Medium Gemini?

Something has puzzled me for awhile. Why did NASA insist on sending a 3d man to the moon, when all he'd do is hang in orbit? Why waste the mass of the 3d man, & the mass of his consumables, rather than send more for the landing crew?

So, a what if: what if NASA sends an Improved Gemini to the moon, with a supply module & LEM, but not the 3d crewman. It follows closely on Gemini XII, & lands two men (Grissom & Chaffee?) on the moon in around June 1968.

How does NASA get there? And what happens next?
 
Something has puzzled me for awhile. Why did NASA insist on sending a 3d man to the moon, when all he'd do is hang in orbit? Why waste the mass of the 3d man, & the mass of his consumables, rather than send more for the landing crew?

Cuz they didn't have faith in robots enough to let the CM chill alone I'd guess.

I'm going to guess you'd have to push forward computers to make this work.

If it does, not much. Maybe the booster is a bit smaller. More supplies so they can stay longer. Maybe more science gets done.
 

AndyC

Donor
This was seriously considered

NASA did seriously consider the "Lunar Gemini" idea. See:
http://www.astronautix.com/articles/bygemoon.htm

The cut down orbital lander can be seen here: http://www.astronautix.com/craft/gemander.htm

There were abortive attempts to resuscitate the idea later on (for example as a lunar rescue vehicle.

It would be fascinating to read a timeline based on Lunar Gemini. Ultimately, it would probably have got them there no more than 6 months earlier, a little cheaper but forfeiting a lot of the scientific capability that we saw on later flights.
 
Something has puzzled me for awhile. Why did NASA insist on sending a 3d man to the moon, when all he'd do is hang in orbit? Why waste the mass of the 3d man, & the mass of his consumables, rather than send more for the landing crew?

Part of the reason was to take care of the CSM, and to allow the CSM to come get the LM if ascent went wron and the LM didn't make the right orbit. The third crew member also could run mapping and other experiments, and give a bird's-eye-view of the lunar surface. Later missions included a separate set of experoments for the Comand module pilot to run in orbit, including subsattelites.
 
By the time Gemini flew, the Apollo spacecraft and Saturn V launch vehicle already had a lot of developmental inertia. Scrapping them would have meant wasting all the effort put into them for what was, obviously, a much less capable system.

(Before anybody compares this to Constellation, I'd like to point out that Apollo/Saturn was much further along in development in '64 than Constellation in 09.)
 
That's correct. Too bad Constellation didn't have someone like Werner Von Braun running it; if it did, it would've been much further along and more difficult to cancel. And if OMB (Office of Management and Budget) hadn't raided Constellation for other programs-it seems like OMB has a vendetta against NASA for some reason, or so Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) strongly suggests.
 

Thande

Donor
By the time Gemini flew, the Apollo spacecraft and Saturn V launch vehicle already had a lot of developmental inertia.

This, basically. This site details how a moon landing could have been achieved sooner (but with less capabilities) using Gemini rather than Apollo.
 
the reason why Apollo has 3 men crew is simple
NASA study the Apollo as Mercury successor in 1960 under Eisenhower
the 3 men Crew give possibility shift work in space craft, always one men is on readiness
1961 after Kennedy decision "we shall go to Moon"
was a debate and studys about 2 men Apollos with direct landing during one year
but with Lunar Orbit Rendezvous it became again 3 men in 1962

IMHO a Lunar Prgram with only Gemini Hardware
is only realizable if NASA canceld Apollo study after Kennedy decision
ruling that the Lunar landing need a new Design
 
So, a Gemini-based mission isn't pure fantasy. Good to know.:) Thx all.:):)

It's not pure fantasy, necessarily, but it would be a much less capable mission, without significant cost savings or schedule gains, at least in my read. About the only benefit I could see is that a Gemini-based lunar mission might be a natural lead in to something like Big Gemini, which could lead to a TL with not Shuttle, a topic which is of some interest to me.
 

Bearcat

Banned
A Gemini lunar mission formed the basis of a 1960s Sci-Fi movie called Countdown. Starring a fairly young James Caan and Robert Duvall, IIRC.
 
The thing is that I really don't see it as being at all necessary to scrap Apollo to arrive an Big Gemini. All it really take is for Nixon to prioritize a space station over the shuttle and, IMO, Big G becomes the high priority project (bear in mind that there was a second Skylab vehicle available, and that a follow up vehicle wasn't thought necessary in any case, Skylab (I) was going to be the target for the Shuttle for some time before the delays and early orbital decay set in). The only real alternative would be to continue to fly Apollo, which aside from being a less than ideal orbital vehicle (I guess they would add a cargo module stowed where the LM was with a reverse and docking move required every mission) is not at all an interesting TL, basically making NASA in the 70s and 80s virtually identical to the Russian program.

What I think would be a really potentially interesting timeline would be Nixon authorizing a straight continuation of the Apollo lunar and Skylab programs with the same budget ORIGINALLY estimated for the shuttle on the (quite reasonable with hindsight) belief that a new program would be inevitably over budget and that nothing was wrong with existing tech, but abandoning manned spaceflight went too far. I'm thinking something along the lines of Children of Apollo in terms of direction, but with more realistic funding levels (for anyone who knows the TL, I suspect that means that Apollo and Moonlab happen more or less as Whittington writes them, but the shuttle thing doesn't and there is less other aerospace tech around - he includes general SST adoption and rods from god, for example)
 
A Gemini lunar mission formed the basis of a 1960s Sci-Fi movie called Countdown. Starring a fairly young James Caan and Robert Duvall, IIRC.

Is that the one with the American astronaut landing within walking distance of a cosmonaut that had landed and died, and put up both flags on a rock?
 

NothingNow

Banned
And if OMB (Office of Management and Budget) hadn't raided Constellation for other programs-it seems like OMB has a vendetta against NASA for some reason, or so Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) strongly suggests.
I'd say Nelson's on the dot with that. NASA tends to get shafted when it comes to high budget items, unlike the DOD. (Of course, if they had the DOD's budget, we'd have folks half way to Titan by now, a Real Space station, and a Mars covered in mass produced Spirit-class Rovers.)
Of course, this all started with the cuts of the Apollo Applications programs.
 
I have to agree that the OMB seems to have something against NASA, although I seem to recall seeing that they weren't fans during the Apollo era either.
 
About the only benefit I could see is that a Gemini-based lunar mission might be a natural lead in to something like Big Gemini
What I'm seeing is the capability for more surface time & the potential to do acutal science, possibly earlier Rover (with a bit more payload to play with). Even a small schedule advance over Apollo with that in mind IMO means the Schmidt-Cernan find on 17 could be soon enough to save the program. Also, there wouldn't be the 204 fire, which IMO moves things up a good 8mo, nor the 13 fiasco. If it avoids STS, so much the better.:cool::cool: Enough to get OML approved?:cool:
 
Problem is I have a very hard time imagining a scenario that gets us a lunar Gemini and the OTL lander. It really is the effective lander and Apollo OR Gemini and a one man, probably unpressurised lander. Also bear in mind that if any more Apollo's had been ordered the LM taxi would have been available and we would have had either three man crews or week long stays even without the rest of Apollo Applications. IMO for the 60s and 70s Apollo really wasn't that bad a system for long term exploration, it just got cancelled before it really got on its feet.
 
Top