Glorious Dawn : An Alternate Space Age

[SingularityG3]

Welcome, everyone, to Glorious Dawn!
This is an Alternate Spaceflight Timeline which should hopefully be factoring in the political landscape of the respective times, To keep everything as accurate as possible. If you see any historical inaccuracies don't be afraid to let me know, I'll try to rectify them as soon as I can.
With that out of the way, I hope you all will like the timeline, Let's begin.

Piercing The Veil

Those faint, Pulsating beeps from high up above pierce the public conscience, Broadcasts worldwide speak the same thing. "Mankind has placed its first construction among the stars" And it would not be the last. A Revolution set in motion Decades before would finally begin with Sputnik 1, sparking the beginning of Humanity's exploration of the cosmos.

It's likely this would not have happened until much later had one event not occurred just a few years prior, In July 1955 Then-President of the United States, Dwight D. Eisenhower announced that during the upcoming International Geophysical Year the United States would launch an Artificial Satellite into orbit of the earth. Following this, Just a few days later The USSR Too announced plans for a satellite. The USSR Would go on to develop the R-7 Semyorka rocket, One of the first Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles developed, And the first-ever Orbital Capable Launch Vehicle

There had been plans for a larger satellite, But they never came to pass. The design had been much too complicated to end up being built in time to beat America's Attempt, So they decided to go with a much simpler design. a 58 Centimeter Ball weighing no more than 85kg. This small spacecraft was mounted to a Modified R-7 Semyorka, Called "Sputnik".

A short while after Midnight, on October the 5th, The dark sky was ignited by the piercing light of the engine plume as the Rocket screams upwards towards the heavens. Just under 2 minutes after launch the Side boosters run out of fuel and separate from the core stage, Continuing to burn for another 3 minutes pushing the rocket further and faster towards orbital velocity. Once having reached its target orbit the Fairings and Satellite separate from the rocket, Beginning its rhythmic beeping and cementing the USSR As the main force in space.
But it would not end there, For a month later while the US Was scrambling to get their rocket ready, The Soviet Union would launch “Sputnik 2”. But this time, Instead of its payload containing a small radio transmitter or just simple experiments, It contained a Mammal, A dog from the streets named Laika launched on an incredibly similar rocket, But their capsule would not separate from the core stage. The capsule had systems in place to keep Laika alive, Water and food and a Fan that would activate if it got too hot inside the cabin. Unfortunately, a piece of Thermal insulation tore off during fairing separation, stopping the temperature control from working to its full extent, And before the 5th orbit, Laika had perished due to overheating. She and her capsule would not return to earth for another 2500 orbits.

Early In 1958 After a slew of failures the United States would launch their first satellite, Explorer 1 Into orbit on a Juno I rocket, It would contain science experiments for measuring cosmic rays, micrometeorites and temperature. The cosmic ray detector was especially interesting, Most of the time it spent recording it reported 0 Cosmic rays. This would later be revealed as having been caused by Radiation belts made by the Earth’s magnetic field trapping cosmic rays in various altitudes. Eventually, these would be dubbed the Van Allen Belts. The satellite had also detected 145 Micrometeroid impacts during its time measuring.

Over the next few months, Numerous more rockets would launch to orbit, Mostly America's this time, except for Sputnik 3, Using the original planned design for Sputnik 1. America would launch Vanguard 1, A Small satellite just 15cm across, Also the first satellite to use Solar panels in its design. Also launched are Explorer 3, Explorer 4, Pilot-2 and Pilot-3
On December 4, Another rocket launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome, But this time it would not be bound for merely an orbit of the earth, They were setting their sights on the moon. Luna 1 would launch just after sundown, Burning its way through the thin clouds lingering above the launch site. Around 2 minutes into launch, the side boosters would run out of fuel, detaching and firing their separation motors to form the iconic Korolev Cross spiralling down to the ground. Once achieving orbit it would wait idly for a few moments before igniting its final stage, The Trans-Lunar Injection underway, It appears that something is wrong. The engines are underperforming, Outputting less thrust than required to make it all the way. Due to this, it fails to reach its planned transfer trajectory, ending up in a highly elliptical orbit, With an apogee of ~270,000km. But The mission is not a total failure, they can still do most of the experiments placed on the craft. A 1kg container of Sodium gas is released, Both to assist in tracking and to observe the behaviour of gases in the vacuum of space. Its unique albeit unintentional orbit also allowed special opportunities for measuring the Van Allen belts with more detail, and observations of the Earth's magnetic field. Luckily, they would get their chance to view the moon in January next year. Yet again the sky is ignited with a pillar of flames ascending into the sky, Its payload is identical to the previous Luna 1, Only this time its engine performed optimally all the way to TLI. The coast to the moon was rather uneventful, The sodium cloud had been released successfully and it began to observe the near-lunar environment, Due to minor miscalculations it would not end up impacting the surface as originally planned, instead passing just 1,200km above the lunar surface. During the flyby, it had detected no presence of a magnetic field within the sensitivity of its instruments. With all of this information, They now had the necessary information to send an impactor to the Moon.

 

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72 Titanium Shields

As the year turns to 1959 the United States decides to Continue Project Pilot, with joint control from the U.S. Air Force, A Program plagued with failures, with only 2 Successful launches against 10 failures, the US navy continues air launching their Pilot ASAT Vehicles to prepare for the possibility of Soviet military satellites. Although the program is performing poorly, its reason for existing is still credible enough to warrant its launches and funding. The new version features more reliable solid rocket motors And is planned to launch on an X-15 For a more efficient ascent, As well as serving for potential further expansion to the X-Planes Program

On June 16th, as the clouds were parting in the morning, Luna 3 is preparing to launch on its path to Strike the moon, In an event that feels somewhat commonplace and unexciting, yet so unique and rare, the rocket ascends beyond the clouds once again, not even entering into orbit and burning straight towards the moon. Coasting towards that small grey orb, approaching it unbelievably fast. All it can do is silently broadcast its data back to earth while it waits to hit the desired target, lacking a maneuvering system of its own it can only hope the rocket placed it on the right trajectory.
On it this time are mounted 2 Balls comprised of 72 Titanium Shields each etched with the marking of the soviet emblem, and the text "CCCP ИЮНЬ 1959" Translating to USSR June 1959, Each of the spheres with a small explosive charge nestled inside it designed to detonate some time before impact and send the Penants scattered across the lunar surface.
Luna 3 continues, racing towards the weathered terrain of the lunar surface, its impact site targeted as the vicinity of Autolycus crater in Mare Imbrium, The sea of Rains. Its signal broadcast back to a world over 350,000 kilometres away that could do nothing more but wait for the signal to cease.
This craft did not have eyes of its own, blindly falling to the surface, but if it had them, what it would see is a desolate world scarred with ejecta sheets and long since cooled lava fields juxtaposed against the pitch black sky, broken up by the light of distant planets never before seen from up close, and the light of our own sun, with the disc of the earth hanging unmoving in the sky.
The signal stops.
For the first time in history, a man-made object has struck the surface of another world. Delivering the hope that man may one day plant their boots and flag on the lunar soil. The only question is whose flag will be flying on that momentous occasion.

Meanwhile, just a few hours after Luna 3's impact, The first flight of the X-15 Takes off after over a week of delays due to issues with its carrier plane. The fate of the Pilot program and Millions of dollars of funding for the Air force rely on this flight going well, As long as nothing happens in the few minutes between separation and landing, The program will continue.
To prove that both the X-15 and the potential of the Pilot rocket were worth it, the first flight would be riskier than most, Testing the powered flight and rocket engine after separating from The carrier plane "52-008" Also known as "Balls 8", The Pilot of the X-15 being the test pilot Scott Crossfield.
Once Balls 8 reaches its cruise altitude of 13km the X-15 Detaches, falling away for a brief moment before igniting its engines and shooting forwards, and upwards, The further it gets the higher it pitches up, aiming to go as high as it can and yet return safely. The atmosphere outside thinning to virtually nothing as the sky turns from aqua to blue to black as the harsh light of the sun shines through the capsule as the plane reaches a maximum speed of around Mach 4.5 and a peak height of 67km. As it begins to fall back down to the earth it heats up more than first expected, bringing thermal loads to dangerous levels, before it luckily slows down enough to let its hull cool down and begin to glide above the desert testing range. Scott pulls it around down towards the runway for a landing, Jetissoning the base tailfin and coming in for a nice touchdown, A bit bumpy but this isn't a passenger airline.

The success of the X-15 Has proven that it deserves the funding to continue, Less than a month later they would launch the X-15 again, with a dummy payload to test the newly added

separation mechanisms, And just 2 weeks after that, the first Upgraded Pilot Launches on the base of an X-15, By the time the plane is landed, Pilot had already reached orbit, Its signal heard across the ground stations carefully listening from across the world, As the Reliability of the X-15 and Pilot improve over time, More and more missions are assigned to them, One upcoming mission calls for a Juno rocket to launch a dummy target into orbit to test targeting for potential Anti-Satellite Missions in the event of Soviet stationing of military assets in low earth orbit.

All while this was happening, The air force and NASA both had very similar but at the same time differing ideas
Both wanted a man in space before the Soviets, But for different reasons.
NASA Had been given the goal of sending a man into space, And once having done that would use human exploration to go further than ever before.
The U.S. Air Force wanted an American presence in space before the Soviets to secure their place as the leading force in space exploration and to prevent the USSR from gaining a foothold and potentially building an orbital nuclear weapons site. These differing reasons would lead to 2 very different programs emerging, One for the benefit of all mankind, And the other to protect from any oncoming attacks by hostile nations, Both led by different agencies. But both wouldn't be able to secure enough funding to go on and send the first man to space. One would have to prove more capable than the other.

 

[SingularityG3]

Aim and Fire

Project Mercury had first been approved just the year before, But changes in the politics of space had prompted the U.S. Government to rethink its budgeting and options to potentially consider a more Militarised space program. In response, Both NASA and the U.S. Air Force were requested to design their own potential programs for sending a man into orbit before the USSR. These resulted in two similar yet very different programs being researched, With only one able to secure the funding. Every moment spent was a moment the Soviets were gaining the upper hand.

They would of course continue to fund Project Mercury, But to a lesser extent than previously planned to allow enough funding for the other winning program.
NASA's Orbital concept was essentially an Improved upon Mercury using a larger booster currently titled Atlas, A Larger version of the In-Development Redstone booster, With enough fuel to reach orbit. Using a unique "Stage and a half" rocket design. At launch, 3 engines are ignited. The central one is optimised for Vacuum, and 2 on the sides are called "Auxiliary Engines" or in this case the Booster for Atlas, Just over 2 minutes into the flight the Two auxiliary engines would detach from Atlas to allow the Core engine to continue burning at maximum efficiency and decreased mash to bring to orbit. Once there the "Gemini" Capsule ( Named for having 2 Seats ) Will detach from the Atlas rocket, The doors of Gemini will be able to open if both pilots confirm, For this reason, astronauts will always fly up in Advanced Pressure Suits to protect them from the Vacuum of space, as well as having special protective thermal systems to keep them cool in the days and warm in the nights. The Gemini capsule will also be able to move around in space with its Orbital Manouevering System, This would allow for In-Space Rendezvousing and the potential for meeting with other spacecraft or even a future Space Station. Some booster Tech is already in development for other missions, So the first launch could be as soon as Late 1960 if funding is properly met.

The USAF's Idea consists of a Spaceplane, Building off of what has been learned from the X-15, A Crewed spaceplane launched on a modified ICBM to be Orbit capable called X-19, Project Spearhead as a special designation. Should it be funded it could be able to launch by Mid 1960. The spaceplane consists of the Crew section, a small area sufficient for 24 hours of Human

Habitation with a special Canopy where the pilot would sit down and Close it 30 minutes before liftoff, It would be able to open in space as the pilot would be wearing a specialised pressure suit with all life support systems in the back of the crew section with a tether both Keeping them attached to the ship during a spacewalk and also provides the life support of the suit, This way the capsule doesn't have to be pressurised making opening the canopy much easier. The fuel section has 2 swept wings attached to it to help guide the craft during the landing phase, There are also 2 fuel vents to leak excess unnecessary fuel that may be left over from the use of the Space Manoeuvring Engines, Allowing for the ability to change the orbit of the X-19 To visit multiple targets, This permits "Orbital Reconnaissance" such as Visiting soviet satellites in orbit, It could also be used as a means to repair American Spy satellites, Such as a more advanced version of the CORONA satellites.
Moving onto the "Crossbow" Rocket, The first stage comprises 2 LR87 Engines and 155000lb of fuel, That fuel being RP-1 and Liquid Oxygen, Better known as Kerolox. Stage 2 has 3 LR91 Engines fuelled by 95000lbs of Kerolox as well.
Crossbow-Spearhead Would be launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base into a Polar Orbit with an altitude of around 250mi. Multiple plans are already in development for further research into the possibilities of Spearhead, The plausibility of Space stations and Satellite repairs are currently very unlikely due to the developments necessary to make them simpler than they otherwise would be, An upgraded rocket with a wide crew area could make room for a Docking port, allowing transport from the X-19 to other pressure vessels such as Stations or other craft. Further extended ones could be sent to higher orbits, For example, a large telescope could be placed in such an orbit to view the territory of the Soviet Union at all times, An improved Spearhead could be able to service such a telescope frequently. It could even be possible to build a massively scaled-up version of Spearhead and use it to launch payloads into orbit that require delicate precision only given by a human.

America was missing a crucial piece of information though, For one they had been spending more time bickering about Reconnaissance Satellites than actually launching them and were missing crucial developments over in the Soviet Union. They had already begun developing their manned program. They had called it, Vostok. A Small capsule comprising of simply a Ball and some tanks beneath it. Should they get this into orbit within the next 1-2 years they could Beat America, And almost certainly beat them to orbit. America's Project Mercury wouldn't launch its first crew until at least Mid 1960, And that's only suborbital. They aren't setting their sights just on Earth's orbit though, Not even The moon. They're setting their sights on our sister worlds, Deep red mars and shining jewel Venus. Work has begun on a mission to send 2 craft to Fly past Mars in the 1960 Launch window, As well as a 1 Flyby of Venus in the Early 1961 Venus window, These alone would expand the soviet's reach to neighbouring worlds, Something America would almost instantly counter were they to find out about it. And as it turns out, They soon would.

On October 25th 1959, It is announced to the world their plans to send our own robotic scouts to venture to our closest worlds.
"We hope this not only lays out the path for further exploration But for one day our own men to set foot on these bizarre yet beautiful planets."
Mere days later, The US Makes a similar, yet bolder announcement.
"We have seen what we can accomplish, In 1962 during the Next Mars launch window, We intend to launch not just a Flyby, But two. With the promise that their success will lead to greater things, An Orbiter, A Lander, People on the red planet are all in our future from this point on."
These massive announcements would not finish. However, the next few would be behind closed doors. After months of research and weeks of judging options and weighing the benefits, The Crewed orbital program chosen to be funded was Gemini. Crossbow-Spearhead would be canned to allow the remaining Program to flourish.

One of the last flights of the year was an interesting Pilot flight, This one an experimental extended NOTS-EV-1 Pilot Containing longer solid rockets, Which resulted in an incredibly powerful launch, The pure shock of which caught the X-15 Pilot off guard, Even launching in the thin atmosphere for a brief moment it sounded like a lightning bolt had hit the plane and tore the sky asunder. The public began to be made aware of the Pilot program, after all even in the middle of the desert there isn't Nobody and occasionally amateur radio observers will have their receivers pointing in just the right direction at just the right time to hear its signals. The reaction was worse than expected. The thought of space being used as yet another platform for stationing weapons and nuclear warheads was absolutely appalling, However, the program would continue. In the minds of the U.S. Air force they were protecting America from any future satellite attacks from the USSR, Which isn't wrong. But with the USSR Showing no signs of military space intent, it felt like an empty program to the public onlookers.
But it wasn't the only program soon to be made public, With the first launch of Mercury beginning to loom near, NASA would begin to recruit its first Astronaut Candidates as soon as they gave control of the Pilot program to the USAF, Along with One X-15 to try and keep them from having to Interfere.
One can only hope that the Pilot program will continue to be as successful as it has proven to be since those first days, but nothing good can last forever.

 

[SingularityG3]

Icarus

The Pilot Campaign continues to push the X-15 Ever further and ever higher, Though bitter about their proposal losing to NASA, They still have plans to try and send someone into space first. It should be possible to give the X-15 just enough speed to go above the Karman line, Secretly working on externally mounting fuel tanks to give it that extra boost and even considering launch on a more capable carrier plane, Though these plans wouldn’t come to fruition for a long time, They would show that the USAF is still committed to sending someone into space one way or another.

On a frigid morning just before the crack of dawn on November 26 1959, A Light easily mistaken for the Sun’s warm yellow glow ignites the “Space Coast” of Florida bathing it in the light of Pioneer X’s Flaming rocket. Its goal, The moon. But this was not a simple impactor, Nor a flyby. This was a Lunar Orbiter, The first of its kind. As its engine flares out and her first stage is jettisoned, The atmosphere begins to thin outside, The protective fairing would jostle and gracefully fall away as Stage 3 ignites and shoots the craft beyond, Leading its path to the Moon. Its coast would be pretty uneventful, Earth shrinking behind it and La Lune growing closer and closer until the time finally came just 2 days later for Orbital insertion. Her engine would ignite, excited to be the first to see all of the Moon, all the wonders never before viewed by Human or Robotic eyes and all the science to be done. Thinking of the ones back home counting on her to get into orbit, succeed and send back all her findings. But something was wrong, Communications suddenly cut with earth, and in under a second…it was over. Due to imperfections in the tank not realised before launch, they suffered a catastrophic rupture and subsequent explosion. Back on earth, all that was heard was the steady hum of telemetry coming down, before a sudden spike and instant halting of signals. One that would never roar back to life with screams of success. A testament to the nature of space, and just how dangerous and ruthless it can be.

We turn back to the Military, Ever growing its presence in space. The first successful satellite of the “Transit” Network would be launched in April of 1960, This was planned to be a network of many satellites in Polar orbits designed to find the position of a receiver on the surface, To do this (This is an oversimplification) it would take 2 measurements of Doppler shift from the signals of the receiver, And use complicated mathematics to find a rough location of that object. It wasn’t perfect, providing around 200m of Location accuracy in the best-case scenario, A sort of precursor to our present-day GPS, Only quite a bit less advanced. Another military program running is the “Keyhole” Programme, Also called CORONA, A Swarm of secret reconnaissance satellites that launch into a polar orbit and stay there for a time, taking images on its Space rated film camera, and then separating from the main spacecraft body and deorbiting where it will safely be recovered mid-air by a plane. Or at least that's the plan. Numerous launches of Keyhole have been done in the past, But all failed one way or another. Launch vehicle exploded, the Film capsule didn’t survive Reentry, Plane failed to catch the canister in time. It would take until the 8th launch of the program for a reasonably successful mission to transpire. These launches also weren’t known to the public as their true intent, Being publicly called “Discoverer” With the facade of Performing experiments and returning Biological test canisters to earth after spending time in space. Of course this was just a front. If the public knew about a Spy satellite, everyone would know, Which makes the technology a lot less useful.

Across the globe, the Soviet Union was preparing for a deep-space launch of their own, The twin spacecraft of Luna 4 and Luna 5 would be launched just 1 day apart. The Launch of Luna 4 plays out wonderfully, the night sky illuminated by the soft glow of the rocket engines and the beauty of the Korolev Cross. As Luna 4 was well on its way to the moon, Luna 5 would launch as well, As it ascends upwards into the bright blue skies above, An issue would rapidly emerge. The rocket began to roll more than expected, and before anyone had time to even mention it, The rocket yawed immensely and was instantly engulfed in a cloud of smoke and flames. A poor job had been done on making one of the side boosters, It wasn’t found before launch but the jostling and pogo oscillation of the rocket, combined with the aerodynamic forces streaming outside the rocket, The booster sprang a leak. A Small leak quickly grew into spraying out of the necessary fuel, this was providing angular momentum that could not be fully accounted for, as the ship began to spin around the fuel was sloshing around inside the tanks even more, Weakening the internal structure and causing a weight imbalance. The rocket finally reached a literal tipping point as the rocket leaned over sending it into a certain path to death. The immense aerodynamic forces acting on the fairing shredded it to pieces as the rest of the rocket went with it, all of the fuel in the boosters and the first stage is ignited at once, and all that remains is a cloud of debris and flames falling from the sky.

But still, although losing a brother Luna 4 continues on to the moon, A unique flyby with the intention of viewing the far side of the moon for the first time ever. Due to the 1:1 Tidal Locking of the moon with earth, The moon only spins Once for every One orbit it does. This means we only ever see one side of it, in mere moments we would see the first-ever view of the far side of the moon, Neither Human nor Robotic eyes have ever laid their eyes upon these sights, And it is…Smooth? Well, not smooth, But more uniform. Just craters and craters, Almost no Seas to be Seen. A Rather dull antithesis to the Near side’s contrasting terrains of craters and valleys, mountains and seas. Why was it like this? What could cause our side to be so much more lively looking than the far side? It would take further exploration to find out.

However, Near space exploration Is a bit more active right now.
The USAF recently began its own Entirely separate X-15 Program back in November of the previous year. NASA Had given them One X-15 To conduct their NOTS-EV-1 flights and any other Military purposes, While NASA Would keep the other one for more scientific purposes. On the 2nd of May, the latest flight would take place. Pilot William J. Knight would separate from the Carrier plane and ignite its engine, The X-15 Rockets forth, He pitches upwards to send it as high as possible to allow for the best NOTS-EV-1 Trajectory, This flight carrying an experimental satellite designed to better geo-location systems, when a Transit satellite is in range of an “AMSOL” Satellite they would briefly communicate with each other to try and average out the position, Narrowing down the location accuracy range even further. They are preparing to separate the NOTS-EV-1 When something happens

William: “We are go for Pilot separation”

CAPCOM: “We read you as Go for separation, Good luck”

William: “Separating now”

But nothing happens…The PILOT gets stuck during the attempted separation, The Detachment points had become weathered over the numerous flights resulting in tiny structurally weak areas appearing across the many moving parts on the lower part of the plane.

William: “Something appears to be wrong, I Heard a Clunk and then nothing, it doesn’t look like the PILOT has separated”

CAPCOM: We’re going to have to abort the flight then, We can try to diagnose the issue once you’re down here

William: “All right, Beginning desce-”

Communications were cut. Although the PILOT Had failed to detach, it thought that it had. Only One of its two first stage solid rocket motors activated. which almost instantly tore apart the detachment points from the forces being applied to it, however, the thrust of the PILOT was offset to its centre of mass, causing it to swing upwards and clip the very front of the X-15, The shards of debris from the Solid rocket exhaust plume striking the window cracking it caused William, startled, to send the X-15 Down as fast as possible in a steep dive, the PILOT spinning faster and faster above him as it spins itself apart sending burning shrapnel in every direction.
The dive that the X-15 had been sent into was unrecoverable, along with the damage done to the front nose cone and the damage dealt to the canopy, the heating of the atmosphere as the X-15 plunged deeper into the thicker reaches of it was too much, frying the insides leaving William helpless to his fate
The X-15 careens towards the ground, a victim of gravity. The same thing that very flight was fighting against, a cruel irony befitting of the highest-flying flight so far, 49 miles above the ground at its highest point.
A Monument would be constructed where William J. Knight Had crashed in the months to follow.
In the following weeks. NASA would announce its candidates for the Mercury missions dubbed the "Mercury Seven", And the USSR Had their plans set for the 2 Mars probes to launch later in the year, Our horizon shall broaden further to expand our sight to new worlds and new terrains never yet seen before.

 

[SingularityG3]

2^2

1000 miles above the Earth, A 100 Foot wide sphere of Mylar shimmers in the sunlight revealing its Presence to the world. This is “Echo 1”, The first Passive Communications satellite. Just hours before, It would be launched into orbit of the earth on the maiden flight of the Thor-Delta Launch Vehicle, A Flight which nearly went terribly wrong when the Delta stage almost failed to ignite its engines, Nearly sending Echo 1 into the Atlantic. The satellite’s function was the first of its kind, Relay communications across the planet by bouncing signals off its surface. Once it had been successfully deployed into its Orbit, It began to inflate with an internal gas supply. On earth, the testing to fully inflate Echo 1 required over 15,000kg of gas, But in space, it only needed a few kilograms due to the pressure difference. But The Satelloon’s only job wasn’t just bouncing signals, Due to its large surface area, it was used to measure the thickness of the atmosphere at high altitudes through atmospheric drag. In the coming months, Echo-1 would be used to transmit multitudes of Signals, Phone calls and TV Broadcasts, Proving the capability of Passive Communication. Naturally, as soon as this was proven the US Military wanted to See what they could do with it. Perhaps using a swarm of them to Triangulate the position of an ICBM To tell where it is, And the more ideas got thrown around the more appealing Active communications looked, Prompting them to begin designing potential Active communications satellites to aid with missile location and helping aid in locating submarines. There are of course public applications too, The possibility of satellite technology advancing enough to allow thousands of uplinks and downlinks a second could permit the existence of a more accurate version of such a satellite positioning system, and one that was available to the general public.

For the past year, the Soviet Union had been hard at work on preparing their 2 Mars probes, Creatively called Mars 1 and Mars 2. And now the planets have aligned, The transfer window to mars Opens, and they ready their launchers for the boost to the red planet. The two of them would launch on the Molniya Rocket, A Modified R7-Semyorka with 4 Stages that would later be used to launch the satellites of the same name, Molniya.
Mars 1 would launch early in the evening of October 10th, And would narrowly avoid total mission failure due to excessive vibrations during launch. Shortly after getting into orbit, it would perform its Trans-Mars Injection. Mars 2 would launch almost exactly 4 days later and would boost itself onto a Mars flyby set to happen early next year.

In the wake of the Pilot disaster last May, The USAF Was looking for ways to carry the NOTS-EV-2 Into space better, Preferably without crew on board, Or at least a way to make it safer. This would come in the form of NOTS-EV-2, A More aerodynamic version of the previous NOTS-EV-1 Sporting special new fins and a new Ignition mechanism, Separation and Ignition are now separate from one other, allowing the Pilot of the X-15 To maneuver before sending the signal for ignition. The X-15’s Attachment points would also be improved to stay strong longer to prevent another incident. Along with the improved safety features the Solid rocket motors would be improved to provide more thrust and in turn, more payload to orbit, Allowing quick launching of Reconnaissance satellites weighing under 8kg into specific orbits if there is a specific target that needs to be photographed as soon as possible. Unfortunately, technology is not sufficient yet to allow such light Reconnaissance satellites, however, it can launch other special missions such as material exposure tests and potentially Kinetic weapons akin to ICBMs, But using the sheer force of impact as a weapon instead of Explosives. Hopefully, the time never comes for such weapons to be used.
Its maiden launch would be carried out on January 11th 1961 yet again on the belly of the X-15, This time with Navy pilot John McKay flying it up through the beginning of the Mesosphere, Where at an apogee of around 46 Miles he would Release the NOTS-EV-2, Slowly falling away from under the plane. A light in his cabin lit up announcing that it had successfully separated and was ready for activation. With the flick of a lever, the signal was sent to the still-nearby NOTS-EV-2 and its Solid Rocket motors activated, propelling it forwards and upwards as it would make its way through the thin upper atmosphere and towards orbital velocity. As the PILOT was on its path to orbit, McKay would have to bring the X-15 Back down for a landing, The first attempted landing of the USAF X-15 Program since William Knight’s fatal crash the previous year. All would be well and the landing would be performed without Too much of an issue. It was one of the better landings of the USAF X-15 And would certify that it was ready to return to full operations.

Over in the soviet union, Another 2 spacecraft would launch, This time to Venus. Launching on the same rocket as their Mars-bound twins just 4 months earlier, the Molniya 8K78. Venera 1 would launch just before dawn, Its trail gradually illuminated more and more the higher up it went. Once in orbit, its Trans-Venusian injection was performed with no issues, Venera 2 would launch 8 days later a few hours past midnight. The launch would successfully place it in orbit with Venera 2’s TVI occurring shortly after. The path to Venus was long, In their present spaceflight terms at least. Over 3 months, each second further from the Earth than any active craft ever before it, Subject to the full brunt of the solar wind, and intensifying radiation as their orbits carry them closer and closer to Sol and Venus. However, The Intensified heating caused unintended side effects. The Venera probes used a mix of Unsymmetrical Dimethylhydrazine and RFNA for fuel, And as the probes trudged on through interplanetary space, Systems slowly began to fail. Not because of the sun, Just natural technological failures. Just over a month into Venera 2’s coast, One of her internal Fans broke leading to a slight temperature increase over the next few days. Usually, this wouldn’t be an issue, The other fans can pick up the slack. At least they should’ve been able to, Prior to the fan breaking, the Temperature sensor began to malfunction causing incorrect temperature readings lower than the true values, Venera 2 thought everything was fine, But her insides were near-boiling. This all culminated on March 23 when Venera 2 had overheated to the point of failure, Losing contact with the earth and leaving Twin probe Venera 1 all alone on her voyage to Earth’s So-called Twin.

Time was almost up for America to beat the Soviets to space. On March 25 1961 the USSR launched “Korabl-Sputnik 5”, The last test flight of the Vostok spacecraft before their Manned launch into orbit. It wasn’t uncrewed though, On it was a Dog named Zvyozdochka and a Mannequin jokingly named Ivan Ivanovich. The flight would last just over 100 minutes before Landing, where the Mannequin would be used to test the Ejector seat for the crewed flights. During the time spent orbiting, Transmissions were also sent back to earth. These included a Choir of people singing to display this was not a crewed launch, And a recipe for Borscht being read as if being made in real-time. The successful ending of this flight would cement Vostok’s ability. And they had set a date for their next flight, And the lucky cosmonaut. April 11 1961, Yuri Gagarin.

 

[SingularityG3]

108 Minutes

Just Past Noon on the 30th of March 1961 a Keyhole satellite launches from Vandenberg Air Force Base on a Thor-Agena rocket bound for a Polar trajectory. At the same time 240km away at Edwards Air force base, Preparations were underway for the next X-15 Pilot flight. This Keyhole satellite was not aimed just as a Spy satellite though, It was extended slightly to allow for a special communications module and small solar panels to keep it charged. Once its Reconnaissance mission is completed and the photos are returned to earth, The remaining parts of “Discovery 22” would remain in orbit and be used as a target for the NOTS-EV-2 Anti-Satellite Test. A Previous test using a backup Echo Satelloon would successfully strike the target, But to verify its use, smaller targets must be used. Most satellites aren’t 40 meters across. 3 days after launch the Film canister would separate from Discovery and perform its Deorbit burn, Over at Edwards the B-52 Skyfortress was ready to take off as soon as the signal was given. Just before Sunset, it’s given the go ahead and starts its engines, taxis to the runway and Takes off, X-15 and NOTS-EV-2 Along for the ride. The X-15 Separates as the sky turns a brilliant crimson, igniting its rocket engine and boosting off into the sunset. Near apogee the Pilot waits for the right time to launch the NOTS-EV-2, And when the time strikes. “Separation confirmed”
NOTS-EV-2 Fires off out of view, its solid rocket motors screaming into the night sky until it disappears from sight on its track to intercept Discoverer 22. Racing towards it at incredible speeds, The ASAT Makes it to orbit and with its trajectory, should impact D22 in mere minutes. The USAF Ground stations carefully listen for its signal to abruptly cease
The signal drones on, At its steady pace. Unincumbered by any atmosphere, Unwavering, Calm. Interrupted, By a silence. The joyful destruction of Discoverer 22, Shattering both of them into thousands of tiny pieces scattered across low earth orbit for years, even decades to come.

Over 50,000,000km away from the Earth, Mars 1 is approaching Its namesake world, Alongside its twin spacecraft “Mars 2” lagging just a few days behind. As that small red dot grew ever larger, ever closer in the sky, The spacecraft began to prepare for the encounter.
The 2 probes were identical, using the 1MV Probe base, the same that Venera 1 and 2 used. A 2-meter tall cylinder with a high-gain antenna 2.3 Meters wide mounted on it to call back to earth and receive signals. As Mars looms ever closer the useful scientific data begins to roll in, Full-disc images showing mars’ terrain as a wild motley of valleys and mountains and flatlands, Mars had been caught during its spring, Their massive Polar caps of frozen carbon dioxide and water ice stretch wide across the planet, with a massive canyon visible, like a scar across this hurt world's face. This canyon would be named Циолковская долина (Tsiolkovsky Valley) after Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Creator of the Tsiolkovsky Equation which would pave the way for Rocketry and Space exploration as a whole.
The two probes drifted ever closer to the red planet, the returned imagery both shattering the dreams of even a mildly habitable world and captivating the imagination of everyone, a truly alien world where the soil is rust and dirt and the sunsets are an ominous blue in the sky, with 2 small moons that sadly would not be imaged. But all was not well, Mars 2 seemed to be falling closer to the planet than intended, And losing its attitude lock. During the Midcourse corrections that would throw the two probes on their way, One of Mars 2’s attitude control engines had a small, almost undetectable amount of residual thrust every time it fired that ended up pushing Mars 2 just that tiny bit closer to the surface, and now it was on a trajectory to fall into the atmosphere and burn up. As soon as this was realised a race began to try and get as much data back as possible, Unfortunately by the time the probe had wandered close enough for the atmosphere to take its toll, only a fraction of Mars 2’s data could be retrieved and sent back to earth.
Her attitude control thrusters would begin to fire, keeping her antenna facing earth for as long as possible before the forces outside would no longer permit it. The rapidly increasing wind rushes around as her body is engulfed in a fireball of plasma from the sheer speed of atmospheric entry. The solar panels would snap off from the main body, sending her into an uncontrollable spin. The surface is breached, Within moments the heat from the plasma rushes through her insides thoroughly cooking all the instruments, And under a second later she would break apart into a shower of debris raining across the martian surface.
Though it wasn’t intended, Mars 2 would become the first man-made object to impact the surface of another planet. Just not in one piece.
Mars 1 would fully transmit the rest of its data, giving us a new understanding of the planet which lay beside us. Although Mars 2 had not entirely succeeded, it did give us insights into the atmosphere itself, Its rough thickness and height, Allowing for proper planning to begin on a Lander. But it would not be easy.

The very next day at the Baikonur launch complex, a new rocket had wandered onto one of the launch pads. This is Vostok 1, The rocket that shall carry either Yuri Gagarin or Gherman Titov into orbit, The first person in space.
The day before the launch on April 11th measurements on Yuri and Gherman’s physical state would be conducted, clearing both of them for flight, Yuri as the main pilot and Gherman as the backup in case Yuri has an issue and cannot fly. The night would pass with little event, The two Soon-to-be Cosmonauts talking about their lives while listening to music, Though neither of them nor the Chief designer and CapCom Sergei Korolev would sleep well, How could they? In under 24 hours, a man would fly to space strapped to hundreds of tons of kerosene and liquid oxygen, and if something were to go wrong up there, nobody would be able to help them.
before the launch, Yuri would say this: “I Would like to dedicate this first spaceflight to the people of communism, a society in which our Soviet people are already entering, and which, I am confident, All men on earth will enter. It is a matter of minutes now before the start, I say to you goodbye dear friends, just as people say to each other when setting out on a long journey. I would like very much to embrace you all, people known and unknown to me, close friends and strangers alike.”
Just before 6 am the two pilots were woken up, given breakfast and sent to the launch site where they would both put on their spacesuits. Yuri would enter the Vostok 1 capsule 2 hours before launch and wait for the time to pass. And once they had, at 8:07 am the rocket would ignite its engines, lifting Yuri Gagarin upwards into the cloudless sky
Korolev: “We wish you a good flight, Everything is alright”
Yuri: “Let’s Go!”
As the Vostok rocket climbs further and further up, it begins to pitch over to gain sideways velocity to reach orbit. Exactly 2 minutes after launch the side boosters detach from the rocket, falling aside into the iconic “Korolev Cross” Shortly after that as the atmosphere thins enough outside, the payload shroud is jettisoned, letting Yuri see through the window. Just 2 and a half minutes after that, 5 minutes after launch, Vostok 1 jettisons the core stage, although they would not know for certain at the time. Through the window, Yuri could see the earth from a perspective never before seen with human eyes, The rolling clouds, the arid landscape giving way to the snowy wastes of Siberia. “The flight is continuing well. I can see the Earth. The visibility is good... I almost see everything. There's a certain amount of space under cumulus cloud cover. I continue the flight, everything is good”. The final stage breaks away from the rocket, Placing Yuri Gagarin firmly in orbit, The first human to ever reach Space, And an Orbit of the Earth. He passes over the Kamchatka peninsula, drifting above the Pacific Ocean at incredible speed. The next few minutes would see him flying above the Hawaiian islands during sunset, the light glistening around the silhouetted islands, onwards to the southern hemisphere. It was now that they finally got the news that Orbit had been successfully achieved. The experience of Zero gravity was a strange one, No forces weighing you down, free to float. At least you would be if there was any space in the capsule. As the Vostok 1 Capsule drifted over the western coast of Africa, Specifically Angola’s coast, The retrorockets would fire, slowing the craft down enough to allow it to enter the atmosphere and safely land back on earth. Moments after they fired, a signal was sent to the Service module to detach it, But it would not. It remained attached to the Reentry module due to a small bundle of tangled wires, As soon as it began to hit the thicker parts of the atmosphere it would start to aggressively jostle as the craft passed over Egypt and the eastern edge of the Mediterranean sea, Vostok would tumble briefly before the wires burnt through, engulfed by plasma and flames, allowing the reentry module to right itself and perform its stable reentry. After a peak deceleration of 10G, the Capsule drifts towards the surface of the earth, around 30km from the town of Engels the door to Vostok would burst open, and Yuri Gagarin was ejected out to parachute to the surface separately. Yuri Gagarin had become the first person to reach space, And the first to return alive.
This achievement would not be unmatched, however. A mere 25 days later America would be ready to launch their own mission, Though less ambitious, Being a simple suborbital jump, It would still show that the US was able to send someone into space and back, This mission was Mercury-Redstone 3.

 

[SingularityG3]

Clouded Minds

Mercury Redstone 3 was preparing to launch, The pilot for this flight would be Alan Shepard, Beginning the day of the launch with a breakfast of Steak and Eggs with Toast, Orange juice and Coffee. Getting into the Mercury capsule at a quarter past 5 to await the launch at 7 am, Which would soon be delayed to 9 am to allow for the weather to clear up
The mercury capsule has a rather unique design, A Conical shape starting 180 centimetres wide at the base with a heat shield mounted on it, tapering inwards the higher up you look until it leads into a cylinder containing 3 parachutes for landing, Mounted on top of that is the Antenna section, which is rather self-explanatory, Containing the communication antennas. Strapped to the heat shield is the Retrockpack, made to slow down the capsule prior to reentry. Inside the capsule, there was a Pure Oxygen atmosphere around 1/3 the Pressure of the atmosphere at sea level, The craft was also fitted with an ejector seat to be used in an emergency in the seconds after launch, Hopefully these would never need to be used. The coming minutes would tell if they were indeed necessary.
As the weather cleared, The final checks would be completed, and the rocket was Go for launch.
5, 4, 3, 2, 1, Ignition. The Redstone booster’s Singular Rocketdyne A-7 would lift the entire 30,000kg Rocket, Along with the Mercury capsule up away from the surface, 16 seconds after ignition the rocket begins to Pitch over slowly to a 45 degree angle over 25 seconds, Maximum Aerodynamic Pressure ( Known as Max-Q ) being reached just over 40 seconds later.
2 Minutes 20 seconds into flight the engine would shut off, Having completed its task the command is sent to detach the Abort tower, And separate the capsule, With small rocket engines firing to detach the two of them, Friendship 7 rotating around to view the Booster, And the Floridian Coast silently drifting across the window
Time up here was limited though, Under 3 minutes later the command would be given to Alan that it was time to fire the retrocket, Which promptly flared to life and pushed him into his seat, just 10 minutes ago he was firmly on the ground bound by earth’s gravity, just 5 minutes he was pushing against it, And now Earth is pulling him back down, Accelerating almost 10m/s every single second, In just a few moments his capsule would slam into the atmosphere, engulfed in plasma with no way out should something go wrong, These thoughts were quickly interrupted with a clunk sound as the Retropack jettisoned, leaving the heat shield fully exposed for reentry. Outside the window the dark, foreboding abyss of space would give way to a deep harrowing crimson as what little air was outside was being condensed and heated to a bright glow, The capsule detected deceleration was beginning and began to roll the capsule to disperse the heat easier, The sun whirling its light around the capsule, now barely visible through the bright oranges and reds scraping against the window. As the bright colours of the plasma faded, and the comforting blue of our atmosphere washed across the capsule, The drogue parachute would deploy, safely slowing him down even further. The landing bag deploys, pushing the heat shield down as the “air snorkel” deploys, letting the outside atmosphere into the cabin. He had done it. The first american to see the sights of space, the rolling clouds over the Bahamas, the beautiful fury of reentering the atmosphere, and the joy of returning safely to the Earth.

Just a few weeks after Alan Shepard’s successful spaceflight, The President of the United States, John F. Kennedy, Would give a speech before congress, It reads as follows “I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish. We propose to accelerate the development of the appropriate lunar spacecraft. We propose to develop alternate liquid and solid fuel boosters, much larger than any now being developed, until certain which is superior. We propose additional funds for other engine development and for unmanned explorations. explorations which are particularly important for one purpose which this nation will never overlook: the survival of the man who first makes this daring flight. But in a very real sense, it will not be one man going to the Moon, if we make this judgement affirmatively, it will be an entire nation. For all of us must work to put him there”. It was official, America would shoot for the moon. But the soviets wouldn’t be far behind

One thing the soviets were certainly ahead at was Unmanned exploration. Having sent 2 probes to Mars, (Accidentally) Sending the first impactor to another planet, And sending the first probes to Venus, Which are mere hours away from their closest approach. Although it was only at a distance of 60,000km This would still permit a decent amount of data to be gained. For one, this world once hoped to be flourishing with life, A world full of rainforests and lakes concealed behind a veil of clouds, Was revealed to be a hellscape, incapable of having any life at all living on it. An atmosphere not of oxygen and water vapour, But of Carbon Dioxide and Sulphur, The surface so hot that the molten sulphur that rains from the sky can’t even reach the surface before evaporating, Surface pressure so immense that the foolhardiest crafts would buckle under the weight of the air around it, This is a forsaken world, One that feels like it was never meant to be known about, That we’d be better off in ignorance. This world has no moons, It is far too close to the sun for any to stick with it, And its surface is immensely flat, It may have had plate tectonics at one point in the past, along with oceans and maybe even life, But those days are long gone. The very atmosphere of this planet would have eventually choked anything that may have been living there, Now nothing remains of what may have been there. Just a charred, molten world who’s exploration must be confined to uncrewed robotic probes, sent off to die. Planning would begin on a mission, Venera 3 Would be an entry probe, To peer underneath the cloud tops for as long as it could handle, Venera 4 would be a lander, Along with Venera 5. These worlds will become known to us, no matter the struggles.

It was time for Gus Grissom’s turn in space, A mission largely similar to Alan’s, But what was notable is that this would be the last American crewed spaceflight until Mercury-Vulcan 4, In which John Glenn would become the first American in orbit.
As the Redstone rocket yet again flared to life, Gus was propelled into a suborbital trajectory, Almost exactly the same path as the previous, The flight would go fantastically until before the landing, Just after the Air snorkel deployed, An odd banging sound would be heard in the capsule. Though what this was would not be apparent for just under a minute, when the door to the capsule shot off into the distance due to a misfire. The recovery helicopters, Flying towards the visible parachute reported seeing a small object fly away from the capsule, striking the ocean

shortly after, Gus inside the capsule could not use anything inside to block the hatch, meaning he would have to get out and swim once landing to not be dragged to the sea floor when the capsule begins to fill with sea water. Luckily, he had not taken his suit off yet, the air inside would give him some extra buoyancy.
As the capsule splashed down it immediately began to flood water inside, Gus getting out and swimming alongside it in hopes that the recovery helicopters would see.
It would take a few minutes for the helicopters to arrive, at which time the capsule was already deep below the waves. When they did arrive, The pilot of the helicopter, George Cox, promptly tossed the Lifeline down to Gus, who quickly wrapped himself into it.
Despite this near-misses with disaster across the mission, Gus Grissom would become the 2nd American to reach space and return alive.

Back in the soviet union, Vostok 2 would launch, This time crewed with Gherman Titov, Who at just 25 years old would fly into orbit. The launch would go well, With nothing out of the ordinary occurring, At least until Gherman tried to eat one of the onboard meals, He would be the first victim of “Space Sickness”, Essentially motion sickness caused by the sensation of weightlessness. Gherman would also take the first photos of earth from space by a human, And be the first to fall asleep in space. Once his 24 hours in space were up, The reentry operation would be performed. However, the Service module would not separate from the crew capsule, Causing them both to shake violently while entering the atmosphere, Thankfully the service module was not made with the same heat considerations as the crew capsule allowing for the intense heat of the atmospheric plasma brushing against its metallic skin to burn through it and the wires connecting the two parts of the spacecraft, After which the crew capsule stabilised and the rest of the landing went off without a hitch, Gherman ejecting out of the spacecraft and parachuting to the ground separately, just as planned.

The previous ASAT Test performed by the United States Air Force would not go unnoticed by the many countries of the world. In the USSR Plans were being discussed on how to counter any possible American anti-satellite attacks, with most considerations being impossible to perform, No amount of shielding that could be placed on a satellite at the time would be able to stop an impact at orbital velocities, Wilder options such as intercepting an ASAT Vehicle before impact were considered, but were deemed too unlikely to succeed, at least until better manoeuvring systems were developed. There is one idea however, that went strangely unthought of. Just don’t get hit! Some details on the Pilot ASAT Vehicle were known to the Soviets, The most crucial of which being the payload mass. No more than 10kg could be placed into orbit, That’s too small for a true Manoeuvring system to be implemented, And this is where the USSR’s Zenit satellites come in handy. It is a Vostok Derived Spy Satellite mission, And so launches on the same Vostok rockets, Having first launched in October. If the design could be simplified and lightened slightly, there would be space to add small solid rocket motors which could move the satellite if ever targeted by an ASAT.
Or, instead of simplifying the design, A better rocket could be used. A new spacecraft program was being developed known as Voskhod, And it was accompanied by its own more powerful rocket, The development of this rocket could be accelerated to allow for no gap between the Vulnerable Zenits and the New Zenits. Korolev especially advocated for this, As it would free up the Vostok pad for more frequent Crew launches.

Amidst all this discussion about Space weaponry, A Concept for a rocket which could easily be mistaken as one would be put forth for review. Its name was Superraket, A Massive rocket larger than any rocket ever built before, With a unique design quirk about it. It was nuclear. The upper stage of this rocket would use Nuclear Engines to propel its payload further and further. Though this rocket was out of scope for current technology, It would prompt investigation into a larger rocket, One to be designated as the N1

Meanwhile, The USAF Had their own plans brewing, Still bitter about their defeat at the hands of NASA’S Gemini program, work would continue on Spearhead in secret, Small scale models of them being tested in wind tunnels to verify aerodynamic stability, Work on a new launcher for it, and possible operations. They had ended up with a pitch for 2 spaceplanes, Both under the Spearhead title. These would be named “Constitution” and “Independence”. Independence would, fittingly, Be strictly a LEO Operations craft, Having a passive docking port and advanced Rendezvous systems, As well as 2 seats, A dedicated Airlock/Docking port and a Small cargo bay, Capable of bringing a few hundred kilos Up and Down. Constitution would be fitted with an Active docking port, Allowing it to dock at a station concept still in the works called Fletcher. Constitution would have slightly simpler rendezvous systems, And no cargo bay, The space being used as extra crew and system space, To allow for longer flights docked to Fletcher. The station has a unique design as well, it is what is known as A Wet workshop. Once its carrier rocket had reached orbit it would drain any remaining fuel, And fill with an Oxygen atmosphere in preparation for the crew to arrive and get everything into order. It would have 5 sections to it, Each under 2m Tall. The Airlock at the “Base” of the station, Leading to outside where handles would be placed on the sides of the station for easy traversal around the 2 Solar panels powering the station. Next is The Laboratory for Science experiments, The Reconnaissance Base, where cameras would be controlled to look at the earth below, The crew area filled with Personal compartments and Beds, and the Docking/Storage module. The station would be fitted with a Passive docking port, letting Constitution to dock. This docking port imbalance would also allow Constitution and Independence to Dock together, allowing for in-space crew transfers.

The heat shields on the space planes would be a brand new state of the art technology, Consisting of specialised heat-tiles that could be reused and refurbished after every mission, Capable of withstanding the full brunt of the atmospheric plasma. And just in case any tiles are damaged during launch, or other phases of the missions, The spaceplane’s skin would be a strong metal alloy known as Rene 41, The same as used on the Mercury capsule.
The spaceplanes would be launched on a modified Titan II with Solid rocket motors on the side to give it the push it needs to get off the launchpad.
This idea, This design, All the testing done on it, Would not be pointless, For the USAF Would officially gain the funding it needed to bring Spearhead, And Fletcher to life.

Vostok 3 would launch around midday crewed with Andriyan Nikolayev, With Vladimir Komarov launching the next day on Vostok 4 into a similar orbit to 3, This was the first Simultaneous spaceflight ever performed. The 2 craft would frequently communicate with each other. Their spaceflights would both last around 3 and a half days, Tests being performed frequently to make sure that Humans can function efficiently during long periods of spaceflight. This mission would lay the foundations for longer and longer spaceflights, putting the Moon firmly in the realm of possibility

And these Lunar dreams would not subside, The United States had a new lunar exploration program, One named Ranger. This would be a fleet of Lunar Impactors, taking photos of the moon on their journey to their regolith graves. Ranger 1 was launched a few months earlier, though it would not reach the moon, Issues had emerged with the Agena stage, a defective gyroscope had caused it to begin rotating uncontrollably, Forcing the fuel inside the tanks to be pushed to the edges of the tank due to the Centrifugal force they would experience, causing the fuel to be unable to drain into the engines, Stranding the spacecraft in a low earth orbit, Quickly deorbiting in just a few weeks. The Launch of Ranger 2 had gone much more successfully, After a thorough pre-flight test of all systems and components. And now it was on its way to the moon. It had no specific landing site, Just a simple Impact somewhere on the moon. After launch it had been found that its impact site would be within 50km of the Crater Aristarchus. During the long coast to the Moon, many observations would be performed, Doppler tests and Gamma Ray Spectroscopy, In the final few minutes more and more experiments would happen, The Radar Altimeter would report the distance to the lunar surface while the Video camera would take images of the surface far below, and it would continue to for as long as it could. Racing towards the grayscale terrain scratched with canyons and scarps, dotted with craters and mountains, Though an immense contrast with Earth’s varying blues and greens and whites, It was still a beautiful view.
The final image transmitted by Ranger 3 would be taken just 450 metres above the surface, Though you couldn’t tell it from an image taken 45 Kilometres up, its terrain a fractal of pockmarks and craters down to the millimetre. She would never finish transmitting its last image though, Colliding with the surface after just over half the image was sent. Ranger 3 shall forever rest in the rocks of Aristarchus.

Just a month after Ranger 3’s impact, The Soviet Union would try to send another probe to the moon’s surface, Though the intent was not an impact, But a landing. Luna 5 would be sent all the way to the moon from Baikonur Cosmodrome, Where just above the surface, retrorockets on the main probe bus would fire, slowing it down, at which point the lander would separate from the bus and bounce across the surface, before settling and deploying its systems. Unfortunately it would not succeed at first, The retrorockets had failed to fire, The lander still separated as planned but the impact velocity was too high and damaged the systems, It was unknown if it had landed successfully as no signals were ever received, but it is certainly possible that it survived, just barely.
These Luna missions would signify the Soviet’s dreams of exploration, While Vostok would show their ambition of human spaceflight. America had been lagging behind in terms of both types of space exploration, But behind closed doors there was more progress than visible on the outside, at least for now. Soon these hidden programs would be revealed, And all of humanity’s sights would be set on mankind taking more and more steps into the cosmic ocean.

 

[SingularityG3]

Dreams of Artemis

The failure of Luna 5 had been a deep wound for the soviet union, as most of their missions to the moon have failed one way or another hope was starting to be lost by those working in the soviet space programme, though they would not give up. On the morning of January 6 1962, Luna 6 launched from her pad at Baikonur, racing up into the sky in the hopes to reach the moon’s surface and report back. The moon looming nearby would be a glorious sight to see, especially when you’re racing towards its surface at incredible speeds as it slowly takes up more and more of the sky the spacecraft orients herself to prepare for landing, her retrorockets sputtering trying their best to slow her down, an issue emerged though, Luna 6 was pointed the wrong direction. The targeted landing site was Oceanus Procellarum, a large mare on the western side of the moon large enough that it had earned its title of ocean as opposed to sea. But this led to an issue where it was straddling the limb of the moon, and this was not taken into account, leading to Luna 6 pointing a few degrees off target. Though a tiny amount of difference, it would mean that she would not slow down enough, just a short while later she would crash into the moon at unsurvivable speeds, ending the dream that Luna 6 would become the first artificial object to safely rest on the surface of another celestial body, and giving the Americans the chance to plant their own lander.

Though their landers were not ready yet, over a year away from launching, they did have something else planned. Mercury-Vulcan 6. This would not match the Soviets in terms of space capabilities, but it would bring the Americans a step closer.
It was a clear day, around 10:45am when the words would be uttered, “Godspeed, John Glenn”, And the rocket came alive, John Glenn being propelled in his capsule towards orbital velocity, piercing through the atmosphere layer by layer, leaving a trail of smoke behind as he is accelerated faster than all but only 4 people had ever been.
2 minutes into flight the booster engines cut off, dropping away from the body of the craft. Vulcan had a unique design, where all 3 engines would be ignited on the ground, with the central “sustainer engine” firing low until the booster engines separate. Along with this, the rocket uses a “balloon tank” to store its fuel, containing almost no structural support and giving the rocket a very low dry mass, but causing a multitude of failures if the tank is punctured or loses pressure. Despite these risks, the rocket launch is executed perfectly. The launch escape tower separates, and as the rocket pitches over closer to horizontal, John gets his first view of the horizon. The thin, delicate band of horizon hugging the surface of blues and greens and wispy white clouds scattered across the ocean far below. The posigrade rockets fire, separating the capsule from the rocket, now drifting away behind him.
Floating above the canary islands and the continent of Africa, he witnesses an orbital sunset. As the sun disappears beyond the horizon, the pitch black sky begins to come to life as stars slowly appear above the beautiful gradient from the atmosphere, an incredibly thin line going from a bright orange to a deep blue. After floating over the city of Perth and the entirety of Australia, he sees strange lights hovering around the spacecraft, swirling around the surrounding space, glistening. A short bang on the capsule wall would show these to be specks of water ice coming from systems venting on the craft. Back on the ground in Mercury control, a strange indication would be revealed, indicating that the landing bag has deployed. If it indeed had, it would be a disastrous, possibly fatal event, keeping the heat shield attached to the main spacecraft only by the straps of the retropack, it was hoped this was just an error, but there was no way to actually look outside and see.
The decision had been made to initiate reentry after just 3 orbits, and keep the retropack strapped to the heat shield to hold it in place, in case the landing bag was deployed. The retrorockets fired, pushing the mercury capsule into a suborbital trajectory, and as it entered the atmosphere the plasma buildup engulfed the capsule, breaking apart the retropack and banging against the cabin walls. As communication was regained with Friendship 7, and John deployed the landing bag, it became evident that the light was indeed an error. Friendship 7 splashed down a few minutes later in the north Atlantic, bringing an end to the first American crewed orbital spaceflight.
This flight would be followed up with Mercury-Vulcan 7 with Scott Carpenter, named Aurora 7 which would launch just a few months later

The USSR still remained firmly ahead in terms of crewed spaceflight, and this would be demonstrated once again with Vostok 5 and 6, a double crewed spaceflight similar to Vostok 3 and 4. One major difference though, The pilot of Vostok 6, Valentina Tereshkova, was a Woman. As well as a closer rendezvous being achieved, A mere 1km distant this time due to the incredible accuracy of the orbital insertion burn. This almost perfect flight would mark the end of the Vostok program, and work on Voskhod would go full steam ahead, with a first launch targeted for November 1963.

Launching during the dead of night, Venera 3 would be sent on its way to Venus. An atmospheric entry probe, designed to take advanced measurements on the Venusian atmosphere and cloud deck. When it finally arrives in December of the very same year, it would plunge into Venus, with no plans of returning. It isn't even designed to reach the surface, with its pressure limit being only 10 atmospheres, and the Venusian atmosphere known to be at least 50

The USAF Had some interesting plans in terms of rockets, the spearhead spaceplane was still planned to launch on a modified titan rocket, but more power would be needed to launch the fletcher space station. For this a new launcher would be needed, and this launcher would be the Vulcan II, a mix between the Vulcan rocket that launched the orbital mercury missions and the still in development Saturn V. Its first stage having 2 F-1 engines, and its second stage having the experimental 1 J-2 engine, this simple two stage rocket would be launched from Vandenberg usually, and be capable of lifting 28,000kg to a 275km orbit, and 23,950kg to a 275km polar orbit, the very same as planned for fletcher. In addition to this it could carry 5000kg to the moon, allowing for heavier landers than ever launched before, and even 2,800kg to Mars! It had been in development for quite a while, and it was finally time for its maiden launch. A new pad had been constructed at Vandenberg to allow for this massive rocket to launch, weighing in at 650,000kg.

“All systems Go on Vulcan II”

“We are go for ignition of Stage One”

“Prep for stage one ignition in 5, 4”

The very ground would rumble as the internal mechanisms of the engines flared to life, a plume of smoke emerging from the rocket, and the fuel begins to burn and the rocket begins to ascend into the sky

“We see good ignition, Vulcan II is off the pad”

“All systems performing as expected”

Her two F-1 Engines filling the sky with smoke and flames as the rocket is jostled by the immense force

“We’re seeing some vibrations here”

As Vulcan II Approached 25km In altitude, the Engines would begin to rumble in an unexpected, new way. No F-1 Engine had actually been used in flight yet, and their intention was to launch heavier rockets. All of these factors combined to induce intense pogo oscillations, propellant inside sloshing back and forth stressing the frame of the vehicle.

“Vulcan II Seems to- Is Tilting outside of planned parameters, Recommend Abort”

“Roger, Aborting Vulcan II”

To prevent Vulcan II From crashing into populated areas, the choice had been made to self-destruct the rocket. The morning sky erupted into fireworks as the rocket completely shattered, spraying fiery debris across a small section of central Nevada.
This rocket launch had been known, with crowds waiting at Las Vegas in a manner similar to the crowds watching nuclear tests, though instead of being met with the engine plume of Vulcan II emerging from over the horizon, the onlookers would see a multitude of trails, debris from the failed rocket raining down in the barren landscape just a few kilometres away.

Work on Venera 4 was going strong, But there was a lot of doubt in the air. Large amounts of testing and modifications had been implemented for Venera 4 based on atmospheric data obtained from Venera 2, designing a craft to survive the immense pressures to be experienced was incredibly hard. Pressures of around 50 atmospheres at sea level and temperatures of 400 Celsius had been estimated off of said data, but to ensure safety the chamber would be 150 atmospheres of pressure. To facilitate testing of probes in this environment a special chamber had to be created, capable of replicating such a climate, with the spacecraft for testing inside, after one such test the door to the chamber was opened to inspect the spacecraft, but when looking inside, it was empty.
The spacecraft was nowhere to be found. But it hadn’t vanished, upon looking at the ground you could see it. The remnants of the spacecraft bubbling and oozing across the floor, the only thing remaining amidst the molten metal was two camera lenses, staring lifelessly up.
After weeks and months of trial and error, a design was finally made which could withstand this barren world’s environment. And this would be launched as Venera 4

On September 12th, President John F. Kennedy would go to Rice university’s stadium and deliver a speech
“We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people. For space science, like nuclear science and all technology, has no conscience of its own. Whether it will become a force for good or ill depends on man, and only if the United States occupies a position of pre-eminence can we help decide whether this new ocean will be a sea of peace or a new terrifying theatre of war. I do not say that we should or will go unprotected against the hostile misuse of space any more than we go unprotected against the hostile use of land or sea, but I do say that space can be explored and mastered without feeding the fires of war, without repeating the mistakes that man has made in extending his writ around this globe of ours. - We choose to go to the Moon. We choose to go to the Moon... We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win, and the others, too”. Kennedy’s speech would be heard around the world, and even make its way to some of the Soviet Union, who just one week after his speech would launch their own mission to the moon, still unmanned of course, but they would yet again be attempting to land a craft upon the moon’s surface. Work on this spacecraft had begun before Luna 6’s failure, which of course meant the communications issue had to be fixed in the new craft. The issue itself was never actually found, so instead a backup computer and improved comms device was added to replace the old one, hopefully permitting a successful landing. But there was no way to be sure until it reached the moon, 3 days from now. To improve chances of mission success, a landing site was chosen in advance. This would be Mare Serenitatis, a small lunar mare in the northern hemisphere of the moon, right next to the sea of tranquility and the sea of rains. It was chosen because of its location on the moon, and its dull topography, a very flat area as most lunar maria are, but this one was especially flat. The atmosphere was filled with tension in the days leading up to the landing, America having heard about the launch after its successful TLI had been performed, and with their lunar landers still almost a year away from being ready, they had to wait with baited breath, just as they had 9 months earlier during the doomed mission of Luna 6.
After a few days coasting towards the moon through the silent sea of the cosmos, the last few hours before landing would pass, and all systems were ready. At just 75km above the surface, the retrorockets would begin to fire, slowing the descent down to a speed somewhat survivable by the probe. These engines would shut off at 250m from the surface, with a contact sensor being triggered at 5m which would eject the lander from the top, Sending it flying upwards as the rest of the craft smashed into the surface. The lander would bounce across the surface multiple times, Opening its “petals” a few minutes after landing to improve the stability of the craft, and ensure it is pointing upwards. This action would reveal the camera, which would take the first snapshots of the surface of another world. This landscape was unlike any ever seen, an almost perfectly flat terrain stretching towards the horizon, small patches of dust and craters sparsely littering the otherwise smooth vista. These transmissions would be picked up by the Jodrell bank observatory in north west England, and released to the world. It is now known to be possible to land a craft upon the Moon, and not have it sink into the dust as once feared.

The last few launches of the year would be dominated by American launches, including the flight of Walter Schirra on Mercury-Vulcan 8, and the probes planned to reach Mars known as Mariner 1 and 2. The two probes were launched on the original Vulcan I rockets, and with their relatively light mass would be shot at immense speeds towards Mars, launched just 2 days apart, and their arrivals targeted for September 4 and 7 respectively, America would enter the playing field of interplanetary exploration.

The final launch of the year would be another debut, the Titan III Rocket.
Standing tall at Vandenberg air force base’s newly rebuilt rocket launchpad, sitting at the top, mounted to the upper stage, the Spearhead Pathfinder. Though not an entirely functional Spearhead, it would serve as a good testbed for the rocket, and reentry protocols.
Just past 2pm, the signal would be given.

“All systems green, Pathfinder is go for launch”

“Roger, Pathfinder is go. Prepare for SRM Ignition in T-15 Seconds”

Those seconds would pass with a tense silence, a silence that seemed to last for hours. Before being broke with a loud rumble as those solid rockets ignited, shaking the very earth, and scorching the launchpad

“Pathfinder has cleared the tower, Solid Rockets performing well, Thrust provided as expected”

“We are on track for Core stage ignition in 60 seconds”

Mission control would watch carefully at every bit of information being sent back. Engine performance, oscillations, structural stress, And it was all performing perfectly.

“Core stage is Ignited, Prep for Solid Rocket separation”

“SRMs have Separated as planned, Core stage performing nominally, MECO In 130 seconds”

Pathfinder was thrown at faster and faster speeds, The horizon stretching far beyond the launch site, And the faint engine plume being visible across almost all of Southern California, and in Utah and Nevada as the rocket went further and further east. The stages would separate as planned, and Spearhead would successfully reach orbit.
It would stay up there for just 2 orbits, long enough to make sure everything was performing as planned. After those orbits were done, a signal would be sent to begin Deorbiting. A short, 10 second firing of Pathfinder’s onboard engines would be performed to shorten its orbit, allowing it to fall somewhere near Vandenberg for safe recovery. An issue was quickly made apparent however, the fuel tank was not drained as planned, leading to a weight imbalance. The heat shield would successfully work as intended, but the attitude control was not powerful enough to stop the spaceplane from tipping backwards, producing forward momentum and causing it to go further downrange than intended. It would crash around 30 miles east of Vandenberg, a smoldering pile of debris all that was left. Though the skin of the plane and heat shield weren’t too warped, showing the strength of the materials used and giving enough hope that when a crewed flight does take place, the plane could be safely landed.

 

[SingularityG3]

At last after almost a month, i have done the bare minimum of writing a chapter!
i hope y'all enjoy it, we're really getting to the fun things now.

Along for the Ride

At last, after over 4 months of travelling, Venera 3 approaches Venus. Its foreboding, featureless cloud tops greeting the weary robotic traveller with a dull white. Though it wouldn’t look like it from so far above, the venusian atmosphere would be rushing across the surface at immense speeds, what seems like a calm planet from above has winds blasting at over 80m/s. This world, these hellish conditions are what Venera must endure, for as long as it can.
Slamming into the atmosphere many times faster than the speed of sound, a thick sheet of plasma envelopes the weary craft, heating the outside to thousands of degrees. During this time it is helpless to contact earth, any signal would take minutes to be heard, and the plasma completely blocks any attempt at communication. After what felt like an eternity, the plasma washes away leaving the craft falling far into the clouds. The outside pressure rising to 2, 3, 5 atmospheres. Venera 3 was never built to survive the depths. 10 atmospheres, the atmosphere crushing its hapless body. 12 atmospheres, the metal construction would creak and bend, before finally buckling, and imploding. The mutilated debris of this craft silently falling beneath the clouds, to remain forever lost on this veiled world. Rest well, Venera 3, the information provided would be sufficient to base future probes off of, and hopefully have one survive to the surface.

Venera 4 wouldn’t be so lucky. Launched before the true data was obtained, it was clear that it would take a miracle for her to survive to the surface.
It would be another 2 stressful months before Venera 4 would reach Venus, At which point it had become clear that a fate similar to that of Venera 3 was destined for this probe. She would hit the atmosphere moving at multiple kilometres per second, plasma rapidly washing over the fragile craft, plunging it into a radio silence with Earth, that it would not emerge from. A minor crack in the heat shield caused it to completely burn through during atmospheric entry, completely destroying the weary traveller.

Turning our gaze to Vandenberg AFB, under an hour remains for the launch of the very first crewed flight of spearhead. The Titan-III would sit, towering on the launch pad awaiting her time to shine as the pilot for this flight would prepare.
The pilot would be Robert White, a former USAF X-15 Test pilot who was selected to join the spearhead programme for the first flight. The original spearhead design was kept as close to the X-15 in terms of systems as possible, to reduce training time for new astronauts, training was also running in parallel for the full spearhead design, its systems were completed but its body had not yet been fully built.

“T-2 Hours, support crew please vacate the Launch Site.”

Robert White would enter the spaceplane to perform a manual test of systems, finding nothing out of the ordinary, launch would proceed as planned over the next 2 hours.

“Kittyhawk is Go for launch”

“Roger, everything’s ready here.”

“We read you Kittyhawk, Launch in T-30 Seconds. Those solid rockets will be rough so prepare for that, anything goes wrong and we’ll do our best to separate them and get you safely back here.”

“I’ll do my best up here to not lose any feathers”

The solid rocket boosters flare to life, engulfing the launchpad in a cloud of smoke as the rocket rides its fiery exhaust up past the launch tower and higher into the sky. All systems show a successful launch so far, tank pressure nominal on the first and second stages, with the solid rockets burning well.

“Kittyhawk, prepare for core stage ignition and booster separation”

The core stage ignites with a thunderous roar, propelling Kittyhawk further and further into the blackening skies, the boosters silently falling away behind it

“That core engine is a lot smoother, stage one seems to be working perfectly.”

“Great to hear, I’m sure that everyone over at Aerojet will be ecstatic.”

The core stage would shortly be shut off, allowing Kittyhawk to get a decent suborbital test before the Orbital launch later in the year, should all the missions perform well.
Kittyhawk would separate from the Titan III, now flying with her own wings high above the atmosphere. Though it was a simple suborbital flight, it would be the testing ground for spearhead’s systems, demonstrations of the spaceplane’s manoeuvrability would be conducted for roll, pitch and yaw, all working at near perfection. Just over 10 minutes after separation the time would come for atmospheric entry. Some concerns would be raised about a potential issue with the landing gear system providing an inlet for plasma to bleed inside the vehicle, but as this did not happen on the unmanned flight, it was hoped the vehicle would perform perfectly during reentry.
Communication would go silent, the blanket of plasma failing to permit any signal to leave, they would simply have to wait for the craft to slow, and hopefully hear the sound of Robert’s voice, or the persistent hum of Kittyhawk’s systems.
It had been 2 minutes since communication should have been regained, all the launch crew at Vandenberg had begun to fear the worst had happened, they had lost a crew member. There could have been imperfections in the heat shield that went undetected, or the aforementioned landing gear let plasma creep into the insides of the craft, destroying it from the inside out, or it could have tumbled through the atmosphere, exposing the more vulnerable skin of the vehicle to the - “Come in Vandenberg, this is Kittyhawk, do you read?”
Cheering erupted across mission control, Kittyhawk made it through the force of reentry, now safely gliding to the landing runway, fully intact. Kittyhawk’s first flight would fully complete all mission objectives set, and demonstrated the ability to land spaceplanes manually at specific locations, allowing for much more specified missions in the future

The moon would hang far beneath the falling Luna 7 craft, prepared to cast her robotic gaze upon the vast flats of Mare Vaporium. In the footsteps of those probes that came before her, retrorockets would begin to be fired to decelerate down to survivable speeds. After slowing down, at just 5 metres above the surface, the lander would jettison from the rest of the probe, shooting upwards before falling back down again and bouncing across the surface, coming to rest beside a large rock in a flat expanse of the lunar surface. Her stabilising petals deploying, keeping her upright, and as the first minutes on the moon passed, she snapped her first photo of the lunar surface, and sends it back to Earth.
Over 300,000 kilometres away from the steady transmissions of Luna 7 in eastern England was the Jodrell Bank Observatory, silently listening to the skies around the moon, hung high in the sky shining her faint light on the world below. In a strange turn of events, the Soviet Union had asked the observatory to listen in on Luna 7’s signals, an unexpected cooperation to receive the first images. And finally, after waiting for something, anything to come through, they got it. The first images from the surface of the moon. They revealed a desolate, high contrast wasteland scattered with debris fields, boulders and sharp edges left untouched for billions of years, no seas or winds or geology to wear down the points, to smooth the ground. In the photos, it was clear that this was no easy place to land. Though Luna did land in one of the lunar maria, the flattest areas on the moon, made by long since cooled oceans of lava, Luna had barely missed crashing into a boulder, clearly landing on the moon would be no easy task, even with the aid of human controlled, manual landings.

The following months would be dominated by American spaceflight, a second suborbital flight of spearhead would be conducted, And after months of travel Mariner 1 would arrive at Mars, Mariner 2 arriving just a short while later, with beautiful images of this blood red world, and the two rugged moons that circle it. Photos of Tsiolkovsky valley and Olympus Mons, this world that had looked long dead in previous images was shown to have features evidently carved by water over hundreds of thousands of years. It may not look like it in these images, but this was once a would flourishing with life

Once the 2 Mariner probes would send their last photos, triumphant in their quest, Vandenberg would be ready for another launch, this time using the Titan III’s full power to send Milton Orville Thompson to orbit, inside the newly refurbished Kittyhawk Spearhead. This would be the first crewed orbital flight of the Spearhead program, and the first ever flight of a craft that had previously been to space.
Launch would occur in the early evening, firing up into a polar orbit with all systems performing perfectly, with Northern Canada looming outside the wide canopy, falling off into the sunset with sparse lights dotting the night side of view. Performing a test of the in-orbit orientation control systems, Milton would pitch up Kittyhawk, giving a direct view of the horizon, a thin ribbon of blue, straddling the vast expanse of space, and hugging the fragile surface of the Earth, clouds decorating the vast oceans and landforms beneath like paintbrush strokes, elegantly dancing across the surface, glowing orange as they cross the darkness, occluding the bright signs of civilization below.
After almost 2 hours in blissful solitude above the earth, running advanced systems checks and observations of the passing terrains, sensors began to show that pressure for one of the orientation control tanks was dropping, forcing an early end to the planned 6 orbits of the mission. A brief deorbit burn was performed, and once atmospheric entry was successfully completed with no damage to the vehicle, Thompson would glide Kittyhawk all the way to the landing runway, and touchdown without a scratch. The perfect end to the first orbital Spearhead flight

Off in the soviet union, preparations were underway for the launch of Voskhod 1, the first of the new series of crewed spaceflights. The crew would consist of Vladimir Komarov, Konstantin Feoktistov and Vasili Lazarev. The Voskhod capsule was an upgraded Vostok, having 3 seats and a Backup retrorocket, as well as a rudimentary orbital manoeuvering system. This first flight would launch on November 7th, despite being rushed to meet this deadline, the launch up through orbital insertion would be concluded with no errors, Earth looming outside the small window like a pane of glass spattered with wisps of snow, falling off into the abyss of space, seemingly fighting against the expanses of air below for domination of the view.
This mission would contain no extraordinary goals, it is never good to overload the first mission of a program with great ambitions, but it would set the stage for the upcoming Voskhod 2 mission, in which it was planned that Alexei Leonov would inflate the “Volga” airlock, and undertake the first ever “extra-vehicular activity”, a spacewalk. Though that would not be for quite a few months, and if the first flight could not return home, the program would end then and there, with the planned Voskhod 3-5 being scrapped without a second thought, with Voskhod 2 being kept for propaganda and first value.
After a whole day in low earth orbit, it was time for the three brave crew to return home. As the atmosphere began to thicken, the reentry module would separate from the equipment module. Or, it should’ve. Whilst the upper atmosphere began to lick at the falling craft, a faint red glow building up along the leading side before shooting off behind it, a trail of plasma burning the sky. That glow would turn to orange, then to a bright white as Voskhod hits thicker and thicker air, this shape is unstable, rapidly Voskhod begins to tumble wildly through the atmosphere, antennae melting as they are exposed to these immense temperatures, until finally the joints between the two modules burn through, the equipment module promptly breaking apart mere seconds after falling away from the crew module. Due to this event, each flight ready module would undergo a much more thorough inspection before making its way to the launch vehicle.

 

[SingularityG3]

Torch Light

March 24, 1965
22:47 UTC, Southern Siberia

The skies would be clear above the snowy tundra of Siberia, sparse trees silhouetted against the backdrop of the milky way, spotlight being the lone source of light in these frozen wastes, shining their illuminating gaze upon an R-7 Semyorka, standing on a launch pad towering over the surrounding infrastructure

“Weather remains clear”

“Confirm, we are ready for launch at 2300”

“Yes, we are ready for launch at 2300”

The towering rocket would stand on the pad awaiting the signal for launch, the nations of the world clueless to the events set to unfold in under an hour, the United States was aware of the launch site’s existence, but an untimely gap in reconnaissance meant that the rocket went unnoticed.

22:59 UTC

“Launch in 10”

The countdown was on, moments remaining before the rocket would launch, and light up the night
5, 4, 3, 2, 1
Lift-off

 

[SingularityG3]

My god, this has taken so long to write, i am so sorry for the wait, everyone.
I do hope that the wait was worth it though, a lot of interesting firsts are about to happen!

Mesospheric Waltz
The day is November 22, 1963. During a motorcade through Dallas, the President of the United States was shot, John F. Kennedy was taken to Parkland Memorial Hospital, where he was officially pronounced dead. Lyndon B. Johnson, the Vice President, was inducted to become the next President. To memorialise JFK, Johnson renamed NASA’s Florida Launch Operations Centre to the “John F. Kennedy Space Centre”. The first launch from this newly re-named site is the inaugural launch of the Saturn series, a Saturn I. It carries no true payload, merely a boilerplate of the in-development Apollo CSM. Thanks to Vulcan II, US lift capability was already ahead of the soviets, but that was just about the only part they were ahead in, sure to be proven by the USSR’s next flight, Voskhod 2.

May 14, 1964
Voskhod 2 had been in the works for quite some time, during development some issues with the Volga airlock exploding during inflation had nearly caused the whole mission to be scrapped, but work pushed on, eventually the airlock had been completed, and capsule systems all seemed to function perfectly, the last thing to do was to launch. Launching in the afternoon on a rather clear day, Voskhod 2 reached orbit just a short while later, at which time the crew on board, Pavel Belyayev and Alexei Leonov would gear up for the main objective of their mission. Suits would be donned, and final preparations were underway. The Volga airlock would be commanded to expand, it slowly filled with air and extended out and away from the main module of Voskhod, and despite all the fears and stress felt by the ground crew, it had not ruptured, and Leonov was given the all clear to begin. Alexei would make his way into the airlock, before sealing off the door to the capsule, and preparing to make his way outside. In just a few moments, that door to the outside would open. Alexei pushed it open, took in the sights and began to slowly push himself out, a camera attached to the main module was recording his exit, along with a camera he himself was holding, and soon, the whole world would see that the soviets had yet again done what no other nation had done before. The first spacewalk. Alexei would not spend too long outside the capsule, there were worries that Alexei’s spacesuit may have expanded during the spacewalk, and it had, but not to a degree that would require any drastic actions. The Volga airlock’s door to space would close, and Alexei would safely return to the inside of the cabin. They would spend 2 more days in space before atmospheric entry was planned and started. After a stressful mission, Alexei Leonov and Pavel Belyayev had made it back to Earth safe and sound.

June 22, 1964
Luna 8 had been coasting for 3 days, after launching on the 19th from Baikonur and spending a short while in low earth orbit, it had propelled itself forwards to the moon. Its design was similar to her predecessors, some of them failed on the launchpad, and others lost contact just after reaching orbit, Luna 8 was the first one to finally survive past orbital insertion. Her goal was different from the previous Luna missions, while the first few planned to impact and land, 8 was going to orbit the moon, A feat almost achieved by the Americans 5 years earlier with their Pioneer X mission, and soon to be attempted again with the aptly named “Lunar Orbiter 1”. Luna 8 would finally light up her engines, violently shaking the feeble craft, and it would continue for over 2 minutes, slowing down more and more until finally, the goal was achieved. Luna 8 had entered orbit around the moon, becoming the first ever spacecraft to enter orbit around an object other than the Earth. For as long as 8 could survive, she would send back images taken of the lunar surface, revealing a world though desolate, still rich with beauty. Craters with dynamic ray systems and terraced walls, with complicated peaks at the centre, mountain ranges alone in the middle of the barren maria like islands, deep chasms and ravines filled with boulders and pockmarked with craters. Although the moon from Earth may look like a bland sphere hovering in the sky, up close its beauty is revealed, and when the time comes for human exploration, there will be no shortage of sights to behold.

July 4, 1964
At Vandenberg, a monster casts a long shadow across the landscape, it is sunrise, and the first true Spearhead is about to launch, Independence, fittingly, and intentionally, launching on the 4th of July. The engines ignite, their loud roar heard across the whole country, broadcast on radio and television, this metal contraption riding a trail of fire all the way up to space, the crew comprised of Lachlan Macleay, a new USAF Astronaut, and Robert White, quickly becoming used to spaceflight. Their mission had many goals, but the largest ones were to verify the function of Spearhead systems, and attempt to perform a spacewalk, trying to bring America back to level with the USSR’s space program. A good few days were spent in orbit, each day assessing the possibility of an EVA, but each time problems were found, whether it be unexpected suit readings or problems with the docking port opening, it just wasn’t meant to be. Despite trying to overcome all the issues, they just couldn’t get everything to cooperate enough to allow for the spacewalk to happen. But that was a secondary objective, tests of Independence’s systems revealed that everything was working incredibly well, heat sensors were performing as expected, engines could fire, their RCS systems worked perfectly to allow for complex manoeuvres, and cabin air had and was still holding steady. There was only 1 more thing to verify, the heat shield. Reentry would begin far south of Vandenberg AFB, giving a long range of landing options and time to fix any malfunctions that may occur. And as the sheet of plasma began to envelope the spaceplane’s base, the crew would feel a brief jolt, and find that their craft had began to roll, thankfully not in a way that would put any part of the craft in danger, but it would take impact on their trajectory, they had to use the RCS systems to correct their rotation or they could end up landing in Nevada or crashing into the Pacific coast. The roll was successfully corrected, and despite overwhelming fear felt in mission control, Independence was on track to land right at Vandenberg AFB, a perfect bullseye, and a fantastic end to a mission that had accomplished all but one of its goals.

August 18, 1964
Following behind the Soviet’s Luna 8 by just under 2 months, Lunar Orbiter 1 would launch from Kennedy Space Centre, however it would not be launched on an Atlas, but rather a Vulcan II. After the failure in August 1962, thousands of hours of work had been put into improving every feature of the rocket, and making it safer and more reliable, and after intense development, It was ready to fly again. Launching in the dead of night, The 2 F-1 Engines roared to life, producing an immense amount of thrust, allowing the rocket to ascend into sky, after a few minutes of firing fuel in the first stage was depleted. The stages would separate, the first stage gently drifting away, before the J-2 began to burn, the exhaust plume flooding into the first stage’s interstage, rupturing it with the pressure and force as the second stage accelerates faster and faster until it reached the targeted speed, sending it towards the moon. Lunar Orbiter 1 was built without an insertion engine, as the J-2 Would be conducting the orbital insertion burn, this was possible due to the high power of the engines combined with the light payload, weighing only 340kg, with the Vulcan II’s payload capacity to low lunar orbit being an immense 2000kg. Simple telemetry would begin to be transmitted back to earth, just to let mission control know that the spacecraft was operational.
August 22, 1964
The craft arrives at the moon, the J-2 Firing up once again to decelerate into an orbit of the moon. The planned orbit was an eccentric one, with a periastron of 150km and an apoastron of 1200km. Once orbit had been achieved, photo taking would begin and last for 2 weeks before sending the last image.
The images received showed the same beautiful world that Luna 8 had, but with one addition. An image of the Earth rising above the limb of the moon. A World, filled with life, vast swaths of blue covering the earth, with land rich with green grass and forests, clouds swirling around the planet in a form that not even the most delicate and skilled painter could replicate. This was our home, our only home. A fragile island in the vast, cold and perilous ocean of the universe.

September 5, 1964
In the weeks to follow, Few launches would happen, with the notable exception of SC-I2. The second flight of Spearhead Independence, pushing the boundaries of human spaceflight further and faster than ever before. To test the abilities of Spearhead, the choice had been made to launch into a High polar orbit with an apogee of around 1000km, made possible thanks to the lack of radiation from the Van Allen Belts near the poles. Launching on the 5th of September with a crew of James Wood and Russell Rogers. This mission would stay up for 5 days, mainly serving as a test for how long missions can last, how far the orbits can be pushed and also, as an observer. But before that, America would try once more to accomplish an EVA. Suit pressure read nominal, and the docking port was ok to open, James and Russell donned their blue and white suits, the cabin was safely depressurised, and James would open the airlock. The door had handles surrounding the outside of it, to grab hold of and tether suits to, James carefully secured his suit’s tether to one of the latches, and then lightly pushed himself up. He found himself gracefully floating up, as he exited the port the earth began to make itself visible, the swirling clouds casting their shadows above the ocean, a thin band of blue surrounding all of it, the atmosphere seeming fragile and delicate from such a high altitude. Out here the seconds gave way to minutes, just staring at the earth, but this was not just a sightseeing mission, James grabbed a small nitrogen gun attached to his belt, using it to propel himself, but he found it difficult to use, having to hold it near to his centre of mass or else the thrust would send him into a spin made it too inconvenient to use. After a total of 27 minutes outside, he would tug on his tether to move back towards Independence, unhooking his tether and gently planting his feet back on the cabin floor. The airlock door was closed, and the cabin repressurised. America’s first EVA had been successfully completed, and now it was time for a new part of the mission to begin, observing the launch of Surveyor 1
September 9, 1964
America’s first attempt at a moon landing, Surveyor 1, would be launched at a time that the crew of SC-I2 would be able to view it as it was taking off. A Lone light in the dark night, rising and tilting as it goes. It would successfully reach orbit, and go on to complete its TLI Burn, seen by SC-I2 on the limb of the earth, a faint light that went out just as fast as it lit up.
September 10, 1964
The time came, and SC-I2 would begin reentry procedures, every precaution is taken to avoid the near-disaster of SC-I1, and thankfully reentry is performed perfectly, landing at Vandenberg AFB with not a single point of damage
September 12, 1964
Surveyor 1 had reached the moon, however instead of decelerating into orbit, and then landing, it was on a direct impact trajectory, having to slow down entirely by itself down to the surface. Its solid motors would ignite, doing their best to slow the feeble craft down to land, however, one of the solid motor’s casings was structurally weakened, due to improper testing it was believed that the casings used could survive the temperature swings experienced in space, and this was true for most of them, but this one failed to be thoroughly tested to reveal the defect, causing the motor to explode shortly after beginning to fire. The lander did have manoeuvring capabilities, though minimal, allowing it to maintain stability, but it could not make up for the thrust lost from the destroyed engine. Surveyor 1 would ultimately be a lunar impactor mission.

October 24, 1964
The Soviet Union knew that the United States was catching up, already having surpassed their lift capability, so they had decided to accomplish a milestone that intel suggested, the US had not begun to work on. A modified Voskhod capsule was prepared, with a basic RCS system on it, and 2 small solid motors on either side, along with at the top, a simple tether system. The Voskhod rocket upper stage was modified too, getting the same solid rocket motors, and an attachment hook on the top. The Soviet Union would attempt artificial gravity. By attaching the Voskhod with a tether to the upper stage, and activating the solid motors, the plan was to generate at least 0.05G, with calculations suggesting that up to 0.15G was possible, though at the risk of using up the precious RCS fuel, this would provide valuable information on how the human body reacts in low gravity environments, including ones similar to the moon, and though daring, was feasible, and the Soviets would try their hardest to pull it off.
The crew consisted of Boris Yegorov and Dmitri Zaikin, Boris was originally planned to go up on Voskhod 1, but his flight was pushed back due to a minor health concern. Shortly after orbit was reached, Voskhod 3 and the Voskhod Upper Stage would separate, before Voskhod 3 slowly swivelled around to face the stage, Dmitri would control the RCS, lightly propelling the spacecraft towards its target, before connecting with the hook, releasing the tether and slowly pushing backwards, after a few minutes of drifting a light jolt would be felt by the crew, signifying that the tether had fully extended, and the solid rocket motors could ignite.

“Beginning Rotation”

The solid motors would flare to life as commanded, both Voskhod and the Upper Stage’s engines activate and spin the two around, keeping the tether taut and connected, they continue to fire for a few seconds before sputtering out. But still, the rotation persisted, they had achieved artificial gravity. Tests began to find the force they had achieved, letting go of specifically measured objects and seeing how long they took to fall led them to find they had reached approximately 0.072g, approaching half that of the Moon’s gravity. The spin would be allowed to continue for 2 days, during which time Boris and Dmitiri tested various activities in low gravity, before getting ready for reentry. The motors on the other sides of the two craft would fire up to slow the spin, the tether would be jettisoned and Voskhod’s retrorockets would fire, bringing it down to a suborbital trajectory, safely being recovered and bringing an end to a successful mission.

November 5, 1964
A Mars Transfer Window has opened up, and both the USSR and USA will be taking advantage of it, the Soviet Union has planned Mars 3, with a mission plan some may describe as over-ambitious, they plan to first enter orbit around Mars, and then drop a descent probe to land on its surface. All would be well during launch, and Trans-Mars Injection was performed without a flaw, sending it on its way to reach the Red planet a year from now.
November 9, 1964
The US had Mariner III in store, planned as just a relatively simple flyby mission, it did have 2 extra parts in store. For one it had a small atmospheric entry probe on it, not designed to survive to landing, but hopefully surviving long enough to send back details on the atmosphere. The second part was that it technically had a second target, Phobos, Mars’ largest moon. Mariner III would perform a close flyby of Phobos, during which it would take spectra readings and take a multitude of images, much like Mars 3 its launch went off without a hitch using the improved Vulcan II, and it was on a trajectory to reach Mars just a few days before the soviet’s mission.

December 13, 1964
The USAF would attempt a daring feat with their Spearhead launchers, with 2 being launched just 1 day apart, this would be the 3rd launch of Independence and the 1st launch of Constitution, Constitution launching first, it was thought more important to launch the never before used Spearhead first in the event of any malfunctions, they could be adapted to by Independence, but thankfully the launch went perfectly, placing Constitution firmly in a circular 350km orbit. Independence would launch the next day, nearly matching Constitution’s orbit, but placed a bit lower to catch up, eventually they would be within viewing distance of each other, a short conversation ensuing talking about systems and “that new spacecraft smell” before they would be given the all clear for docking. Constitution would be given the task of docking with Independence, slowly inching closer to each other, letting out little puffs of RCS to keep the docking ports lined up, until finally, the two craft docked together, and after a few minutes of confirming that the ports were sealed, the doors would open. The first ever crew transfer would take place, Independence’s crew switching to Constitution, and Constitution’s crew switching to Independence. They would remain docked together for just over a day, during which time the new crew of Constitution did confirm “that new spacecraft smell” and suggested to mission control bringing up an air freshener for the next mission. The two craft would separate, before Independence would land first, Constitution spending another day in orbit to allow for the runway to be readied for them. Both craft would safely land, and be refurbished for the next flight, to a new location to be ready in just a few months.

January 9, 1965
a Vulcan II Towers over the launchpad at Vandenberg, its extended fairing massively increasing the size of the vehicle, A short while after noon it would launch, lumbering up instead of its usual shoot off the pad, this was no ordinary payload it was carrying, but a station. The Fletcher station had been in the works since the first funding in 1961, with construction beginning in Early 1963. It had a cream colour on the outside, with USAF written on the side with a deep blue. The station was 4 metres wide and 16 metres long, with one docking port at the base, and an airlock at the top. The inside was furnished rather lightly, it was divided into 4 sections, each 4 metres tall. The first was a storage room, at launch it would be mostly empty except for food storage, room 2 was for the crew, having 2 beds and personal storage containers. Room 3 was for operations, controlling the cameras, talking to base and general system telemetry. The final room was dedicated to the airlock and spacesuits. Mounted to the sides of the station were solar panels, to provide power for the station, along with a main and backup communications dish, as well as mobility rungs for ease of movement during spacewalks.
The station would be successfully put into a polar orbit, yet again proving the reliability of the Vulcan II, and the abilities of the United State’s space program. The first visit to the station scheduled for March, 1965

 

[SingularityG3]

oh my god

By the Rocket's Red Glare


January 19, 1965
This day was a long time in the making, multiple defects found and corrected, test flights and plans going awry and strides being made in design and recovery, the first crewed flight of Gemini was mere moments away, Alan Shepard, the first American in space, placed in the Command pilot seat, with John Young accompanying him. Launching from America’s premier spaceport on the Floridian coast in the cold morning of January 19th, Though the first crewed flight was originally planned for Gemini III, The timeline was accelerated, though risky, to fastrack work on orbital manoeuvring skills for the upcoming Apollo program, the USSR’s secretive space programs made it unknown just how far and fast they were advancing, making it critical to stay ahead in any way the US could. Gemini II would launch perfectly, being placed in an orbit barely deviating from the plans, which once in orbit would be changed, using the onboard Orbital Attitude and Manoeuvring System, which would prove to be difficult to get the hang of, but can be used eloquently when the right training is received. The first day of the flight would draw to a close, the remaining 2 days merely testing out the systems, performing small orbital changes and preparing for reentry. The design of Gemini was masterful, taking advantage of atmospheric reentry effects to generate lift, allowing for better precision when it comes to a landing zone, which during reentry would prove to work incredibly well, landing just 56 miles away from the centre of the recovery zone. A fantastic opening to the Gemini program

February 19, 1965
The Soviets remained ahead however, launching their victory lap Voskhod 4 on February 19th with sole crew member Viktor Gorbatko being tasked with once again generating artificial gravity for 1 day, the next 3 of the mission consisting of microgravity effect studying, preparing for potential lunar missions in the years to come, requiring days in microgravity, however during the Tethered Spin-Up, the booster’s solid motor failed to provide the expected thrust, leading to a decreased force felt, a disappointment to both the ground crew and Viktor, but it remained enough to perform experiments, and once spin-down was completed, the reconnaissance phase would prove to not be as useful as hoped, but it did reveal something unexpected by the Soviets. See, the United states publicises most of its launches, even the reconnaissance program was publicised, though under an alternate name, but here blatantly exposed on the launchpad of Vandenberg AFB, A Spearhead launcher! The next publicised Spearhead mission was not until June, so what could this be? The mission came to a close, and as soon as reentry was completed the images taken would be sent and shown to Soviet officials, originally unconcerned, but more strange things would crop up. Lower resolution imagery from January revealed something peculiar, another rocket on the pad. A large fairing, reminiscent of their pre-existing Vulcan II rockets. All these things together lead to a startling realisation. They were losing ground in the race. The United States had launched a space station, and it was shockingly close to being crewed. And at the worst time.

March 2, 1965
Just 1 week after Voskhod 4 landed, Spearhead would rise again, a launch meant to be secretive, but that the Soviets were aware of, watching it the whole time. This would be crewed with two new USAF Astronauts, Lachlan Macleay and Richard Lawyer. The SRBs would break violently away from the core stage, their rumble and engine plume illuminating the inside of the cabin, more so than the morning sun was. The core stage would burn out shortly after too, stage 2 igniting and blasting apart the already distant interstage. The atmosphere mostly out of the way, the aggressive jostling turned to a smooth ride. Orbit would be reached, and the time was approaching for rendezvous with Fletcher, at first too far to be seen, but the perfectly timed

launch was bringing them closer and closer. First, a dimly glowing speck in the sky, indistinguishable from any normal star would it not be for the slight movement observable, brightening to a luminosity similar to Venus in the evening sky, before Fletcher’s form began to take shape, a long rod ominously straddling the depths of space and the comforting blue of Earth’s oceans and atmosphere, the solar panels protruding from the side revealing the real form of this, the first true outpost in space. Constitution would dock to the station, and once everything was ready, the door was opened. Lachlan would be the first in, floating up through the storage room, all the storage containers in there empty at the moment, then pushing up into the crew room, Lachlan would get settled, Richard following shortly after. The rest of the day would be spent getting used to the new environment, verifying the onboard systems, and activating the reconnaissance cameras, and once the atmosphere was verified as safe, their suits would be placed in the airlock room. Once all that was completed, they would both get their first sleep in Fletcher station, one of many to come.
Days would be spent getting exercise, performing spacewalks and doing reconnaissance on the territory of the USSR, uncovering nothing not already known, except for a strange pinprick of light in Siberia, seemingly an outpost of some sort? But besides that one strange observation, nothing much would be found. During this however, the Relay system was brought online, allowing for more frequent communication utilising satellites relaying both Fletcher and Vandenberg Control’s transmissions.

March 23, 1965
The USAF would also quite generously allow Gemini III to use the Relay system. America’s newest human spaceflight program was proceeding at breakneck speeds, the task for this one being to perform a spacewalk, and a rendezvous with a previously launched “Agena Target Vehicle”. Though both spacewalks and dockings had been performed by Spearhead, Gemini, and the soon-to-be Apollo would function in exceedingly different ways, making it necessary to perform these feats yet again. The crew for Gemini III would be Ed White and James McDivitt, executing the launch well, after an initial issue with the engine almost led to aborting the launch, but thankfully the rocket had not yet left the pad, meaning all that had to happen was a scrub of a few days to make sure everything was working fine. Once that was all sorted out, their time in orbit began, and Ed White would prepare for the first EVA of the Gemini program. The cabin was depressurised, and the doors were opened. Ed carefully pushed off the seat, floating gently out of the capsule, and gazing towards the Earth. The EVA would last 28 minutes in total, before going back into the capsule just before the sun would pass behind the Earth. Ed would be permitted to sleep once the doors were closed and atmosphere restored, McDivitt staying awake a few more hours, taking their turns in this staggered sleep schedule. The next day their task would be relatively simple, rendezvous and dock with the Agena Target Vehicle.

Vietnam - March 24, 1965
The once lush jungles of Vietnam had been choked in smoke and flame for years, the war having lasted longer than most had hoped. Planes used to fly above the ground, bombing villages and infantry, but recently those flights decreased in frequency with ground troops moving in, fighting back on land, trying to keep North vietnam from expanding all the way down. There were cries in America to stop the war, to finally end it, but the threat of communist expansion was too high to ignore, so it raged on. Now it is the dead of night, the sparse clouds silhouetting the night sky, cloaking what was thought to be impossible. At 11pm UTC, the Soviet Union launched an R7-Semyorka carrying a small nuclear warhead. It drifted high above the earth for a short while, before nearing the location. They had not planned to send a nuclear weapon directly to the ground, that would be far too destructive, and almost certainly result in retaliation, and an airburst would cause even more devastation! No, they had decided to detonate this weapon in space, 360 km above Vietnam, high enough to be visible for over 2000 km. In an instant the Vietnamese sky was lit up with a brilliant white, rapidly giving way to an expanding disk of light green fading to magenta, seemingly alien tendrils reaching out from this otherworldly light, the disk shortly faded to a deep crimson, as more patches of red began to appear across the sky, artificial aurorae. Electronics across a large swath of Vietnam and the neighbouring ocean were shut off, the explosion having released an EMP. This detonation was meant as a show of force, a threat, and it was seen as one.

Fletcher, Above the Central Pacific - March 24, 1965 - 11:43 pm UTC

R “Hey Lachlan, I’m having a bit of trouble with comms, mind taking a look?”

Lachlan is currently outside performing a spacewalk to inspect for any damage on the exterior hull of Constitution and Fletcher

L “Sure, what seems to be the issue?”

Lachlan begins making his way around the station, grabbing hold of one handle, then the next

R “Both communication systems don’t seem to be working, Direct is spotty at best, and Relay is completely offline, I’m thinking there might’ve been a debris strike to the dish.”

As Lachlan comes around to the other side of the station, something as beautiful as it is horrifying can be seen, a dim red glow creeping up over the horizon, the emissions from the nuclear detonation. Richard, inside the station, doesn’t notice anything out of the ordinary at first, until certain systems begin reporting obviously incorrect readings. “Pressure at 12 atmospheres” “Temperature at 131 F”, causing slight confusion, until he turns to look at the panel next to the window, and sees the very same glow

R “Hey, Lachlan, do you have any idea what the hell that thing is?”

L “Looks to me like some sort of aurora, we’re over the Pacific, right?”

R “Yeah, we’re floating over Hawaii in a few minutes”

Lachlan reaches the dish, finding it in its scanning mode, panning left and right, up and down trying to find a connection to be made with a relay satellite or a ground station.

C “Fle- ch- this i- he- S- Constell- tio- can ou- hear us? Fletcher, this is the USS Constellation, can you hear us?”

R “We hear you, Constellation. This is Richard Lawyer on Constitution”

C “Good to hear you’re all ok up there, we understand that Macleay is currently on a spacewalk, we need you to get him back inside right away.”

R “I’ll patch him into this conversation, what’s the hurry?”

L “What’s going on?”

C “The Soviet Union detonated a nuclear explosive in space above Vietnam, that explosion has caused a temporary radiation belt to form, we’ve already lost one of our satellites. You’re going to have to evacuate the station, make your way to Constitution as fast as you can, then undock and wait for further instructions.”

R “Jesus christ, Ok. I’ll go to Constitution now, Lachlan, you need to get in here as fast as you can, don’t bother taking off your spacesuit in the airlock.”

L “Got it.”

Lachlan quickly makes his way around the station, narrowly missing the solar panels, before reaching the apex of the station, opening the airlock door and getting in

C “Constitution is good radiation protection, but as the belt grows you’ll be receiving more and more radiation. In just under an hour you’ll have to perform a deorbit burn, that’ll take you down for landing”

R “What do you mean landing? We’re too far away from Vandenberg to land!”

C “You’re going to have to land at Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii. You’re already cleared for landing there, the runway is around 2500 feet shorter, but we’re sure you’ll be able to land there safely. Onboard there is a manual of emergency landing procedures, further details should be in there. Good luck, Constitution.”

Time seems to pass slower, the stress of knowing every second up here is more and more radiation experienced, frantic flipping through the emergency landing procedures. What other scenario would these ever have to be used? Such an event would’ve been seen as so unlikely nobody would give it a second thought, but someone had. The time had finally come to commence the deorbit burn, the engines flared to life, pushing the two USAF Astronauts into their seats, and just as soon as it had begun, it sputtered out, the burn complete. Now all they had to do was land the damn thing.
Constitution began to hit the atmosphere, thin wisps of plasma streaming along the underbelly of the craft, trailing along the wings, reentry had been done many times before, but that can never remove the stress felt. What if the hasty undocking from Fletcher had caused damage to the hull, or what if the heat shield was improperly taken care of during refurbishment from the first mission? Ultimately reentry would be flawless, Lachlan took control of the ship and began to bleed off speed before reaching Hickam AFB. If they could not land safely, or if they overshot the runway, they could careen into the ocean, or into a building. It was a risky landing. Finally, enough speed had been bled off to begin the final approach, landing gear was extended, and the runway was clear. Constitution descended, pointed ever so slightly upwards to expose more surface to the oncoming air, with the hope to cause more drag, and to ensure the hind landing gear was the first to make contact with the runway. It was incredibly dim, the sun still below the horizon, although close enough to illuminate with a dim orange glow. Constitution would touchdown, a screech being heard as the hind wheels touched the runway, the whole craft tilting downwards, front wheels making contact, flaps fully extended. All they could do now was hope they didn’t overshoot the runway.
Constitution had successfully landed, in one of the most daring missions yet. She would remain in Hickam for a few days in a hangar, Lachlan and Richard being flown back to the mainland. Further days had passed and the USS Constellation, the very ship that had alerted, and saved the crew of Constitution, came to pick up the spaceplane, loaded on with a crane and over the next few weeks, to be brought back to Vandenberg.

Gemini III Would reenter shortly after, landing safely just tens of miles east of Florida. But Fearing the worst, the US Military goes to DEFCON 2, though there were no intentions of further detonations by the Soviets, the US, and the world, remained mortified by the events that had taken place. Calls to withdraw troops rang out in every city, and even some high ranking government officials called to bring the troops home. These would be met with ignorance for the better part of a week, before the decision was officially made to withdraw troops from South Vietnam, though to make sure that nothing like this would ever happen again, drastic measures were to be taken. The Pilot program, having fallen off in recent times, was revived. Anti-satellite weapons became relevant once again, with smaller, more efficient and more reliable designs having to be created, if another space weapon is launched from the USSR then there wouldn’t be enough time to get an X-15 or other plane ready for launch, these weapons had to be small enough to fit on ships to be deployed in the Pacific ocean, ready to retaliate at a moments notice. Concepts were even made for orbital weapons platforms, though met with criticism at first, military officials would begin to consider it as a viable option, because if anything like this were to happen again, it could be a lot more disastrous, and what better way to show you’re serious than placing a few nuclear warheads in orbit.

 

[SingularityG3]

Afterglow​

June 3, 1965
The return to crewed spaceflight took months, the radiation belt was proving to last longer than anticipated, and had delayed missions by months. The first mission post-detonation was the Gemini IV mission, crewed with Gus Grissom and Charles Conrad. The cabin atmosphere was not only high oxygen content, but filled with tension and stress. Space had been devoid of life for billions of years, and only in the past few years had we begun to take the first steps into the vast cosmic ocean, and for just a few months more, it would be empty, and despite this, it still felt eerie returning, the radiation belt was still present, but at a low enough amount to be safe for human spaceflight once again. This mission would include another EVA, as well as fuel cells for longer stays in orbit, this mission specifically planning a full week in orbit, however, in an attempt to accelerate the program, a rendezvous would yet again be attempted. A week prior, an Agena Target Vehicle was launched, a small, uncrewed docking target for Gemini, featuring an engine on one side and a cone for docking on the other, as well as a large antenna. Gemini IV was originally to launch just 1 day after the ATV, but ground stations were having trouble sending signals to the ATV, causing the delay. It would thankfully launch, making the journey up to Low Earth Orbit, where over the course of a few hours, the crew would slowly manoeuvre their way close to the Agena Target Vehicle, until it began to show itself, first a small dot far away on the horizon, then growing to a line, and soon a fully formed cylinder looming not too far. Gemini would slowly decrease its speed, coming to, what was essentially a stop, to make sure everything was ready for docking. After almost 30 minutes of waiting, they were given the go ahead, and began to ever so slightly move towards the ATV, coming to a stop in just under 2 minutes, as the two craft came into contact with each other, Gus calling out “Agena Contact!”. Gemini was confirmed to be able to both perform advanced orbital changes, and precise dockings with other craft, an incredible win for the upcoming Apollo program. They would remain docked for 4 days, at the end, Gus Grissom would perform a spacewalk towards the ATV, retrieving a small micrometeorite detector to analyse the results, and when Gus was back inside, Gemini’s doors would close, and they would undock from the Agena Target Vehicle, flying free for another 3 days before deorbiting, splashing down north of the Bahamas, bringing a successful end to an incredible mission

June 5, 1965
But the mission that followed, would be less of an achievement, and more of an autopsy. F-E3, or SC-C3, was to visit Fletcher station, communication had impossible with Fletcher since the detonation, only brief signals being sent from Fletcher every 3 hours, controlled by a radiation-proofed system, so the job of Robert White and Francis Neubeck was to rendezvous and dock with Fletcher, and inspect the damages, if the station could be saved then they would remain for 1 month, but if not, they would be flying alone for just 3 days. It took longer than expected to arrive at Fletcher, its orbital position was relatively unknown, the occasional signal begin hard to pinpoint exactly, resulting in a margin of error for location of almost 5 miles, but once it was located by SC-C3, they made their way closer and closer, and found something that drastically changed the tone of the mission. The rendezvous lights were on at the docking port, but during the flyaround inspection, it was found that the airlock door had opened. The door WAS closed by Lachlan Macleay during the crisis, the sound of it closing could be heard with a brief thump as the sound travelled through the walls into the pressurised sections, yet here it was open. A brief fear of a potential Soviet visit was considered, but quickly put to rest once it was confirmed there were no launches from the USSR since the incident, it was most likely open due to an electrical fault. A massive relief, but that quickly faded into dread. The doors to the other segments of Fletcher were all left open, no time to close them as the crew of the previous expedition left, are they still open? Fletcher had a basic automated depressurisation avoidance system, the doors to the segments would all close, but the pressure sensors were damaged from the radiation as experienced by Richard Lawyer. To confirm their suspicions, Francis would stationkeep Spearhead nearby the airlock, while Robert donned the new Astronaut Manoeuvring Unit on the back of his suit, and holstered the backup Nitrogen Gun, opening Constitution’s airlock and going over the airlock, he looked in and saw what they had both feared, The doors had failed to close. Dim red emergency lights lit up the interior, small particles clung to the walls and crew supplies had exploded due to the pressure change, small ice particles suspended around the station and packets of food loose in the storage area. There was no chance of recovery for Fletcher. Robert slowly made his way back to Constitution, but not before closing Fletcher’s airlock. Constitution would remain in orbit for just another single day, before reentering the atmosphere and landing at Vandenberg. The hopes of the USAF were not high, and they scrambled for any change for saving Fletcher, though none were found.

July 6, 1965
The USSR, unsurprisingly weary of the radiation belt they had created, hesitated more than the Americans to return to spaceflight, but the Soviet officials were getting antsy, worried that the USA may be getting a lead, decided to proceed with their next launch, an incredibly unique one. Voskhod 2, sent Alexei Leonov on a spacewalk, but none of the other Voskhods had, until now that is. Voskhod 5 would see the first female cosmonaut perform a spacewalk, Irina Solovyova, while the other cosmonaut, Valentina Ponomaryova, would remain in the capsule until the spacewalk was completed. The mission launched in the middle of the day into a classic low earth orbit, and remained there for just over 32 hours, at which point the Volga was inflated, and Irina would make her way into it. Their spacesuits were checked for a few minutes, and once internal atmospheres were confirmed stable, the airlock opened. The hole at the end was a deep black, the darkest colour one could see, the pure absence of any light at all. Irina would then lightly push against the walls, sending her gently floating out of the airlock, into the vast expanses waiting outside. She would spend a total of 26 minutes outside before reentering the airlock, becoming the first woman to ever perform a spacewalk. The remainder of the mission would consist of further microgravity experiments, as well as testing long-duration spaceflight for women, spending a whole 10 days up in orbit, once their time was over they fired the retrorockets and- nothing happened. The main retrorockets failed to fire, quickly followed by a violent silence as the lights blinked off and on, then a brief clunk. Clearly the retrorockets would not fire, the backup retrorockets were activated and after a second that seemed to stretch an hour, they ignited. Voskhod was quickly decelerated, faster than was planned, in fact. An acceleration of 0.2G was expected, but instead they seemed to be experiencing 0.37G, Not a big difference in the grand scheme of things, but when you’ve been training for such a long time, you can tell something is wrong. The activation of the main retrorockets caused a brief power surge which separated the main retrorocket section. This decreased the mass of the craft, and caused a greater change in velocity than anticipated, giving Voskhod 5 a new landing site, Mongolia.
Mongolia became truly independent just 4 years prior, thanks to the USSR, and as such they helped handle the situation and even aided in recovery efforts, turning what might have been a disaster into a temporary inconvenience.

August 3, 1965
It was clear that the Soviet Union was intent on continuing their own spaceflight program through the increased radiation, and as such the only thing that the United States could do was power through it. NASA would launch their next two missions in quick succession, an in-orbit rendezvous. Gemini V would launch on the 3rd of August, crewed with Frank Borman and Jim Lovell while Gemini VI launched 4 days later, on the 7th of August, and was crewed with Eugene Cernan and John Young. Both missions had successful launches, with Gemini VI reporting that the liftoff was smoother than they trained for. Just under 2 hours after launch, VI performed their first manoeuvre, bringing them to within 1km of Gemini V, this distance would be cut down to just 50m with further manoeuvres and orbital adjustments, bringing the two of them close enough to see the full defined shape of the other. Before launch, it was considered to perform an EVA to switch pilots mid-flight, but this never went ahead as the necessary EVA suit would be too uncomfortable to wear for Gemini V’s planned 2 week flight. But Gemini VI was just a 2 day flight, permitting use of the bulkier suit. John Young opened the doors of Gemini and, tethered to VI, slowly drifted over to Gemini V where he spent around 4 minutes floating around the craft, inspecting the sides and waving to Borman and Lovell inside, before drifting back to and entering Gemini VI. They would proceed to deorbit the next day, landing near the coast of Florida for quick recovery once landed, Gemini V landing on the 17th of August. Their flight rate was increasing and the Apollo program was closer every passing day

August 12, 1965
To prepare for this, another Lunar Orbiter was launched. Unlike the last one, taking advantage of Vulcan II’s ability to bring payloads directly to a lunar orbit, This time the spacecraft would use the whole 5,000kg of TLI to its advantage, featuring large solar arrays that would deploy after launch, a directional and omnidirectional antenna, a simple radar system to see the albedo

of certain parts of the surface, multiple camera systems taking images in visible light in resolutions of 60m, 20m and 2m, as well as a star tracker and micrometeorite detector. Along with all of this it would also contain its own confined orbital insertion and manoeuvring system powered by 4 R-4D, Fueled by N204 and MMH, though the outer three were intended to be the only active ones, the central engine used as a backup in case any of the outer three were to fail and begin to send the craft into a spin, as well as being the only engine to have gimbal capability. It would launch on the 12th of August, during the Gemini V mission, and was observed briefly by the crew before it performed its TLI burn. It then spent 4 days coasting towards the moon, and ignited her engines before reaching perilune, providing an acceleration of 0.4m/s/s, and lunar orbit was achieved, beginning the 3 month long mission to map the moon. But not too long after orbital insertion, something interesting began to appear in the data, spikes of reflectance near the lunar south pole. Nobody was quite sure what these were, the resolution of the albedo mapping was 100m, leading to a large discrepancy in what could be reflecting, but given the location and some basic modelling of the region, it began to be suspected that the lunar south pole may harbour water ice frozen in the bottom of craters that never see the sun rise, a massive discovery that could influence exploration of the moon and facilitate development of a lunar base

October 16, 1965
Continuing their victory lap, NASA would launch Gemini VII on the 16th of August, crewed with Neil Armstrong and Michael Collins, they would attempt to rendezvous and dock with the Agena Target Vehicle, and use its engine to boost them into a higher orbit, up to a targeted apogee of 1000km, at which point Neil would perform the highest EVA yet performed, and they would perform some experiments on high altitude micrometeorite and particle concentration. Launch was just after sunrise, sending them up into an orbit similar, but lower, to the ATV, with which rendezvous was completed with just 3 hours later, docking just another 10 minutes later. Once everything was in order in the capsule, Agena’s engine would fire and push Armstrong and Collins back into their seats, accelerating them faster and faster, ultimately achieving an orbit of 292x1125km, the EVA would be mostly successful, except for a minor issue with the suit being more rigid than expected, but the experiments were performed and Neil was able to return into the spacecraft unharmed, deorbit burn conducted on the 26th of August, landing safely in the Atlantic ocean

November 4, 1965
Turning our gaze towards Mars, Mariner 3 and Mars 3 are fast approaching the Red Planet, photographing the expansive Tsiolkovsky Valley and the massive Olympus Mons, as well as taking observations of Argyre Planitia and Hellas Basin, Mariner 3 would dispatch the atmospheric entry probe, which would burn up shortly after transmitting the basic information of Mars’ atmosphere, finding it as being mostly Carbon Dioxide, with decent amounts of Nitrogen and Argon, smaller levels of Oxygen, Carbon Monoxide and even smaller amounts of Water vapour. Mariner 3 would continue to fly on, but not before taking detailed observations of Phobos, finding the massive Stickney crater and multitudes of ridges and craters on this dynamic body, whilst Mars 3 was about to attempt an incredible feat, it would attempt to land upon the surface of Mars. Its target is Utopia Planitia, though it would never make it to the surface, the retrorockets being fired erroneously before atmospheric entry even began, leading to an uncontrolled crash landing on the surface at speeds too high for the craft to survive. But they would not give up, Next window, 1967, they plan to launch 2 landers at once, Double the chances, and if all goes well, double the science.

November 10, 1965
Just after sunset in the United States, the Moon in the sky was full and bright, and just 80 kilometres above the Moon’s surface was Surveyor 2, hurtling towards the ground at 2.5km/s, seconds away from performing its daring, spectacular landing. At 75 km her retrorockets ignited, slowing the craft down at incredible speeds, pulling a maximum of 7 G-Forces on its way down, The mass of the craft reducing from almost 1.5t to just 350kg. Unlike the failed Surveyor 1, Surveyor 2 had a surface sampling arm, as well as batteries to keep the craft from dying while its solar panels were disabled during the long lunar nights. The craft was now just 11km above the surface, falling at a much more acceptable 100m/s, the now empty solid rocket motor was jettisoned, left to crash somewhere nearby, along with the radar, the remainder of the trip was spent decelerating using small vernier engines mounted on the 3 legs extending out from the central probe block. This continued until the craft, sensing it was just 3m above the surface with a smaller radar, shut off the verniers and fell gently to the surface, coming to a soft stop just a few seconds later. Finally, the US had landed a probe on the surface of the Moon. It would be left silent for just under an hour to make sure all systems were intact and ready, and once it was confirmed, the sampling arm would extend out to scoop up a small part of the lunar soil and analyse it, detailing its chemical composition and other interesting properties of the regolith, one of which showed that the dust was more magnetic than first thought, and clung to certain parts of the craft!

November 18, 1965
The USSR did not like the fast progress that the United States was making, having beaten them to a space station far sooner than ever expected, so to compensate the USSR’s space program was accelerated tenfold, Soyuz capsules, the next generation craft after Voskhod, began to be constructed, work on the rocket they hoped would bring them to the moon, the N1, was accelerated as fast as it could be, and Cosmonaut medical examination time was cut down to just 10 days to the dismay of the planners, Voskhod 6 would test a quickly put together Spacewalk system known as the UPMK, essentially a large belt with pressurised nitrogen tanks to be ever so slightly vented for spacewalk manoeuvring. It would launch the 18th of November, into a highly inclined orbit, crewed with Anatoli Voronov and Aleksandr Matinchenko, spending just 2 hours in orbit before being commanded to open the Volga airlock and begin the spacewalk. He would spend over 80 minutes outside, testing the UPMK and taking photographs of the earth and Voskhod capsule, eventually orbital nightfall drew near, and Anatoli was told to return to the capsule, he hesitated for a short while, but he ultimately returned before sunset, the rest of the mission was spent performing medical experiments and photographing the Earth through the window. The mission would come to an end on the 24th of November, supplies running low they had no choice but to land, doing so perfectly. The retrorockets fired correctly, and reentry was as smooth as it could be, a fantastic end to the last Voskhod flight of the year, and the 2nd last ever, Voskhod 7 planned for April 1966, with Soyuz being introduced the very same year.

December 1, 1965
The proof from F-E3 Was undeniable, Fletcher was too far gone. Electrical systems fried, barely enough power to keep life support and communications on at the same time, and many crucial observation tools completely dead. So the USAF made the tough decision to let Fletcher deorbit. She would have one last visitor, a small Centaur stage, with a rendezvous and docking system attached to the top of it. But this Centaur was a unique one, originally planned for a special mission to boost a meet with a crewed Gemini craft in orbit and boost it around the moon. But this was canned as the extra testing needed to certify Gemini’s heat shield for lunar reentry speeds were seen as unnecessary, especially with Apollo not too far away, so the centaur was held back, until being chosen for this mission. Centaur would dock with Fletcher, and slowly rotate the large station around until it was pointing opposite to its orbital direction, at which point the engines began to fire. Fletcher began to slow down, and after just a minute of the engine firing, Fletcher would be shut down for the last time. An hour later, the thin atmosphere began to pull at the crafts, Fletcher’s solar panels being violently torn off, paint flaking off of the two crafts and the hull beginning to warp. The bond between Centaur and Fletcher melted away, the two craft hurtling towards the south pacific, beginning to completely melt and shatter. A small hole formed in Fletcher, allowing the plasma to flow inside, everything burnt and vaporised in under a second, more and more plasma flowing in with such force that it burst out both the airlock and loosening the welds of Fletcher’s walls enough that it broke apart, panels flying loose and metal framing warping while the Centaur was mangled beyond recognition, the engine having already broken off. The two slowed down to subsonic speeds, and at last their end had come, they both impacted the ocean, the waves swallowing them whole. Fletcher was laid to rest at the bottom of the ocean, leaving Constitution grounded until some new targets can be made, docking-compatible Keyhole satellites already preparing for launch, but something else was being prepared too. A flight-model of Fletcher was produced before Fletcher was launched, and it was never disassembled, in fact, it's so completed that it just needs to be fitted with the right equipment to be space-worthy, though Fletcher is gone, its name is not, and it will soon be followed, with Fletcher II

 

[SingularityG3]

I'm sorry for taking so long to put this chapter out, typical Holiday chaos.
Oh, Hey! Speaking of chaos!

Last Hurrah

December 5, 1965
In the early age of space exploration, many firsts had already been accomplished. The first satellite launched 8 years ago, The first person went into orbit 4 years ago, and launches in general were becoming more and more routine. But there was one milestone not yet accomplished that both major agencies would aim to achieve. The first to orbit Venus.
The Soviets would launch their Venera 5 mission on December 5 with a low energy transfer aiming to arrive sometime in October 1966. A minor issue arose shortly after launch, the solar panel arrays getting stalled for a brief period, but repeated attempts yielded full deployment. The Americans were to launch Mariner 4 just 2 days later on the 7th, Aiming to arrive around 7 months later. No major complications occurred during or after launch, and it went right on its way to Venus

December 12, 1965
Gemini VIII was crewed with Walter Schirra and Elliot See, Aimed to perform similar tasks as previous missions. Planning to rendezvous with an Agena Target Vehicle, Though this would be one of the last of such missions. A modified ATV was in development, scheduled to be ready for Gemini X. It would have more experiments on it, small solar panels to keep it alive in event of launch delays, and a small pressurised compartment for biological experiments. Gemini would dock with Agena on the 13th, and would remain docked until the 20th, aiming to conduct longer and longer spaceflights in preparation for Apollo. Numerous spacewalks would occur, mostly by Elliot See, And would push the limits on spacewalk length. Agena’s engine was planned to boost Gemini VIII to a higher orbit, but troubles with the circuitry in Agena prevented this from happening. They remained in orbit for one more day before Gemini was deorbited, splashing down in the Atlantic

January 5, 1966
Unfortunately for the US, during Mariner 4’s interplanetary coast, during one of the communication windows, nothing was heard. For some unknown reason it simply stopped communicating, putting a swift end to America’s dream of having the first Venus orbiter.

April 2, 1966
The Voskhod program was coming to an end, with Voskhod 7. Piloting the mission is Dmitri Zaikin, and Copiloting is Yevgeni Khrunov. This mission was an arduous one, requiring a long time training, for this mission would have a special tethered spacewalk. The USSR Had designed their own manoeuvring unit called the UPMK. Launching early in the morning, A minor thrust loss

was observed in the second stage, not enough to threaten the mission but enough to shorten its length by a day. The two of them wasted no time getting the mission ready, Inflating the airlock just an hour after orbital insertion.. The two of them donned their spacesuits and Dmitri left the craft, held by tether they activated their UPMK and applied a small bit of momentum forwards. They would drift forwards for a few minutes before the tether went taut and stopped their movement. Hanging 100m from their craft they saw uniques views, the capsule just a small, tiny shadow against the bright colours of the Earth. Dmitri would remain floating outside the capsule for over an hour, returning only when the sun began to drift below the horizon, taking this photo just before returning. Voskhod 7 would maintain its orbit for over a week more, pushing the limits of what was believed to be Voskhod’s safe limits. When time was up, they conducted a flawless deorbit burn and landed safely in the central USSR

April 13, 1966
This marathon of crewed spaceflight would continue with the Americans and their Gemini IX, A mission consisting of Alan Bean and Richard Gordon. Docking with the ATV a longer 3 days after launch after some minor issues were found with the guidance system requiring almost 2 days of work to fix. A unique payload was carried aboard the ATV, A small pressurised container, inside of it was seeds of various different plants. These were to be brought back with Gemini IX and compared to control seeds left on earth to better gauge the effects of radiation on genetic material. This mission would yet again reach new milestones for the Gemini program, being boosted into the highest orbit yet, and having extra rations onboard to sustain the crew for longer. Alan Bean would spacewalk across to Agena to retrieve the samples, but unknown to the ground crew, this spacewalk would almost end in disaster. While retrieving the samples, Alan noticed something. The horizon was turning. Barely so, almost imperceptibly, but visible by referencing against the angle of the Agena’s Boom antenna

“Gordon, we’re spinning”

“We are?”

Alan notices a brief puff of white coming from Gemini recurring every few seconds

“Are you firing the OAMS?”

“No, no, it doesn’t look it’s firing from here”

“Well I can see some particles comin’ from Gemini so unless you’re having a smoke in there I don’t know what else it could be!”

The RCS continued to fire, increasing the spin to a point that Gordon could see noticeable changes through the window. Alan was having a more hands-on experience, literally having to hold onto the ATV to keep from being slowly lifted off. Gordon would fire thrusters in the opposite direction, but this only momentarily stalled the rotation and gave Alan a quick fright

“Ok I-I’m coming back inside, don’t do any more sudden corrections like that”

“Should we undock when you’re back in?”

“Agena is good mass, if we undock we’ll spin faster”

Alan moves back towards the Gemini spacecraft and sits down. Thanks to the Relay network, connections with mission control rarely sever for more than a few minutes. Communications start between CAPCOM and Gemini on the situation, and it is decided an early, emergency splashdown must be completed. The OAMS system is shutdown and the Reentry Control System is used to cancel out the rotation of 6rpm before undocking from the Agena. The retrorockets fire and decelerate Gemini IX enough for it to slip into the atmosphere and begin slowing down even more. Due to the inconvenient issue, reentry had to be conducted over China, with a landing taking place in the vicinity of Okinawa, a convenient spot seeing as numerous US Navy ships remained stationed nearby the islands - both as a convenient spot in relation to Vietnam for the now mostly ended war, and because of the years of american occupation. The crew of Gemini IX were recovered safely just over an hour after splashdown.

May 19, 1966
A long, arduous series of designs and redesigns and model testing that had lasted for years had finally led to this, the Soyuz spacecraft. Capable of seating 3 people, with a docking port that doubles as an airlock, enough supplies to remain undocked in orbit for 2 weeks, and plenty of manoeuvring fuel for orbital adjustments. Despite the crew capabilities, just one man would be launching on this flight, Vladimir Komarov, But none would come down.
Just one day later Soyuz 2 was to launch, rendezvous and dock with Soyuz 1, Komarov then transferring over to 2, with Soyuz 1 autonomously reentering the next day. Vladimir Komarov had already flown to space on the early mission of Vostok 4 almost 5 years earlier, And again on Voskhod 1, 3 years earlier - Making this their third spaceflight, and second time on the debut launch of a new spacecraft. The launch of Soyuz 1 was delayed a short time due to what was thought to be an issue with the engines, but this was quickly solved and found to be an erroneous reading. Launching in the late afternoon, Komarov had 6 hours to spend in orbit before it was time for them to have an admittedly not great dinner, and try to sleep in the difficult, microgravity environment.
May 20, 1966
Komarov would only get 4 hours of sleep out of a hoped 10 hours, waking up numerous times to find their arms raised in front of them. They would also wake up to find that one of Soyuz’s two solar panels had failed to fully deploy, But the power loss was not a dangerous amount, not for one person at least. The spacewalk for Soyuz 2 would need to be changed slightly to also attempt to fix the solar panel issue. Soyuz 2 would launch closer to midday, around 12:05 pm Baikonur Time, Entering orbit a short time later in an optimal position to rendezvous with Soyuz 1. The spacecraft was crewed with Valery Bykovsky and Aleksei Yeliseyev, both new cosmonauts, though the time they lacked in space was made up for with many days of training time. With multiple prior launches testing fast rendezvous methods, the USSR was able to conduct a rendezvous in just 3 orbits. Once in place, both Soyuz 1 and 2 extended their inflatable airlock - Soyuz 2 then would do the final docking approach, housing the active side of the port, it would dock with Soyuz 1. Two then opened their side of the hatch, verifying stable atmospheric pressure, and once given the go ahead, Komarov opened their side. They remained in their separate capsules for 50 minutes before Komarov made their way across into Two’s side. Their docking port was then closed, and shortly after detached from One, which began its reentry protocols as soon as the opportunity arose and the capsules were a safe distance from each other. The now combined crews of Soyuz 1 and 2 remained in orbit for another 2 days, able to push the smaller amount of supplies for the test flight as far as they could.
May 22, 1966
Once they were running low, the time came for deorbiting. The engines fire and Soyuz begins the long descent back to Earth. The plasma envelopes the craft, but it remains stable even as different forces dynamically shift around it, all the way down into the thicker parts of the atmosphere. Drogue chute deploys perfectly, Main parachute deploys, though not after a tongue-biting delay lasting just half a second longer than it should’ve, but it still deploys perfectly. The Soyuz approaches the ground at just under 8m/s, The retrorockets are commanded to fire and... they don’t. Soyuz slams into the Kazakhstani plains and kicks up a large cloud of dust. But thankfully, the same thing happened on the uncrewed landing of Soyuz 1, allowing the crew to be alerted of the hazardous landing and to brace in the event that their retrorockets were also faulty.

June 8, 1966
A ground model of fletcher had been worked on day and night over the past few weeks, trying to make it flight-worthy. Finally, it was ready for launch. Rocketing up into the sky, no footage of the launch was broadcast, much like the previous station’s launch, it was classified. Simply being called a weather monitoring satellite, but the officials knew that was not the case. As did the two astronauts slated to visit it just a short time later

July 12, 1966
Piloting Constitution was Francis Neubeck, Previously flying on the SC-I3 Mission, the first docking of two crewed spacecraft. Born in Washington DC in 1932 they joined the US Naval Academy, but went on to join the USAF instead. In 1962 he applied to become a NASA Astronaut but was rejected, deciding to then go into the USAF Pilot School. However their time without space wouldn't last long, being accepted into the first group of Spearhead Astronauts in 1964.

And Karol Bobko, Born in New York, 1937, They entered into the USAF in 1959 and completed their flight training just a year later. in Late 1962 They were approached by the USAF with an offer to join the upcoming Spearhead program, Karol accepted and flew on the second mission, Kittyhawk 2 (KH-2) in August 1963, and later flying on SC-I2 just 13 months later. Despite having flown 2 times previously, Francis was chosen to be the command pilot of this mission, with Karol as pilot due to their engineering skills, in the event of some unforeseen malfunction with fletcher, they would be able to attempt repairs whilst Francis keeps the Spearhead ready to go.

Rendezvous and docking was conducted after just over 26 hours in low earth orbit. A quick inspection was conducted to make sure the station was ready for operations, and was verified to be safe - This mission had numerous plans, surveillance on Baikonur cosmodrome was planned, finding traces of a new rocket in development, but further examination of it was not possible. Spacewalks were conducted every few days as a mean to grow familiar with zero g movement, most finding it difficult to get used to. But helping with this was the new and improved Astronaut Maneuvering Unit, a large cuboid tank able to be mounted to the back of the spacesuit and used by a controller on either arm, pushing down on buttons to release thrust in specific directions. The only mission to have used an AMU was F-E3, When it was used to traverse the distance between Constitution and the frail Fletcher station. Francis Neubeck maintained a close watch on Fletcher’s systems to make sure no leaks were occuring, and watched and recorded through the telescope as the station passed over Soviet territory.

July 28, 1966
7:20 PST

“Good morning Fletcher, Today is Thursday the 28th, We here at Vandenberg hope you’ll be having a great day up there. We thought it’d be fitting to wake you up with Telstar today”

“Morning, Vandenberg. This is Karol Bobko on Fletcher, How’s the weather down there?”

“Dry and hot, How is it up there?”

“I think I have it on good authority to say it’s very dry outside, almost no humidity. But in here it’s a nice 70°F”

“Good to hear. Not much news today. For the mission you’ve got a spacewalk planned at noon, you’ll need to fetch the experiments on both of the solar panels and be back in by 1pm”

“That’s pretty quick. But I get to use the AMU, yeah?”

“Of course. You also should let Francis know that today is just an observation day.”

“Alright, we’ll contact you after the spacewalk is done and if we need anything.”

“Have a good day, Fletcher”

July 28, 1966
12:07 PST

“Airlock is ready to open, Bo. Good luck on your spacewalk”

Bobko would push open the airlock door and begin to traverse the exterior of the spacecraft. Despite being a military space station, a few science experiments still made their way onboard - A micrometeoroid detector, a cosmic ray detector, and a rudimentary telescope. Bobko’s task was to retrieve the various results on the end of the solar panels.

“Being out here for so long really helps change your perspective on things”

“Oh?”

“I’m not sure that cream was the best colour to paint the station”

Bobko activates the AMU to travel across the wingspan of the station, from one end of a solar panel to the other. Collecting the micrometeoroid slides and film from the telescope, Before coming up to the end of the other solar array to retrieve that side’s results

“Ok Bo, Telescope film is unlocked”

“Hold on a second, Francis, I’m having a bit of an issue here”

“What’s happening?”

“I think my temp control is broken, its getting pretty hot in here”

“If you want we can cut this short and get you back in here”

“That’d be best, it’s getting bad pretty fast”

Karol attempts to use the AMU, but no thrust is provided

“Francis i’m getting nothing from the AMU, proceeding to use the main panel connector to return to the station”

“Want me to loop you into Vandenberg?”

“No, no, it’s ok. Let them know about the AMU troubles th-“

“Bo?”

“...”

“Bobko?”

Francis races to the Bobko-facing window and sees him frantically waving one arm, holding onto the rail with the other until he accidentally lets go and begins slowly spinning

“BOBKO!”

Francis remotely closes and pressurises the airlock before rushing in there and hastily putting on the USAF spacesuit helmet and grabbing the backup Handheld AMU. He quickly opens the airlock and uses the old AMU to race over to Bobko - spinning around, flailing their arms around in a panicked manner. Grabbing on to Karol, Francis finds that despite the insulation of their suits, Karol is strangely hot to the touch. It is only when Francis catches a glimpse behind Karol’s sun visor that he realises what happened. Smoke. There was fire in Karol’s suit. Francis acts fast and fires the handheld AMU to push both of them back to Fletcher, and just before entering the airlock, Francis releases some of the atmospheric pressure in Karol’s suit. hopefully suffocating and extinguishing the flames.

beep

“Hello, Fletcher! How’d the spacewalk g-“

“VANDENBERG, THIS IS FRANCIS NEUBECK, I NEED THE NUMBERS FOR EMERGENCY DEORBIT 016-09”

“O-Ok, sending them up now. What’s the emergency?”

“A FIRE STARTED IN KAROL’S SUIT, I VENTED HIS PRESSURE TO PUT IT OUT BUT I DON’T KNOW IF HE’S ALIVE!”

He frantically rushes down the station, keeping Karol in their suit as Francis opens the door to Constitution and locks Karol into the copilot seat

“WHEN CAN I DEORBIT?”

“Fastest we can get you down here is a hard burn in 0918, Then it’s a 78 degree turn in 2358”

Francis punches the numbers into Constitution’s timer, but the minutes pass at a dreadful pace, Karol motionless in their seat, Francis trying to keep calm as the stress rises, until finally the time comes. 16 minutes after setting the timer, Francis ignites the engines and sets the engine throttle as high as it allows. The two of them are pushed back into their seats and lowering the perigee of their orbit until their path intersects north of Vandenberg, and the engines cut out. Constitution floats delicately for minutes after that, until the thin wisps of atmosphere begin to scrape at the sides of the craft, decelerating it with high G-forces and pushing the two once again into their seats. Francis then waits a few more minutes for the second timer to run down and begins to turn the ship, conducting the 78 degree turn needed to reach Vandenberg and bleed off enough speed.

The wind grows loud outside the craft, dynamic forces rocking it like a boat about to be hit by a rogue wave. The sun reflects bright across the ocean’s scattered waves deep below, cut off by the expansive desert and the thin Vandenberg runway. Francis deploys the landing gear and starts pitching up to create as large a profile as possible to increase drag, Slowing down to what looks like a safe landing speed they begin to lose altitude and the back wheels make contact. But Constitution is still moving too fast, it begins to wobble and lose stability, shaking violently as it rolls down the runway. The shaking increases until a slight turn is made to try and keep from rolling off, and Constitution’s left wing begins being torn to shreds by the ground, The contact forcing the entire vehicle into a damaging spin, painfully scraping the entire vehicle. Constitution slows down, and eventually comes to a stop, but she doesn’t look like she did at launch. Beaten and battered, missing limbs with their body torn and scratched, it was a devastating sight to see for the crew by the runway as they rushed towards the smoldering corpse of Constitution to rescue the two crew on board.

The rescue team pushes forwards through the billowing smoke, tearing off the crew door and racing in, pulling the unconscious Karol out of their seat and running as fast as they safely could towards the air ambulance helicopter, departing soon after Karol was onboard, flying directly to the nearest capable hospital. Francis’ wounds were less serious, once dragged out of the fatally wounded craft it was clear that they could be treated onsite.
As the days passed, the magnitude of the disaster became more and more clear. Constitution was irreparably damaged, And Independence is unable to dock with the station due to its different configuration, forcing Fletcher II to be left after just a single visit. The US Secretary of the Air force demanded a report be put together on how such a tragedy could’ve happened and how it was not prevented sooner. This put the USAF and the entirety of the US Government in a precarious situation, 2 astronauts injured, one of them possibly dead, what could they say? Well, news about a potential disaster involving astronauts had made its way into the papers, but the public was in the dark about the true nature of Spearhead, and the entire existence of Fletcher I and II, so what on earth could they do? As it turns out, they wouldn’t have to do anything.

July 30, 1966
Despite trying to keep Spearhead’s true purpose a secret, the Soviet Union were able to piece together and find evidence of the program. With all of this, the disaster was able to be revealed to the Soviet public incredibly close to the true events

КАТАСТРОФА АМЕРИКАНСКОГО КОСМИЧЕСКОГО САМОЛЕТА - Ракета, запущенная американцами 3 недели назад, имела на борту двух астронавтов, посещающих секретную космическую станцию-шпион! 2 дня назад был совершен быстрый и опасный побег со станции из-за неисправности. Последовала опасная посадка, в результате которой космический самолет разбился и ранил обоих астронавтов! - AMERICAN SPACE PLANE DISASTER - A Rocket launched by the Americans 3 weeks ago had 2 astronauts on board visiting a secret spy space station! 2 days ago a fast and dangerous fleeing from the station was performed due to a malfunction. Followed by a dangerous landing resulting in the space plane crashing and injuring both astronauts!

This news quickly made its way to America, officials maintained their position that the rumours were entirely just that, but it all seemed to make sense. Eventually this forced a press conference to be held. This conference contained the very first confirmation that a rendezvous with some object was performed on the mission, and several previous missions, though the identity of this object was not confirmed. And it would not be until “The Zuckert Report” was released, at an unknown time once completed, would the true secrecy of the USAF’s space program come to light.

 

[SingularityG3]

I am so sincerely sorry about the long delay for this one,
Call of the Chariot

July 30, 1966
The Zuckert Report was released just under a month after the tragic crash of F2-E1, detailing the events and what could have prevented them, if anything. The full document is kept classified, but the findings are revealed in a speech by Zuckert himself, who seemingly had no idea of the full state of their own space program, though this is just an attempt to shift the blame away from himself.
“What the report has uncovered is a mismanaged, barely functioning program kept aloft by pure luck and governmental nepotism. Hundreds of mission-affecting faults, and 14 endangering faults were found to have occurred across the spearhead program, little of which ever made its way to the ears that needed to hear it. But not just that, large amounts of engineering defects were overlooked, approved and allowed to be mated to Spearhead. The most damaging of which being the actuators of Constitution’s right winglet, replaced after its last flight. Somehow passing all the safety checks, the actuator was set to the wrong angle, constantly imposing unexpected aerodynamic forces on the craft, and ultimately causing the instability on the runway that led to the crash. But even that wasn’t the worst of the findings, what was found with the AMU was nothing short of harrowing. Poorly placed wiring, bad insulation, in some places none whatsoever, and this is where the situation arose. The Blue of our spacesuits reduced the already abysmal rate of thermal radiation that would’ve helped to cool it down. At one point near the back of the suit, uninsulated wiring touched the innermost layer of protection from space, and this is where a small spark ignited the whole suit. The insides of the AMU quickly heated up, preventing its internal mechanisms from functioning. From there, a small piece of metal contacting both the AMU and the back of the suit began to heat up, making the temperature inside the suit worse and worse. This continued until yet another poorly insulated wire, inside of Karol Bobko’s suit, sparked. His suit had an internal atmosphere of 100% oxygen which ignited incredibly fast. Thankfully for Karol, Francis Neubeck was able to extinguish the flames by relieving his suit pressure, at which point he was brought back inside where they departed the station as soon as they could. This is where the next mistake is apparent, Abort modes - These should always be ready to be used, the most convenient abort modes for each orbit covering the next 48 hours, given every 24. But for whatever reason, Vandenberg was not practising this for the two previous missions, causing a delay of just a short time, but seconds that could have been crucial. And Karol Bobko, Karol as you all know died on the 29th, from injuries sustained in the crash. If the crash had not occurred, Karol would have most likely survived the burns. If the leaders of Spearhead had taken the slightest care to the production of their own spacecraft and spacesuits, not only could Karol have survived the landing, but they might not have even had an incident with the AMU, remaining at Fletcher II right now. But this is not the case. Spearhead used its exorbitant budget in all the wrong places, seemingly manifesting from the higher levels of government in support of such militarisation of space. Using it to accelerate the development and designs of the spacecraft, at such a speed that required almost completely bypassing safety checks. Fletcher never should have been allowed to launch. Spearhead should never have left the vehicle assembly building in the states it did. The fact that such a devastatingly mishandled program ever made it off the ground, and thrived under the knowledge of the public and some of the higher ups is utterly astounding.”

Shortly after the speech was delivered, Spearhead and Fletcher were both officially cancelled. Independence was set to be placed in storage, and Constitution’s remains were locked away in a hangar on base. But this left the US with a conundrum, for the USSR now was known to have been fully aware of the program, and its military connections, So wouldn’t they pursue the same technology? Not willing to take the chance, USAF’s space program remained, but to a lesser extent. The Vulcan rockets became a part of NASA, along with any future crewed programs and missions that may have military significance. Any USAF astronauts still in the program would be eligible to transfer to NASA at their own discretion, an offer that Francis Neubeck would take up. The USAF would continue to own and develop military reconnaissance satellites, positioning satellites and anti-satellite vehicles.
And though they wouldn’t know it, their suspicions were right. The USSR was developing spaceplanes with weaponizing capability, two of them! The longest in development was one originally called VKA, a simplistic, 1 seated craft, planned to be launched on the side of an in-development rocket known only as Albatross. The other was Spiral, An air-launched spaceplane still deep in development, but aiming for a 1970 launch at the latest

September 21, 1966
Though the USAF’s human spaceflight programs had ended, NASA’s continued on. Gemini X would launch its first part, the Upgraded ATV, on September 20th. Experiencing some short term weather-based launch delays, Gemini X would follow behind just a day later. Mission pilot was William Anders, This was their first spaceflight, but with plenty of training it was decided he had the capabilities needed. Also piloting was David Scott, another first time Astronaut, though on this mission for different reasons. David had been selected to fly on Apollo 2, a crewed, CSM only TLI abort test. Gemini X’s problems piled up, with issues being found with the orbital parameters provided. Though only a small discrepancy, orbital mechanics is an unforgiving thing, making a rendezvous with the ATV much harder. Another day would be spent loitering in orbit, deciding whether or not to proceed with the rendezvous. Ultimately, it was decided to go ahead, the OMS still containing enough propellant. Docking was successful just 28 hours after launch, Agena looming large out the window with its vast solar panels, reminiscent of the late Fletcher station. Over the course of the mission, numerous spacewalks are conducted to retrieve the pressurised samples and inspect the many experiments. They would spend 15 days docked to the ATV, returning to earth on October 7th.

October 26, 1966
Venera 5, Having coasted through space for the past 10 months, Began to at last approach Venus. Wearily approaching the strange world, Venera 5 hung in silence, yet another speck among a sea of distant suns. Yet just down below, a world ravaged by acid rains and hellish pressure and temperatures. Venera’s KTDU-425A engine flared to life, fueled by that ever present fuel of nitrogen tetroxide and UDMH. Some time passed, and Venera had made it, becoming the first spacecraft to orbit Venus. Her mission would last as long as she survived, sending back photos and observations of the mysterious veiled planet forever hanging below.

November 15, 1966

Late in the year NASA would launch the final Gemini mission, Gemini XI. Its command pilot was Gordon Cooper, and its pilot was Charles Bassett. Launching in the evening, it reached orbit with flawless performance from its rocket, and did a direct ascent to the ATV already waiting in orbit. Much like Gemini X, spacewalks were completed every few days to retrieve experiments on the Agena target vehicle, and to test the limits on current EVA technology in preparation for the Apollo program. To celebrate the last Gemini mission and to wish good luck to the future Apollo 1

mission, Gordon snuck a slice of cake onboard which he shared with Charles on day 2 of the mission. A large portion of the mission was spent doing observations of the Leonids meteor shower from above. The Leonids are one of the brightest meteor showers to occur, having outbursts roughly every 33 years, producing thousands of meteors per hour. A television camera mounted outside, facing the Earth, took images every second to capture meteors striking the planet. Expectedly, the micrometeorite detectors found increased activity during this time.
At last, Gemini’s time had come to a close. The reentry systems fired and brought the craft’s orbit down, dipping deep into the atmosphere. The plasma trail splits the sky in two as Gemini descends into the ocean water. With Gemini XI a roaring success, Apollo was clear to go ahead.

December 4, 1966
As Earth and Mars find themselves in the middle of a Hohmann transfer window, NASA aims to take advantage of the opportunity and launch a spacecraft. Mariner 5 is a planned Orbiter spacecraft to map the Martian surface and photograph the Martian moons.

December 5, 1966
But Mariner would yet again have competition from the USSR with the sister spacecrafts of Mars 4 and Mars 5, launching just 5 days apart from each other.
Mars 4 is designed to be a lander, with no orbiter component. A prior design contained both an orbiter and lander, separation occurring shortly before orbital insertion, but the lack of landing site recon led this to be deemed a risk to the lander. Instead, Mars 4 would land a large craft weighing around 2500kg on the surface, currently planned to be in the vicinity of Tsiolkovsky Valley. But that isn’t it, as Mars 4 contains a secondary payload, the PrOP-M rover. A small tethered craft weighing just 4.5kg and about the size of a loaf of bread, able to wander around the surface in a 15m radius of the lander by utilising mobile skis.
December 10, 1966
Mars 5 would be a dedicated orbiter, entering orbit 3 days before Mars 4 arrives. Its primary purpose is to provide an in-depth look at Tsiolkovsky valley to find the best landing site - its secondary mission is simply to map the Martian surface and photograph Phobos and Deimos.

February 10, 1967
White : “Lift off and clock running”

CAPCOM : “Godspeed, Apollo 1, Clear of the tower”

Grissom : ”Roll Commence”

CONTECH : “Roger roll, you’re looking good”

Grissom : “Pitch is tracking good”

Apollo 1’s Saturn IB shot up with a strength never before seen on manned spaceflight, the light from the engines outshining the sun hung low in the horizon. The towering beast continues lumbering up through the atmosphere, encountering less and less resistance. Crewed with Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee, everyone understood the importance of this mission, and would try their hardest to make sure everything went exactly as planned.

CONTECH : “Mark, Mode 1 Charlie, Apollo 1 you are go for staging”

Grissom : “Roger, we’re go.”

With a sudden rumble, the rocket fell quiet, the S-IB stage dropping behind the craft as the launch escape tower ignited and separated from the command module

Chaffee : “Tower jettisoned beautifully”

CAPCOM : “Apollo 1, Trajectory and guidance are a go”

Grissom : “Roger, she looks real good. A bit rocky on this stage, but very pleasant”

White : “3, 2, 1, Mark.”

Grissom : “Apollo systems are go, Gimbal is real tight”

White : “Thrust is right on the 1G”

Apollo continues pushing into orbit, reaching higher and higher into space before finally, the engines shut off. Apollo 1 reached orbit, and the chariot falls away behind the command module. This mission was merely a test flight, a last check of all the systems before the lunar phase of the Apollo program begins.
Apollo 1 would spend 8 days in space, returning to Earth on the 18th. Each day for a short while, the crew would appear on television, multiple cameras stored inside the capsule for monitoring and recording.

CAPCOM : “The flight of Apollo 1 dominates the news this morning. We’ve received a number of messages for you, one of them from president Johnson who attended the launch in person. He said “Congratulations on the splendid beginning of this flight. The country is proud of you and the many in NASA, the private companies, and the services which have combined to make such a successful manned space flight. We watched with mounting excitement the magnificent launch of the Saturn IB. The way to the stars takes courage, ability, and devotion to our goal. You are making a major stride in this star-studded way, the nation is proud of you.”

Grissom : “Well, you tell Johnson that we’re proud of him too, for taking that time to come down to the launch site”

CAPCOM : “I’m sure he’ll appreciate that sentiment”

Each day more tests were conducted, slightly inconvenienced by the new sleep schedules drafted up by mission control, requiring one person to be awake at all times. This got many complaints from the crew, and it was agreed that a different schedule would be used on all future flights.

White : “You notice all those stars out the window?”

Chaffee : “Billions of ‘em”

Grissom : “You know, I’ve hardly even looked outside so far”

Chaffee : “You should try it some time, there’s a few good ones here and there”

White : “How's the sun?”

Chaffee : “Eh, I could take it or leave it. Aldebaran though? That’s a nice a star”

No major issues were found with the command module’s design during Apollo 1, reaffirming the fact that this program was able to go ahead. The SPS engine and RCS systems were tested numerous times with glowing records, and the computer held up well in most circumstances. The 8 days were at last up, and as such they fired the engine one last time to fall into the atmosphere. While the atmosphere began to swirl around the conical spacecraft, it was tilted ever so slightly upwards to increase the downrange distance the capsule would travel before splashdown. Some minutes would pass and Apollo would splash down in the Atlantic, being recovered just a short time after. Apollo 1 proved to be a magnificent success, validating every system for future lunar exploration, and giving its crew one hell of a ride. Apollo 2 is scheduled for just 2 months later, featuring Jim McDivitt, David Scott and Rusty Schweickart as crew. But just like always, the USSR wasn’t far behind, Planning a test launch for their H1 rocket in September 1967, and a crewed flight around the moon in December with Yevgeny Khrunov and Andriyan Nikolayev.

 

[SingularityG3]

I'm confident in saying that I can finally move to a weekly schedule with these chapters, Coming out every Friday Night (AEST/AEDT), And let me know what you think of this chapter by replying! feedback is always appreciated

Solus in Mare Somniorum​

February 14, 1967


Quickly following up the success of Apollo 1, Jim McDivitt, David Scott and Rusty Schweickart were chosen for Apollo 2, the last CSM only systems test.

Making it to orbit with no issues apparent, The crew would spend hours verifying the systems before they were allowed to rest for the night. Finding perfection all across the board. The engine was tested by conducting short burns to raise the CSM’s apogee, then lower it the next orbit. The engine was tested 6 times, each time performing just as expected. The crew would answer questions from earth once a day on national tv, and once the tests were over, make observations of various astronomical objects from the window. 5 days in total were spent in orbit, by the end of which it was accepted that the CSM was fully functional and ready for the moon.

May 19, 1967
Amidst the rapid progress, yet another Apollo mission was conducted, but this one was uncrewed. It would perform a vital test of deep space manoeuvring, and the logistics of a free return trajectory around the moon. It launched late at night, hanging up in the sky as just another dot after the last engines shut off. Performing the S-IVB engine burn the next day, sending it racing towards the moon through the dark ocean of space. 3 Days would pass as it approached the moon closer and closer, finally entering its sphere of influence, photographing the surface as it got nearer. Unbounded by any orbit, Apollo 3 continued on past the moon, being flung around back towards Earth, proving the possibility of a free return abort scenario. Apollo 3 hit the atmosphere above the pacific ocean, splashing down safely in the waters, and being recovered just a short while later.

May 25, 1967 - U.S. Newspaper Excerpt
Political Turmoil in China!
The world was shocked today to hear that China would officially be closing its borders to all countries, a shift that could indicate instability in the most populous country. This follows the shift of some Soviet troops from the main USSR and North Vietnam towards the Chinese border, recent riots in neighbouring Hong Kong, And what is thought to have been China’s first hydrogen bomb test. Mere days after the closure was announced, it was reported that a large number of Chinese troops also gathered along the borders of the USSR, North Vietnam and small areas of the border with the Kingdom of Sikkim and India.

July 2, 1967
Apollo would once again launch a Saturn IB, for an unorthodox test of systems. Saturn Vs at this time are still relatively scarce, most rockets still mid-production. But the Lunar Module still needs to be tested with crew, so a unique solution was devised to allow the program testing to continue. The CSM and LEM would launch on separate rockets, then meet up in orbit for testing.
July 4, 1967
Once the LEM was confirmed in orbit and stable, Apollo 4’s CSM launched in the morning of July 4. Naming the spacecraft had previously been banned due to early Mercury names poking fun at NASA, but as this was the first mission to include 2 crewed craft, they would need separate names. The LEM was designated Spider, on account of its look with the legs extended. The crew had also decided to name the CSM “Gumdrop”, after its appearance when it was delivered to the VAB, wrapped in blue plastic.

Apollo 4 was crewed by commander John Young, command module pilot Donn Eisele and lunar module pilot Richard Gordon. All of them were scheduled for future landings, and would be preferred due to this mission's special tasks. Quickly performing a rendezvous with Spider, a short flyaround was performed to make sure everything was in working order. Once confirmed externally, Gumdrop slowly manoeuvred towards Spider’s docking port. A clunk was heard, and contact was confirmed. The two craft locked together and after a few minutes, the crew would open the door. Quickly getting on with the mission, John Young and Richard Gordon closed the door to the CSM and undocked, the next part of the mission being a test of the LEM’s systems.

Spider’s descent stage engine ignited, sending it far away from Gumdrop. After a short time, the engine would shut off and the craft held steady at around 100 km from Gumdrop. A short time was spent far from the command module, observations being made of the earth below and the performance of various systems. Then after just 3 hours of free-flying, the descent stage dropped away as the ascent engine ignited, sending Spider back to the command module. The two craft docked once again, and on the next day, Spider would undock, uncrewed. Its engine would send it into an elliptical orbit, where it would remain for at least 5 years. The remainder of the mission was spent observing the earth through different filters, nearby satellites such as the Pegasus series launched by the Saturn IB, and celestial bodies. Mars and Jupiter especially, with attempts made at observing Ceres, though little success was found.

September 15, 1967
“H1 Полные баки, ожидание запуска”
“H1 готовится к запуску, двигатели запускаются”

After months of waiting, the H1 Was finally launching. Her 30 NK-15 engines flared to life with a deafening scream and a light comparable to the sun’s. Pushing the megalithic 2.7 million kilogramme rocket faster and faster with a force never seen before in rocketry.

“Достигнуто максимальное давление, ракета выглядит стабильно”

The skies were almost clear, just a few sparse clouds dotting the night sky, all lit up by the magnificent light of the rocket’s exhaust. The thunderous cries of the H1 die down as it approaches the upper atmosphere, Blok A running low on fuel. The callout is given and Blok A is struck with the exhaust from Blok B’s 8 NK-15V engines, separating just seconds after. She would continue burning for 2 minutes before they too shut down, Blok V taking over. Blok V had 4 NK-21 engines, delivering the final push into orbit with a burn of 6 minutes. Her mission wasn’t complete yet though, the payload for this flight was a lunar Soyuz craft, not manned, but with a crew of 4 Tortoises. This was just to make sure that life could survive the trip around the moon in the capsule, but they would still become the first ever creatures to return from the lunar sphere of influence. Along with this, a fully uncrewed LK Lunar lander would test the landing systems in Oceanus Procellarum, The current planned site of the first crewed landing.

After a short loiter in orbit, Blok G would ignite, propelling the craft onto a trans-lunar trajectory. Days pass, the tortoises remain alive as they drift closer and closer to the moon. They would lower down to under 200 km above the lunar surface, before the Blok D ignited, slowing the whole vehicle down into lunar orbit. The LK and Blok D separate, firing again to bring the lander onto a suborbital trajectory. Falling faster and faster towards the surface, Blok D breaks away to crash into the surface as the LK’s RD-858 engine ignites, steadily slowing down the fragile craft. Dust is thrown away by the exhaust of the engine as it decelerates more and more before finally touching down. LK has proven itself a worthy lander for crew. But, as a failsafe in case the future human landings fail, an incredibly simple robotic arm, like the one on the in development Mars 4, plants a soviet flag on the surface of the moon. No matter what happens now, the USSR can still say they had the first flag on the Moon.

With LK’s part of the mission complete, Soyuz ignites her engines and pushes out of lunar orbit, back towards Earth. A large concern of this flight was the heat shield, this was a slightly different design to handle the heat of lunar reentry, if the shield wasn't thick and robust enough, the craft could break up in the plasma. Striking the atmosphere at immense speeds, the exchange of signals stops as the atmospheric plasma engulfs the capsule, blocking any and all broadcasts from getting through. Mission control waits with bated breath for the signal to be regained, though nothing is heard. But it is seen! Soyuz’s parachute was seen by the recovery crew already on site. As soon as it landed it was found that the comms system was oversaturated by false signals and shut down, a problem easily solved if human crew was on board, and thus an issue of little concern.

September 27, 1967
Launching in the bright of day on the 24th, Luna 13 was thrown towards the moon to accomplish something never yet seen before. A rover, on the surface of another world. Descending from lunar orbit, the unending grey landscape flies past below as Luna 13 tries its best to slow down, a soft landing necessary. Clouds of dust pick up beneath the vehicle, engine throttling down as the surface edges closer and closer. Luna 13 lands and signals back to Earth, the mission has begun. Lunokhod opens her lid, revealing the solar panels, rolls off the ramps, and controlled live from the ground, begins to rove across the surface. The 1.5 second signal delay took some getting used to for the remote drivers, but as the rover could move no faster than 20 cm/s, any issues were negligible. In just a single day, Lunokhod was driven for 180 meters across the landscape of Oceanus Procellarum. It had landed nearly 2 km away from the landing site of the LK, which over the next 4 weeks it slowly and persistently drove towards.

October 1, 1967
Mariner 5 was the first of the 1967 Mars probes to arrive, Making a close pass of Deimos before firing its engines and slowing down into orbit of Mars, fully mapping its surface in preparation for future probes. An upcoming program for NASA was the Voyager program, seeking to perform more advanced interplanetary missions, such as landing multiple probes on the surface of Mars and Venus, or flying past the outer planets or asteroids
October 2, 1967
Mars 5 arrived at Mars just a day after,the first of the Soviet Mars fleet. Entering into orbit without an issue, it begins to slowly map the surface of the planet in higher detail than ever before. Revealing the world to be even more complex than thought before, with canyons and deltas carved by water long since evaporated. Craters filled with sand and rolling dunes stretching beyond the horizon, unending flats giving way to gargantuan mountains and boulder strewn fields.
October 5, 1967
This newfound insight on Mars helped pinpoint Mars 4’s landing location, though it could not be changed, it was found to be a good place for studying. Mars 4 slammed into the atmosphere at

incredible speeds, a veil of plasma shrouding the vehicle as it was battered by the thickening atmosphere. Drag increased and it slowed down to a safe speed, its heat shield separated and the parachutes deployed from the main vehicle. Gently descending closer to the surface, until the parachute separated and the retrorockets fired. Earth heard back 7 minutes later, Touchdown successful. She began to send back her first image. A vast, expansive horizon of lone and level sands, hills and mountains poking up from beyond it, and a barren red sky. Mars felt more hostile than ever before, but the lander would hold on for as long as possible.

October 7, 1967
The first few days of Mars 4’s time on the Martian surface were relatively boring, mainly making sure the fort was held down and that the special payload was safe to deploy. Held on a small robotic arm, the PrOP–M rover was lowered to the ground and deployed safely. Attached to the lander by a 15m long tether, it could move around by using skis on either side of its central bus. Taking a break every metre to take measurements of the soil from different locations. Affectionately referred to by the public as “Baby Box” on account of its very small size, just 28cm long and 12cm wide, and weighing only 4.5kg.
October 19, 1967
Sadly, a mere 2 weeks after landing, Mars 4 loses contact with Earth. It is unknown what happened specifically, but the results of Martian soil analysis suggest that the dust had managed to creep into the lander, making sending and receiving signals impossible for it.

October 21, 1967
The long journey to LK had proved tolerable for Lunokhod, besides having to briefly pause during the lunar night and to recharge, the travelling was constant. Here, a choice could be made. 2 Lunokhods would be useful for the upcoming crewed landings as beacons, they could launch just 1 more lunokhod to this site, or they could send this one down into Bessarion and launch 2 more. A short amount of tests were completed with the LK to gauge its battery life, and it was found that the small solar panels around the communication dishes were providing enough power to act as an incredibly simple beacon. This thankfully allowed Lunokhod to journey into Bessarion, a journey which would take at least a month to reach the rim of the crater, and upwards of 2 months to reach the base. Given that the design of Lunokhod only called to survive for 3 months, it may not be able to complete the mission in time.

November 11, 1967
Early in the morning, the Floridian sky would burst into flames as the Saturn V’s beautiful engines ignited, The 5 Rocketdyne F-1 Engines delivering an immense amount of thrust up through the whole rocket, lifting Apollo 6, and her crew of Walter Schirra, Jack Swigert and Walter Cunningham into orbit. The S-IC shuts down, giving way to the S-II above it, firing for another 6 minutes. Once that stage runs out of fuel, it breaks away, the S-IVB firing for just under 3 minutes before shutting off. Apollo 6 would remain in orbit for another 2 hours, before the decision was made.
“Apollo 6, this is Houston, you are go for TLI”

 

[SingularityG3]

In Pursuit of Light and Space​

November 14, 1967
Apollo 6 reaches the moon after 3 days of travel, seeing with their very own eyes a sight only seen by robotic eyes before. An entire world sapped of colour, pockmarked with seas and craters and vast ray systems. If everything goes as planned, a man will set foot there, in just a year. However, Apollo 6 wouldn’t stay for long, simply being a mission to test a free return trajectory, but also to perform advanced studies not possible before.

Falling closer to the lunar surface, the crew took turns using the telescope to gaze upon the terrain and take notes. At the closest point, they were on the far side of the moon, out of line of communication to earth. Photographing these locations never seen by any human eye before, Gazing upon Tsiolkovsky crater’s basalt flooded interior. Also seeing Crater 434, pointing out its unique topography, half of its interior being relatively flat, and the other half being rugged and crater strewn stretching away from the central mountain. Jack Swigert would express disappointment that he did not study more geology before flying. Perilune was reached and passed, Apollo 6 continuing on its path that would soon guide it back to earth.

Apollo 6 left the Lunar gravity well, falling back to earth over the next 3 days, the world silently spinning outside the window. Finally striking the atmosphere, the Command module is covered with thick plasma, the service module burning up far behind it. Decelerating down to a safe speed, the parachutes deploy and they safely splashdown in the ocean. The first humans have just returned to the Earth after flying past another celestial body, a feat followed up just barely over a month later

December 15, 1967
Rushing their program, the USSR readies their first Crewed H1 rocket for launch. Piloting the mission is Andriyan Nikolayev, a veteran of spaceflight first flying on Vostok 4, and Copiloting is Yevgeny Khrunov, a brand new cosmonaut. The engines ignite and send immense vibrations through the rocket itself and the launchsite. Seconds after leaving the surface, 1 engine drops out, the one on the opposite side instantly following to balance out thrust. Korolev shouted to abort the launch, as one more pair of engines turned off would be insufficient to reach orbit, but the launch pressed on, much to his concern. A minute passes, and the rocket appears stable, despite unexpected pogo oscillations. 2 minutes after launch, Block B ignites just before Block A separates away, scorching the top of it as it falls back to the ground. Block B continued to burn for just under 2 minutes, before a pair of engines failed yet again, but thankfully just seconds before separation. Block V then activates, providing the final push into orbit that Archangel 1 needs, burning for 6 minutes before breaking away. Archangel 1 was in orbit, and just a few short hours later their Block G engine would ignite and send them on a Translunar trajectory, taking just 3 days to accomplish. Whilst coasting, Archangel made the first televised broadcast from a soviet spacecraft, Calling the Premier, Alexei Kosygin, and making a short broadcast onto televisions throughout the USSR.

Once finally arriving in the lunar sphere of influence, observations on the lunar surface began, finding yet more

craters and small maria dotted across the surface. Archangel fell behind the moon, burning the engines to enter orbit, and the two crew onboard became the first humans in orbit around another object. A short spacewalk was then conducted by Nikolayev, Who released 2 small test spacecraft mounted on the side of the LOK. They were both part of a small extra mission labelled “Хлопать Камера”, The first component was essentially a solid rocket motor with a basic transmitter and battery. It ignited and sent itself onto a trajectory to impact the moon near the lunar terminator. The second component was an independent satellite, 2 small solar panels, a camera and a transmitter. This would view the other component impact the surface, and afterwards would photograph the lunar surface for as long as it survived.

Archangel 1 stayed in orbit for 5 days, pushing the limits of the supplies on board. Along with observations, downlinks were also performed with the LK on the surface, and the nearby Lunokhod 1 still surviving on the surface, making its way down to Bessarion’s floor. Archangel slips behind the moon for the last time, the crew igniting the engines and burning their way back home. Drifting for almost 4 days, they separate from the service and storage module and hit the atmosphere.

January 18, 1968
In a race tenser than ever, NASA had to launch their own crewed lunar orbit mission, Apollo 7. Piloted by Jim Lovell, with the Command pilot of Frank Borman and Lunar Module Pilot of Buzz Aldrin, they launched early in the morning towards their distant, beautiful target. The journey to the moon was peaceful, a silent, starry view right outside the window, and the somewhat comforting whir of machinery inside. There was some tension however, the USSR seemed to have a massive lunar sweep planned. Missions targeting the moon were launched with a cadency not seen before, some missions orbiting, others landing, one attempt to land on the far side of the moon, though that crashed just short of the lunar limb. Requests were made to have Apollo 7 be a landing, but this was thought to be too risky to attempt, and would delay the launch by months as no LEM was ready at the time.

Arriving at the moon, Apollo’s engine ignites, pushing the crew back into their seats as they are decelerated into lunar orbit.

Here they would remain for an entire 5 days, orbiting the moon. Making observations of more land never seen before, eroded craters and strange swirls like a paintbrush twirling across the dusty canvas of the moon at Reiner Gamma. They also observed a small flash occur on the far side, potentially a small meteorite impact. The days pass with these sights and tasks that breeze past quicker than they would have hoped, feeling more like a single day around the moon. Alas, their time in orbit was up, and they lit their engine once again to cast themselves back towards their home. Just a small blue dot hung in the sky, glittering like the most precious gemstone there is in a sea of black. They hit the atmosphere and marvel at the sights of space one last time before the blue of the atmosphere creeps all around them, engulfing the window of the capsule completely. The following minutes descending towards the ocean pass slowly, rocking ever so slightly by the parachutes catching the wind, then peacefully settling on the ocean waves. Apollo 7 was complete, and the next mission was the one that everyone was waiting for.

June 14, 1968
The Americans were catching up fast, and even surpassing the soviet achievements in some cases, so the time to launch was now. Archangel 2 would send people closer to the moon than ever before, A mere 10 km above the surface. The mighty H1 launches yet again, her mighty engines roaring into the skies far above, moving onwards to the moon. Piloting this flight was Anatoli Voronov, previously flying on Voskhod 6, and copiloting is Viktor Gorbatko, last flying alone on Voskhod 4. Burning away to the moon with a magnificent glow. Arriving at the moon, The two cosmonauts prepare for the daring mission, The two of them suiting up and readying the craft for decompression. The craft they are in is the LOK, an upgraded Soyuz fit for lunar expeditions. It has more efficient solar panels, electric batteries and a larger storage module. Placed below the LOK on a special mounting plate is the LK, The very craft designed to land humans on the moon next mission. There is no pressurised or unpressurised port between the two craft, necessitating a spacewalk between them. Along with the inconvenience of needing a spacewalk, the LK has space for only a single person, being stripped down to the bare minimum needed for the mission.

Anatoli Voronov exits the LOK, and uses the UPMK to transfer over to the LK. Entering the vehicle, it is an incredibly cramped space filled with mechanisms and cabinets which could give anyone claustrophobia. The LK breaks away and ignites the crasher stage, filled with less fuel than ordinarily needed to perform the mission, to lower its perilune to a mere 10 km above the surface. The horizon rises further and further up outside the window, the special Lunar IMP instrument showing that Voronov is currently over Mare Insularum, heading towards the ray systems of Copernicus. Activating the LK’s complex RD-858 engine and throttling it to keep a steady altitude. The LK was not on a landing course, but this testing of the engine in the correct environment was a useful component to test, unable to on earth.

Outside the window, the barren, colourless terrain gently slides past, with a completely blank sky forever above, the light reflected from the moon drowning out the starlight. Voronov receives the call to begin ascent, and jettisons the landing platform, setting the engine to full throttle as he attempts to return to the LOK’s orbit. Approaching it slowly, he has to perform the first docking using the Kontakt system, A docking system deemed so simple as to not need prior testing. The Soyuz’s side consisted of a small three-sided mechanical rod, upon capture, the LOK cosmonaut would activate it, causing 3 small prongs to deploy and lock in place in the LK’s side. This was a grid of 96 holes on a large metal plate mounted atop the LK’s orientation system. The plate had absolutely no mechanical components to it, and was completely passive. Voronov manoeuvred as close to the LOK as necessary, Gorbatko then performing the final docking. Light pulses of the manoeuvring system slowly guiding the Soyuz in, the docking antenna sliding into one of the many holes and then deploying.

Voronov remained in the LK for some time, testing out systems there was not time for, and verifying the accuracy of the Lunar IMP. Once completed, He performs a final spacewalk to transfer to the LOK, taking his seat and closing the airlock. Gorbatko unlatches the docking mechanism and lets the LK drift in lunar orbit until it inevitably decays and smashes into the surface. They conduct their engine burn to send the back to earth, watching the moon slowly recede out the window. On the long journey back, Archangel 2 received a call from Yuri Gagarin, recovering from a fractured femur and ankle sustained in a plane crash just 3 months earlier. The crew wished him well on his recovery, and hoped that he could one day see the sights that his first flight made possible. They hadn’t expected the reply though. “I have good news about that” Said Yuri, announcing that he would in fact be the pilot on Archangel 4, launching over a year from now, by which time his leg should have healed perfectly! The service module and storage module are both jettisoned as the capsule enters the atmosphere, landing safely in central Russia, the country now fully ready for Archangel 3.

May 15, 1968
The USSR was fully confident in its ability to land the first person on the moon, but there was one lunar milestone they could lose if they didn’t hurry. A Sample return. Launching deep in the night, Luna 15 ascends to orbit and quickly fires off its way to the moon. Like most lunar landers before it, Luna 15 will not slow down into orbit before landing, but slow down on a direct trajectory to the surface. Her target was the site of the future potential Archangel 6, the risky Dionysius crater. An 18 kilometre wide crater with a depth of almost 3 kilometres, a landing here has to be done incredibly carefully. Landing on its interior rim would be nigh impossible without using harpoons to stop from sliding down the nearly 45 degree walls. And its interior is littered with hills and boulders that could instantly destroy the lander. The reward for this daring site? Fresh lunar samples not yet tainted by erosion or solar wind. This crater is relatively new, covered in an ejecta blanket that is incredibly visible compared to the darkness of the bordering Mare Tranquillitatis.

Luna 15 falls towards the surface, Dionysius’ bright form growing larger and larger as her engine goes to full power, slowing her down as fast as it can. There’s nothing left to do but wait, and hope that on her way down, she hits the right spot. As she falls closer to the surface, the trajectory is refined better and better, though it’s too late to change anything. Luna 15 will land inside the crater - missing the slopes completely - in the targeted central region. Her location surpasses the map data available, it’s up to chance now whether she strikes a boulder or lands safely. Her legs make contact, all within a second of each other. Luna 15 landed perfectly safe. Her sample collection drill activates, steadily whirring beneath her sturdy landing legs. 35 centimetres down, stop, collect, retract. The samples are placed in the container at the top, and safely stowed away.

She remains on the surface for another Earth day, then the return to earth begins. Igniting her upper stage engine, making a slow turn and continuing to fire all the way. Her upper stage utilised Direct Ascent, just a single burn out of the moon straight back home. Drifting peacefully for 4 days, the lander portion continued to hum away its stream of information. Brushing against the atmosphere, the sample container glows like a meteor against the black night sky of rural russia. The recovery teams chase the trail, quickly dimming away, but unfurling a parachute with recovery lights around its edges to aid with finding it. Gently touching down for the second time, Luna 15 lies on the surface of the Earth, filled with 129g of regolith imported from the finest artisanal lunar craters over 300,000 kilometres away.

June 19, 1968
Amidst the fast pace of the space race, a new entity was about to enter the ranks of spacefaring countries. China, having been developing their CZ-1 rocket for some time, finally got to launch it. Being launched from the Jiuquan Space Center, the rocket flew over the country, the engine flare being seen by millions on the ground. Finally reaching orbit, the satellite Dong Fang Hong 1 was deployed, and began broadcasting a steady signal, a low quality version of “East Is Red”.

July 28, 1968
Standing tall on the launch pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Centre, the Saturn V yet again awaits a crew to board it. The upcoming Apollo 9 is almost all ready to go, just waiting for the moon to enter the perfect phase. No risks would be taken with this launch, they would be landing in one of the flattest parts of the moon, the Sea of Tranquility. And they would land at perfect visibility conditions, almost exactly on the equator, and at the slightest sign of trouble they would abort the mission. The lead ahead of the USSR seemed assured, they had not yet rolled out any H1 booster which could be useful for this launch attempt, Baikonur could easily be seen in Keyhole spy satellite imagery. And, if Apollo 9 were to go wrong, another Saturn V would be ready to launch as soon as September if needed! All of these factors combined to officially announce the launch of America’s, and the World’s first crewed lunar landing, August 5th, just a week away.

July 30, 1968
In the turmoil of Apollo 8’s announcement, the USSR was scrambling to prepare Archangel 3 to be ready to launch, cutting every corner they could. Korolev warned of potential launch failures and critical issues if the safety checks were rushed or just incorrectly completed to the standards of human spaceflight. Sadly, his concerns were ignored, and the USSR secretly moved up their launch to the 1st of August. Alexei Leonov and Boris Volynov were both offsite at the time, having to be flown into Baikonur with just an hour of notice before departure. The two brave cosmonauts would rest at Baikonur, ready for launch in 2 days time.

August 1, 1968

“Archangel 3 ready for launch, winds at safe speeds, internal atmosphere stable”

“We Hear you, Baikonur, Ready for launch”

The engines spool up and then, Ignition.

 

[SingularityG3]

For the first time in history, i have managed to release a chapter on schedule. Thank goodness, took long enough. or, it took a week i guess.

Poyekhali!

August 1, 1968
Archangel 3 violently rises from the launchpad, already something seeming wrong. The vehicle begins to slowly rotate, for some strange reason failing to be countered for the first 30 seconds of flight. Korolev was shouting to abort the launch, but that would not happen unless absolutely necessary, the rocket remained stable once corrected. The H1 was approaching maximum aerodynamic pressure, and so to reduce structural loads on the vehicle shut down its central 6 engines. However, the shutdown deviated from the normal program of gradually throttling them down, and instead cut the thrust from the four of them completely. This sudden shock causes a hydraulic shockwave, rupturing a fuel pipe which quickly grew to a large fire on the first stage. The exhaust from the engines quickly turned from a glowing orange into a sooty cloudy mix more fitting of a solid rocket’s exhaust. Alexei Leonov’s finger hovers above the abort switch, not willing to wait for the call to abort, until he hears a message.

“Separating block A, igniting block B.”

Ground control manually staged the Vehicle, though the outlook was deeply concerning, they would not let themselves lose their chance for the first landing. Alexei cautiously lowers his hand, bracing for any potential issue. The H1 continues to climb, far surpassing the cloud deck and breaking through the lowest levels of the atmosphere. Block B instantly loses thrust from 1 engine, KORD shutting down the opposite side too. Despite all the issues so far, they were forced to continue on. Moving faster and faster, reaching past the point of no return. If anything after this point fails, the Soyuz will crash in the ocean, a scenario it is not designed to handle. Rumbling on, the two cosmonauts retain their composure, Korolev back on the surface struggling with all their urgent requests and warnings having been ignored.

Block B continues to fire, now just a single small point of light from the ground, before separating and igniting Block V, also losing a single engine. Against all odds, the rocket manages to reach orbit, though in a worse state than expected. Mission control finally caves to Korolev’s requests and decide to wait a day in low earth orbit before proceeding to the moon.

August 2, 1968
The western world was startled by the sudden launch by the USSR, some American politicians called to move forwards the launch of Apollo 9 as well, but this was entirely impossible. But NASA had not given up hope, the fact that Archangel chose to spend more time in orbit was a sign that not all was well on the mission, that Apollo still had a chance to be first. Meanwhile in the USSR, citizens were rejoicing in the streets, as though the landing had already happened. Countries all across the world were celebrating, no matter their political alignments. No matter who lands first, a human would soon be walking upon the surface of another world.

“The Soviet Union has officially launched their Archangel 3 mission just days before our own attempt at a landing. We may have been beaten before we could even begin. This mission apparently contains two cosmonauts, Alexei Leonov - whose name you might remember for conducting the first spacewalk - and Boris Volynov. The launch took place just a short while after 10 AM Moscow time from the Baikonur Cosmodrome launch site. The spacecraft they launched consists of two modules, the Soyuz orbiter module, containing the two cosmonauts, and the LK lander, which Leonov will spacewalk to once in orbit around the moon. From there, Leonov will then descend to the lunar surface and take the first soviet steps on the lunar surface.

This announcement shocked the world and government officials, most of all NASA. Alleged intelligence gained from imaging satellites suggested that there was no active rocket ready just a week ago, making this launch all the more surprising. This has called into question whether NASA will move forwards with the launch of Apollo 9 or not. NASA Administrator James Webb was asked if this would happen, and stated that it is not possible to accelerate the launch without compromising the crew’s safety. With the Apollo program, NASA is trying hard to not repeat the mistakes of the USAF’s space program.

The race to the moon has been a fierce competition between the two superpowers since President Kennedy’s speech all those years ago, when he pledged that the United States would land a man on the moon before the decade was out. When that speech was made, America had just sent its first person into space, demanding a difficult journey of technological advancement, and learning from mistakes through trial and error. The Soviet Union may have made this promise impossible to complete, beating us with a bold gamble. If it pays off, they may land on the moon before Apollo 9 has even left 39A.”

August 2, 1968
The necessary system tests had been completed, and Korolev was satisfied with the state of the LOK and gave the go ahead for trans-lunar injection. The crew light up Block G, shooting them towards the moon, slated to arrive in just 3 days. The TLI burn was visible from the ground, being captured on video and photographs, and even transiting the moon a short while after the burn.

August 5, 1968
The long days of drifting through the peaceful ocean of cislunar space came to an end as Archangel approached the moon. Falling behind its cratered limb, the Block D stage was activated, slowing the craft down into an elliptical orbit around the moon, refined in successive orbits. Once the orbit had the necessary elements for the mission, Alexei exits the LOK and began to spacewalk over to the LK. He closes the hatch and sits down in the cramped vehicle, awaiting the call to separate.

“Ready For Descent”

He separates from the LOK and drifts a short distance away before pressing the button to once again ignite the Block D, And... Nothing. No motion is felt, the engine must’ve failed to ignite. Press it again and, yet again, nothing happens. An hour of attempting to activate the engine yielding no results. They decide to rest for tomorrow, when a spacewalk will attempt to identify and fix the issue with the engines.

“Good Evening, We have an update on the Soviet Union’s mission to the moon, Archangel 3 is facing an issue that may threaten its attempt at a historic landing. According to Soviet sources, Archangel 3 is suffering an unknown anomaly that is preventing the deorbiting engine from activating and starting the landing process. The two cosmonauts onboard, Alexei Leonov and Boris Volynov have been attempting to diagnose the issue but have not been successful so far.

Soviet authorities have not given further details on the nature of the anomaly, nor have they disclosed any contingencies in case of a mission failure. Some American experts have speculated it may be an issue with the fuel tank, that it may be leaking propellant. Others claim it may be due to a meteoroid strike, potentially from the Perseids meteor shower, or a small part of the hypothetical Kordylewski Clouds that remain in gravitational wells in front of and behind the moon.

NASA Officials are closely monitoring the situation, while also preparing for the upcoming Apollo 9 mission scheduled to launch in just under an hour. Lets go to the feed of that, shall we?”

The Saturn V majestically stands tall, a monochromatic beast carrying the payload of Apollo 9, the crew onboard waiting with joyful anticipation after hearing about Archangel’s issues, though still somewhat concerned. No spaceflight is 100% safe, and if something goes wrong they will have to abort the launch, if an issue occurs in the first few minutes of launch at least. If an issue occurs in lunar transit then they will have to abort the mission, and if the LEM had already separated, in specific edge case scenarios there may be no surviving it.

“Apollo 9 will carry three astronauts: Gus Grissom, Neil Armstrong and Michael Collins. All three of them are veterans to spaceflight, having each flown at least once before. Their main objective is, of course, to land on the moon and return safely, along with planting the American flag and conducting experiments on the surface, as well as planning to return samples. If the issue with the soviet’s descent engine lasts for long enough, Apollo 9 may be able to once again be the first landing on the moon. But only time will tell. We’ll be back at 30 minutes before launch.”

The minutes count down at a dreadful pace, the tick of a second feeling stretched tenfold as the entire moon landing depends on Apollo 9 launching in perfect condition, and the Soviets failing to fix their own lander. The crew await the launch with anticipation, and the time finally comes. The five F-1 engines spool up and begin to spew

their concoction of refined kerosene and liquid oxygen out of the nozzles. The Saturn V flies off the pad with its trail of smoke and flame behind it all the way, a sharp dagger cutting the sky in two. Stage one breaks away, the S-II roars to life with her five J-2
engines, violently shaking the entire vehicle.

Burning further and further, fulling breaking past the Earth’s atmosphere, the rumbling quieting to pure and utter silence. The only sounds remaining are from the internal mechanisms of the rocket vibrating through the capsule. The S-II fully depletes its fuel, falling away as the S-IVB torches it with her own engine. The stage cuts off, reaching the necessary parking orbit as the crew await confirmation to continue onwards. They receive it, “Go for TLI”, and initiate the final burn of the main rocket. The last mighty J-2 lights up, appearing like a comet in the sky of North-East Australia as the exhaust particles are lit up by the sun beyond the horizon. The engine, for the final time, cuts off. The dream is alive, Apollo 9 is on its way to our celestial neighbour.

August 8, 1968 13:55 UTC
Every day since lunar orbital insertion, Alexei Leonov has conducted two spacewalks. One visiting the LOK from the LK, having consistently floated within 100 metres of the LOK, unable to dock without jeopardizing the mission. During these first of the daily spacewalks, Alexei takes the necessary supplies and returns to the LK for between two and six hours. Once that time is up, Leonov does a one hour spacewalk to try and find and solve the problem with the engine, finding nothing every time.

This was another ordinary day, the fourth day spent around the moon for Alexei and Boris, watching the moon slowly spin outside the windows. Alexei lies back in his seat, as comfortable as possible in the cramped LK, chatting with Boris, trying to pass the time. About three hours after having finished the first spacewalk of the day, Alexei turns his head to look outside yet again, but this time notices something odd. A small sparkle on the control panel, Where the Block G ignition is. He brings it up to Boris and the mission control in the USSR, before deciding to just see what it is for himself. He rips out the button, and finds... a loose screw. A loose screw that was keeping the button from being completely pressed down. He pulls out the screw and places the button back where it was, notifying the ground controllers that he is about to perform the landing burn. News stations across the Soviet Union hastily switch to covering the moon landing attempt. Alexei presses the button and- It works.

August 8, 1968 14:04 UTC
While waiting in orbit, Apollo 9 happened to be in just the right spot to receive the signals of Archangel 3 as the decision was made, which was quickly relayed to Houston.

Armstrong “Well, dang, i guess they’re getting it first”

Collins “They could’ve waited for us to at least get into orbit”

Armstrong “As long as they send us a second place slice of cake, I’m fine with it”

Grissom “How much do you want to bet they have some celebration vodka onboard?”

Armstrong “Oh, I’d bet all my desserts!”

Collins “I hear your deserts and raise you the ungodly amount of citrus I’ve been putting off"

Grissom “I’ll bet that my name’s coveted real estate on that damn metal plate on the leg that says we were first”

Collins “First person to have their name on the moon twice, sounds good!”

Armstrong “Yeah, what are we gonna do about that? Do they have any white-out and pens here we can use?”

Grissom “Maybe they’ll issue a recall”

They stare out the window, trying to spot the LOK that remains in orbit. At their distance, it should be a faint dot between the brightness of Saturn and Uranus, just above the western limb of the moon

Collins “Ok yeah i think i’ve got it? There’s something moving over there and we aren’t anywhere near close enough to the moon for that to be the motion”

Armstrong “Where’s it heading?”

Collins “Looks like the ocean of storms? Hey, that’s where their other landers are right?”

Grissom “I know we’re meant to land in the Sea of Tranquility but we could always pay the soviets a visit if they land intact”

Collins “I’m sure they’d love that”

August 8, 1968 14:07 UTC
The LK begins to slow down, Alexei pushed down in his seat as the engine fires and the craft begins to fall ever closer towards the surface. The Block D runs out of fuel and separates, creating a short moment of serenity, sure to be appreciated by the stressed cosmonaut whose life is at stake in this landing. He activates the LK’s own engine, keeping it steady as he falls closer to the landing site. The LK downlinks with the Lunokhod and backup lander on the surface to figure out how close it is, then feeding that information back to Leonov to help with the landing. Alexei keeps the engine lightly sipping its noxious fuel of UDMH and dinitrogen tetroxide, under a third of a ton of propellant has been permitted for the landing, the rest reserved for returning to orbit.

He nears the landing site more and more, passing over the crater Bessarion and slowing down to, relative to orbital velocity, a crawling pace. Leonov cancels out almost all the horizontal velocity, slowly pitching up the LK and throttling down the engine to keep the lunar dust from shredding the backup lander, and to more precisely land. Alexei throttles down the engine even more, now not even enough to hover, slowly descending to the surface. Outside he can see the backup LK and Lunokhod beacon against the lunar surface, he hears a shrill beep and. Contact!

August 8, 1968 14:22 UTC

“Albatross has contact”

The LK landed, he did it, Alexei did it. He continues to gaze out the window, the solitude was present while in orbit but, not like this. He was seeing something that no living creature had ever seen before, though these lands were barren and lifeless, it was beautiful. The even grey terrain seemed to stretch impossibly far away, no atmosphere to give a sense of distance. The sky was the darkest black imaginable, not a single star to be seen. This solitude, the complete isolation of this new environment hit Alexei when he moved his head to see more out of the window, and he saw the earth. A small disk, motionless in the sky. Every human alive, every human that was ever alive, with the exception of Boris Volynov, was in his vision. 384 thousand kilometres away from him.

But this was no time for the existential dread to set in, Alexei had to go outside! He readied everything needed for the singular, 90 minute EVA, and opened the door. The desolation was more apparent than ever. He took a step on the ladder, seeing the external wiring of the LK against the fractal surface of the moon, craters within craters within craters. He takes another step, gazing up above him, the round capsule of the LK against the infinite dark of the starless sky. He takes another step, and another, until he has only a single ladder rung left to descend.

“I am about to set foot on the surface of the moon, this will be a momentous occasion for my country, and the entirety of humanity.”

Alexei takes the final step off the ladder, planting his boots firmly on the lunar surface. In a brief moment of pure silence, all he can hear is his own breathing, and the surface of another world with earth hung low above the horizon, he begins to tear up.

“10,000 Marathons, all for a single step.”

The world watches, the signals broadcast back to the earth and relayed to televisions across the globe. Hundreds of millions watch as the first person on earth, a citizen of the Soviet Union, takes the first steps on another world

“I see a barren world, yet also majestic and strange, a sight no living thing has ever seen before. We are here to advance the pursuit of science, and the demonstrate that humans can achieve great things when they work together. We are here to make history. This landing is for all those who dreamed that today would come, that someday man would set foot on the moon and to those who helped make this mission a reality, And this is for everyone who lost their lives in the pursuit of spaceflight.”

Alexei walks a short distance away from the lander, planting the flag of the Soviet Union firmly in the lunar regolith. Then walking a few steps further and deploying a camera with a timer pointed at the flag and lander, Leonov posed next to it.

August 8, 1968 18:38 UTC
Apollo 9 - Eagle / Columbia

Collins “Yeah, I see them. Reds got there first.”

Grissom “I bet they aren’t even waving at us”

Armstrong “We’re just lucky the moon is silver already”

Just hours before entering lunar orbit, Archangel 3 had managed to land before Apollo. America was distraught, most of all the workers at NASA who spent years of their life working to try and land first. The crew wasn’t too disappointed though, they still got to land there second. And being beaten by a few hours wasn’t too bad of a defeat! Grissom and Neil both transfer into the LEM, promptly undocking from the CSM and preparing to deorbit.

The LEM’s descent engine ignites, lowering their pericynthion to below the surface. The minutes pass, though unlike at launch, the time feels like it flows faster than usual. Gus and Neil wait with bated breath as the time eventually comes to ignite the engine once more, and land. Grissom throttles up the engine, already approaching the Sea of Tranquility, they slow down, fast. They cancel out the sideways velocity, turning the LEM more upright and continuing to burn, scouting for a safe landing site. What was hoped to be a flat, safe landing site turned out to be a boulder strewn plain, littered with craters. These boulders were impossible to land near, being as large or larger than the LEM itself, it could impact one of them during descent and be unable to return to orbit!

Grissom “It's too rocky here, I’m going to hover for a bit to find a better spot”

Armstrong “Sure, watch the fuel though, we’re at 50 seconds”

Everywhere it’s just more of the same, boulder after boulder after boulder in an unending stretch of nothing else. The fuel continues to burn, time running out

Armstrong “30 seconds, Gus”

Grissom “Got it, i think i see a spot”

A small clearing makes itself visible amongst the rocky landscape, turning out to be a vast empty patch near the edge of the field. Using the last remaining fuel, Gus Grissom slowly cancels out all the speed of the LEM, before letting it gently fall to the surface, supported by a low powered burning of the engine. Dust envelopes the exterior view, nothing but an ever shifting mass of dust and pebbles can be seen outside the window, until a small light flashes on. Contact light, the legs have touched the surface, the engine cuts out completely and the craft falls to the surface gently. America has landed their first crewed mission upon the moon.

Armstrong “Look at that, a whole world.”

Grissom “And this part is all ours.”

Collins “Have you checked if the soviets decided to claim this spot of the moon?”

Grissom “No but who cares about what they think?”

Armstrong “They do.”

Collins “Them?”

Grissom “Well in that case we could just split the moon in two”

Collins “Yeah that might work if it was still 1490”

Grissom “Oh it’s not? I knew I should’ve brought a calendar with me!”

Armstrong “Houston, we’d like to check if the current year is 1490”

CAPCOM “Eagle, this is Houston, can confirm it is not 1490 but 1968.”

Grissom “Well damn, is the Holy Roman Empire still around? They promised me a decent herd of aurochs”

CAPCOM “Gus, we have a lot to catch you up on”

They have a 2 hour period scheduled before their spacewalk begins, making sure every system still functions after the landing, and generally preparing for the walk on the surface. Broadcast yet again across the globe, for the second time today, a man sets foot on the lunar surface.

 

[SingularityG3]

I'n really sorry it keeps taking longer and longer to make these chapters, i just didn't have much motivation, hopefully thats changed now though! a lot of the difficulties was writing the soviet parts of this chapter, which i turned out pretty proud of! hopefully, you'll all like it too
The Genius and Daring

August 9, 1968 19:53 UTC

Grissom “Next time we’re here we should bring some green lights with us, make it look a bit more homely outside.”

Armstrong “Next time? You coming back up here on holiday?”

Grissom “I sure hope so, Charles doesn’t seem to want to leave 10, I’m sure I can convince him though.”

Grissom looks out the window again, sitting on a small box of supplies against the cold metal wall. The view is the same as it was a minute ago, and a minute before that, a forever unchanging landscape of pebbles and rocks. This entire world, unwashed by rain, jagged and sharp, with the harsh contrast of different regions of the surface, beneath the dark sky together.

Grissom “Does it still really matter what we say on the surface? We aren’t the first anymore, so will our words still carry enough weight to warrant that much thought?”

Armstrong “I don’t think they really ever did.”

Grissom “Everyone back home will be hoping for something though, Some wise quote to echo through the future”

Collins “Eh, just say something about persevering or like it doesn’t matter who’s first, that’s good enough, right?”

Grissom “Yeah, yeah I think I’ll just go with that”

Collins “Maybe instead of first words you could try being the first person to slip on the moon”

Gus toggles the microphone, almost finished suiting up for the spacewalk

Grissom “Alright, CAPCOM this is Eagle, we’re almost ready to walk.”

CAPCOM “We hear you, Eagle, everything is ready on our side. COMMTECH?”

COMMTECH “Honeysuckle is a go for video. Get the main objectives down quick, Moon is starting to set.”

Armstrong “Roger, COMMTECH, How long do we have?”

COMMTECH “Around 70 minutes until the moon sets too far, Madrid will take over after that, we’ll start the switch in one hour, gives us enough time to sort out any possible problems.”

August 9, 1968 20:02 UTC

Armstrong and Grissom slowly vent the atmospheric pressure, as the hatch opens inwards, if the pressure is too high, the air would rush out and close the hatch. Grissom opens the hatch completely, and begins to exit, carefully descending the ladder. He places one boot on the top rung, then the next, then the next, taking a brief stop to communicate with the ground, and deploy the MESA

Grissom “Houston this is Gus. Radio check”

CAPCOM “Gus, This is Houston. Loud and clear. Neil, this is Houston. Radio check, and verify TV circuit breaker”

Armstrong “Roger, TV circuit breaker is in, and read you five by five”

CAPCOM “Roger, we’re getting a picture, Lot of contrast in it, and currently its upside-down on the monitor, but we can see a fair amount of detail”

Armstrong “I hear you, is the camera- is it pointing in the right spot?”

CAPCOM “Position is good, we can see Gus come down the ladder”

Grissom “I- I’m at the foot of the ladder, the footpads are only an inch or two into the surface. Surface looks very fine, like a- a dusting of powder. I’m going to step off the LM now”

CAPCOM “Roger”

He takes his first step on this new world, a small portion of dust building up around the edge of his boot as he presses into the ground. He stands completely still for 15 seconds, in awe of the marvellous sights that no man had seen before today

Grissom “We have reached a new frontier in human history, One where we may look upon the earth from afar, and see just how delicate and unique it truly is.”

Grissom “The- the surface is very fine as i remarked before, I can- it adheres in layers to my boots like- like charcoal. I can only go a fraction of an inch into the surface, but I can see the footprints of my boots very clearly in the fine particles.”

CAPCOM “Gus, this is Houston, we’re copying. Neil, how about you get out there?”

Armstrong “I thought you’d never ask!”

Neil slowly makes his way down the ladder, just a sliver more eloquently than Gus did, almost slipping off the rungs. He pauses for a moment, not to pull some other inexplicably cord on the side, but to gaze at the small engraving. That plate mounted forever on the leg, claiming that this was the first mission to the surface of the moon. The first ever footfall on another world it proclaims, made incorrect by the string of luck from the soviets.

Armstrong “Houston, this is Neil, what are we going to do about the plaque?”

CAPCOM “Plaque?”

Armstrong “The one on the- the ladder?”

CAPCOM “Oh, well, I suppose it’ll be staying, unless you have a chisel”

He continues down the ladder, stepping into the depressed footpads of the landing legs, then stepping off onto the surface. With both Leonov and Grissom on the surface, this already brings the total people to, not only walk on the moon, but at the same time, to three. Neil and Gus continue to take samples and perform experiments, deploying retroreflectors to measure the distance to the moon to the accuracy of under a metre, and placing a seismometer, though having trouble getting it to turn on. The time of the spacewalk began to dwindle. 80 minutes passed from the beginning, taking panoramas, photographing the many experiments and taking close up photos of the surface.

Just before the allocated EVA time was up, Neil Armstrong placed a small silicon disk, the size of a 50 cent coin, on the surface. This disc was engraved just 19 days before launch with messages from hundreds of people. Acting Administrator of NASA Thomas Paine, suggested the idea, and his signature is engraved on the disc, along with many Government officials. The house of representatives, the president, NASA Officials, all giving small messages or signatures. And it wasn’t just people, over 100 countries and territories sent messages to be placed on the disc. Afghanistan, Senegal, Upper Volta, Sikkim, Romania, Greece, Ireland, Zambia, Morocco, Dahomey, The Maldives, Malagasy, Cyprus, Denmark, the newly independent Nauru, and many, many more.

Finally, their time was up, Neil reentered the LM at T+2 hours, Gus entering too just 30 minutes later.

Following the spacewalk, they were scheduled for a few hours of sleep. Unfortunately they only slept for three hours, their LM had landed on a slight incline, no more than a few degrees, which caused a constant sensation that the LM was about to tip over. Not only that though, they had to sleep in their spacesuits, a task made very difficult due to their rigid neck ring. But back in Columbia, Michael Collins had a much better time sleeping.

CAPCOM (Eugene Shoemaker) “Columbia, Columbia; good morning from Houston”

Collins “Morning, Gene-”

CAPCOM “Hey, Mike, how’s it going this morning-”

Collins “How goes it?”

CAPCOM “Hey, real good. While you’re-”

Collins “I don’t know yet, how’s it going with- oh, darn delays!”

CAPCOM (chuckles) “It’s fine, you just woke up. Good breakfast today?”

Collins “Ignoring those peanut cubes, I’m enjoying it. Rehydrating is a bit tough sometimes, but It’s better than having to eat dry crackers for a week instead.”

CAPCOM “At least you’ve got plenty of coffee”

Collins “Oh, don’t get me started on that pre-mixed stuff.”

CAPCOM “Would you rather no coffee at all?”

Collins “Tell you what, once I’m back I might never have coffee again.”

CAPCOM “Mike, don’t even joke about that.”

Collins “I’m- I’m not kidding, it’s not good.”

CAPCOM “I’ll see what I can do about getting some real coffee to you during quarantine.”

August 10, 1968 08:14 am UTC

As the crew of Tranquility Base wakes up, Alexei Leonov activates the engine of the LK, roaring upwards and sending a vast wave of dust rippling across the surface. Slowly angling to push closer into orbit, the whole craft violently shaking, oscillating as the fuel sloshes around inside the tank. It’s a rocky ascent, but a successful one nonetheless. Alexei pilots the LK to the vicinity of the LOK, where they approach each other. The LOK’s docking probe extends and slides into one of the Kontakt’s many hexagonal grids, splaying out its metal spike, locking it in. Alexei leaves the LK with the lunar samples, spacewalking over to the LOK hatch. He gently pushes the samples through the hatch when suddenly, Volynov tells him that the Kontakt system isn’t retracting, forcing him to return. Alexei takes a small rod from the LOK and drifts back over to the LK, pushing and prodding the docking probe with the rod, manually undocking the two craft. The LK slowly begins to drift away as Leonov returns to the LOK and closes the hatch. They ignite their lunar return engines, burning through the remainder of their fuel and sending them back home, to land in 3 days

August 10, 1968 9:25 am UTC

Armstrong “TIG Minus 2

Grissom “Roger, Master arm is on.”

Armstrong “TIG Minus 1”

Grissom “DSKY Blanks”

Armstrong “Houston we’re ready for liftoff”

CAPCOM “Roger, you are go for liftoff.”

Grissom “Abort stage, engine arm ascent.”

The ascent stage breaks away from the descent stage, remaining on the surface through the flow of engine exhaust brushing against the thin metallic hull. Gently rocking back and forth as it ascends, Gus can see small amounts of dust flowing back and hitting the window, for a few seconds at least. The lunar module continues its way upwards, the shaking stopping quickly, now just a smooth ride into lunar orbit, and once there, just a quick docking with Columbia, a few minutes of engine burning, and a long ride home.

August 12, 1968
Having left first by a decent margin, Archangel 3 was already approaching Earth, falling at a rapid rate. Only a few thousand kilometres above the thin, wispy clouds at their landing site nearby to Baikonur, a few hundred kilometres to the northeast. As they plummet closer and closer, they are given the command to separate the orbital and instrumentation modules to expose the Soyuz’s heat shield. A clunk is heard, and the orbital module’s shadow is no longer cast on the descent module, signifying that it detached successfully. But as they began to enter the exosphere truly, they felt the spacecraft roll, hatch facing the Earth. The explosive bolts meant to detach the

service module had failed to fire, causing the aerodynamics and centre of mass to change in a way that forced the descent module’s nose to face the full force of reentry.

Through the window the crew could see a magnificent spectrum of flaring colours, reds and greens and purples, the beautiful reentry plasma engulfing the craft, the only thing they could do is hope that the service module burns through before the spacecraft’s hatch is breached. Rocking back and forth, the spacecraft is violently jostled back and forth, g-forces climbing higher and higher, all the way up to 8g before the service module finally breaks away, the connection points having either snapped or melted away. Soyuz aggressively rolls to the correct orientation, heat shield firmly facing forwards. The plasma fades and the parachutes deploy, gently lowering the craft down until it is mere metres above the ground, it blasts its retrorockets and safely plants itself in the dusty soil.

August 13, 1968
The days of drifting through cislunar space were nearing their end, Columbia peacefully gliding down towards the thin veil of Earth’s atmosphere. Accelerating down faster and faster, plunging

deep into the gravity well. The final course corrections were made, setting the capsule on a path to splash down in the pacific ocean. Once there it would be collected by the USS Hornet, a long serving aircraft carrier, currently 900 km east of Majuro and 645 km northwest of Howland Island. Onboard the Hornet was President Lyndon B. Johnson, Acting NASA Administrator Thomas Paine, and former NASA Administrator James Webb, watching the distant glow of Columbia’s reentry rising from the horizon.

Rocketing down through the thickest portions of the atmosphere, followed by the dissipating trail of plasma blazed behind it, Columbia’s crew prepares to release the parachutes, hopefully just a few minutes from splashdown. Columbia’s comms are regained and they are given the signal, releasing the drogue parachutes. They shoot out the top of the module, deploying many metres above, and safely slowing down Apollo as its main parachutes deploy shortly after. Though they had not been the first to land on the moon, or to return, they had still completed the mission. They were still greeted with parades and gifts and celebrations in America, and across the world despite this fact, they were still humans that had visited another world, it didn’t matter which country sent them there and back.

September 5, 1968
It was the night shift at the Tien Shan Astronomical Observatory, around 4:30 am. Just four people were working at the newly established 5m telescope, two were monitoring the mirror at all times, making sure the mirror remained focused at the right point. The other two, Anatoly and Georgi, were going over plates taken the previous night. It wasn’t a fun job, the automatic switcher had broken, forcing them to manually look between the plates, looking for any subtle difference between them. Last night, the observatory was taking 15 second exposures in the vicinity of 6 hours right ascension, 30 degrees of declination. Hour after hour of searching, coffee after coffee, nothing. The generator stops, backup generator turning on as the heating clutters to a halt. The dark skies covered with the blossoming glow of the milky way darkens yet further as the moon sets against the mountains. The observatory begins to wind down as astronomical dawn sluggishly nears, all the while, Anatoly and Georgi remain flipping between their plates.

“Nothing on 0312, anything on the next one?”

“0313 and 0314 are both empty, just stars and stars and stars”

“Oh, Georgi, I’m meant to be taking the even ones!”

“Oh if it can make it up to you, you can take this next one”

“Okay, fine... Oh my god!”

“Oh shit, did you find something?”

“Little tiny dot there, barely even visible!”

The two of them scramble to try and

project to probable locations of the asteroid, only a day has passed since the plates were taken and if they get it right today, there's a high chance to find it again. Failure to find it could lead to the target drifting too far to be found. They narrow it down to a rough square of 5 arcminutes, an incredible feat. they call the observatory team in a frenzy, getting them to point to the rough location of where the asteroid should be. In an hour that passes in seemingly a few stressful seconds, they manage to locate the asteroid, and refine the orbit slightly, now having a full day of observation arc.

They narrow its size down to between 100 and 800 metres, a decent amount of uncertainty. And send the astronomical coordinates over to all the necessary recipients, calling it “Laika” as a designation until an official name can be decided upon. While the sun set over the mountains in the distance, and the first rays of ochre sunlight trickled their way through the windows, they began to predict its location for future nights. By no means was it perfect, but it was a rough projection of its location for the next 5 years, and something became apparent rather fast. In early 1971, Earth and Laika began to grow closer and closer, coming to a head in early april. At this time, with a very large uncertainty region, there was a clear close approach. Anywhere from 5 times the distance to the moon, to a collision. It was a slim chance, but whatever course the asteroid took, it would pass incredibly close to Earth.

September 15, 1968
In a thankful reprieve from the onslaught of crewed launches, a new country was stepping into spaceflight, only the fifth country to do so, after China, France, America and the USSR. Their satellite is small, just a metallic orb weighing 25kg, just under 50cm wide. The top is an instrument housing unit, shaped like a truncated cone, with multiple antennae flaring away from it. Japan’s rocket is unique for spaceflight, as it was designed for purely civilian use, to launch satellites, and not military. In fact, this rocket was specifically designed to have no guidance systems, performing a completely unguided ascent into orbit

November 5, 1968
The 1968 US presidential election comes to a close, a surprisingly close race. Republican candidate Richard Nixon received 46.1% of the vote, while Democratic candidate Robert Kennedy won, gaining 51.2%, the remainder going mostly to independent candidates. Just 4 weeks later, on November 30, Lyndon B. Johnson attends the last crewed launch of his presidential career, Apollo 10.

 

[SingularityG3]

Well, It took a while but it's finally done. This will be the last chapter of THIS ITERATION of Glorious Dawn! I noticed some glaring errors and missed opportunities in previous chapters, and decided I might as well restart. I've got a few people helping me out for the next iteration, and I should HOPEFULLY be able to actually post those on a schedule. Gonna get 3 chapters finished, then post the first one, that way we've got a nice buffer in case I pass out for another 2763 months. Chapter 1 should be coming out on June 28/27th, depends on your time zone. I hope y'all like this chapter, and the coming reboot!

Blue skies, Red dust / Экспедиция на Этну

November 30, 1968
Apollo 10 launched amidst a storm, bombarded by rain on ascent as the haunting glow of the engines faded through the fog and clouds, on its way to the moon. Onboard, the crew of Charles Conrad, Alan Bean and Richard Gordon separate the stages, pushing ever further towards their destination. Minutes pass and they enter orbit just 11 minutes after launch, now 103 nautical miles above the earth in a parking orbit waiting for the trans-lunar injection’s window to open in just over 2 hours. At T+2:30, TLI go/no go is conducted, everything in order, they proceed 17 minutes later. The engine starts up again, giving the crew their last experience of gravity for a few days minimum.

December 3, 1968
Bean “50 Feet coming down, watch for the dust.”

Conrad “Already seeing it, Al.”

Bean “Quantity light, starting the timer. Coming down at 2, Pete; you got plenty of gas, plenty of gas, babe. Hang in there.”

Conrad “Alri-”

LM Intrepid continues to descend towards the contrasting lunar surface, a fountain of dust being thrown upwards, more than Apollo 9 had seen. 30 feet, 20, 10.

Bean “Contact light”

Pete Conrad keeps the engine running for just a little bit longer, holding back the training to turn it off for just a second longer. The LM tilts as it hits the surface, tilting ever so slightly before the engine shuts down.

Bean “Pro! Good landing, Pete!”

Looking out the window, the surface of the moon presents itself, in all its glory. Distant mountains, scattered craters, a perfectly sharp horizon dividing the sky from the sea of storms. A few minutes pass as the vehicle settles, and they are approved to stay on the moon, no abort needed. The following hours were spent preparing for the first EVA. Just a short one, grabbing a contingency sample, planting the flag, taking more samples, a bit of scouting. Looking at the Surveyor II lander in the distance, tomorrow’s target. The next day, they begin the short 500ft trek over to its landing site.

Bean “You know, this one’s brown, I don’t remember our one down at the Cape being brown.”

CAPCOM “Pardon?”

Bean “It’s kind of a light tan, it- wasn’t it white? When it started out?”

CAPCOM “Stand by on that”

Conrad “H- Hey Al, I think it’s just dust?”

Bean “Oh, is it? Guess we must’ve kicked it up from landing”

Conrad “It’s fully coated it, it’s even on the back here”

Bean “And it can’t have just been the paint turning brown?”

Conrad “No, it just rubs right off, white as snow under there”

The crew proceeded to take off designated parts, gather more samples, and conduct a secret thing that Al and Pete had planned. Grabbing a small timer from his sample bag, Al connected it to the camera, placing it on the ground facing Surveyor II and Intrepid. This took place fully out of NASA’s sight, but resulted in the only colour photo of Surveyor II, and of both crew in-front of it at once. Once that portion was completed, they took a short walk over to Blocky crater, grabbed a few more samples, took a few panoramas, and returned to Intrepid. Burning back into orbit, they docked with CSM Yankee Clipper and successfully completed their TEI.

December 8, 1968
Their long mission had finally come to an end, as Yankee Clipper descends into the pacific ocean, making a large splash as the recovery boats drift closer in the calm seas.

December 31, 1968
In their quest to yet again explore the shrouded world of Venus, the USSR launched their sixth Venera mission, the first one to launch since 1965. This one is planned to arrive on May 18th, 1969. Once there it would strike the atmosphere, and using the previously learned atmospheric data, attempt to survive to the surface. When landed it would deploy a small arm to look at the surface composition, and take a panorama of the venusian surface.

January 5, 1969
However, the US was stepping up its competition yet again with Mariner 6, a Venus orbiter. Containing experiments designed to measure the atmosphere, search for a magnetic field with more precision, and generate a low quality radar map of the planet’s topography. It also had a secondary mission, one initially unplanned; a relay.

January 11, 1969
Mariner 7 would launch just a week after Mariner 6, on an intentionally slower trajectory. 6 would arrive on the 10th of May, with 7 arriving on the 17th. This was to give time to Mariner 6 to make sure every system was working, because this craft was planning to enter the atmosphere. A quickly thrown together probe that would, hopefully, survive to the surface. To provide more mass for instruments, and a thick heat shield, the communications antennae was made smaller, and that’s where Mariner 6’s alternate use came into play. It would relay the signals back to earth for as long as the lander survived.

January 12, 1969
In the dawn of the lunar age of space exploration, more and more countries pass legislation to establish their own space station. Whether that be just building satellites to be launched on other’s rockets, or sounding rockets for high altitude observations, or completely making orbital rockets. And the latest one of these new space faring countries is India. The formation of the Indian Space Research Organisation, ISRO, brings with it thousands, tens of thousands of jobs for the rising Indian economy, and the promise that it will become one of the leading space agencies. Already, work has begun on the first Indian satellites, Aryabhata-1, 2 and 3, to be launched on a soviet Kosmos launch vehicle in under 4 years. They will continue to build satellites until eventually, work is finished on their very own launch vehicle, the Satellite Launch Vehicle. Once they have their own rocket, a series of missions is planned for the nearest celestial bodies, the Moon, Mars and Venus. Despite being a brand new agency, they have already shown just how committed they are.

February 25, 1969
Continuing the grand mariner programme, the latest instalment promises to deliver some of the most exciting science yet. Launching from Cape Canaveral on a Vulcan II, a now 6 year old launcher. Still proving to be a reliable launcher, that same crimson glow lights up the Floridian coast as Mariner 8 begins its vast journey, millions of miles to start a brand new step. Its goal was to, first and foremost, orbit Mars, once there it would begin to specifically map a few areas of interest, in preparation for a new upcoming program. Voyager Mars.

March 12, 1969
The USSR would counter this next step forward by launching their latest mission, Mars 6. A seemingly normal looking mission from the outside, the main attraction for Mars 6 is shrouded inside an aeroshell, seeking to keep it safe when it enters the atmosphere of Mars. A small rover, larger than PrOP-M, but still rather small. Its wheels protrude from out under the body, shielded on top by small solar panels slanted backwards, hopefully providing enough power to keep the rover alive for the planned 14 days. Since Mars is so far from Earth, it is infeasible to control its motion live, necessitating a high degree of autonomy. This would be facilitated using a system similar to the previous PrOP-M rovers, featuring a small bar in front of the wheels which, when pushed enough by a firm rock, will cause the rover to perform a short turnaround. This would reverse it slightly, then turn it slowly to move around the obstacle, repeating until it can safely continue onwards. Its communication system was a strange one, it would need to communicate directly to Earth as there would be no active soviet orbiters when it arrives. Whenever it detects the light level getting too dim, or the battery power dropping too low, it will deploy its thin radio antenna, transmitting signals back to Earth and awaiting its next target. Every 15 minutes or so, while roving, it would stop and take an image of the approaching terrain, and a panorama every hour. This was to ensure no interesting targets were missed at any point during the roving process.

March 20, 1969 11:16 am EST
Eglin Air Force Base, Florida

ATC “Alright Francis, you’re clear for takeoff”

Neubeck “Roger, anything I should keep an eye out for?”

ATC “Well there's this satellite around 150 miles up, but it shouldn’t get in your flight path”

Neubeck “Oh, I’ll try my best to make sure it does.”

Under NASA, Surprisingly, the USAF’s former space program flourished. Better oversight and stricter rules had allowed for more reliable craft, and less accidents arising. NASA also received a rather hefty funding boost, to help continue the military portion of the agency, and more funding for Apollo and planetary science missions after a report revealed the many opportunities present for both crewed and uncrewed. The military portion that, comparatively, benefitted the most under NASA was the Pilot ASAT program. Just a few years prior, it had resulted in an abysmal success rate, and the death of a pilot. Now, with more time put into safety and engineering, Pilot-3 proved itself a safe vehicle, though its impact reliability left a lot to be desired. A mere 10% impact rate is fantastic when considering the difficulties that must be overcome, but if a satellite had to be taken out with real stakes? A new vehicle had to be developed.

May 12, 1967
National Protection Wing, NASA Langley Research Centre, Virginia
It was a cloudy day, the Pilot team sat in silence in the conference room. Piles of paper sat on the table, covered with haphazard notes and scribbles. Meant to be finished days ago, they were already far behind schedule in the design process. Meant to provide a technically feasible design by the first Friday of May, to allow time to iterate and test in the many wind tunnels in the building, eventually providing an operational vehicle within two years. At this rate, it wouldn’t be done in twenty. Nothing seemed to stick, technology wasn’t accurate enough to allow plain kinetic strikes to be reliable, conventional explosives could potentially work, but it would still need to be close. Detonating a nuclear warhead near a satellite could work, but the dangers of a failed launch, and the radiation that would affect astronauts and military communications satellites was deemed too high a risk.

Making no further progress today, the team took their lunch break. Heading to the cafeteria in building 1213. They all got their lunches and sat down in the various booths that adorned the walls. They all conversed amongst themselves on how slow the week has been, until one man, just like the days before, opened a bottle of Coca-cola. There was nothing different about this one, but today, he noticed something that he had long ignored. Opening the can released a short burst of air as the pressure is released. And looking at the lid of the bottle, mist can be seen rising out at a steady pace. This seemingly mundane occurrence, sparked an idea. He scribbled in his notebook and shouted for everyone to return to the conference room. Once there, he hastily draws on the blackboard, a craft looking almost exactly like the NOTS-EV-3, but with one main difference. A cloud of mist.

NOTS-EV-4, Also known as Crucible, is an air-launched ASAT weapon. Designed to be mounted to the base of a Convair B-58 Hustler, usually stripped of guns and other armaments. The plane would climb to an altitude of 13 miles, then separate the Crucible and perform a quick turn to get out of its path. To prevent any incidents like the ones that led to William Knight’s death, the vehicle was only activated when all connection latches were severed, an action impossible to do without dropping the vehicle. Once separated, a few seconds would pass before the first stage solid motor ignited, shooting the rocket off at incredible acceleration. Guidance would be aided by small gas thrusters near the top of the vehicle. The first stage would run out of fuel and it would be promptly separated as the second stage ignites, providing the last amount of thrust necessary to directly intercept almost any low orbiting satellite. Guidance would continue to bring Crucible as close to the target as possible, a tough task considering the rapid speeds both the vehicle and target have. Once close enough, the final stage begins. Near the top of the vehicle, there is an iron orb, grooved like a soccer ball, reminiscent of the common hand grenade. It is launched by a small separator, and then under a second later, a small explosive blasts it apart, unleashing a cloud of miniscule rubies. This is the main part that makes this so effective, a cloud of debris will not only have a higher chance to strike the target, but will thoroughly shred it on impact.

March 20, 1969 11:38 am EST
Neubeck “We are at altitude, Crucible is ready to go!”

MISCOM “We hear you loud and clear, Crucible is ready to go. Release when ready, then get the hell out of there”

Francis Neubeck being given this assignment was no coincidence, This program was still managed by NASA, and they had to make sure he was still astronaut material. Being chosen just a few months prior, he had already conducted several test flights, learning the ropes of the plane and the special controls it required to launch Crucible. Climbing higher and higher, Neubeck was nearing the absolute limits of the B-58’s ability. He jettisoned Crucible, and performed a sharp turn to, on the off chance it misfired, get out of its path. Its solid motors ignite perfectly, shooting off like a second sun outside the cockpit window, rattling the plane despite the thin atmosphere. It continues on, climbing through the stratosphere at 90 ft/s/s, and already breaking mach 5. Escaping the atmosphere, the first stage sputters out as the solid fuel is fully spent, triggering the accelerometer to separate the stages, the second stage instantly igniting, flooding the small interstage with such high pressures that it was forced to burst. The target satellite, a keyhole reconnaissance satellite on its last legs, transmitted a steady tone back to mission control. The satellite was already on a path to deorbit shortly later, a protocol to make sure little to no debris is left in orbit, so even if Crucible misses, the satellite will still be destroyed shortly after. The second stage burns out like the first, small puffs of gas keep it pointing in the right direction, and help manoeuvre it towards the satellite. Contact with Crucible is lost, the detonator having successfully activated, and seconds later, the signal from keyhole stutters, and vanishes into static. Crucible had destroyed the satellite, currently the only first-try success for the Pilot program, and spreading a beautiful lightshow for South Florida.

Returning to Eglin AFB, Neubeck safely lands the plane, and arrives to find something of a surprise waiting for him. Alan Shepard, Chief of the Astronaut Office. Neubeck was just approved to start training for Apollo 18.

March 29, 1969
Continuing their ever strong pace, Apollo 11 launched just 5 months after the previous mission. Crewed with Edgar Mitchell, James Irwin and Jack Swigert, the launch went off without a hitch. Burning onwards to the Moon, and conducting special dedicated live interviews with certain channels back on the ground. It was reported there was slightly less engagement with the mission, with landings now happening twice or even thrice a year, not just by the Americans, but the Soviets too, the public was becoming less interested. To drum up more interest, a strange plan was made for the crew to play “Fly me to the Moon” while the engines fired. To play it, a small device was created, very simple battery-powered device was made. Vaguely derived from the Apollo DSKY, it was a simple synthesiser, each button playing a different note. Edgar Mitchell would sing, while James Irwin would play the synthesiser, Swigert manning the cameras. It turned out to be harder to play than expected, the buttons sometimes not being pushed down far enough to trigger. Nonetheless, the song was successfully played, and was an interesting publicity stunt for all those watching from earth.

April 2, 1969
Safely getting into orbit around the moon, LM Rigel would separate from CSM Orion, gracefully dropping down towards the rugged terrain of Fra Mauro. The terrain on the surface was unknown to NASA, nothing had landed there before, they were going in essentially blind.

Irwin “We have pitchover, Houston– And there’s Cone crater!”

Mitchell “That’s it, right on the money!”

Irwin “Right out the window, just like it should be.”

Mitchell “Starting to see some dust”

Irwin “Okay- We’re at Bingo fuel”

Mitchell “3 feet down, 40 feet. 10 feet, 3 per second. Contact”

Irwin “Great, Pro.”

Mitchell “We’re on the surface!”

Irwin “Great landing!”

The landing went perfectly, the rough landscape of Fra Mauro visible outside the windows as the dust clears. It wasn’t long before their first EVA of the mission began, a short walk out to Doublet crater, then down to Triplet. They took their first samples, placed the flag, and returned to Rigel. Waking up after about 6 hours of sleep, they had their breakfast of bacon squares, coffee, “orange drink”, and scrambled eggs. Their second EVA lasted longer than the first, featuring sample collections at Weird crater, before moving on to the ejecta sheets of Cone crater, and up to the very rim of it. A beautiful panorama is taken of Cone crater, with Rigel visible in the distance. The walk back was uneventful, entering the lander just over 3 hours after it was exited. The crew has their lunch, and begin preparations to return to Orion. The ascent stage flares to life, blasting away from the stationary descent stage. Returning to lunar orbit, they slowly approach Orion and finally dock, transferring over and burning back to earth.

April 6, 1969
Slamming into the atmosphere, the craft is engulfed by plasma, a comet of fire blazing through the Pacific sky. The plasma dissipates, the parachute deploys, and Orion gently splashes down in the vast oceans, the recovery ships lingering on the horizon, slowly making their way over. The next mission, launching in another 5 months, had the planned crew of Roger Chaffee, Rusty Schweickart, and John Young. Its planned landing site was to be in the Hadley-Apennine range, on July 29th.

May 1, 1969
While the United States had already completed another 2 lunar missions, the USSR had been biding their time. After the near-disastrous launch of Archangel 3, all precautions were taken, there was no way they were going to risk a national hero. At the top of the gargantuan N1-L3 rocket, standing tall at Baikonur Cosmodrome, sat Yuri Gagarin and Vladimir Komarov. Televised to the entire world, the towering rocket slowly climbed into the sky, a poorly tracked shot showing as the first stage shut down and peacefully fell away. The second stage ignited, which then burnt out a few minutes later as the third stage took over. In a much more uneventful way than last time, Archangel 4 had made it to orbit. A short wait to make sure all systems were ready, they pushed onwards to the moon. 3 Days later, the craft slowed down into lunar orbit, and Yuri Gagarin spacewalked into the LK lander. Detaching from the LOK, the engines ignited and pushed Gagarin back into his seat, falling closer to the surface. Copernicus crater grew closer outside the small window, creeping up over the horizon. Approaching the surface, dust began to get kicked up, carefulling manoeuvring the lander to make sure it was oriented correctly, until finally. The LK had landed on the ground, and the first EVA was to begin in just half an hour. The hatch opened, Yuri Gagarin stepped onto the lunar surface, He planted the flag in complete silence. And then, he said his first words on the moon - Я дома.