Eyes Turned Skywards

[Athelstane]

Which was exactly the failing of the Ares I/V programme. A combination of a series of predetermined decisions, and performance shortfalls, resulted in the once Shuttle-Derived LVs mutating into what they became. Essentially all-new designs requiring alll the additional work and testing.

Exactly.

Griffin understood one important truth: The Shuttle decision had been a deeply flawed one, a practical dead end that was - however marvelous the vehicles were in many ways - horribly inefficient and terribly risky, executed at the price of big opportunity costs. He understood that so long as we were hooked to the STS, we couldn't move forward with anything else.

The problem was that he thought it necessary to kill as much Shuttle legacy architecture as possible as a way of ensuring that it died and stayed dead - like leaving a stake in Dracula's heart, and burning the remains. What this meant, however, was that at a stroke, he squandered the one real advantage that Shuttle could have left him with - enough Shuttle legacy hardware to make a true Shuttle-derived launcher actually affordable and relatively fast to develop. And he was utterly hostile to any larger role for private industry in these efforts, no matter how much more efficient they could be.

I can't quite decide whether he really believed that Ares I/V and Orion could be built for the money he projected, or, in the alternative, knew he had low-balled the price tag but assumed that, as with STS, Congress would grudgingly chip in for the overruns because they were too committed to the program to stop it.

But, in fact, it wasn't too committed yet, not before a new administration with different priorities could kill the whole thing off. The result was that Griffin accomplished his first goal - killing off the STS for good - and another one besides - destroying almost any chance we have at developing a true SDLV.

Given what we're seeing now with private efforts, I really wonder if it wouldn't be best to simply hand out the payload and safety specs out for fixed price bidding to outfits like SpaceX and ULA through COTS, rather than the mounting fiasco of MSFC's stabs at SLS and the cost-plus contracts needed to make it happen. But perhaps before that, we might actually decide on an actual, clearly defined goal that we want the thing to accomplish. Right now, SLS is a rocket is search of a mission.

 

[Expat]

Not particularly. Blade Runner's star will probably shine brighter in comparison to OTL, given the lack of competition from a certain other highly-acclaimed and beloved science-fiction film in 1982 ITTL.

I don't know enough about the Duniverse to dare venture a guess - but as long as Lynch doesn't direct, that's a safe bet.

I doubt Kubrick that would direct such a film, though, so don't get your hopes up

Beloved sci-fi film in '82...no ET? I take it you've got other plans for Spielberg then?

My thoughts on Dune are that a better market for sci-fi means tougher scrutiny for potentially moneymaking material. Producers might be less willing to bet a well-known product like Dune on a risky director like Lynch.

As for the 2001 sequel, I wasn't thinking Kubrick; I wasn't even necessarily thinking a vastly different production to the one we got IOTL. Just a better-received one. I personally think it's an underrated movie, though of course conventional compared to 2001 (then again, what isn't?) This in turn could lead to other Clarke stories being optioned.

Finally, I can see this sci-fi focus butterflying away the smorgasbord of cheesy fantasy films that ran all through the 1980s.

 

[Brainbin]

Beloved sci-fi film in '82...no ET? I take it you've got other plans for Spielberg then?

It's a little closer to home than that, actually. I lament that I'm now responsible for eliminating The Wrath of Khan from two separate timelines (this one, as well as my own), but it had to be done. You can't return the original cast to a continuing series (or prolong their original series, as the case may be) without sacrificing that film, considering the incredibly delicate balance that brought it into being IOTL.

My thoughts on Dune are that a better market for sci-fi means tougher scrutiny for potentially moneymaking material. Producers might be less willing to bet a well-known product like Dune on a risky director like Lynch.

What would best benefit Dune, in my opinion, is time. It needs time to accrue a reputation as the Cadillac of science-fiction, in the same way that The Lord of the Rings is for fantasy. It's still a little too recent, even in the early 1980s, I think. Alternatively, someone could make one or two slapshod cartoon adaptations, only for a *Peter Jackson to come along somewhere down the line and create the definitive film adaptation(s).

As for the 2001 sequel, I wasn't thinking Kubrick; I wasn't even necessarily thinking a vastly different production to the one we got IOTL. Just a better-received one. I personally think it's an underrated movie, though of course conventional compared to 2001 (then again, what isn't?) This in turn could lead to other Clarke stories being optioned.

It's interesting, because many people familiar with 2010 tend to describe it as underrated. Like you said, by default it's more conventional and linear than its predecessor. Unfortunately, it's not pretentious like 2001 is, and the main reason that 2001 is so critically beloved is because it's so ponderous and self-consciously "artsy". These same people who venerate that movie will wail on any sequel, because that's the way it goes. A fair "compromise", I think, would be the involvement of a less anonymous director than Peter Hyams; someone with a sense of flair, though obviously more respectful of clarity and character identification than Kubrick had been.

Finally, I can see this sci-fi focus butterflying away the smorgasbord of cheesy fantasy films that ran all through the 1980s.

Maybe, although any science-fiction films that would replace them may well be just as cheesy, especially with Star Wars leading the way.

 

[Bahamut-255]

Finally, I can see this sci-fi focus butterflying away the smorgasbord of cheesy fantasy films that ran all through the 1980s.

Only to be replaced by a smorgasbord of cheesy Sci-Fi Films. In the 80s, OTL, after the fantastic 'Conan The Barbarian' we got a load of weak films that rose on its contrails for money-making purposes. It will be the same with Sci-Fi. I guarantee.

 

[Athelstane]

What would best benefit Dune, in my opinion, is time. It needs time to accrue a reputation as the Cadillac of science-fiction, in the same way that The Lord of the Rings is for fantasy. It's still a little too recent, even in the early 1980s, I think.

LOTR is a good comparison - both are very, very difficult books to realize within the confines of a movie, even a very long one with a very big budget.

Dune is arguably even more difficult to translate. Too much of the story occurs inside character headspace. The mysticism and story arc behind the Kwisatz Haderach is enormously complex to convey in such a short window and means of explanation. And yes, the technology of the time simply was not up to the task of realizing much of the book visually in 1984.

For all that, it's still an interesting failure - a stellar cast, and an undeniably striking visual sense by Lynch. The fact that it was greenlighted when it was is testimony to studios' desperate desire to cash in on the sci-fi craze, even when the chosen vehicle was so formidable to adapt.

 

[Expat]

Only to be replaced by a smorasbord of cheesy Sci-Fi Films. In the 80s, OTL, after the fantastic 'Conan The Barbarian' we got a load of weak films that rose on its contrails for money-making purposes. It will be the same with Sci-Fi. I guarantee.

Agreed. A safe future for The Last Starfighter and Enemy Mine!!!

Just thinking of a book that should be a real hot property ITTL: Schismatrix. Especially if O'Neill's ideas get more play.

Another film to think about is Solaris, speaking of station-based sci-fi. It's interesting to consider the possibility that this film might have more influence in the west. It hits the sweet spot in the 70s when the US and Soviet space programs are actually getting along.

So we're thinking more sci-fi; are we thinking earlier leaps in special effects? Obviously we're limited by equipment. CGI has always seemed to press the envelope IOTL, meaning as soon as capable equipment is available, it's being put to use. Is there an argument to be made that market demand (or possibly some increased benefits from the alt space program) might push for better technology earlier?

 

[Workable Goblin]

Hello Bahamut,

It was actually Voyager I that made the sweep by Titan. In order to do so, its course was not correctable to allow it to continue on to fly by Uranus or Neptune. Instead, it flew on out of the Solar System by leaving the plane of the ecliptic. Carl Sagan and other astronomers had lobbied hard for the Titan flyby, which they hoped would reveal what lay beneath that fascinating atmosphere. Unfortunately, the cloud cover proved to be impenetrable, and that part of Voyager I's mission was a bust.

Indeed, had the Titan flyby gotten surface images, there were plans to consider diverting Voyager 2 to Titan as well. The difficulty was that doing so would destroy any chance of a Uranus and Neptune flyby, so the opportunity cost was high. Once Voyager I's cameras returned images of a solid haze, that was that, no matter how much Sagan pleaded.

It's a bit more complicated (and entirely more devious on the part of JPL engineers) than that. Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 were actually launched on quite different trajectories, the first on the JSP and the second on the JSUN trajectory. Note that the latter has the UN baked in from the beginning, which they didn't have to do--the JSP and JSUN windows completely overlapped. Both of these (along with the JUN trajectory and a number of less interesting trajectories) were objects of Grand Tour related studies. As you may or may not have guessed by now, the "P" in JSP is for "Pluto"...Voyager 1 would probably have flown by Pluto about 1986, had it not flown by Titan. Here...well. There are two probes on JSP. Yes.

There are documents about all this! On NTRS.

 

[Workable Goblin]

One possibility I'd live to see explored here is the proposed Mars Sample Return, projected for 1984, but never approved for funding - mainly because of Shuttle budget demands.

Well, Mars Sample Return is a very formidable mission. A number of ducks need to be lined up in just the right way before it would be very likely to get the go ahead, IMHO. It's not likely for the '80s, but...well. You'll see

 

[Workable Goblin]

That's interesting. It's not impossible; the final Voyager funding decision was made in July 1972, which is after your POD. I am curious, however, since I'm not aware that NASA or JPL ever really considered a 4 probe program.

The original Voyager proposal was called Thermoelectric Outer Planet Spacecraft (TOPS), a real Cadillac of a program, with two ambitious probes on a clean sheet design that each had five redundant computers, a twelve foot parabolic antenna - all for about $750 million. But that was $750 million before any unexpected design problems, before any overruns, before any labor disputes. Confronted with a proposal that would likely cost a billion dollars or more - in the context of a NASA annual budget that was dropping down to under $3.4 billion - the Subcommittee on Space Science and Applications decided in December 1971 to kill it, and Committee chair Joe Karth told NASA, "no way." Literally.

So JPL went back to the drawing board and decided to soup up the old Ranger-Mariner design, replacing the five computer systems with a simple one, and came up with a price tag of $250 million - about a third of what TOPS originally had cost. And they reached that by dropping out Uranus and Neptune and Pluto. John Casani, of course, figured that the money could be wheedled out for more planets on the rest of the Grand Tour down the road . . . (and he was right, of course. But that was down the road).

Since the final Shuttle decision wasn't made until January, 1972 - and the FY 1973 budget only had very modest funding for Shuttle development - it hadn't really exercised a crowding out effect on unmanned missions. What I mean to say, in short, is that I don't see greater congressional enthusiasm necessary to pay for the $500 million plus that would be necessary for a four probe Voyager program, nor am I aware that JPL or NASA ever seriously considered it in the first place. Even in the earlier TOPS version, it was still just two probes. But I admit that I'm not an expert on the subject. Perhaps more probes were considered earlier in the process, and discarded.

There were a number of proposals to have more than two probes. The usual setup was a pair of launches in 1977, and then a pair of launches in 1979; the first would be on Voyager 1's JSP trajectory, the second on a not-actually flown JUN trajectory. This would actually have led to a somewhat more compact program than the OTL one, in terms of total flight time. The keyword to search for is "Mariner Jupiter-Uranus 1979"; that should get you some hits on NTRS, or for that matter on Google.

Unfortunately, I don't have Paolo Ulivi's excellent book here with me at the moment (just when I go home, where most of my books are, the only one I don't have here is the one I need), so I can't give you details, but they should be fairly

I think that if Fletcher and Pickering really thought there was more money on the table for a more ambitious TOPS/Voyager, they would have tried to incorporate more of the ambitious elements of the original TOPS design into the existing two probe plan, rather than adding on additional probes. But perhaps my reading of that decision process is not adequately informed.

Well, Fletcher isn't administrator; we haven't really talked about it in the thread, but our feeling is that Low is probably administrator at least through most of the Nixon administration. The dynamics are also somewhat different, and multiple probes might reduce peak funding, certainly development funding compared to a two-probe TOPS.

An extra couple of probes would have been a great boon, of course, given the very rare opportunity of the Grand Tour. They couldn't have told us anything more about Titan, but they could have followed up other opportunities. To this day,the Voyager program is some of the very best science money the federal government has ever spent, given what the return has been (and still is for the remaining 13 years of likely life the probes have left).

It will be scientifically amazing, I promise. Pluto alone...

I assumed as much. But I figure there's a significantly greater chance that some less ambitious Mars probe - something that could be fit into an existing ELV - would be approved to follow up the Viking success.

Well, I have ideas along those lines. Do remember that neither Carter nor Reagan was particularly interested or favorable towards space exploration, though...

 

[Bahamut-255]

It will be scientifically amazing, I promise. Pluto alone...

If I've read it right, it could mean that Clyde W. Tombaugh gets to see the Planet he discovered before he died. That's going to be something worth seeing.

Well, I have ideas along those lines. Do remember that neither Carter nor Reagan was particularly interested or favorable towards space exploration, though...

And neither was Nixon, really. Or H W Bush, or Clinton, or W Bush, or Obama. LBJ was really the only US President who really cared about space exploration if I've read the facts right.

 

[Athelstane]

It's a bit more complicated (and entirely more devious on the part of JPL engineers) than that. Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 were actually launched on quite different trajectories, the first on the JSP and the second on the JSUN trajectory. Note that the latter has the UN baked in from the beginning, which they didn't have to do--the JSP and JSUN windows completely overlapped. Both of these (along with the JUN trajectory and a number of less interesting trajectories) were objects of Grand Tour related studies.

Correct in every particular, of course.

I didn't want to bog my answer down with all the qualifications.

Of course, NASA *could* have opted to send both probes on essentially the same course - but opted not to. But that decision was made right out of the gate. Voyager 2's potential diversion to Titan was, of course, a decision that was deferred until seeing the results of Voyager 1's flyby.

I'm almost glad that Titan's murk was impenetrable, since the opportunity cost of losing an easy shot at visiting both Uranus and Neptune was (in my opinion) too high. Titan could always be visited by a specialized probe later, which is of course what Cassini-Huygens did less than two decades later.

 

[Athelstane]

Well, I have ideas along those lines. Do remember that neither Carter nor Reagan was particularly interested or favorable towards space exploration, though...

Hello Truth,

True enough. Not hostile as such - not willing to work to cut it - but also certainly neither was another LBJ. But who has been? The Bushes, perhaps, modestly more enthusiastic, but also not terribly willing to invest all that much political capital for the cause (or rather, the funding thereof).

Thanks for the information on Mariner Jupiter-Uranus 1979. That's a new one on me.

I agree that Low was more likely to push a little harder for something like this, so it's not an unreasonable butterfly here. In a period of declining NASA budgets, however, an extra quarter billion dollars would have required more selling, and perhaps more political capital. If he's fighting for Skylab, Spacelab, Saturn Ic, and Block III at the same time (1971-1972) . . . well, my suspicion is that an extra couple of TOPS/Voyager probes would likely be the first babies off the sledge. Karth was not the most sympathetic soul.

But I might be wrong about that.

 

[Athelstane]

LBJ was really the only US President who really cared about space exploration if I've read the facts right.

No, that's about right.

I happen to think Johnson one of the worst presidents we've ever had. But for those of us who support the space program . . . we must give LBJ some real credit there. Without him, I'm skeptical we get to the Moon. At least on anything like our timeline. There was a unique opportunity there, but he invested the (not inconsiderable) capital to make it happen.

Of course, it didn't hurt one bit that Apollo amounted to a kind of Marshall Plan for large chunks of the South, and Houston in particular.

 

[Workable Goblin]

True enough. Not hostile as such - not willing to work to cut it - but also certainly neither was another LBJ. But who has been? The Bushes, perhaps, modestly more enthusiastic, but also not terribly willing to invest all that much political capital for the cause (or rather, the funding thereof).

Ah, well. Reagan was actually reasonably hostile to the space program, and Nixon reasonably enthusiastic about it. The space program, IOTL, faced significant cuts in the early 1980s, particularly non-military-related programs. ITTL...well, you'll see.

 

[Athelstane]

Hello Truth,

Actually, NASA's budget got a significant boost in real dollars beginning in FY 1983, and then a larger boost beginning in FY 1987 (largely for construction of Endeavour).

Whatever Reagan's personal feelings about NASA . . . he did push space station Freedom (albeit not investing much political capital to see it through), opted to continue manned space flight after Challenger, including its replacement. In actual outcomes Reagan seems to have been slightly more supportive than the previous two or three administrations had been. Obviously, the military buildup was a higher priority (and rightly so). The period from FY 1986 to FY 1994 was as good a period of fiscal growth as NASA has had since Apollo. The Endeavour bump aside, I don't see why that would not be the case, more or less, in another similar timeline such as this one.

In fairness, Reagan also faced a more receptive environment on Capitol Hill to space spending than Nixon had.

The problem was that STS in the 80's was crowding out almost everything else. But I think we're all agreed that's why Eyes Turned Skywards represents a better path.

 

[Workable Goblin]

Hello Truth,

Actually, NASA's budget got a significant boost in real dollars beginning in FY 1983, and then a larger boost beginning in FY 1987 (largely for construction of Endeavour).

Whatever Reagan's personal feelings about NASA . . . he did push space station Freedom (albeit not investing much political capital to see it through), opted to continue manned space flight after Challenger, including its replacement. In actual outcomes Reagan seems to have been slightly more supportive than the previous two or three administrations had been. Obviously, the military buildup was a higher priority (and rightly so). The period from FY 1986 to FY 1994 was as good a period of fiscal growth as NASA has had since Apollo. The Endeavour bump aside, I don't see why that would not be the case, more or less, in another similar timeline such as this one.

In fairness, Reagan also faced a more receptive environment on Capitol Hill to space spending than Nixon had.

The problem was that STS in the 80's was crowding out almost everything else. But I think we're all agreed that's why Eyes Turned Skywards represents a better path.

Ah, well I did say *non-military* space; prior to 1986, of course, the Shuttle was reasonably military, insofar as the military was planning to switch completely over to it for LV services. If you were doing something with no military role...well. Planetary science (which was, after all, what we were talking about) did very poorly indeed at the beginning of the decade. Afterwards...well, the situation in 1986-1987 just wasn't the same as in 1981 or 1982. Cancelling Shuttle was not a viable option at that point. There's a complex mix of factors there, and I don't think it's fair to say (or even true) that the late 1980s are inevitably going to be a good time for space.

 

[Bahamut-255]

In fairness, Reagan also faced a more receptive environment on Capitol Hill to space spending than Nixon had.

With the Anti-Soviet Clamours of the times. Space was seen as a good battleground for facing them. Small wonder they'd be more receptive.

The problem was that STS in the 80's was crowding out almost everything else. But I think we're all agreed that's why Eyes Turned Skywards represents a better path.

It sure does. They can actually get to work on replacing SpaceLab by the end of the 1980s, once it reaches the end of its useful life. And without STS sucking up so much funding, they've got more for other things.

 

[Athelstane]

With the Anti-Soviet Clamours of the times. Space was seen as a good battleground for facing them. Small wonder they'd be more receptive.

Well, that certainly. But also Reagan had Republican control of the Senate from 1981 to 1986, and a working majority on a lot of legislation in the House in his first few years in office.

Nixon and Ford both faced very large and rather hostile Democratic majorities in both houses.

Carter had just the opposite, of course. But he had a curious inability to work with legislative leaders even of his own party, and little interest in space policy anyway.

 

[e of pi]

All right! It's that time again to pop in and let you know that once again, work has somehow interfered with posting a new update on the usual Wednesday timeslot. However, this week it's good(ish) news for you! To avoid having to post this after I get off work, and thus rather late tomorrow, it's going up now, so it's early instead of late. Hope you all don't mind too much.
Eyes Turned Skyward Post #22:

NASA’s addition to the ELVRP II contract process only heightened the stakes of what was already a very competitive game. Many companies had put in contracts for ELVRP II, fearing that with Delta 4000 already slated to take care of a substantial portion of the military launch market and the ELVRP II now intended to fill almost all of the rest, a loss in the ELVRP II bidding could result in getting shut out of the only game in town. McDonnell Douglas was a notable exception, as the Delta 4000 program was consuming most of the company’s attention. In addition, already having won ELVRP I made winning ELVRP II less do-or-die, and thus they were less concerned with winning ELVRP II than with securing what they already had. Of the rest, two bids in particular stood out from the rest of the pack; Martin-Marietta and Boeing had put forward concepts that attracted significant DoD and NASA attention, building on history, lessons learned from ELVRP I, and the latest thinking in launch vehicle design.

Martin-Marietta had been hurt in ELVRP I by seeming to lack an understanding of the flexibility the Air Force wanted. Their ELVRP II proposal, drawing on a 1965 proposals for Titan III successor called the Titan 3L, gave the Air Force as many options as Martin’s engineers could dream up. The original 1965 plan had called for an enlarged 15-foot core stage, powered by four of the same LR-87 engines that powered the Titan III, combined with either two or four 7-segment solid rocket boosters. This gave the original concept the option of delivering either 35 or 45 tons to a 185 km orbit. In the revised ELVRP II version, Martin’s engineers went a step further, calling for the vehicle to be designed to also accept Titan III-derived 5-segment boosters, with two dummy segments to allow them to swap out in pairs for the 7-segment boosters. This allowed for a total of five configurations. By mixing and matching one or two pairs of solid rocket boosters, the same core could launch 18, 24, 35, 40, or 45 tons to a 185 km circular orbit.

Martin Marietta Titan-derived ELVRP II Proposal
​

Boeing, having been burned in ELVRP I with the clean-sheet nature of their Neptune proposal, drew upon their experience with Saturn 1C, as well as past studies on improving the Saturn 1B and the work of engineers of the ESA. Boeing proposed its initial design as a re-working of a Saturn evolution concept studied by Chrysler during studies in the heyday of the Apollo Applications Program, the INT-11. This proposed a 20-ft stretch of the Saturn 1B first stage and modifications to allow two pairs of Titan 7-segment solids to be attached. Boeing combined this concept with one of the concepts the ESA had considered for the Europa 3, which proposed redesigning the Blue Streak first stage to be able to hold two additional first stages as boosters, potentially giving nearly triple the capability while distributing construction costs across a greater number of common cores. Synthesizing these with the available Saturn 1C core, Boeing proposed to meet ELVRP II’s requirements of a 20-45 ton capacity by giving the Saturn 1C first stage a similar 20 ft stretch as the proposed INT-11, but with the capability to launch with 0, 2, or 4 Titan 7-segment solids, offering capabilities from 26 to 48 metric tons to orbit. Additionally, the ability to go for a triple-body “heavy” combined with a stretched SIVB-based third stage would offer a maximum payload of 77 tons—far beyond that of the Marietta proposal, and more than sufficient even for future stations using modules the size of Skylab or Spacelab. To emphasize the tremendous variability and versatility of their design, Boeing called their proposal Saturn Multibody.

Saturn 1C and Boeing's ELVRP II proposal, Saturn Multibody​

Each of these proposals offered advantages. The Boeing multicore rocket offered far greater maximum payload size than the Martin proposal, exceeding the requirements by more than 30%. It also used cleaner core-stage fuels (kerosene and liquid oxygen) as opposed to the toxic hypergolics characteristic of the Titan family. Additionally, much of the tooling created for Saturn 1C could be reused, reducing development time and cost. The Martin Titan-derived proposal could not offer this. However, the DoD felt greater (and perhaps misplaced) confidence in the Titan designers ability to meet schedule and cost goals, and Boeing’s additional development work for what they considered an unnecessary payload range (70+ tons) was initially a hard sell.

In the end, the decision came down to two factors. The first was the political game between the Air Force and NASA. NASA had an overall positive experience working with Boeing on the Saturn 1C, and the Boeing ELVRP proposal had advantages in payload and man-rating potential with its less-toxic fuels and use of already man-rated F1 engines. However, the Air Force had a long history with Martin and the Titan family, and for their purposes the greater flexibility of Martin’s design over their range of interest (20-45 tons) initially more than made up for its lower maximum payload mass, since there were few planned missions likely to use this upper limit in Air Force manifests. However, in the end, the Air Force changed its mind in a rapid turnaround. The reasons were heavily classified at the time, but what would emerge in time was that the United Sates was not the only nation developing new vehicles. Intelligence images from the Kazakh SSR showed that Soviet scientists were producing a rocket whose capability would exceed that of the Titan-derived Marietta proposal. Suddenly, the greater top range of the Boeing “Saturn Multibody” went from a useless luxury to a potential strategic necessity—whatever use the Soviets were planning for their large booster, the Americans wanted to be able to match.

Unaware of the precise reasons for the DoD’s change of heart but unwilling to look a gift horse in the mouth, NASA began work to adapt their studies for a potential Spacelab follow-up station for the late 80s to the greater capability of the Saturn Multibody. However, within two years, Soviet announcements would force these plans to the forefront and kick the second space race into high gear.

 

[e of pi]

Okay, normally I do all my notes before the post, but I wanted to pop in and say a few things now that you've read the update. First off, a few retcons:

1. Any mention of the Titan V is to be considered non-canon. That was the name the Martin proposal here was going to get during the period in which we had them winning here. Long story there.
2. There appears to have been a unit error in the description of the Delta 4000 and ELVRP I. The payload capability there was 13,000 kg, not 13,000 lbs. Likely my fault when I was typing that update up many moons ago, but I wanted to bring it up and correct it since I saw it while reviewing old posts to prepare for this one.

Also, image credits! The images in this update come from two sources. The Titan 3L2/4 image is a composite of a pair of images from the venerable Astronautix site. The images of the Saturn 1C and the Saturn Multibody family come from this board's own Polish Eagle, who managed to guess that a Saturn 1C Heavy might happen about the same day truth and I finally got together and decided we had to re-write that again so one actually did. Again. Thus bringing that back full circle, as when ELVRP II was created it was an excuse for getting the Heavy we'd designed into service--and the Saturn 1C was originally created to give us a single-core launcher to work from. Anyway, please don't tear this apart too much. A bit of carrot: as it stands, our first Russia update is ready to roll next week as long as this update doesn't need another big re-write.

EDIT: Also, a word on the Saturn Multibody family: the first letter of the designation indicates if it's a (M)edium or (H)eavy, that is one core or three. The second digit indicates the number of solids: 0, 2 or 4. The third indicates whether a SIVB upper stage (2) or the stretched SIVC (3) upper stage is in use. Generally the SIVC is confined to the Heavy or the M4.

Payload info (to a 430x430 km 51.6 degree Skylab/Spacelab orbit):
M02: 21.6 metric tons
M22: 35.6 metric tons
M42: 44.7 metric tons
M43: 48.6 metric tons
H02: 54.1 metric tons
H03: 64.9 metric tons