of prestige for the ESA with the flight of their first astronaut and several late night monologues riffing on the idea that new astronauts were being selected on the basis of silliest names, the mission was otherwise low-key and routine compared to the preceding flights. The same was also true of the Spacelab 6 flight. Engle turned over command of the station to fellow ex-Apollo LMP Fred Haise, who along with pilot Robert Overmeyer and flight scientist Joseph Allen stayed on the station for four months from May to September 1979. The most notable fact about the mission was that once again an Apollo veteran retired after serving as station commander, as Haise ended his career with NASA after the mission to accept a position at Grumman Aerospace.
Spacelab 7 launched in September 1979, commanded by Jack Lousma with pilot Henry Hartsfield and ESA flight scientist Ulf Merbold, and quickly set its own list of firsts. It was the first time that Spacelab had been commanded by someone who wasn’t a veteran of the moon flights (Lousma had made his first flight on Skylab 3), and Lousma was also the first astronaut to have flown to both stations. Lousma favorably compared Spacelab to Skylab in both space and capabilities, but mourned the loss of the freezer that had allowed an expanded diet onboard the shorter-lived station. However, Lousma’s list of firsts was overshadowed some by the publicity surrounding Merbold. Though a long-time citizen of West Germany, Merbold had grown up in East Germany, defecting to study Physics in West Germany. Comparisons between Merbold and Sigmund Jahn (the East Germany who just one year before had become the first German to fly to space) were obvious. Where Jahn had spent only 7 days onboard Salyut 6, Merbold would be on Spacelab for a planned 120 days, and was to be in charge of installation and checkout of the new European Research Module of the station. Glossing over the tensions still simmering from the Seat Wars, official NASA press releases stressed the close working relationship of the US and European space agencies. After the mission, the used capsule was presented as a gift to West Germany to commemorate the flight. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Apollo capsule used by Merbold and the Soyuz capsule used by Jahn would end up being displayed side-by-side in the Militärhistorisches Museum in Dresden, Germany.
The launch of the European Research Module, the first major ESA contribution to the American program, came in October 1979, three weeks into the mission. Propelled by an Aardvark service module “tug” just as the lighter airlock had been, the ERM was carefully maneuvered to within visual range of the station by ground control. From there, the station’s crew took over, using radar and cameras to guide the station’s new module into a docking at the MDA’s axial port. As with the airlock, a waiting period then followed as the ground verified systems functions, then the hatch was opened between the modules, and the fitting out process began. The module’s own environment systems were tied into the station’s system, and power and data hookups were made. However, the connections were complicated by the additional fittings required to allow fuel, water, and other vital fluids to be transferred from Aardvarks docked to the ERM’s forward axial port to Spacelab’s main tanks. Several weeks of checkout followed, including the arrival of an Aardvark that carried some instruments intended for the lab that had been omitted on launch to keep the module’s mass and center of gravity within the Aardvark tug’s limits. The process took longer than expected, but careful work on the ground testing the process ensured that no serious issues were encountered. This data on the performance of a more complex module assembly was carefully studied to help shape stations that might follow Spacelab if funding could be obtained. The module added further lab space, several external experiment stations, and Earth science equipment.
Eyes Turned Skyward, Post #20
With the launch of Spacelab, projects that had been underway for years began to show results very rapidly. Most news-worthy was the tensions that came about in the ASTP II mission, but the following missions were no less critical. In fact, for all the political and diplomatic implications of ASTP II, it had involved mostly technology barely different from that of ASTP I. However, missions planned in 1979 and 1980 were to push the state of the art in Western space station operations far beyond what Skylab had already established and narrow the gap between Soviet and American experience in space. These advances occurred in two major areas. The first was in the realm of the crew itself, with regular flights and increasing durations, culminating in experiments with continuous manned operations. The second was in logistics and supply, with increased developments and experience in unmanned support flights coupled with the world’s first use of modular station assembly.
The first use of modular techniques actually was a disassembly with the end of the Soyuz 29 visit to Spacelab as part of ASTP II in 1978. On their departure, the Soviet crew used their craft as a tug to pull away the now-unnecessary Docking Module which had served as a quasi-airlock between the Soviet craft and the rest of the station. This cleared the zenith port on the MDA for the Airlock Module, already being prepared on the ground for a launch in 1979. After the departure of their Soviet co-occupants, the Spacelab 3 crew spent a week tying up loose ends, including using the Aardvark’s engine to begin the process of raising the station’s orbit to the same low-drag 430 km circular orbit that had been used on Skylab, as opposed to Spacelab’s original 225 km orbit, which had been selected for access by Soyuz. With this complete, the Aardvark was undocked and guided to entry by remote control, and the Spacelab 3 crew followed within two days.
The Spacelab 4 crew, consisting of Apollo veteran Stuart Roosa (who had delayed his retirement in order to serve as station commander), accompanied by rookie pilot Gordon Fullerton and Dr. William Thornton, launched to the station in November of 1978 for a stint that would last through January of 1979. On his flight, Thornton (the first medical professional to fly to space) largely dealt with experiments that focused on his specialty, the long-term effects of spaceflight, including following up on work with Space Adaption Syndrome that had been begun on Skylab 5 with Rusty Schweickart. On the technical side, the station crew received an Aardvark load of supplies, and set to work on improving the makeshift sleep stations in the laboratory annex that had been used by the Soviet cosmonauts during ASTP II. Originally intended to be temporary and removed after the flight, the now-planned Block III+ and five-person crews to come meant that the additional sleep stations were instead modified to be permanent with improved space and better air circulation. Roosa’s crew also made similar modifications to the station’s air processing systems to ensure that they could handle the load of a five-person crew for years to come. Finally, they used the Aardvark’s engines to complete raising the station’s orbit to 430 km.
With three weeks left in their time on-station, the crew was finally ready to conduct the first modular assembly operation in spaceflight history. Using an Aardvark bus (an Aardvark minus the pressurized cargo module with an added payload adaptor), the Airlock Module was launched from Kennedy Space Center on a Saturn 1C rocket and brought to rendezvous with the station. With the experienced hand of Roosa controlling remotely from the station, the module was brought gently into a docking with the zenith port on the MDA using the same probe-and-drogue system as used on Apollo and Aardvark. After letting vibrations from docking damp out, the crew checked seals and waited hours while ground operators checked out the module’s functions. Finally, the crew opened the hatch, connected power and data cables, and strung ductwork to circulate air into the module. With their job complete, Spacelab 4’s crew made one final piece of history as they welcomed the Spacelab 5 crew aboard the station in late January (the first time two separately-launched US crews had ever occupied the same spacecraft), with Stuart Roosa formally turning over the station to the Spacelab 5 commander, fellow lunar veteran Joseph Engle in a change-of-command ceremony that would set the tradition for future operations.
After Spacelab 4’s departure, Spacelab 5 undocked from the zenith port of the airlock module, withdrew several hundred meters from the station, and maneuvered to re-dock at the now-open nadir port on the MDA in a port-swap maneuver that would over time become routine. In addition to Engle, the Spacelab 5 crew consisted of pilot Karol Bobko and the first ESA astronaut to fly, Dutch physicist Wubbo Ockels. During their mission, which would push the standard duration from 3 months to 4, they would continue work on biomedical experiments and do trial EVAs using the new airlock to place experiments on new exposed pallets on the airlock module itself. However, other than being a point of prestige for the ESA with the flight of their first astronaut and several late night monologues riffing on the idea that new astronauts were being selected on the basis of silliest names, the mission was otherwise low-key and routine compared to the preceding flights. The same was also true of the Spacelab 6 flight. Engle turned over command of the station to fellow ex-Apollo LMP Fred Haise, who along with pilot Robert Overmeyer and flight scientist Joseph Allen stayed on the station for four months from May to September 1979. The most notable fact about the mission was that once again an Apollo veteran retired after serving as station commander, as Haise ended his career with NASA after the mission to accept a position at Grumman Aerospace.
Spacelab 7 launched in September 1979, commanded by Jack Lousma with pilot Henry Hartsfield and ESA flight scientist Ulf Merbold, and quickly set its own list of firsts. It was the first time that Spacelab had been commanded by someone who wasn’t a veteran of the moon flights (Lousma had made his first flight on Skylab 3), and Lousma was also the first astronaut to have flown to both stations. Lousma favorably compared Spacelab to Skylab in both space and capabilities, but mourned the loss of the freezer that had allowed an expanded diet onboard the shorter-lived station. However, Lousma’s list of firsts was overshadowed some by the publicity surrounding Merbold. Though a long-time citizen of West Germany, Merbold had grown up in East Germany, defecting to study Physics in West Germany. Comparisons between Merbold and Sigmund Jahn (the East Germany who just one year before had become the first German to fly to space) were obvious. Where Jahn had spent only 7 days onboard Salyut 6, Merbold would be on Spacelab for a planned 120 days, and was to be in charge of installation and checkout of the new European Research Module of the station. Glossing over the tensions still simmering from the Seat Wars, official NASA press releases stressed the close working relationship of the US and European space agencies. After the mission, the used capsule was presented as a gift to West Germany to commemorate the flight. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Apollo capsule used by Merbold and the Soyuz capsule used by Jahn would end up being displayed side-by-side in the Militärhistorisches Museum in Dresden, Germany.
The launch of the European Research Module, the first major ESA contribution to the American program, came in October 1979, three weeks into the mission. Propelled by an Aardvark service module “tug” just as the lighter airlock had been, the ERM was carefully maneuvered to within visual range of the station by ground control. From there, the station’s crew took over, using radar and cameras to guide the station’s new module into a docking at the MDA’s axial port. As with the airlock, a waiting period then followed as the ground verified systems functions, then the hatch was opened between the modules, and the fitting out process began. The module’s own environment systems were tied into the station’s system, and power and data hookups were made. However, the connections were complicated by the additional fittings required to allow fuel, water, and other vital fluids to be transferred from Aardvarks docked to the ERM’s forward axial port to Spacelab’s main tanks. Several weeks of checkout followed, including the arrival of an Aardvark that carried some instruments intended for the lab that had been omitted on launch to keep the module’s mass and center of gravity within the Aardvark tug’s limits. The process took longer than expected, but careful work on the ground testing the process ensured that no serious issues were encountered. This data on the performance of a more complex module assembly was carefully studied to help shape stations that might follow Spacelab if funding could be obtained. The module added further lab space, several external experiment stations, and Earth science equipment.
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The next few SpaceLab flights appear to be going well - at least on paper - as the beginnings of modular assembly begin to show. Aardvark is now proving itself, and On-Orbit Station Redesign appears to have been proven. All of which is going to bode well for NASA in the years to come. Some good flights of the Block III CSM before its upgrade to Block III+.
More importantly, by having a West German on the station for 113 days longer than the Soviets had an East German on Salyut 6, NASA just scored a major propoganda victory there. That should enable a bolstering of support for themselves, both from the public and Congress - which they will definately be needing.
Just one or two posts to go before the Soviet strikeback is seen in detail. And that's the part I'm looking forward to. I've already mentioned that the much-increased internal habitable volume of TKS will allow it to be used as either a stand-alone short duration mini-station or as living quarters for a larger station - read: Salyut & Mir. I wonder how the designs of Salyut 7 and Mir will feature accordingly - though I do know that OTL Salyut 7 was originally a backup for Salyut 6. In any case. Up to two weeks for the answers to become clear.
One last note. There are a few spelling and typing errors in this update, but nothing too serious.
More importantly, by having a West German on the station for 113 days longer than the Soviets had an East German on Salyut 6, NASA just scored a major propoganda victory there. That should enable a bolstering of support for themselves, both from the public and Congress - which they will definately be needing.
Just one or two posts to go before the Soviet strikeback is seen in detail. And that's the part I'm looking forward to. I've already mentioned that the much-increased internal habitable volume of TKS will allow it to be used as either a stand-alone short duration mini-station or as living quarters for a larger station - read: Salyut & Mir. I wonder how the designs of Salyut 7 and Mir will feature accordingly - though I do know that OTL Salyut 7 was originally a backup for Salyut 6. In any case. Up to two weeks for the answers to become clear.
One last note. There are a few spelling and typing errors in this update, but nothing too serious.
Hey, you forgot to mention that Spacelab is orbiting backwards and hence traveling backward in time like Superman!
Seriously, this is good stuff.
(Unless the movies are all butterflied, this would be a year after Christopher Reeve premiered as Superman, and the time-reversal ending would still be current. So...)
errm...I had to go back to page 8 to remind myself what the ERM was. Ever since Post 160 on December 2, it has only been referred to by acronym.
Indeed, and while Jahn was essentially just visiting, Merbold is participating in the assembly of the station, and is basically the lead astronaut on the outfitting of the new European lab module. It's good PR all around for NASA and ESA.
Well, this post was inserted between some posts, so add one to your countdown. Sorry, but we wanted to more heavily cover Spacelab's operations and assembly than we'd planned when we outlined the TL. There may also be another insertion, but I can't talk too much about that as details are still being put together.
As noted, this update was a rather recent addition. Let me know any you see in PM and I'll fix them. Thanks.
Hey, you forgot to mention that Spacelab is orbiting backwards and hence traveling backward in time like Superman!
Sorry. Acronyms are a bit of an occupational hazard, and I forgot I hadn't fully re-iterated what the module was. My bad. Glad you got some amusement out of my editing failures.
Which will be causing the USSR some issues, since now they'll have to give serious thought to following suit in order to have a lead in people's minds. But I don't see that happening until Salyut 7/Mir/TKS, and then not lasting long when you consider what happens later - assuming it tracks like OTL.
So looking at Post #23/24? Dang. I've waited this long, should be able to hold out another month.
One part bump to rebuild interest prior to the Wednesday Update.
Another part noting the surprise I had when Truth_Is_Life mentioned that the name I selected for the Post-Europa LV in my own TL was the exact same one as what you selected for something completely different ITTL. Argo.
Will be looking with interest to see what you selected that particular name for.
EDIT: This TL has now surpassed 16,000 views. Congrats!
Another part noting the surprise I had when Truth_Is_Life mentioned that the name I selected for the Post-Europa LV in my own TL was the exact same one as what you selected for something completely different ITTL. Argo.
Will be looking with interest to see what you selected that particular name for.
EDIT: This TL has now surpassed 16,000 views. Congrats!
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We're using it for the REDACTED REDACTED, developed to replace REDACTED in serving the REDACTED REDACTED and REDACTED roles as the REDACTED program proceeds.Will be looking with interest to see what you selected that particular name for.
Thank you! I'd also like to throw in a mention that the Turtledove's are on, and we're up for one in the New Cold War category. I don't think we're going to win, but while you're there you can also throw in a vote for Brainbin's incredible That Wacky Redhead. If you haven't yet, read it, enjoy it, vote for it.EDIT: This TL has now surpassed 16,000 views. Congrats!
So would {REDACTED} be something you could use "Argosy" for?
My criteria there for the ideal application of the name include that it should be for a workhorse system that should serve as some kind of "space truck" in the sense of people use it to get stuff into orbit without thinking twice about whether it will serve; lots and lots of launches; orbit and beyond routinized. I don't care how.
Also I think it would come more naturally to a European program that includes Britain as I was inspired by the Tennyson poem. It seems like a Shakespearan sort of word (indeed my "research lite" on the word indicated Shakespeare did use it), but it has a sort of pan-European neutrality harking back to the early days of merchantile seafaring, also a vague allusion to adventure. But a workmanlike word all the same.
It would seem a little odd for Americans to use it, but not as odd as for Russians, Chinese, Japanese, South Americans, Arabs or Indians to do so!
I really got to like it and hope someone else likes it.
My criteria there for the ideal application of the name include that it should be for a workhorse system that should serve as some kind of "space truck" in the sense of people use it to get stuff into orbit without thinking twice about whether it will serve; lots and lots of launches; orbit and beyond routinized. I don't care how.
Also I think it would come more naturally to a European program that includes Britain as I was inspired by the Tennyson poem. It seems like a Shakespearan sort of word (indeed my "research lite" on the word indicated Shakespeare did use it), but it has a sort of pan-European neutrality harking back to the early days of merchantile seafaring, also a vague allusion to adventure. But a workmanlike word all the same.
It would seem a little odd for Americans to use it, but not as odd as for Russians, Chinese, Japanese, South Americans, Arabs or Indians to do so!
I really got to like it and hope someone else likes it.
Nope! You'll see, but Argo fits quite well to *REDACTED*. Argosy does not so much.
No it doesn't, says Shevek who never gets enough sleep! But I'm happy enough to push back the latest installment a few days, while I try to catch up to the other timelines I'm subscribed to.
Maybe if I had a more exciting real life...
Actually, one reason I want to take the time to have this one done right is that I think it's going to inspire a lot of discussion, and I want to make sure it's up to the scrutiny.
amphibulous
Banned
1. A huge proportion of the cost is actually flight prep. This was especially high for the Shuttle because of vehicle complexity and because the system was manned, so you have to attempt a higher level of safety. These two costs interact in a horrible fashion btw.
2. Costs of every kind are increased by reductions in payload. Adding a heatshield, a fuselage, etc, to the Shuttle to that a few engines could be re-used was always an insane decision from the efficiency pov - effective payload was cut to much less than half of what it might have been for a conventional launcher, so every cost other than of the engines (which was trivial) was doubled.
This makes it sound as if the decision to build the Shuttle was impossibly stupid, but the project was never about launch costs - they were just a (believable only by an uninformed public) justification. The space program provided a non-military mechanism for Keynsian spending and political patronage, and building more practical launchers of the sort the US knew how to build wouldn't have served these ends.
True. One reason it's fixed costs were well over $1bn/year. But as NASA's only Manned Launch System, it was a bullet that had to be bitten.
One reason why OTL Energia/Buran had it's Core Stage engines mounted on the LV itself - the other being that they knew full well that they'd never be able to develop reusable LOX/LH2 engines in the required time.
As for STS, the SSMEs massed about 2,350Kg IIRC, so up to 7,050Kg of payload lost that way. Of course, there are other concerns that would certainly cut the payload further, but someone else will need to explain that in detail.
NASA these days is little more than a State Jobs programme. Which pumps up it's costs to insane levels. IIRC, they needed 84 launches each year to get the per-launch cost down to below that of an ELV, a flight rate that was utterly impossible to acheive - at it's peak, only 39 ETs could be built each year.
Personally, the fact that real science can be done at all is an achievement in itself IMHO.
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