Need some help determining plausibility of my timeline...

Hello everyone,

I'm new here.

Now, what I'd like you to think about is the following:
Could Sealion be succesful if the Germans built more Ju-52s to use for their paratroopers instead of He-111s?

I hope I've managed to ease up the atmosphere a bit with this. :D
I've been thinking of a different Space Race for quite some time now, and I've come up with the following POD:

Sputnik 1 is launched successfully, but R-7 failures start mounting dramatically (let's assume a combination of malfunctioning explosive charges on the lateral boosters and engine failures, with no new satellites getting into orbit until 1959. In fact, March '59 would see the US launch Pioneer 4, whilst the 10th(?) iteration of Sputnik 2 would make a nice fireball mid-air!

Khruschev calls in Glushko and Korolev for a talk, the 2 engineers fall out in front of Khruschev, who "mediates" the conflict by ordering Glushko to only work with Yangel on his little ICBM, while Korolev is ordered to cooperate with Kuznetsov even more than before, and to draw&build a completely new rocket... The result being that the NK-9 morphs into the rather more massive NK-15(V), and then this cute little bugger gets approved for production:

0YQdHtz.jpg


The work on most spacecrafts should proceed like it did IOTL, possibly the Soviet efforts might be even more fruitful due to there being no haste... there's nothing available to loft them into space anyway! :D

And then, in '60, we have the 1st flight tests of this new rocket [do keep in mind that it is, from a design perspective far simpler than the R-7 ever was, that Korolev & his team have accumulated a fair bit of experience by now] with... guess what! A Vostok capsule with turtles in it! Isn't that cute?

Sadly, as 2 of the 4 engines were turned off during ascent to prevent 5+ G-loads, the 17th March becomes the pogo-oscillation-turtle-soup-day for Soviet rocket engineers!

However, they should put a men into space as IOTL in 1961.


There are some other choices I'd like to make which are much farther from being finalized... So I'd need some input here from more knowledgeable forum members...

1)What are the chances of Soviet leadership putting, due to the Nedelin-disaster, all their intercontinental eggs into the nuclear-weapons-in-orbit basket? If any hypergolics are used, they're far away in space, no expensive silo-complexes have to be built... (Continues mumbling silently:And economies of scale make larger and larger LVs possible to bring more and more man to a Mars-flyby traje... err, more and more bombs into space, with more and more spare rockets lying around for science purpo... err, less and less money being sucked away from the conventional military and consumer goods, keeping Khruschev in power...) What would be the perfect time for the 1st launch of an orbital nuke complex? '64-'65 mayhaps?

2)If 1) ever happens, could NASA still have a significant civillian space program?

3)Taking the big dumb booster approach farther, what would be the big deficiencies of stretching a conical stage (as pictured above), assuming that Forsirovanny and Modifitsirovanny 11D51s would come on-line, sooner or later?


If something is unclear, please do make me aware of it, I will try to formulate my thoughts a bit better then... English isn't my native language.
 
Hello everyone, I'm new here.
Hello! Welcome to the board!

The result being that the NK-9 morphs into the rather more massive NK-15(V), and then this cute little bugger gets approved for production:
I don't recognize the image--is that an N-111? (The roughly-Soyuz-equivalent combination of modified N-1 upper stages.)

1)What are the chances of Soviet leadership putting, due to the Nedelin-disaster, all their intercontinental eggs into the nuclear-weapons-in-orbit basket? If any hypergolics are used, they're far away in space, no expensive silo-complexes have to be built... (Continues mumbling silently:And economies of scale make larger and larger LVs possible to bring more and more man to a Mars-flyby traje... err, more and more bombs into space, with more and more spare rockets lying around for science purpo... err, less and less money being sucked away from the conventional military and consumer goods, keeping Khruschev in power...) What would be the perfect time for the 1st launch of an orbital nuke complex? '64-'65 mayhaps?
Incredibly unlikely. In addition to their pure mass, orbital drop complexes have a long lag time unless you build a lot of them--a specific orbital station might only be over the target for a few minutes out of 90, and thus you need a lot of stations to ensure you're constantly maintaining second-strike capability. See the issues LEO comsat constellations run into, and then multiply by the mass of nuclear warheads.

Worse, the Soviets wanted centralized control of their strategic forces, and orbital complexes are going to be even worse than subs like that--they're either unmanned (particularly if they're to go up in the 60s) and there's questions of communicating with them and commanding remote deployment without creating "false positives" or they're manned by crews that spend long times on-station, which makes political control more tenuous and requires essentially strapping a Salyut to every platform--and remember how many platforms you need.

What's worse is that in a lot of ways, orbital stations are more exposed than ground based bombers or silos, and far more than subs--it takes very little rocket to hit orbital altitude right in front of one, which is all you need for ASAT (the target's own speed overtaking the suborbital interceptor provides a lot of bang), and their orbits will be very predictable. More vulnerable and predictable than silos, easier to monitor than anything else, far more expensive, and more tenuous central command and control than subs--really the worst of all possible worlds, I think.

2)If 1) ever happens, could NASA still have a significant civillian space program?
Probably not, once the DoD stops laughing. However, the best way of dealing with it is probably ground-based ASAT, so you'd probably see focus placed there, rather than manned exploration.

3)Taking the big dumb booster approach farther, what would be the big deficiencies of stretching a conical stage (as pictured above), assuming that Forsirovanny and Modifitsirovanny 11D51s would come on-line, sooner or later?
When you stretch a conical stage, you either have to insert a cylindrical portion, or you have to change the angle of the tank's slope, which can mean essentially entirely new tooling. In short, stretching conical stages stinks, and if you hope to stretch, I'd go cylindrical from the start.
 
Hello! Welcome to the board!

Thanks! I hope I'll stay here for a while!

I don't recognize the image--is that an N-111? (The roughly-Soyuz-equivalent combination of modified N-1 upper stages.)

That image is taken from a game 'bout space, rockets and explosions (KSP) with a special mod, creating such an ortographic view, which is why you do not recognize the image... it didn't exist :)

According to my trusty gigantic delta-V table of various Soviet rockets assembled from (proposed) N-I hardware, I get a full 8,45 tons to 51.6 degree orbit with a Blok-G as 2nd stage, and no 3rd stage. Taking into account the rather low starting TWR of 0.6 for the 2nd stage, and the maximum TWR being 4.5, I guess I'd have to use 3 of them in a row, with the 2 outer ones shutting off once 5G of acceleration is attained... But 4 tons should be in the bag, however you look at it.


Incredibly unlikely. In addition to their pure mass, orbital drop complexes have a long lag time unless you build a lot of them--a specific orbital station might only be over the target for a few minutes out of 90, and thus you need a lot of stations to ensure you're constantly maintaining second-strike capability. See the issues LEO comsat constellations run into, and then multiply by the mass of nuclear warheads.
Well, if we put 9 Molniyas into orbit, together with 2-3 dozen of Strelas/Gonets', there should be ample opportunity of relaying the signals all over the nuke-network, thus eventually dooming the US, no matter what they do with Moscow.

Regarding mass constraints, I was thinking of the N-II getting authorized precisely for that. And damn, is that a powerful rocket! Without stretching any stages or changing engines, it can/should lift 30,7 tons to orbit!

And taking into account a high orbit, atleast 700km by 700km, the real issue appears to be, IMO, to make bulletproof electronics for them (fluidics, anyone?).

Worse, the Soviets wanted centralized control of their strategic forces, and orbital complexes are going to be even worse than subs like that--they're either unmanned (particularly if they're to go up in the 60s) and there's questions of communicating with them and commanding remote deployment without creating "false positives" or they're manned by crews that spend long times on-station, which makes political control more tenuous and requires essentially strapping a Salyut to every platform--and remember how many platforms you need.
Wouldn't it still be centralized control if Vanya sends signals for a nuclear apocalypse from Leningrad to Gonets 21-55B, which in turn relays it all over the com-network, instead of getting a wire to Sasha in Kovno?

There ought to be a way to make some quintuple-redundancy sort of thing before the nukes are triggered... I hope. I really should look into that 1st. And yes, those complexes should be unmanned ITTL,IIEH.(if it ever happens)

What's worse is that in a lot of ways, orbital stations are more exposed than ground based bombers or silos, and far more than subs--it takes very little rocket to hit orbital altitude right in front of one, which is all you need for ASAT (the target's own speed overtaking the suborbital interceptor provides a lot of bang), and their orbits will be very predictable. More vulnerable and predictable than silos, easier to monitor than anything else, far more expensive, and more tenuous central command and control than subs--really the worst of all possible worlds, I think.

Well, here it gets interesting! Glad to have you aboard to finnaly put me into the right perspective, but my little dream is strill trying to fight back, hopefully you don't mind and have some patience with me.

1)If we put... say, 300 nukes into various orbits, in 20 years. (A fragment of all the ICBMs that could've been built during that time (6 years = 1000 UR-100s), the enemy really would have to knock out atleast 2/3rds of them to prevent us from exterminating him, and all of them at the same time. Is there any nation in the world capable of launching 100 satellites into orbit during less than 5-6 months? What would be the economic strain of launching ASATs into LEO in the necessessary numbers? I mean, you won't use up all your precious hydrazine to correct your orbit, now will you? How would you intercept the enemy satellite then? Would high orbits be feasible for that sort of thing?

2)I think we're closing towards the crucial question here, which I apparently forgot to ask... Would massive silos out of thousands of tons of concrete, taking up a gigantic load of manpower, really be *less* expensive than orbital weapons? The infrastructure for keeping something that is already in orbit operational isn't all that big, but keeping all those silos fueled, manned, and even getting them built should exceed the cost of the LVs by far, IMO. But I'm probably wrong...

Probably not, once the DoD stops laughing. However, the best way of dealing with it is probably ground-based ASAT, so you'd probably see focus placed there, rather than manned exploration.
DoD laughing? Errm, I'd rather expect the NYT coming up with a gigantic headline: SOVIETS PUT NUCLEAR WARHEADS INTO SPACE, WHEN WILL THEY FALL DOWN ON US? [Because the Soviets would publicise it for precisely that effect!] Then a Sputnik^3 of the general population, Congress and military, resulting in a much faster Space Race and Star Wars 2.0 30 years prior to 1.0 ITTL.
When you stretch a conical stage, you either have to insert a cylindrical portion, or you have to change the angle of the tank's slope, which can mean essentially entirely new tooling. In short, stretching conical stages stinks, and if you hope to stretch, I'd go cylindrical from the start.
That's too bad! I really did somehow forget that the Soviets, too, had to make their outer fuel tank skin with machines... Somehow a little data-snippet that parts were welded in the MIK assembly hall led me to that idiotic conclusion...

Sorry!
 
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