On Brazen Wings - From the Pseudo Space Race to Independence and Beyond.
- Status
Indeed, the next 6-7 years are going to be quite exciting as we catch up to Tom Paine on that fateful Tuesday morning...
I have a general timeline up to the present, though that may change as we get to around 2015, as thats where I stopped trying to piece together anything specific and started writing out actual content. I most likely will take it to the present before cutting it off, however.
And, Im also considering using the timeline as the historical basis for a separate story idea I have been tinkering with thats near-future, so there may be a future history sequel down the road.
I mean yeah, the MiG 105 exists too but still lol.
Huh? I am confusion 😟🧐Apparently the "Society for Creative Anachronism" was a much bigger organization than I thought
1980: The World in Space
Whats that? You dont want me to post some exciting content about competing Space Shuttles? You say you want a dry Natgeo article instead?
Well okay, if you say so voices in my head...
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Author: David Hoarthau, National Geographic, Issue Jan. 1980
As spaceflight enthusiasts across our little planet eagerly await the beginning of the two great powers' Space Shuttle programs, projected to begin some time next year, the promise of the future is upon us. In the excitement, one can forget that, for all the bluster and political posturing, that the United States and the Soviet Union are not the only spacefaring nations on our world, nor in fact, are they the only ones trying.
Among the most prominent of these so called "minor" space powers is that group of nations that, as it happens, finds itself stuck between the two greats: the European Space Agency. While only 5 years young, the ESA has already seen the successful maiden flight of its own rocket system, called Ariane, which is set to break the American monopoly on commercial space launches.
The Ariane 1
The rocket itself, Ariane 1, is a four stage vehicle (meaning it breaks apart into progressively smaller rockets, allowing it to send its payload to space) capable of an admittedly modest payload of just over 2 tons to geostationary orbit (where a sattelite is able to stay in constant communication with a specific area of the planet), and a little more if taken to the lowest possible orbits.
While miniscule compared to massive superheavy launchers of the USSR or the wide variety of commercial rockets from across the Atlantic, the ESA plans to evolve the system over time, improving its engines, adding boosters, and indeed, eventually just going bigger.
However, quite unlike its neighbors, the ESA does not have any plans to develop its own capabilities for manned spaceflight. Seeing itself purely as a scientific research organzation, the ESA has little of the nationalistic zeal that one often associates with the manned programs of the US and USSR, and even if it did, the resources that the European Union would be able to commit to the program would likely be too scant to see progress any time soon.
However, this does not mean that Europe has not seen its citizens make that giant leap. In 1978, Sebastian Jahn of West Germany would become the first European in space, travelling with the Soviets aboard Soyuz 31. And in an agreement with the Americans, the ESA will also be sending astronauts aboard the Space Shuttle as part of the Spacelab program, set to begin sometime in 1982.
While the ESA represents perhaps the third greatest spacepower to date, in the east all across the great continent of Asia, many smaller powers are growing, and some in fact are only just blossoming.
The N-1
In Japan, the Space Development agency (NASDA) is hard at work developing their own family rockets, building off licensed technology from the United States. Their first rocket, the N1, had its first flight in 1975, and perhaps a testament to Japans growing engineering prowess, it has only had one partial failure in its lifetime, just last year when its upper stage accidentally bumped back into the satellite after being separated. These successes have given Japan the confidence to move forward with the N-II rocket, an upgraded N1, slated to see its maiden flight next year. And in the coming decade, NASDA hopes to see the successful launch of a purely Japanese vehicle. A slow, but most assuredly steady pace indeed.
To the southern end of Asia, we find the nation of India. With a long history of involvement in the space sciences dating back to the 1920s, India would eventually establish its space research organization (ISRO) by 1969. Working with the Soviet Union as part of their Interkosmos program, India would see its first satellite launched in 1975, and since then has been working on its own launch system, the aptly named Space Launch Vehicle, or SLV, and is set to make its first launch in July of this year which, if successful, would make it the 7th nation to reach Earth orbit.
India's first satellite Aryabhata
And across the world, as access to space grows wider every day, we see other nations making their mark. Through the USSR's Interkosmos program, which officials say will "blossom like a flower" throughout the 1980s as its Shuttles begin to fly, the first Cuban in space is already scheduled to fly this year to Salyut, and negotiations between India, North Korea, and even nations in Europe like the United Kingdom are ongoing.
And indeed, no doubt stirred by the North's apparent interest in space, South Korea despite being plagued by political upheaval that's ongoing even in the here and now, has had officials reach out to the United States and its international partners, most certainly with an eye on the same level of cooperation and exchange their oceanic neighbors had enjoyed. It remains to be seen if this will play out for them.
Even so, the United States has no shortage of would be partners in space. The ESA and Canada are already deeply involved with its Space Shuttle program, and nations such as Mexico, Saudi Arabia, and others currently undisclosed are being tapped to join the Americans in their next steps.
So, as we yet again find ourselves awaiting with wonder for what the future holds, let this all be a testament to a very simple, if not universal truth: we are not the only ones looking to the stars with wonder, nor will we be the last.
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*The inclusion of North Korea as part of Interkosmos is to try and find ways to offset the costs of MKS/Energia, though NK being who they are, this will probably not work well for them.
Well okay, if you say so voices in my head...
=============
1980
The World in Space
The World in Space
Author: David Hoarthau, National Geographic, Issue Jan. 1980
As spaceflight enthusiasts across our little planet eagerly await the beginning of the two great powers' Space Shuttle programs, projected to begin some time next year, the promise of the future is upon us. In the excitement, one can forget that, for all the bluster and political posturing, that the United States and the Soviet Union are not the only spacefaring nations on our world, nor in fact, are they the only ones trying.
Among the most prominent of these so called "minor" space powers is that group of nations that, as it happens, finds itself stuck between the two greats: the European Space Agency. While only 5 years young, the ESA has already seen the successful maiden flight of its own rocket system, called Ariane, which is set to break the American monopoly on commercial space launches.
The Ariane 1
The rocket itself, Ariane 1, is a four stage vehicle (meaning it breaks apart into progressively smaller rockets, allowing it to send its payload to space) capable of an admittedly modest payload of just over 2 tons to geostationary orbit (where a sattelite is able to stay in constant communication with a specific area of the planet), and a little more if taken to the lowest possible orbits.
While miniscule compared to massive superheavy launchers of the USSR or the wide variety of commercial rockets from across the Atlantic, the ESA plans to evolve the system over time, improving its engines, adding boosters, and indeed, eventually just going bigger.
However, quite unlike its neighbors, the ESA does not have any plans to develop its own capabilities for manned spaceflight. Seeing itself purely as a scientific research organzation, the ESA has little of the nationalistic zeal that one often associates with the manned programs of the US and USSR, and even if it did, the resources that the European Union would be able to commit to the program would likely be too scant to see progress any time soon.
However, this does not mean that Europe has not seen its citizens make that giant leap. In 1978, Sebastian Jahn of West Germany would become the first European in space, travelling with the Soviets aboard Soyuz 31. And in an agreement with the Americans, the ESA will also be sending astronauts aboard the Space Shuttle as part of the Spacelab program, set to begin sometime in 1982.
While the ESA represents perhaps the third greatest spacepower to date, in the east all across the great continent of Asia, many smaller powers are growing, and some in fact are only just blossoming.
The N-1
In Japan, the Space Development agency (NASDA) is hard at work developing their own family rockets, building off licensed technology from the United States. Their first rocket, the N1, had its first flight in 1975, and perhaps a testament to Japans growing engineering prowess, it has only had one partial failure in its lifetime, just last year when its upper stage accidentally bumped back into the satellite after being separated. These successes have given Japan the confidence to move forward with the N-II rocket, an upgraded N1, slated to see its maiden flight next year. And in the coming decade, NASDA hopes to see the successful launch of a purely Japanese vehicle. A slow, but most assuredly steady pace indeed.
To the southern end of Asia, we find the nation of India. With a long history of involvement in the space sciences dating back to the 1920s, India would eventually establish its space research organization (ISRO) by 1969. Working with the Soviet Union as part of their Interkosmos program, India would see its first satellite launched in 1975, and since then has been working on its own launch system, the aptly named Space Launch Vehicle, or SLV, and is set to make its first launch in July of this year which, if successful, would make it the 7th nation to reach Earth orbit.
India's first satellite Aryabhata
And across the world, as access to space grows wider every day, we see other nations making their mark. Through the USSR's Interkosmos program, which officials say will "blossom like a flower" throughout the 1980s as its Shuttles begin to fly, the first Cuban in space is already scheduled to fly this year to Salyut, and negotiations between India, North Korea, and even nations in Europe like the United Kingdom are ongoing.
And indeed, no doubt stirred by the North's apparent interest in space, South Korea despite being plagued by political upheaval that's ongoing even in the here and now, has had officials reach out to the United States and its international partners, most certainly with an eye on the same level of cooperation and exchange their oceanic neighbors had enjoyed. It remains to be seen if this will play out for them.
Even so, the United States has no shortage of would be partners in space. The ESA and Canada are already deeply involved with its Space Shuttle program, and nations such as Mexico, Saudi Arabia, and others currently undisclosed are being tapped to join the Americans in their next steps.
So, as we yet again find ourselves awaiting with wonder for what the future holds, let this all be a testament to a very simple, if not universal truth: we are not the only ones looking to the stars with wonder, nor will we be the last.
======
*The inclusion of North Korea as part of Interkosmos is to try and find ways to offset the costs of MKS/Energia, though NK being who they are, this will probably not work well for them.
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1981 - Part 1
1981
The Next Giant Step
The Next Giant Step
This is NTC with Special Coverage of America's First Space Shuttle - And now, here is Emmett Seaborn
"If you're just joining us now and don't already know, I am Emmett Seaborn here with NTC and to my right here is Alan Bean, Lunar Module Pilot Apollo 12, and Commander of 3rd Skylab expedition, and we are at--", he turns to look at someone off-screen, "-T-5 minutes to the launch of America's first Space Shuttle, Columbia, which you can see there just behind us at Launchpad 39-A here at Kennedy Space Center." He gestures behind him, and in the distance the massive ship could be seen, smoke billowing from its engines.
"Now Al, as we've been talking about these past few hours as we wait for this eagerly anticipated launch, today is going to be a day of firsts. This is not merely the first launch of the Space Shuttle, but truly the first time many of its components would ever be used. I remember during Apollo when we launched off the great Saturn V for the first time, we didn't yet dare to put people in it, and as you are no doubt experienced with, we saw the Lunar Module tested so many times before that final moment when Apollo 11 finally made it down at Tranquility Base. But with this ship here, with Columbia, We're sending people up with it...when we've never put an Orbiter in space. When its OMS engines, its critical means of returning back to Earth, haven't been fired in space before. When we're using a thermal protection system that has never been used to protect from the fiery plasma of reentry. How can we do that? How can we put so much trust in a vehicle we...know so little about?"
Seaborn, despite the pointed tone of his questioning, knew full well the answers he was seeking, but after a particularly heated on-air phone call with a disgruntled viewer, he and his producers felt it necessary to put to rest the anxiety that was gnawing at some of those concerned.
"Well Emmett, I will say that more than anything else, the risk of today's flight is not lost on anyone at NASA, and especially not John and Deke up there." Al began.
"You're of course referring to John Young and Deke Slayton who are our pilots on Columbia today." Seaborn interjected, for the benefit of the viewers.
"That's right. But as I was saying we have some of the smartest people on the planet, and they have been working around the clock for these past 9 years to bring us here today. While true that we have not tested many of these systems in spaceflight as of yet, we have tested them exhaustively on the ground, and as a lot of the engineering guys like to say it isn't 1960 anymore where we don't know if a person can go to the bathroom in space or if the Moon is a cloud instead of a solid rock.
We know more about how the Shuttle is going to fly at this moment than we ever did on Apollo 8 when we first put people on the Saturn V and arguably even more than we did on my own Moon shot on 12. There is no doubt in my mind that the confidence NASA has in this machine is well placed."
"Al, I believe you may be right and we will certainly be keeping this conversation going, but we have just come past the 30 second mark in the countdown to Columbia's maiden flight, and now we turn to Kennedy's Launch Control loop."
The launch of Columbia, April 10th, 1981
The flight of STS 1 in April 10th of 1981 was nearly flawless. With liftoff at precisely 9:00 am EST, onlookers of the launch were witness to an impressive cacophony of sounds and visuals. Emmett Seaborn of NTC, famed for his competitive coverage of the Gemini and Apollo programs, would be quoted as saying it was an "unfathomable monster", with the roar of the solid rocket boosters nearly shutting him out as he watched Columbia blast off into the skies.
The mission itself was a peculiar one for NASA. Originally intending to not send Columbia into orbit on the flight, managers had instead intended for the flight to be a test of the Return to Landing Site (RTLS) procedure, where the Shuttle stack would be flown in such a way as to allow for the giant Solid Rockets to burn out (as they couldnt be shut off) and ejected, before using the remaining propellant in the external tank to turn around and allow the Orbiter to fly back to Kennedy for a touchdown at the Shuttle Landing Facility.
However, mission Commander John Young would overrule this, questioning the need for such a test and ultimately that the maneuver was excessively dangerous to begin with, and not worth gambling on. The pilot, Deke Slayton would concur with this, noting that they all already knew that without a true abort system like the Soviets had that RTLS was only ever going to be a last ditch attempt anyway, and that without having flown the Orbiter in a nominal flight, it wasnt certain that the forces on the stack wouldnt tear it apart anyway.
With the combined experience and legacy of the two astronauts behind them, nearly representing NASA's entire history, their decisions carried great weight and so, despite the risks it was decided to take STS 1 into orbit, which if nothing else meant the Soviets couldn't beat them to space again, something that would not have gone over well no matter the well intentions of a suborbital test.
The mission objectives for the flight were relatively simple as a result, given it would still be short some of the instruments planned for the later flight tests. Carrying a pallet fitted with monitoring equipment and cameras in the rear of the cargo bay, Columbia would be inserted into a low, 150 mile orbit, where the critical objectives would be to verify the operation of the cargo bay doors and the attached radiators, the usage of the ship wide Orbital Maneuvering System, and a host of internal tests in the crew compartment, such as swapping out filters, testing the internal airlock, and verifying the full functionality of the cockpit itself.
After two successful OMS burns to circularize their orbit, Young and Slayton would move to the rear of the cockpit where Slayton would take the controls to operate the cargo bay doors while Young filmed outside the rear facing window. Meanwhile, Mission Control back in Houston would control the rear cargo bay camera.
As the doors began to open, one at a time, the spectacular view of Earth and the Sun above them greeted the pair, and they were able to report back to Houston that all systems appeared nominal. Houston would call back to confirm this, and would ask them to check to see if any of the thermal tiles were missing from their point of view. From their windows in the cockpit they could not see any missing; all of the tiles on the OMS pods and vertical stabilizer were in place and did not appear to have any noticable damage. Houston would later reveal to them that from the perspective of the rear cargo bay, as the doors fully opened, a single white, square object could be seen floating just above the port side door, out of the field of vision possible from the cockpit windows. Given the specific shape this was readily identified as a less critical tile from the side of the fuselage and thus was unlikely to present any problems, particularly given there was no apparent damage to the tile nor any other visible debris.
However, after landing at Edwards Air Force base two days later, it would be found that the tile was not the only one missing but that several were missing across the upper fuselage, all not too critical to a successful landing but minor damage to the Orbiters interior did result due to the lack of insulation. It was determined that the tiles must have stripped during launch, due to an overpressure wave emanating from the Solid rocket boosters. The singular tile that was seen in-orbit was understood to have only finally been shaken loose by the mechanism of the cargo bay doors, but most of the damage occurred prior to Columbia leaving the launchpad. Despite the concerning loss of tiles, which was known as a possible issue, Columbia would still be made ready for its second flight, spending the next 5 months back at the Orbiter Processing Facility at Kennedy while modifications were made to the launchpad to better absorb the pressure waves from the boosters.
Taking off on October 10th, STS 2 commanded by Joe Engle with Richard Truly as Pilot and Robert Crippen as Payload Specialist, would prove a more problematic but ultimately successful follow-up to Columbias first mission. After a 24 hour delay caused by a possible spill of nitrogen tetroxide as the forward RCS tanks were being filled, which was caught and stopped before it got out of hand, resulting in only minor contamination that took the better part of the day and night to clean up, Columbia would once again lift off, carrying with it the same equipment as before, but this time including a Spacelab pallet, mounted to which was the Shuttle Imaging Radar (SIR), and the now famous Canadarm, the remote manipulation system that would allow the orbiter to manipulate cargo and instruments, and eventually to grapple on to sattelites and space station modules, and a host of additional experiments operated from the Orbiters Mid-Deck, just below the cockpit.
Reaching orbit, the three man crew would swiftly get to work. SIR would be found to work spectacularly, providing remote sensing of earthbound resources, environmental quality, and weather and oceanic conditions. The Canadarm would be powered up, but before any extensive testing could be carried out, Houston would discover that one of the three fuel cells that provides drinking water and electricity to the Orbiter had failed. They would near immediately declare that the mission, originally scheduled to last 5 days, would be shortened to one. The crew, understandably, did not find this agreeable as it was essentially a mission abort.
After some considerable back and forth, Houston would eventually settle on a 2 day mission, but Canadarm tests would be limited to the first day to conserve used electricity. The crew would work through their resting period to test out the arm as much as possible, and in the end when Columbia would land back at Edwards two days later, the mission had still accomplished nearly 85% of its intended goals.
With two mostly successful flights under their belt, NASA was primed to begin in earnest on the real meat of the program. While flight tests were to continue into 1982, the second Orbiter, to be named Challenger, was nearly ready for roll out, and it wouldnt be much longer before the third, Discovery, would follow suit.
1981 would curiously prove to be both a quiet yet exciting year for NASA. While the first two flights of their Space Shuttle were exciting in their own right, given the novelty and the futuristic outlook it gave to the future, absent were the grand overtures that were seen during Apollo or the competitive jockeying of Mercury. As the Pseudo Space Race came to a head, the world was still as oblivious as ever, and on the other side, not even a week after Columbias second return from space, its proverbial cousin, Laika, was rolling out to the pad at Baikonur Cosmodrome, in the south of the Soviet Union.
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*Certain readers will recognize Emmett Seaborn from a certain HBO miniseries. I originally was going to use ABC's Frank Reynolds and Gene Cernan, however given how deeply I was going to have change how they covered the launch in real life, I decided to go a different route, which will be useful later on.
Plus, its a nice little not-so-hidden easter egg to pay tribute to FTEMs always-lovable Cronkite stand-in. Like Cronkite himself, Seaborn will have been retired by 1981, but given the specific nature of the flight hed be asked back as part of a special event. Seaborn, like the crew of STS 1, would be representative of Americas history in spaceflight.
*I picked Al Bean as the Apollo interviewee to stand in for Cernan, as Bean is the Apollo moonwalker who Ive actually had the oppurtunity to not only meet in real life (I met almost all of them actually, except for Jim Irwin who sadly passed away before I was born) but was able to speak to at length as an adult who was well invested in the how cool space stuff is, so I felt that as I write him I could stay a bit truer to who he is in life than Cernan, who I only met as a clueless toddler.
Bean is also my favorite astronaut, so theres that too.
*and as to why NASA would jump the gun and slot in an extra crew member after only one flight? Beats me. 😏
1981 - Part 2
1981
Laika 1
"We did not build her to just be a robot."
Laika 1
"We did not build her to just be a robot."
The MKS/Energia program of the Soviet Union, while relatively smooth in its development phase, had grown frantic throughout the laste 1970s and into 1980 as it attempted to transition from the construction to the testing and operational phases of the program. While the giant Energia rockets had begun flying years earlier, iIts first space worthy orbiter, Laika, would not have its structural frame finished until February of 1980, and it would be doomed to sit in waiting even as it finished the bulk of its outfitting by the end of that year. The most critical component of the system, as emphasized by program managers, was its advanced thermal protection system, which had to be manufactured out of special materials that the USSR had only months to may be a few years at most of practice of working with.
While the design of the orbiter was tailored to ensure that manufacturing of the TPS plates would not require excessive geometries where possible, for certain areas on the orbiter there was little choice to be had, and it was in these areas that manufacturing took the longest, and when pieces would arrive they would have to be carefully inspected before being installed alongside conventional metal mockups to check tolerances and ensure the proper shaping had been achieved. But on top of that, once the mocked-up pieces could be replaced with their flight-worthy articles, that section of the orbiter would have to be disassembled, reassembled, and then checked out again, over and over and over for thousands of tiles across the orbiter's fuselage and wings. The amount of work required and the time consumed was enormous for a singular vehicle, with additional workers being brought in from across the country and homes built for them to ensure that the manpower was available around the clock.
While in the long run it would be eventually recognized that this meticulous assembly of Laika's TPS would be highly beneficial to the Orbiters service life, in the moment it was a constant source of friction between the program and the government, particularly as April 1981 came and went, with the American's overtaking the USSR once again, with their ship Columbia beating Laika to orbit. Valentin Glushko would find himself being dragged back to Moscow within hours of STS 1 making orbit to answer to leadership, who began threatening to not only have him fired, but to force the program to adopt the American thermal system and to skip the metallic system that had so long delayed the program. Glushko would find himself once again on the defensive, but with no political clout to expend on grand overt gestures, he could only trust in the simple reality of the situation they were in, arguing that even if they enforced their idea on the program, it would only delay the launch even further, as Laika would have to be completely disassembled and much of its entire structural frame replaced, not only undoing years of work but throwing away millions of rubles worth of the already used titanium and other materials. He would find himself without an answer that day, but would eventually see the pressure ease a few days later as it came to light that Columbia had suffered some significant damage as a result of its tile system being compromised; the very same sort of problems that Glushko had anticipated and had used to make the case all those years ago.
However, eventually the work would be done, and by October Laika received its final clearance from the checkout facility, and was ready to begin the final process of being mated with its eventual Energia booster, an RLA 130 which will use four Zenit boosters flanking a four engine Vulkan core. With the first test flight scheduled for the next month to coincide with the anniversary of the October Revolution, Laika would find itself seemingly cursed with one last headache, though finally it was only with the humans themselves as opposed to something wrong with itself.
As the American's had beaten the USSR to orbit with Columbia, with a crew aboard, there was a strong push lead by Alexei Leonov, who along with Ivan Bachurin was expected to be the first crew to fly her on Laika 5, asserting that Laika's first flight should also be manned, arguing that even if Laika was more advanced than Columbia, this would be undercut by what would certainly be perceived as an unwillingness to trust in the system. While the cosmonauts had a point, the long-standing Soviet philosophy precluded this notion. The automation systems on Laika were among the most advanced the Union had to offer, which for the program were more important than crew transport given Soyuz was still operational for the time being, and ultimately even with political pressures to launch on time now that Laika was ready, there was essentially no indication or pressure to man the launch. Leonov would keep trying, however, going as far as to send an official letter to the politburo regarding the situation, but it would fall on deaf ears that were far too busy abroad.
And so, Laika 1 would proceed on as an unmanned mission, its goals to verify its automation systems, from on-orbit navigation, to the teleoperation of its "Big Hands", the twin remote manipulation arms, and on to the automatic reentry, approach, and landing of the spaceplane. The flight would also mark the first reuse of four of the Zenit boosters on the Energia vehicle. While designed to be reused, for most of the previous flights of Energia they were either expended outright (such as with Salyut which exptended all 8 of its Zenit boosters), or only had a handful of the boosters reused from a previous flight. Laika 1 would see all four boosters reused from previous flights, which would mark the maturation of the booster design if they proceed nominally.
While Laika 1 would not be manned on its first mission, it would however still be following on from the lessons in visibility that had been learned since the Soyuz-Apollo project 6 years prior. Before that mission, the Soviet Union seldom allowed anyone, even their own citizens, to be able to directly see the activities of the space program, with technical details obscured or gish galloped into effectively meaningless nonsense and only heavily curated photographs and recordings permitted to be shown or broadcast. But with the joint project with the Americans, this would change and for the first time the citizens of the Soviet Union would be able to really appreciate not just the successes of the program but even its failures.
And with Laika 1, special preparations had begun earlier in the year to ensure that the bulk of the Union was able to watch along as the shuttle was prepared for launch and sent into space. Even in some of the most remote Siberian villages, special viewing centers would be erected to ensure that every citizen would be able to watch, and where available broadcasts would even be translated into local dialects, or if that wasn't possible local interpreters would be hired on special assignment to translate for the onlookers. In a time when the Soviet Union was becoming embroiled in war in the MIddle East and when the economy had already shown signs of deterioration, the mood of the country in 1981 would come off as cautiously optimistic, with growing interest in the space program giving a cultural backbone for the people to unite around...or so the news anchors would say. While the country was not nearly in as good a state as it was portrayed, citizens still remember Laika and the space program as still being a warm light even in the worsts of circumstances.
And so, on November 6th, 1981, onlookers would be glued to their screens already in the early morning as the gigantic Laika-Energia launch stack was rolled out by train to its launchpad at Baikonur Cosmodrome, and lifted to its vertical position. After a nominal 6 hour countdown, Laika would lift off precisely on schedule at noon in a fantastic display as the 20 different combustion chambers of the Energia spewed forth a roaring fireball to the cheers of people across the Union. Disappearing behind the unfortunate cloud cover after about 30 seconds of flight, broadcasts would transition to animations to continue coverage.
However, mission control back at Baikonur would still have visual on the shuttle, using special cameras mounted to two MiG chase planes. which while low quality and very little zoom, still gave them an excellent view of booster separation before it rocketed past the view of the MiGs. But seconds before this happened, however, one of the MiG pilots would radio in that he had seen something. He explained that from his perspective it appeared as though something had dislodged off of the Energia and shattered somewhere in the vicinity of Laika. Baikonur would not find that anything had gone wrong; the vehicles were still reporting back as nominal and on Laika there was no apparent pressure loss in the thermal cooling system or any of its compartments, so Laika was directed to push to orbit.
Fifteen minutes later, after firing its orbital engines to raise its orbit above the disposal orbit that the Vulkan core of Energia would be left in, Laika would officially become the second orbiter to every fly in space. With only 24 hours scheduled in orbit, Laika's operators on the ground quickly began checking out the system and powering up the test instruments, before finally opening the cargo bay doors and activating its onboard cameras. Their first priority given the report they had received during launch was to try to and assess if any damage had occurred to Laika. While the RMS arms were not able to get a full view of the orbiter, particularly of its TPS plates along its belly, it was able to verify that if any damage had occurred, they wouldn't be able to do much about it anyway. As such, approval was finally given to allow the onboard camera feeds to be broadcast just as it was coming back over the Asian continent, giving many Soviet citizens their first live view of their nation from Space.
With concerns over damage put aside until reentry, controllers would proceed with the tests. Demonstrating in real time for viewers, Alexei Leonov would show how the arms could be used individually to grapple onto objects, and used together to lift exceptionally large objects like space station modules, using a mass demonstrator that had accounted for the bulk of Laika's 30 ton payload. After a series of OMS burns, the live broadcasts would be suspended for the day until the landing, to allow for teleoperators and other cosmonauts time to practice using the arms.
A day later, as citizens across the Union eagerly awaited Laika's return, nearly the whole of the program that were aware of the possible collision during launch were understandably anxious, and as Laika began passing through its blackout phase, preventing contact with mission control, they could only stand by and wait, watching the clouds above and hoping it wouldn't be fire and debris that would finally emerge.
After a harrowing wait, an ocean of relief would wash over them. Finally emerging from above the clouds just as mission control re-established contact, Laika was in one piece and on-course for landing. The crowd would erupt in cheers upon the sight, though some were still weary, as it was very apparent that Laika was gliding, and had not powered up its jet engines for flight, and a lurch would be sent again through their stomachs as it came in for landing, only to turn around. flying away from the runway before coming back and finally, touching down.
It was found afterwards that because the jet engines had failed to start (which was due to faulty wiring that had been missed), the system automatically converted itself to glide mode, and as a result of the higher speed it was travelling at as it came down, the system determined correctly, though very late in the landing program, that it had to bleed speed to land safely, and did what was essentially an overhead breaking turn.
But of greater concern with Laika on the ground was finally seeing what had happened to it. Upon close inspection, it was found that something had indeed impact Laika, right along its wing's leading edge on the port side, with an alarmingly large black scar where the impact occurred. The main impact had not penetrated the metallic plates, but the surface of the outer plate was determined to have likely been scratched, which compromised the plates ability to resist the corrosion of the metal due to the high reentry heat, even through the transpiration barrier, and this was corroborated as several plates along the orbiters belly also had the same problem to lesser degrees. In addition, there was damage along the fuselage body to the silica based tiles in-line with the impact.
While the TPS was proven to not be invulnerable, with the scarred TPS plates having to be completely replaced, the design was still ultimately considered to be an incredible success, with measurements taken internally by the instruments in the payload pay indicating that had such an impact occurred on a manned mission, there was very little that could have possibly harmed the crew without a far more catastrophic failure. The outer plates did not fail despite being irreparable, nor did the transpiration cooling system, and even if they both had, the orbiter ultimately still had its final ablative plate along the leading edge which would have insured the return of the vehicle.
Upon these revelations, and after an extensive haul of letters from Soviet citizens concurring with Leonov's position that they needed to start flying people, Leonid Brezhnev in one of his last public addresses would issue a decree that the next mission would indeed be manned, remarking that they had not indeed, built her to merely be a robot, and declaring that a new age of Soviet space exploration had begun.
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*Leonov IOTL would actually make the case that the first flight of Buran should be manned and would similarly fail to see it done, and ITTL he would actually have a harder time given he was already assigned as the first commander, presenting a more present conflict of interest than he had IOTL.
*Buran IOTL was launched at night and was not really advertised, and definitely not to the degree they would here. It was filmed by MiG chase planes however, who similarly could only film the launch in a crappy low res video.
*Obviously, Laika's first flight sounds strikingly similar to Columbia's fatal flight in 2003, and essentially it is. ITTL they would eventually hypothesize that what had hit Laika's wing was in fact shedding ice from the Vulkan. This would lead to a push to eventually convert Vulkan for internal insulation, if only for orbiter flights.
*The effect of this impact on the TPS is my best interpretation of what is expected to be problematic with metallic TPS. While the metallic plates wouldn't be able to just scoff at any impact, any light impact like what hit Laika would likely damage the finish and any coatings on the outer part of the plate, which in turn could erode the metal.
*Incidentally Buran also had some pretty bad TPS damage after its single flight. Its a myth that the airframe was compromised, but big chunks of the tiles were missing or damaged when it landed.
*the automated turn around before landing is true to life, as Buran when it landed also did this.
*the write-ins from Soviet citizens did supposedly happen IOTL as well, though the context was instead the citizens asking if they were able to match the Americans.
Science flights yeah. I have some ideas for elaborating on what was going on with Soyuz so we'll be stepping back to that period later on.
While theyre missing out with TTLs Salyut coming so late, theres still a lot theyd be able to accomplish (not to mention the simple need to keep a retainer of recently flight experienced cosmonauts), particularly with most of the non-military needs being suspended in tandem. And remember too they still have Proton and their other launchers as well up until Energia takes over, so while they dont have the funding to put up full on stations they still have options to work with within their budget.
The international commercial market, at least for East vs West, really didn't exist until the 1990s.
1981 - Part 3
1981
The Syn Society
The Syn Society
In 1978, an American astrophysicist by the name of Donald Kessler would publish a paper concerning the topic of orbital debris. From this paper would come the concept of the "Kessler Syndrome", which posits that if Earth orbit is populated by enough satellites or other man-made objects, then any collisions between these objects (or indeed natural space junk) could induce a catastrophic scenario, where each individual collision begins to exponentially increase the likelihood of new collisions, potentially cascading to the point where the entirety of Earths orbits become completely unusable or impassable.
While the amount of sheer mass required to make that apocalyptic scenario is orders of magnitude more than had been put into orbit in 1978, and even still much more than in the present day, Kessler syndrome in practical spaceflight is still a genuine concern, and indeed Kessler himself would go on to head up NASA's Orbital Debris office, set up to specifically mitigate the amount of debris generated and to research ways to better deal with debris in general, whether it is avoidable or not.
Contrary to the apocalyptic, the syndrome in practice has more to do with the limitations it puts on the service life of Earth sattelites, as well as its effects on low Earth orbit, where the bulk of manned spaceflight would be taking place. Future space stations would already have to plan for and anticipate debris avoidance meanuevers and oftentimes collisions won't be avoidable even just from natural objects, and the syndrome would exacerbate these concerns.
Mitigating these issues are relatively simple and some of the best techniques had already been adopted by NASA even before Kessler's research, and through his office NASA would shore up a great deal of the agencies, and America's in general, shortcomings with the issue.
However, this does little to ensure that other space powers also make these efforts to reduce orbital debris, and by 1980 this not so visible elephant in the room would reach a public spotlight.
In June of that year, the Soviet Union would launch a set of 15 low orbit sattelites for North Korea all at once aboard their large Energia rocket. Intended to leapfrog North Korea's space utilization to similar heights of their more capable geopolitical counterparts, the sattelites were designed by indigenous scientists and engineers, and the constellation was set to provide near constant coverage to the Korean peninsula. Each sattelite would orbit at approximately 600km in altitude, ensuring that at any given moment anywhere from 3-7 of the sattelites would be able to work in tandem.
Infamously, though, all 15 sattelites would completely fail within hours of being deployed, leaving themselves adrift and uncontrollable. While the sattelites were relatively small, the nature of their deployment also left a large and now also unpowered deployment structure co-orbiting with them. This immediately spurned on international backlash, as there was no easy fix for the situation and it was only a matter of time before there was a collision, and North Korea would deny any responsibility for addressing the problem, instead making seemingly random accusations of sabotage by South Korea, America, and even the Soviets early on, though this latter accusation was quickly quashed.
This would be the first time that the concept of Kessler syndrome would become known to the greater public, and in the incident would be born the seeds of what would initially call itself the Kessler Society.
Formed nearly a year later from an international conglomeration of scientists, engineers, concerned citizens, and even minor politicians, the Societies ostensible purpose was to advocate for the establishment of international rules governing the management of orbital debris. And for a time this was what they accomplished, with its members opening up talks between the two great powers on establishing an agreement on cooperative debris mitigation within their first month.
Despite this initial success, as memberships increased and different chapters of the Society opened across the world throughout the remainder of 1981, this message would find itself lost in a sea of conspiracy theories, religious fundamentalism, and anti-intellectual spite. Many chapters would co-opt the Societies message and initial clout to begin pushing their own agendas, their most prominent not limited merely to mitigating orbital debris, but all spaceflight period. Others, driven by Cold War paranoia, would protest launches across the world no matter the payload or intent, rabidly denying that any space launch had truly civilian intentions.
And these were the most reasonable of these off-shoots. Religious fundamentalists asserting that the Earth was flat and that the Moon landings years prior were faked would prove some of the most vocal groups carrying the societies name, and in an incident in December of 1981, a chapter based in Ohio would make national headlines when a core group of its members would, on live television, ambush John Glenn, Ohio Senator and former astronaut famous for being the first American to orbit the Earth, dump a bucket of pig's blood and rusty lug-nuts on the Senator and his wife Annie, calling them war mongers and government paid liars.
The group would be swiftly arrested for the stunt, but the damage would be done, and the society would globally see a dramatic collapse in membership and in some cases even revocation of their rented headquarters as the controversy turned public opinion on the groups, if it wasn't already.
The hysteria would come to a head just weeks later when Donald Kessler himself, who had not responded to an invitation for membership, would sue the societies founders for using his name without permission. They would immediately settle out of court, stating that they were dissolving the society in light of the controversial acts of its members and disavowing themselves of any association with it.
In the wake of this, however, these fringe elements would not disappear entirely, and would, just as quickly as the society collapsed, resurrect it. Dubbing itself the Syn Society (Syn being short for Syndrome, retaining a bit of the original name without being able to be sued), the new America-based organization would become infamous as the cross-section of groups and beliefs that, at their core, were completely and totally against spaceflight of any kind.
While having little of the political clout needed to make any headway with their goals, the society throughout the early 1980s would somehow always find itself with the funding to publish articles, commercials, and even entire books and a movie, all dedicated to attacking the space agencies of the world and their activities, though they would be noticeably soft on NASA and Americas part on global spaceflight, with much of their ire focused on the Soviet Union.
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Ill take this time to say that Kessler syndrome is probably one of the most annoyingly grating things to me, Fermi paradox too, particularly when its been constantly fear mongered and over-stressed as an issue ever since that stupid movie Gravity, and this post more than anything to do with the narrative needs of OBW is my venting rant against how I perceive a lot of the people (but not all) who cant help but bring it up.
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1982 - Part 1
1982
From a Cabin to a Castle, Comrades
From a Cabin to a Castle, Comrades
Ever since the launch of the American Skylab space station in 1973, just a few years after the decision to suspend its own space station programs, the USSR had been in a willing state of conservative space activity. While many of the nation's civilian oriented scientific goals had also been suspended in tandem, the Soviet military would still require numerous flights to accomplish its aims, and for the SSSR itself there was also the simple need to maintain an experienced cohort of cosmonauts. Limited by the internal volumes of their sole manned spacecraft Soyuz, and the limited payload of the Soyuz rocket itself, and indeed, the limited budget being allocated to Soyuz in light of the MKS/RLA project, this left designers in a precarious position of having to find as many ways as possible to cram the work of a space station into short term missions flown by tiny spacecraft.
While they would indeed find a lot of creative means to leverage their available spacecraft and launchers, with some much needed help, by the end of the 1970s it was even clearer than it was at the beginning of the decade that a proper space station was needed, and with RLA transforming into Energia, and the Salyut station program restarting, that need would be met in spades in short order.
Leveraging the massive launch capacity of the Energia RL-150 launcher, the eventual Salyut was in a lot of ways very similar to the American Skylab. Like it, it would be a monolithic space station built into the inside of a pressure vessel (or rather, two of them) derived from a large upper stage with much of the station's internal and external equipment already built into the design. However, unlike Skylab, Salyut was a behemoth in just about every sense of the word. At nearly twice the length and twice the mass of Skylab, the station would be comprised of four core sections. The first section, designated the berthing section, was a corridor roughly half the diameter of the rest of the station to which was attached ports to support up to four Soyuz spacecraft at once, two on each side, and at the forward end a fifth port that carried the same APAS docking system that was intended to support a single MKS orbiter. Along the top and bottom of this section were communications equipment, additional radiators, and the beginning of a support structure that was added late in the Salyut design, intended to be used to test out modular additions to the station later on as the MKS program progressed.
The next two sections after this were the main habitable and working volumes. Externally, the main communication equipment and radiators are attached along the top and bottom, while the port and starboard side of the station housed the massive solar arrays that ran the length of the two sections, and extended out nearly 12 meters from the outer hull. Internally, and quite unlike Skylab, the station was built around a central core "elevator", with the open volume divided into numerous, 2.5 to 5 m tall decks, which each deck tailored to the experiments and equipment required, with a basic height of 2 meters established towards the forward 3 decks, where the crew's main habitat was housed, with the remaining 6 decks encompassing the remaining volume, all dedicated to various experiment stations, some of which were swappable, meaning later missions with MKS could augment the station with further capabilities.
The final unpressurized section was the utility and propulsion block. This section housed most of the stations primary control computers, its fuel compartments and onboard engines, and an assortment of other needed systems.
But in the biggest difference from its American predecessor, the entire station was designed as a vacuum-only vessel. Unlike Skylab, which during launch suffered damage to its solar arrays during its launch, Salyut would launch completely enclosed within the large fairing of the Energia, which would not be deployed until just prior to separation from the Energia itself. This key difference would give a great deal of flexibility in how the station was externally designed, allowing it to save mass that would otherwise have been needed to shield critical components from the atmosphere.
Launched in 1980, Salyut would reach its final 400km orbit with zero issues, following a beautiful midnight launch, and would automatically deploy its massive solar arrays as the onboard fuel cells began generating water stores for the station. Eight hours later, in a rare shotgun style dual launch, two Soyuz spacecraft would be launched carrying the stations first four crew members, and after a day in orbit, both Soyuz crews would rendezvous and dock with the station, and after a period of orbital checkout to ensure the station was operational, the continuous occupation of the station would begin, with the remainder of the eight man crew flying to the station two months later. The crews, already well experienced with the cramped conditions of the Soyuz flights prior, would remark that it was like going from a simple cabin to a castle.
Life aboard Salyut was remarkably similar to Skylab, though the rapid pace of work enabled by the massive volume of the station and the large crew would notably skyrocket the Soviets experience in space, and by the end of its first year in orbit the stations entire complement of initial experiments had already been exhausted to a great degree, and while launches of the automated APAS compatible Progress spacecraft (Derived from the Soyuz) had enabled some of this lack of experimentation to be shored up, with medical science and the effects of long term habitation becoming a heavy focus as other experiments ramped down, it was still greatly limited in the available payload mass it could deliver to the station. It would not be until the MKS program got in the air that the station would finally see life breathed back into it.
And indeed, by the end of 1981, Salyut would finally greet its first orbiter. Laika 2 would be launched on December 28th of that year, Laika itself having finally been repaired from its mishap on its first test flight, and aboard would be Alexei Leonov and Ivan Bachurin. Taking place of Salyuts regularly scheduled Progress resupply, Laika 2 would be arriving at the station in between the crew rotation flights, leaving the two outer Soyuz ports open. Laika would leverage this, as among its payload was a pressurized module similar to the Progress craft, designed to carry the stations internally resupply, which after the combined crews had emptied it, would be refilled with the accumulated stations trash to be returned to Earth for disposal.
But in addition to this small module, Laika would carry with it an experimental dedicated airlock module, designed to be permanently attached to the station. It would be the first such module of its kind, augmenting the station with a sorely needed capability. It had been decided years prior that a dedicated airlock would not be included with the station, reasoning that any of the four docked Soyuz spacecraft could be used as one, however in practice this had proven to be a consistent source of difficulty for the cosmonaut crews, and in one notable instance a Chinese cosmonaut was nearly launched off of the stations structure, in a near mirror incident to that which nearly ended astronaut and Moonwalker Pete Conrad and rookie astronaut Joe Kerwin on Skylab years earlier. The dedicated module would resolve this issue, as included in the payload was additional structural elements to give the station better capabilities to be traversed on EVA, in addition to the structural elements required to permanently rigidize the module as part of the station.
But before any of that work could begin, important tasks needed to be undertaken first. Upon Laika's arrival to the station, the first order of business was for a maneuver prompted by the damage Laika had received on its first flight. While ground controllers had greatly augmented their ability to monitor the Energia/Orbiter stack in flight, they only had the available resolution to know if any large impacts had occurred on the orbiter, while any smaller, yet still potentially devastating impacts would be effectively invisible. To overcome this shortcoming, and knowing that every MKS flight would be co-orbiting with Salyut for the foreseeable future, if not docking with it anyway, it was decided that after rendezvous, either crew aboard the station or an onboard camera could be used to look at the orbiter as it is pitched up and over, exposing its belly and underside to allow for visual inspection for any damage.
While the maneuver took up considerable time, and the Orbiters effective ban from any orbit not shared with Salyut being somewhat limiting, it was a necessity for flight planners as until Energia could be rid of its shedding problems, they would not be able to guarantee that the orbiter would be capable of reentry without verification of the thermal protection system's integrity, and if it were to be compromised, any orbit outside of Salyuts would leave the cosmonauts effectively stranded. While there were options considered such as keeping a Soyuz on standby or even the second orbiter, which was beginning its own TPS assembly at the time, these were considered unviable and/or too expensive to be viable.
However, upon Laika's inspection by the Salyut crew, it was found to be as pristine as it had been on the ground, and so Leonov would press the orbiter to dock with the station. It would be Leonov's and Bachurin's first visit to the station, so after a complementary tour of the station, they would return the favor, inviting the station crew to check out Laika. After the cordialities were concluded, Bachurin would begin to maneuver the resupply module into its berth, and the combined crews would work together to process the module and eventually stow it back in the orbiter, at which point the station activities for the day would conclude.
Once the rest period was over, Laika 2 would undock with the station and prepare itself to move the Airlock module out of its transit position in the cargo bay, and onto the docking section of the Orbiter. The module itself, little bigger than a Soyuz, was designed to both be an external airlock and a dedicated docking port for the orbiters, replacing the APAS port that it would be permanently attached to. Once the orbiter lined up with the station with the module ready to dock, Leonov would begin the slow advance towards the station.
Meanwhile, the station crew had moved into their respective Soyuz crafts, as flight rules for this experiment precluded any cosmonauts remaining in the station proper. This also had the added benefit of allowing for an immediate EVA to rigidize the module into the station. While the APAS ports had been redesigned to better support this purpose, they were only ever tested on the ground and out of caution they had opted to reinforce the connection externally. After the excruciating hour long wait for the module to meet its final berth with the station, it would finally dock and after confirming a hard dock had been achieved, the station crew member designated for the EVA would crawl out of her Soyuz and, being met with the orbiters RMS carrying the equipment, would swiftly carry out the necessary work to finish the modules connection to the station, and after a two hour EVA and an hour of waiting for ground control to verify that the station was clear to re-enter, the work would be finally done. The newly birthed module, in recognition of the Interkosmos partner that had both helped construct it and whose cosmonaut would be vital to its installation, would be renamed the Tóngzhì Airlock.
With tensions between China and the USSR still in a steady de-escalation of hostility, as the New Year approached, their cooperation in space only served to reinforce that the Soviet-Sino split, that had long torn the two countries part, was finally starting to mend.
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*So, obviously, there's a lot of juicy stuff in this post that I'm being rather vague about, particularly that first year on Salyut and indeed the Soyuz missions prior, as well as the whole Chinese cosmonauts in the 70s thing, but don't worry. We are going to be seeing a lot more of this period in the near future when we inevitably cover China's place in this timeline, which narratively has to come in the wake of [redacted][redacted] and the ramifications of [redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted].
*As for Salyut itself, those familiar with Eyes Turned Skyward may no doubt notice certain similarities to its final form, and yes, essentially the Salyut of this timeline is basically a Russianized Spacelab on steroids. This was essentially unintentional; Salyut of this timeline superficially resembles the real Salyuts except blown up in size and scope, and the airlock situation is inherited from that basic design.
For those curious, stat wise it is about 60 meters in length total (though only 50ish meters of that is substantive spacecraft), and about a meter shy of Energia's diameter, and it weighs somewhere in the neighborhood of 120-150 tons. Logically, its internal design is informed in the timeline by the American's experience on Skylab with their open floor plan style station, as well as the Soviets eventual scientific plans for the station, for which the deck style with a central core works best for them.
Incidentally I am also aware of the same study the guys from Right Side Up used to inform their interior design of the Enterprise space station's converted LOX tank, but I personally disagree with how they used that study. Namely because that paper was, to my understanding, assuming that the station would be launched dry and not outfitted in-orbit, which is where I think the papers conclusions would change had the assumption been the other way around, especially given that the specific model for the DSH is very different from what they would use in their station (and indeed, what would eventually be used on Independence, which I wont be elaborating on further 🤐)
That being said, the Soviets ITTL don't look into it that deeply either way; their primary concern is in first using the large amount of space they have in a more utilitarian manner than Skylab was, and second for avoiding the idea of having their cosmonauts get stuck in the middle of the volume with no way to reach anything to grab onto, and with the large mass margin they have to work with, they generally don't ever consider it an issue if they fill in weird geometries with insulation or even just void.
*Also, later tonight I'm going to be going through the previous posts and cleaning up some of the wonkyness (namely with dates, (Already adjusted the Salyut launch date where I had it as I originally couldn't decide where they'd go with it) and there may be some additional details that get added to those posts, so it might be worth your time to give them all a re-read once I'm finished which I'll be sure to note. Nothing should necessarily be retconned (aside from the Salyut launch date as noted), but I think there's some details I should have alluded to earlier in the narrative, and it'll take some re-reading and editing work on my part to see whats what in regards to what I might add. As I noted earlier, the broad strokes of the timeline are planned in at least some detail up to 2015 currently, but as I work through the narrative I struggle to necessarily anticipate how I'll want it to flow in certain parts, and as details get elaborated on that can change things as well. (For instance I originally planned to see MKS suffer 5 unmanned flights before it finally got to see a manned mission, but this didn't seem realistic without forcing it giving the greater cultural and political goings on)
I tend to write these in one go and just post them, which is just an unfortunate consequence of my writing style where I just need to push something out there before I can really look back and think on it, which is no doubt not helped by the fact that for non-fiction writing that I do for school I tend to not need near as much editing work, but with this narrative being so massively longform and with a lot of details flowing in my head I can't quite trust that, hence the need to throw these to the wolves before the might necessarily be ready so I can make my brain work.
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Gahd dang it Bobby. I knew I left an X in there somewhere. Couldnt remember who the hell else was on that mission.X is clearly what 'the artist formerly known as Prince' is called, iTTL.
Fixing it here in a second. Thank you dear reader 😅😅
1982 - Part 2
1982
Uh, hello? Mr. President? Is anyone awake in there?
In this period historians call the Pseudo Space Race, perhaps the most seemingly confusing aspect of it is how it seemed at times an inversion of the Space Race of the 1960s, a phenomenon that was best exemplified in the zeitgeist President Ronald Reagan would find himself inheriting in the early days of his Presidency. With the Soviet Union's incredible Energia boosters arriving on the international stage at the height of Jimmy Carter's administration, America would find itself not in a panic like that that had set in when Sputnik launched all those years ago, but instead with a muffled disinterest, lead in full by Carter's blasé attitude toward spaceflight. Uh, hello? Mr. President? Is anyone awake in there?
Indeed, Carter had given a well noted critique of America's Space Shuttle program, noting that it was at best only a program meant to keep NASA alive and not a true national need, and when the Soviet Union debuted its counter to the American Shuttles, the same assessment would still be ringing true for his administration, with a firm dismissal of the anxieties that were beginning to well up among his military and scientific advisors.
Despite this at best meek and sometimes even mildly hostile approach to space policy from Carter, when presented in 1979 with the chance to end the Space Shuttle program, which in tandem with the growing economic crisis had hit an impasse with cost overruns, and could no longer continue with the program without additional funding, Carter would in a surprise to NASA managers and even many in his own inner circle, granted supplemental funding in 1979 and 1980 nearly double what NASA had originally requested, totaling nearly $1 billion dollars. Driven by his own assessment of the Shuttle program, the additional funding was earmarked for the express purpose of filling out the programs manifests and ensuring that the Shuttle was used to its capabilities. However, without much direction other than that, NASA would still be left without much of a national mandate that, had Carter been reelected, may well have come in his second term, and it would be up to Ronald Reagan, who would go on to decisively beat Carter in a near total landslide in the 1980 election.
Unfortunately, NASA would still find itself wanting as 1981 came and went, with Reagan, who was supportive of the Shuttle program, focusing more on the still ongoing economic crisis. This lack of leadership in spaceflight would not go unnoticed however, as the continued success of the Soviet Shuttle program and its massive Energia boosters, now launching nearly once a month by 1982, was finally beginning to be felt, with their massive Salyut space station and its heavily publicized partnership with China capturing much of the same attention that Sputnik had, reflecting an America that had, according to critics, lost its nerve. The failure of NASA to save Skylab years prior, which could have been leveraged to maintain some parity, would serve as an example among many of how far the country had fallen.
Despite Reagan's staunch anti-communist stances, and the significant popularity he enjoyed following his assassination attempt, his near unilateral focus on the economy in his first year would draw very pointed criticisms of the administration's lack of care given to other important national interests, with some of the most vocal critics asserting that Reagan was asleep at the wheel. But, as it happened, in reality Reagan was quietly building up throughout 1981 and the immediate early days of 1982 to a series of domestic and foreign policies that would come to define his Presidency.
Starting at the 1982 State of the Union Address, Reagan would assert and justify the focus on domestic issues of his first year, and emphasizing the need to ensure that America could stand strong before it could run, and would relate his own concerns and fears over the threat of nuclear annihilation, and his dream of seeing the end of the terror. To this end, as part of his recommitment to his domestic agenda, Reagan would highlight the need for NASA and what the Space Shuttle program could accomplish. Calling on the nation to commit itself to a new, American space station and a strengthened Space Shuttle program to build it, he would close his address by noting that the space station would be "a beacon of freedom; showing not merely that we can do better in space, but that we truly can live and work in space for the betterment of mankind, and that the Space Shuttle and the Space Station more than anything else, would be the technology of peace."
Given the administrations focus on tax cuts and oftentimes drastic reductions in government spending, Reagan would take criticism from his liberal opponents for a perceived hypocrisy in saying that he was keeping America strong by abandoning so much support for its own citizens, and especially took issue with the description of the Shuttle, never mind the new space station, as a "technology of peace", given that the military was already heavily involved in the Shuttle program, and the obviousness that the new space policy was an escalation of the Cold War.
But even so, by May. Congress would finally approve the administration's budget plan, which while continuing on from Reagan's first year, also included enhanced spending for NASA, emphasizing the need for a ramp up of Shuttle flights and the call to design America's next space station, with the expectation that it be ready for approval by the following year. With the Space Shuttle program's flight test missions ending the following month and the next orbiter, Challenger, getting ready for its maiden flights before the end of the year, NASA had finally, at least in some part, received a much-needed kick of leadership, and in short order they would rapidly begin to escalate planning for the future missions of the program, and in a directive from NASA administrator James Beggs passed down from Reagan himself just hours after the new budget was approved, the program would be given its most prominent goal above all others: To match the Soviet Union in flight rate before the end of the President's term in office; for the Space Shuttle to fly once a month.
While still early in the program and without the experience NASA would have liked to have before making such a commitment, it was already beginning to be well understood that the Orbiter as designed was severely underestimated in how simplistic its refurbishment would be, and indeed, how time consuming. With the fragile thermal tiles and the still finicky engines being the prime culprits of this problem, managers would find themselves in a precarious position of having to balance how much of their budget would be spent on rectifying these problematic aspects of the orbiter, while still adhering to the Presidential other mandates such as the space station and a more robust manifest of payloads.
Fortunately for NASA, with their planned flights already extending past the President's first term, it took little effort to shore up what would be flown in the immediate future, giving the program time to not only find more payloads and work to do, but while also allowing some funds to be contributed towards addressing the refurbishment issues that would hamper the program. This would lead to the fourth orbiter, Atlantis, having its construction contracted with work beginning before the end of the summer, and talks of a fifth orbiter were in consideration as well, the idea being that while it would be expensive upfront, it would give the program flexibility as it settles into its goal flight rate.
But in the meantime, the program still had its original work to do. With STS 5 launching in July, being the last flight of Columbia before its planned retrofit to support the upcoming Spacelab missions and bring the orbiter in-line with its new sister ship, Challenger, who was in many ways a much improved and more advanced follow up. NASA would set its sights on STS 6 and 7, planned for the fall and early winter, which would see Challenger fly its first missions.
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*Bit of a shorter post today, though I think we're now starting to see the butterflies really show, and you may well be able to guess where things are going...or maybe not.
*Also, yes, total Command and Conquer reference in Reagan's SOU speech. I'd keep an eye out for this when we get into the 90's. 😉
I would stay tuned on that one, though it's good to keep in mind that while in what is essentially hindsight, the Soviets have the better hardware and arguably the better overall program, that where they're still really lacking is the same thing the Americans only just got taste of: an actual purpose.
Salyut for them is splashy, but its a legacy program that relative to our timeline is 10 years out of date, even if its essentially cramming all those 10 years of IRL Salyut flights into one big station, and a lot of what theyd be doing in the 80s is stuff IOTL that they either did in the 70s, or at least got close to doing.
Even the MKS orbiters, while more robust than the American ones, are only capable of putting in about the same amount of actual work at the end of the day.
Energia is where they really shine, but even then, relative to OTL, its only had a handful of launches that stand apart from the OTL launches of this period, with the Energia variants being moderately cheaper launchers than what would have been used otherwise.
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