You can use windows from historical probes pretty well for straight shots, or
make your own porkchop plots here: http://sdg.aero.upm.es/index.php/online-apps/porkchop-plot. However, for flybys you may need to track down historical studies as many include things like Venus flybys in addition which complicate the mission timing--you can check blogs like David Portree or False Steps, or directly dig into NTRS. Mars launch windows come up basically ever 26 months, though there's some delta-v cost variation by year.
Thanks!
Hmmm, maybe a POD where Glushko and Yangel fall in together, (instead of Chemolie and Glushko) and find the way to store and use keroxide and pitch it to Korolev as a booster stage for his N1 concept? Glushko could probably design an engine that could run on either Keroxide or Kerolox depending on the need which would simplify the design of the larger N1, and while it won't be the N1 we know it will likely be a bit better and more workable. (Bonus points if Korolev hires Krushchev's son and assigns him to a supposed 'make-work' project to improve the performance of the R7 and later N1 upperstages without having to resort to LH2.. and he stumbles across the possibilities of cryogenic propane which blows Korolev away
)
Without the internal competition between Chemolie-et-al, (he stays with cruise missiles and recoverable spacecraft) there's more of a focus on first getting a 'heavy' lift launch vehicle into operation for the military and then upgrading it to general space launch use. (This means the N1 is more akin to the OTL Proton which was comparable to the US Saturn 1/1B but that should still work) The obvious 'key' factor is there is a military use and therefore sustianed military support for the project which should see a higher priority and assignment of resources. That is 'has' some utility for a Lunar mission is a bonus just like it was for the R7.
That could work. I'm trying to keep this as close to OTL as possible, but using kerosene/H2O2 could be a good idea. I'll see what I can do. I'm less inclined to use propane, but I'll have a look at that as well.
Soyuz may be a bit more of a problem as it was rushed OTL due to political pressure which isn't likely to be any less TTL under the same circumstances. What's the possibilty of a successful first flight with more cooperation/funding/resources? I"d think a bit better at least. Or Soyuz 1 still has issues but TTL there is the 'backup' of Soyuz 2 available which would help a lot. In addition to the rendzvous and docking Soyuz would need to demonstrate the required endurance, (two weeks) for the crew as well as perform manuvers and other things that the OTL Gemini program did for the US effort.
In addition they will also have to step up their automated program with landers as well as rovers and the attempted OTL sample return missions. They have more reason TTL than they did OTL to do so.
I would imagine that if Korolev lived, upon seeing the situation Soyuz was in he would want the safety factor dialed up to 11 on the launch. Maybe it would have an ejector seat on the first flight? Presumably, the parachute issues were known at the time, so he might have pushed for them to install one as a backup.
Why unmanned? If the Soviet's are going for this then there's a lot less incentive to do any of this unmanned and a large incentive to put people on each mission to grab more headlines and more 'firsts' along the way. This would beat Apollo 8 by a year and in fact would 'beat' the American's back into space, (Apollo 7) by a good margin there's absolutly no reason NOT to put men into it.... Unless you don't trust the vehicles or systems at which point the leadership is going to not trust the program itself for the same and other obvious reasons. No, these both would be manned and in fact the Soyuz-LK mission would be similar to Apollo 10 in that a cosmonaut will EVA and take it down to an altitude above the Lunar surfce and return in a test of THAT system as well. By this point the US will be accellerating Apollo for all it's worth and it would be likely that Apollo 10 would be the new targeted 'landing' mission instead of final test of the LM. Apollo 9 will take the LM to Lunar Orbit for testing instead of Earth orbit, and crews are probably switched around so that Apollo 10 has the 'landing' crew...
At this point in the program, the vehicles are still largely untested. They didn't put crews on the Zond flights OTL, so presumably, they'd be cautious here too. I agree with the Apollo mission schedules though.
That's not how it would work. First all the N1 wasn't a 'super-heavy' launcher at it's best it was only a 'heavy' LV and once it's confirmed to be flying at ALL successfully NASA is willing and able to lobby for an accellerated Apollo mission schedule. Once they spot an LK on-orbit, no matter what the 'spies' say it will be assumed that the Russian's are in the race and they will act accordingly. Apollo 10, as I noted, stays longer and does more so even if we're not 'first' we can still claim we did it better and will continue to do so as time goes on. Keep in mind the Soviets can only send two (2) men to the Moon and only one (1) to the surface with the LK system. There is a clear American edge in capability.
According to Wikipedia, anything that can put 50 or more tons into orbit is a 'super-heavy launch vehicle'. But I get your point.
I'll point out that there was a technical and specific reason that Armstrong announced "Tranquility
Base here, the Eagle has landed" as the fist words said after landing
The LK systems 'stay' time was pretty much limited to a maximum of around 12 hours and one or two EVA's at best and with only one cosmonaut even those were going to be highly limited. If needs be, they could have sent a one-way LM on the Apollo 13 mission with extended stay capablity and declared it a 'Lunar Base' with a straight face. And that WITHOUT any 'additional funding' available. A Soviet first man on the Moon likely means that Congress would approve the majority of the APP program be re-funded but no major increase in the NASA budget. The Soviet's meanwhile HAVE to start spending more money or fall further behind. Nixon may back an actual 'Lunar Base' but there's no huge incentive to do so as Skylab is still going to happen and there are other Earth orbital missions that can be done. I wouldn't be surprised to see a thrown together module set, (something like Apollo-X in concept (
http://www.astronautix.com/a/apollox.html) done for the Apollo 8 TTL instead of going around the Moon 'second' to the Soviets. The US would declare a 'first Space Station' mission instead.
The key here is going to be getting the Soviet system up to spec with the American one. I would imagine that after the 'mad dash' for the Moon is over, the Soviets would go back to a two-launch strategy to start building Zvezda. If the Americans find out about that, you bet they will start building a base of their own too.
More likely it's an 'either/or' decision; Either the Saturn V lines are opened back up or the Saturn-1B production is re-started but not both. NERVA funding is likely dropped and the program cancled because it lacks a Lunar mission by this point. (The nuclear Lunar shuttle would be nice but needs significant Earth orbital infrastructure that's not likely to happen any time soon) The Saturn decision would likely hinge on the future APP direction being either Earth orbital or mixed orbital and Lunar.
A NERVA-Saturn-I wouldn't be man-rated, at least not for a while. They're going to need the Saturn V to continue Lunar operations, and the NERVA-Saturn-I would just be a cargo vehicle to launch base modules. And also, from what I've read NERVA was very close to being completed by 1970, so I don't think it's
that far off.
The US would know within hours of the launch of the first 'propulsion' module that it was an interplanetary craft. You can't hide that fact. They also need to demonstate the require endurance (about 24 months minimum) for both equipment and crew, (and considering the problems with the OTL Salyut 1,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salyut_1 that's not likely to happen by 1973) before they can even consider doing something like this.
And I'll point out that while the USSR was just as interested in Mars as the US a Venus flyby is both more practical and has more utility by this point in time. (Good choice of flight time though as the Solar Activity was way down
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cycle_20)
I would image the Americans getting there hands on some 'leaked' information saying that it was a Lunar orbital space station and rushing to get Skylab B flying in a wet-workshop configuration to Lunar orbit, while the Soviets laugh as they waste their only remaining habitation module that could be retrofitted for interplanetary flight.
Ted? If you butterfly away Chappaquidick he's maybe got a shot but really Nixon had a solid postion and only screwed up because of his (albeit encouraged by his staffers) paranoia. He's likely still President in TTL's 1973 unless McGovern gets a break, and if Watergate still happens then he's replaced by Ford in late '73 and Ford is not likely to make major changes so soon after taking office.
Eh, no, not even on it's best day. They need multiple launches and lots of orbital assembly but the same could be said of the Saturn 1B. Now the Saturn V COULD do a very minimum Mars mission, similar to the proposed Venus mission, assuming a close launch of a TMI stage on another Saturn V, but such was beyond the N1's capability by a very long margin. The high-energy upper stages of the Saturn V made a huge difference and allowed it to do in three stages what it took four to do with the N1.
I'm not good at politics, so forgive me for that. NASA's Waterloo had Kennedy in office, so I did the same. I'll probably change that.
As for an N1 launched Mars mission, well, I'll get to that in a second.
Skylab II could do the job if need be and they could even just use a single Saturn V and do a Venus flyby if given the go-ahead. No, the LM had NO capability of being modified to land on Mars, in theory or otherwise. It COULD land on an asteroid and it was studied for what modifcations would be needed to land on Eros should the money and resources be available to do so but it couldn't do Mars and nothing short of a purpose designed MEM could.
The LEM could land on Mars if you did some radical (and I mean
radical) changes to it. I actually did a technical study on it a year or so ago. Strech the descent stage tanks, add another 4 descent engines, and strap 8 drop tanks to the side. Then replace the ascent stage motor with a more powerful one, enlarge the ascent tanks by 50%, and mount a ballute assembly to the docking collar, with struts going down the sides holding it to the rest of the LEM. Strap a heatshield on it and what you get is a super-minimalist Mars lander which has about a 50/50 chance of killing the crew, with the capability to stay on the Martian surface for less than a day. It'll just about work, but you would have to be insane to fly the thing.
I know there are a lot more points you put forward in your post, but I've just finished writing out the 'version 1' draft of the full TL, and I think that would do a better job of explaining it than the quote-and-reply tactics I've been using so far.
So then, its time for more worldbuilding! And btw, the "no POD before 1966" thing is completely out the window at this point.
Let's start at the beginning.
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In the final months of 1962, the Soviet leadership acknowledged the American Lunar exploration program, known as Apollo, as a great threat to Soviet supremacy in space. In response, they ordered the creation of a more unified space exploration and exploitation agency, comprised of multiple design bureaus that would work together on different components of a project. The heads of the individual bureaus, as well as many independent designers and leaders, would be a part of a controlling agency that the bureaus would report to. In this way, the Soviet space program could be restructured to better compete with the Americans. In addition, the controlling agency would work side-by-side with both the military and scientific communities to allow faster communication between them.
With the creation of the new Soviet space agency, the already existing Soviet space projects and hardware would need to be reformed and streamlined. The first thing to do was to standardize the fleet of rockets. In 1961 Glushko had made a major breakthrough in storing hydrogen peroxide, and the Proton rocket plans were retooled to use the new propellant formulation. He and Yangel informed Korolev of it and after a lot of consideration, he relented and agreed to use it in his N1 super-rocket, so long as Glushko agreed to build the engines. When the controlling agency was created in late 1962, all of the engineers agreed to standardize the upcoming rockets on the propellent, and work on it began. In the meantime, Korolev and Glushko were also ordered to start working on the development of a hydrogen-powered high-energy upper stage for use on the upcoming super-heavy launch vehicle program, much to Glushko's disappointment.
For the Soviet's new super-heavy lift vehicle, the N1 rocket was chosen. In its initial configurations, it would consist of 3 conical stages stacked atop each other, delivering 60 tons of payload to low orbit. Once this was proven, the number of engines on the first stage would be increased and a fourth stage would be added to increase the payload capability to 90 tons. Hydrogen upper stages would eventually also be added, uprating the craft to 110 tons and even 140 tons by 1975. In addition to the N1 super-heavy lifter, the N11 rocket, consisting of just the second and third stages of an N1, was also being pursued in order to replace Proton by 1970.
On the spacecraft side of things, it was decided that manned flights would be carried out by a Soyuz command-service vehicle, and depending on the mission additional craft may be used in conjunction with it. For a Lunar landing mission, a Soyuz would be used in tandem with an LK (lunnyy korabl' or Lunar spacecraft). In preparation for such a flight, the Soyuz would be tested out in low Earth orbit, perhaps even with the eventual development and use of a small space station. For missions further away from Earth, larger dedicated habitation and propulsion modules would be needed.
It was expected that the Soyuz spacecraft would start flying in 1966, with a manned Lunar landing mission occurring in 1967. By the time 1964 came around that had slipped to 1968, but appeared to be holding for the time being. In addition to the development of the Soyuz and LK spacecraft, several more long-term projects were underway. The original plan to use two N1 rockets in an Earth orbit rendezvous configuration had long been dropped, but a variant of it was chosen for follow-up Lunar base missions in the early 1970s. Three new spacecraft were needed: a TLK (tyazhelyy lunnyy korabl', or heavy Lunar spacecraft) for ferrying 3 people from Lunar orbit to the Lunar surface, an LGK (lunnyy gruzovoy korabl' or Lunar cargo spacecraft) for landing Lunar base modules, and a 3 person variant of the Soyuz. The TLK and LGK would be based around a universal descent stage, similar to the American LEM, but 20% larger. A reinforced and uprated version of this stage could also be used on Mars, or the upper atmosphere of Venus. Finally, a small space station was being studied for examining the long term effects of spaceflight, possibly flying as early as 1968.
In addition to these manned spaceflight programs, several unmanned ones were also being worked on. The Lunokhod Moon rover would be used to scout out landing sites ahead of LKs, and the Lunar 8 and 10 probes were slated to return samples back to Earth, to test the Lunar soil before a manned landing.
By 1965 the list of programs being worked on by the Soviet space agency was as the following:
Launch Vehicles:
- N11, capable of placing 20 tons into Earth orbit
- N11Y, capable of placing 60 tons into Earth orbit
- N1A, capable of placing 70 tons into Earth orbit
- N1B, capable of placing 90 tons into Earth orbit
- N1F, capable of placing 95 tons into Earth orbit
- N1Y, capable of placing 250 tons into Earth orbit
Propulsion Systems:
- YRSU (yadernaya raketnaya silovaya ustanovka or nuclear rocket propulsion system), with 900 seconds of SI, expected around 1975
- YESU (yaderno-elektricheskaya silovaya ustanovka or nuclear-electric propulsion system) with 5000 seconds of SI, expected around 1970
- RD-50 series hydrogen propulsion motors, expected around 1968 to 1972
Spacecraft:
- Soyuz, two crew Earth, and Lunar orbital spacecraft
- LK, one crew Lunar landing spacecraft
- TLK, three crew Lunar landing spacecraft
- LGK, uncrewed Lunar cargo spacecraft
- LL (laboratoriya lunatizma or Moonwalking laboratory), two crew pressurized Lunar roving vehicle
- Almaz, two or three crew space stations weighing 15 to 20 tons.
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In late 1966 Soyuz 1 lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome and soared into the sky. Soyuz 2 had to be delayed, preventing the planned rendezvous test from being carried out, but the flight continued anyway. Upon reaching orbit, several systems on the spacecraft failed, and the craft had problems maintaining its attitude. After just 4 hours in orbit, the automated control system failed completely and the pilot, Vladimir Komarov, was forced to effect an immediate return to Earth. Just prior to reentry the crafts service module failed to detach, but luckily the heat melted the straps holding the crew and service modules together before they could disintegrate. Finally, as the craft went subsonic the main and reserve parachutes failed to deploy, forcing Komarov to eject. While he survived, the crew module was lost and the Soyuz spacecraft would have to spend another 8 months in development before it would fly again.
The LK meanwhile was also suffering from problems. The first and second uncrewed tests in Earth orbit did not go well, but by the third, it was looking like they had worked out the bugs. In April of 1968 LK-4 gracefully rose into the sky, to be joined by Soyuz 4 a day-and-a-half later. After rendezvousing and docking, cosmonaut Aleksei Yeliseyev transferred to the LK, undocked, and performed a test flight including a simulated Lunar landing. The mock descent burn was performed perfectly, and Yeliseyev hits the
engine arm - ignition switch to fire the engine again for a simulated Lunar liftoff. However, as the engine lights up the injector malfunctions, and the entire combustion chamber explodes violently. Superheated shrapnel tears through the LK and rips the craft in half, blowing off the entire back of the cabin. Yeliseyev, who barely has enough time to register whats happened, is just about able to hang onto the control console as the cabin decompresses. The LK's communication systems go dead pretty much instantly, and Boris Volynov
in the Soyuz sees a cloud of debris appear on the rendezvous radar. He immediately performs an emergency orbit change and rendezvouses with the LK, which he realizes is spinning to fast for him to dock. Yeliseyev, with no other option, is forced to jump from the LK over to the Soyuz, flying through several dozen meters of open space. Miraculously, he makes it and attaches his tether to the Soyuz, at which point Volynov fires the thrusters to stop the rotation of the combined craft. After Yeliseyev reenters the Soyuz crew module, they detach the tether, perform retrofire, and return to Earth safely. A post-flight accident investigation finds and fixes the flaw in the engine and LK-5's test flight is performed without incident.
In August of 1967 N1 booster 4L was erected at launch complex 110R. Two months later in October, the N1 blasted off the pad for the first time atop a pillar of orange flames and white smoke, majestically flying higher and higher into the sky - for a full 50 seconds before it disintegrated in a massive fireball. A few months later in March Booster 3L flew, and met a similar fate. By June, however, they had gotten it right. Booster 5L lifted off from launch complex 100L and managed to push all the way into orbit. From there, its payload, an uncrewed Soyuz spacecraft, proceded to fly around the Moon and return safely. Then in October once again an N1 made it to orbit, and this time it was also carrying an uncrewed LK lander, which touched down on the Lunar surface a few days later.
Finally, in January, N1 booster 7L lifted off from launch complex 110R and flew into the history books. On the 10th of January 1969, the Zarya 1 spacecraft, piloted by Alexi Leonov touched down on the Moon.
Alexi Leonov said:
Я сейчас у основания лестницы. Я вижу лунную поверхность, кажется, что это какой-то порошок ... ступни спускаемого аппарата вдавлены в него только на несколько сантиметров.
Я вытащил ... да ... это сделано. Камера развернута сейчас. Вы меня видите? Хорошо.
Хорошо, я сойду с LK сейчас ...
Этими первыми шагами человечество сняло узы Земли, чтобы вечно жить среди звезд.
Оборачиваясь ... я вижу горизонт сейчас ... это прекрасно. Пустынный, но невероятно красивый.
Поверхность своего рода серая, но с легкими оттенками синего, оранжевого и фиолетового. Кажется, что это меняется, когда я смотрю на это ... частицы должны быть очень отражающими ...
Хорошо, я постараюсь получить ... да ... Я получил сборку камеры. Я попытаюсь установить это там этим кратером ...
Интересно ... Каждый раз, когда я наступаю, мои ботинки слегка вдавливают поверхность, это почти похоже на очень мелкий песок ... но с твердой поверхностью под ним. Я посмотрю, смогу ли я получить немного в сэмплере ...
Leonov could only spend a few hours on the Lunar surface, but that was more than enough to firmly place the victory of the Moonrace into the Soviet Union's hands. Apollo 10 landed three months later on April 24th, staying for a full 24 hours on the Moon to try and beat the Soviets at a duration record. Then again in May, another N1 blasted off, but this time the landing site was on the Lunar farside. The surface stay lasted over 6 hours, during which time Valeri Bykovsky set up a small radio telescope. In the meanwhile, development on a cargo variant of the LK named the LU (lunnoye ukrytiye or Lunar shelter) was completed, and an LU was slated to launch to the Moon in 4 months.
Sure enough, in September N1 booster 7L is launched from Launch Complex 110R, on the Zarya 3 mission. The LU was remote landed near a crater on the Moon's south pole, while the 7K-LOK/B2 unmanned reconnaissance orbiter spent several weeks mapping the Lunar surface, before returning to Earth. The Zarya 4 mission flys a few months later in December, with Pavel Popovich piloting the LK down to the Zarya 3 LU, landing 730 meters away. After walking to the LU he deploys the small Lunokhod rover attached to its side, as well as the LPEK (lunnyy poverkhnostnyy eksperimental'nyy kompleks or lunar surface experiment complex). He spends a total of 49 hours on the Lunar surface, and drives a total of 2 kilometers, before returning to Earth.
In March of 1970, the LL (laboratoriya lunatizma or Moonwalking laboratory) is ready and launches to the Moon on Zarya 5. However the descent stage fails, and it impacts the Lunar surface at over 1000 m/s. The Zarya 5 mission flys again in July (the previous failed incarnation having 'never happened' despite the Americans being adamant they'd seen it on their radar screens). It carries another Lunokhod Laboratory and lands near the Lunar south pole, this time successfully. Finally, in November Zarya 6 is launched from LC 110L. Sitting atop it are cosmonauts Nikolay Rusavishnikov and Alyona Yakovlev. After landing 417 meters from the Lunokhod Laboratory, Yakovlev transfers over to it and stays on the Lunar surface for 5 days, driving a total of 84 kilometers. During one EVA, she uses rock-climbing equipment to descend into one of the heavily shadowed and deep craters and finds a substantial amount of water ice. This is a major discovery, and the future Zvezda Lunar base is retargeted to land at one of those craters.
At the same time as Zvezda was preparing to launch, however, another project was already in the works.
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In 1963 the Soviet space agency agreed to fund a detailed study into Maksimov's plans for developing a crewed Mars flyby spacecraft, named TMK (tyazhely mezhplanetny korabl' or heavy interplanetary spacecraft), and the project was handed to Korolev's bureau to complete. By 1965 Korolev had come up with a plan. For a while now Chelomei had been working on a small crewed space station primarily for military use, to compete with the American Dynasoar and MOL projects. Korolev intended to retrofit one for use in deep space and use it as the habitation module for the spacecraft. Attached to this would be two rocket stages, propulsion blocks A and B. Propulsion block B and the habitation module would be launched simultaneously, and then block A would be launched to rendezvous with them. The combined craft would then fly up to high Earth orbit and the crew would be launched atop a Proton or N11 rocket to rendezvous with them. The entire stack would then accelerate outwards, breaking free of the Earth's pull, and flying into interplanetary space.
After meeting with the other design bureaus to discuss the plan, he was given the go-ahead to start development on the vehicle in late 1965. The planned launch date of the mission was in 1971, and all of the engineers knew that if that was to happen, they would need to be working on it night and day for years straight. The Lunar landing program was also being run at this point, and that was by far a higher priority. However, Chelomei and Korolev worked together to come up with a plan to increase funding, and in 1966 they proposed the LOS (Lunnaya orbital'naya stantsiya or Lunar orbital station), built out of an Almaz hull, which would act as a command post orbiting the Moon to monitor operations at the upcoming Zvezda base. Development on the LOS was given the go-ahead in 1967 and the increased funding allowed the station's hull to be completed by the end of 1969. Finally, in early 1970, a Proton rocket boosted an Almaz station, uncrewed, into orbit for testing.
That initial orbital flight was a success, and so the next launch of an Almaz station, named Salyut 1, was to be on a manned mission. In August of 1970, Salyut 1 was launched into orbit, and a month later the crew of Soyuz 8 rendezvoused and docked with it. They stayed at the station for a total of 3 months, returning to Earth in December, as the crew of Soyuz 9 replaced them in occupying the station. Salyut 2 was also launched that year, docking to the aft port of Salyut 1 to expand the station. By the time the launch date of the Mars flyby craft came around, the Soviets now had experience with crews staying in space for up to 5 months. Not nearly as long as a flyby would be, but they didn't have any other choice. The launch window was approaching, fast, and delaying it a few years might allow the Americans to catch up - after all, their spies were constantly digging through the Soviet space program for details on upcoming missions, and it was a small miracle that they had been able to keep the TMK secret for this long. The head engineers had to make a decision: launch now and risk the unknown effects of long term spaceflight, or delay to the backup window in 1973, and risk the Americans beating them. After a long discussion lasting several weeks, the decision was made.
On the 17th of January, 1971, N1 booster 13F rose into the skies of Kazakhstan. It was joined by its sister 14F in May, and the TMK-1 spacecraft, christened мореплаватель, was completed. To the Americans, it looked like some sort of space station destined for Lunar orbit, and the Soviets made no attempt to correct them. In June the crew, cosmonauts Georgy Dobrovolsky and Viktor Patsayev, blasted off from Baikonur atop a Proton booster and rendezvoused with the TMK. After transferring over, the Soyuz's service module was jettisoned to save weight: they weren't going to need it anymore anyway. It was time. On June 8th, 1971, Dobrovolsky reached out and hit the
master arm - booster ignition switch, and the mission officially started.
In less than 3 seconds, insulating panels were blown off, and the 4 high-performance rocket motors on propulsion block A lit up. The entire stack was subjected to a quarter-of-a-gee as it accelerated outwards. 6 minutes later, the stage was discarded, and block B was fired for another 4 minutes, before shutting down. In the hours after the burn, мореплаватель coasted slowly outwards, and her crew started to settle down and make preparations or the long journey ahead of them. Not 3 days later, the spacecraft had flown beyond the Moon's orbit, and the first expedition to the planets had begun.
While Dobrovolsky and Patsayev were flying outwards to Mars, back home the orbital and Lunar programs were still ongoing. In September an N1 rocket lifted LGK-1 into space and threw it towards the Moon. Upon arrival, it performed a breaking burn and descended towards the Lunar surface. The ground crews got a minor scare when communications dropped out for a full three minutes, but the fault was in the ground tracking systems and the spacecraft continued its descent successfully, landing on the Moon and deploying the first Zvezda base module. Four months later in January of 1972, a TLK was launched into Lunar orbit, and finally in May Zarya 7 lifted off for the Moon, using the TLK to perform a landing near Zvezda base to check out its systems. Now for the first time, two cosmonauts were on the Lunar surface together.
The Soviets continued to launch Zvezda base modules, and by January 1973 Zvezda already had two LGK modules, an LL pressurized rover, and two Zarya missions had visited it. On the second mission to the base, Zarya 8, a cable had been fixed to a small lander, and flown down into the nearby deep and shadowed crater. The other end of the cable was attached to a winch, and soon a cable-car like a system was set up to allow the cosmonauts to search the bottom of the crater for water ice, which they then electrolyzed to make oxygen. This considerably reduced the strain on the new LGK modules that were being launched since they no longer needed to bring more oxygen or drinking water with them. At another crater at the Lunar south pole, about 200 kilometers away, the Americans had set up their own small Lunar outpost, built out of 2 LEM shelters attached together and a MoLEM for long-range excursions.
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Back on Earth, times were changing quickly. The Soviet space agency now had a functional Lunar outpost, and мореплаватель had made a close flyby of Mars back in April of 1972. Now it was on the return leg of the journey, plummeting sunwards as it dove towards Venus. It was scheduled to return in September, and Korolev and Chelomei had already begun working on its successor.
The MEK (Mars ekspeditsionnyy kompleks or Mars expeditionary complex) was designed as a follow-on to the TMK program and would conduct a manned Martian landing sometime in 1980. The giant craft consisted of 3 main sections: The MDK (Mars desantnyy korabl' or Mars landing craft), the OAM (orbital'nyy apparat Mars or Mars orbital craft), and the MD (Marsianskiy dvizhitel' or Martian propulsion system). The OAM would essentially be a copy of the TMK's habitation module and would be built out of an Almaz hull. The MD would use nuclear-electric engines developed from the YESU program to propel the vehicle to Mars and back. Finally, the MDK would consist of a brand-new ascent vehicle, a surface habitat, and a small rover packaged inside a specially designed lifting-body heatshield. The MDK and OAM would be launched first by an N1, and then the MD would be launched by another N1 to dock with it automatically. Once this was complete, the spacecraft would start to accelerate outwards into high Earth orbit. The three crewmembers would then be launched in a Soyuz to dock with the craft, and the entire stack would depart for Mars.
However, while the spacecraft only required 2 launches of an N1, it did require the development of a brand new vehicle for landing on and returning from the Martian surface. Such a vehicle would be extremely costly to develop, and would likely prevent the entire program from going ahead. Luckily, Korolev had foreseen this, and when the LGKs and TLKs had been first designed a few years prior, he had made sure to make the propellant margins a bit bigger and the engines a bit more powerful than they strictly needed to be for a Lunar landing craft. That endeavor was now starting to bear fruit, as the descent stage of the MDK was practically already built. So, when Korolev and Chelomei presented the plan to the Soviet government, they accepted. The deadline was set to 1980, and development on the project officially began in February of 1973. A week later мореплаватель flew past Venus and began climbing starwards, back towards the Earth.
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Meanwhile in America...
Following the launch of TMK-1, NASA had suddenly been kicked back into high gear. The Soviets had, once again, beaten them, and now they needed to respond.
The president had ordered a complete review of both the Soviet's and NASA's capabilities. Their conclusion was that while the Soviets did have a respectable Lunar architecture, they had no capability to continue their Martian exploration efforts. Theoretically, they might be able to get a small craft into Martian orbit and back by 1980, but actually landing on the Red Planet would require a craft massing several thousand tons, something the Soviets had no way of ever hoping to build with their N1s. The Saturn V, on the other hand, could be used to stage a Mars mission. Basically everything that was needed already existed except for the MEM (Mars Excursion Module). Of course, pursuing such an endeavor would be pointless, they'd be wasting billions of dollars on something that had no real value.
But then again... it
would feel nice to finally be ahead of the Soviets for once...
And so in November of 1971, the Saturn V production lines were retooled to build the new Saturn MLVs, work began on rebuilding new Skylab habitation modules, and the contact for the MEM was handed out to North American Aviation. After much deliberation, the launch date for the mission was set for the 1980 Mars transfer window, and the Ares program was officially launched.
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1976 was a big year for NASA. After years of development, the LESA Lunar base modules were finally ready for flight. At the start of the year, Jamestown base consisted of 7 LEM shelters, 3 MoLEMs, and could hold 3 people, or 6 when crew rotations were occurring. By the end of the year, Jamestown had 2 additional large modules and a pressurized roving lab, and the crew had been increased to 6 permanently, with as many as 9 during rotations. The LSAM (Lunar surface access module) had also been introduced, which used a traditional LEM frame but had hydrolox engines, allowing it to be refueled on the Lunar surface. This opened up the capability to perform short hops around the Moon and allowed the crew of Jamestown base to effectively explore the entire Lunar surface. In fact, one of the first things they did with this capability was to fly over to the Lunar farside and set up a small observatory to constantly monitor the stars without the Earths radio interference. And on top of all that, Moonlab had come online 3 and a half years earlier, allowing up to 3 people to constantly be in Lunar orbit, studying the long-term effects of spaceflight beyond the magnetosphere, taking high-resolution images of the Moon, and acting as a deep-space observatory.
Back in low orbit, the MEM was making its first spaceflight. Boosted into space by a Saturn V, it was flown for 30 days by the crew of Apollo 43 in a mission similar to that of LK-4 or Apollo 9. The flight was a resounding success, and the MEM was officially qualified for flight. At the same time, PPM (planetary propulsion module) 1X finished its 1-year endurance test, proving that liquid hydrogen could be stored for long amounts of time in space. To conclude the test the NERVA motor on the back of the spacecraft was fired, and the vehicle sent into a heliocentric orbit. Every component of the Martian spacecraft had now been tested, and NASA was ready to launch Ares 1 in 1977. If the flight, which would go into Martian orbit but not land, was successful, then Ares 2 would fly in 1980 and firmly place the US as the winner of the space race.
Meanwhile, the Soviets were still pushing forwards with Zvezda base. By the end of 1976, it had 6 modules, 2 pressurized rovers, and had been visited by 6 Zarya missions. The real accomplishment came in 1977 however. In June an N1 rocket blasted off from Baikonur and sent the MDK-1 spacecraft into Lunar orbit. Three months later the crew of Zarya 19 rendezvoused with it in orbit and flew it down to the Lunar surface, landing near Zvezda. After a relatively normal surface stay, they took off again and rendezvoused with Mir station in Lunar orbit, before transferring over to a Soyuz and returning home. With the mission's completion, the MDK had been proven to be flight-worthy, and as far as NASA was concerned it was merely another version of the TLK.
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The Proton rocket blasted off from Aera 24 of Site 81 at the Baikonur cosmodrome on the 17th of June, 1980, roaring into the Khasakstan sky. If everything went to plan, t
his would be the last time Fedoseyev Vyacheslavovich, Sidorov Tikhonovich or Selivanova Leonidovna would be on the Earth for almost 2 years. Once they reached high orbit, they rendezvoused and docked with the исследователь, and started to get accustomed to the living conditions there. Then, after spending 2 days checking out the ship's systems, control gave the go-ahead, and they began the slow spiral out of the Earth's gravity well. For 7 days the electrostatic engines accelerated the ship starwards before they shut down and entered standby mode. They wouldn't be reactivated for another 300.
The Americans had, of course, known what исследователь was the moment it had started to spiral outwards into high Earth orbit. That didn't mean they weren't shocked, though. The second исследователь started to accelerate, they were forced to start accelerating their own plans. Ares 2E was mooved up to launch in July instead of August, but the engineers already knew that it would be pointless. The laws of celestial mechanics demanded that исследователь with its ion propulsion system would reach Mars first.
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пионер decelerated through 1-and-a-half kilometers a second as it fell towards the Martian surface. Explosive charges blew of cover panels, and a large ballute unfurled from the top of the craft, slowing it even more. As it passed through 5 kilometers, the backshell was dropped and the 6 descent propulsion motors lit up, blasting tons of superheated gas and plasma towards the surface. The ballute was cut, mirrors popped open beside the craft's windows, and Tikhonovich started scanning the surface. They were coming down almost 20 kilometers off target, and they were getting dangerously close to a steep ravine. He sent the craft into RPU-1 and angled westward, deflecting their trajectory onto a large flat plain near the sides of the valley and slowing his horizontal speed. As they descended below 200 meters, Leonidovna warned him that there were large boulders just north-east of their position, and he tried to bank south to avoid them. By now he could see dust being kicked up outside his window, and Leonidovna could see the crafts shadow beneath them.
Tikhonovich and Leonidovna during terminal descent said:
Спуск через 200, вниз на 50, 40, 30
Хорошо, теперь мы начинаем поднимать пыль ... Я перехожу в режим управления пилотом 0.
70 вниз в 22, скольжение в 27, 25
Смотреть эти валуны!
Какая? 50 вниз 17, скользя на 21
Валуны под углом 40 градусов, теперь я ясно вижу нашу тень ... проверь свою скорость! Мы слишком быстры!
23 скольжения на 11, вниз 19 ... 13 ...
12 метров вниз на 9, скользя на 7, черт возьми, эт---
пионер hit the Martian surface at over 15 meters per second, and contact with control and the orbiting исследователь was lost instantly.
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Endevaour blazed through the skies of Mars, leaving a brightly shining trail of plasma behind it. Soon afterward the ballute was jettisoned, the descent engine ignited, and within a 5 minutes John Young, Clarence Peterson, and Sylvia Collins were down on the Martian surface.
The next day Young clambered out of the airlock attached to the side of Endeavor and climbed down to the Martian surface. He was followed by Collins and Peterson a few minutes later, and together they set up the American flag and started to check the MEM for damage. Once that was done, they collected some surface samples and set up the Mars Surface Experiment Package before returning to the MEM to rest. On day 3 Young and Peterson unpacked the Mars Roving Vehicle from the side of the MEM's storage bay and drove a few kilometers to a nearby crater to collect more samples.
Finally, on day 4, Young and Collins attached the trailer to the MRV and set out south-east. After 4 hours of continuous driving, they reached пионер's crash site. When they got there they found the lander on its side, with one of its landing struts broken off on a nearby boulder. Both the ascent cabin and the surface habitat were broken open and had clearly lost pressure on impact, while the ascent propellant tanks had come loose from their frames and were lying a few meters away. The entire scene was a mess, and half the craft was even buried in the sand.
Collins found some cables and a crude pulley system attached to the top of the lander as if the cosmonauts had tried to pull it upright before realizing the futileness of there efforts and giving up. If the tank-tracks were any indication, after that they must have unfolded the rover and drove off south, towards Valles Marineris.
Young and Collins, after reporting their findings back to Peterson, got back in the MRV and continued driving southwards. After another hour of driving, they finally reached the edge of the valley and the end of the tracks.
Parked next to the edge of the valley was the Soviet rover, and sitting on the ground, facing the valley and with their backs to the rover were the two cosmonauts.
Sidorov Tikhonovich and Selivanova Leonidovna had known that they were never going to return to the Earth the moment their landing strut hit a bolder and the пионер had tipped over. They had survived the crash without any major injuries, although Leonidovna had twisted her ankle.
Upon realizing that the communications systems were no longer functioning and that the cabin was slowly leaking air, they had opened the airlock door and stepped out onto the Martian surface. At first, they tried in vain to pull the lander upright, but realizing it was doomed to failure they gave up, and instead set about deploying the rover. After they had finished, they had taken the Martian flag assembly, the small engraved metal disk commemorating all of the previously fallen cosmonauts and astronauts, and the plaque commemorating the first Martian landing, and they set off driving towards the valley.
When they reached it they had stopped, walked a few dozen meters away, planted the flag in the Martian surface, and placed the plaques at its base. They then walked back over to the rover, sat down beside it, and they watched the Sun set.