Sequel to Stephen Baxter novel "Voyage"

Archibald

Banned
SEQUEL TO BAXTER NOVEL "VOYAGE"

When President Nixon took the historical decision to launch men on Mars in 1969, Saturn IB and Saturn V were the only booster of this class in production. This changed quickly.

The Saturn VB added four huge United Alliance 156-inch boosters to the basic Saturn V stack. These boosters were either of the three or four segment variant, depending from the payload.

A- List of Saturn variants

Saturn IB = 14 build. Launched Apollo CSM block.2 and block.3 in LEO.

Saturn II = solid/ reusable first stage, Agena or Centaur second stage.
Replaced Atlas, Delta and Titan II

Saturn III = replaced Titan III and Saturn IB to lift 20 tons in LEO. Powered by a single F-1A; first stage build by North American, based on the S-II.

Saturn IV = former INT-20.

Saturn IVB; two F-1; launched Apollo CSM block.4 in LEO, replacing Saturn IB.

Saturn IVC ; three F-1; was used to test the MEM in LEO.

Saturn IVC; four F-1; currently in use.

Saturn V = used for lunar landings and later for Moonlab station.

Saturn VA = F-1A, J-2S, but no SRB. Interim / cheaper variant, used to test the MEM in low-earth-orbit.

Saturn VB = Saturn V with four 156-inch SRB. Used for heavy LEO missions.

(more detail below)

The Saturn VB had four stages
-SRB
-S-IC
-S-II
-S-IVB

Saturn V and VB were hardly affordable in 1969. NASA had to found a way of lowering their unit cost. To achieve that, each stage had to be mass produced.

This meant using them (or their engines) to build others rockets.

Thus NASA created a whole family of launchers based on Saturn stages, to cover every payload for every user. Users were NASA, USAF and the commercial sector (satellites).

Payloads ranged from 1 to 140 tons in Low Earth Orbit (LEO).


NASA administrator Fred Mickaels noticed bitterly in 1983 that

“we achieved with this whole family of Saturn derivatives what we planned for the cancelled Shuttle : replacing every launcher in the USA aside the diminutive SCOUT!”

B- Saturn family

a) Saturn II and Saturn III = commercial sector, small launchers under 30 tons in LEO

- 1 to 5 tons in LEO = Delta, Atlas, Titan II

A single Saturn SRB topped by a Centaur or an Agena. You can add or cut segments in the SRB (2 to 5 segments).

SRB+ Agena
SRB+ Centaur

- 15 to 30 tons in LEO = Titan III, Saturn IB.
To achieve this payload, you need a single F-1 engine plus a S-IVB.
(that’s an upgraded Saturn IB!)

b) Saturn INT-20 = Saturn IV = 30 – 140 tons in LEO.

Basically a S-IC topped by a S-IVB.
BUT you have to remove at least one F-1, because the S-IVB is much lighter than the S-II. Acceleration would be much too strong.

Saturn INT-20 = three variants varying the number of F-1 on first stage; two, three, or four engines.

Saturn IVB = Two engines = 39 tons in LEO
The two-engine variant was first developed in 1977 to replace Saturn IB. As of today, it is still used by NASA to launch the Orion (aka “Apollo on steroids”) spacecraft.

Saturn IVC = Three engines = 75 tons in LEO
The three engine variant was considered for Skylab follow-on, which were never build because of budget cuts around 1976. Cheap “wet workshop” were prefered.

Saturn IVD = Four engines = 130 tons in LEO

The four-engine variant was build only after the Mars landing (in 1987). This rocket was the heaviest launcher on hand after cancellation of the second batch of Saturn VB in 1985, and played an important role in the 90’s.

According to Boeing studies, removing or adding F-1 on the S-IC production line was quite easy.

Saturn IVs become the backbone of NASA manned spaceflight program in the 70’s and 80’s, supporting the Ares build-up and launching improved Apollo CSMs.

c) Saturn V and derivatives

Saturn V
Saturn VA
Saturn VB


d) Saturn SSTOs

Every Saturn stage can be reused, or turned into a SSTO.
SRB = dropped just like the Shuttle does

S-IC = an Atlas-like 1.5 SSTO (drop four engines, used the middle F-1 as sustainer)

S-II and S-IVB = Philip Bono, Gary Hudson, and the SASSTO concept.

The S-IVB and S-II received highly advanced aerospike (J-2T-300k).

Space enthusiasts Philip Bono, Gary C. Hudson and Bob Truax funded the SASSTO company in 1979 and build single-stage-to-orbit from Saturn stages.

They brought tourists in LEO in the early 90’s using an aerospike-reusable S-II SSTO topped by an enlarged Apollo CSM for 10 passengers.

The expendable S-IVB SSTO was used as a proof-of-concept and testbed for the aerospike in 1983.


C- Saturn / Apollo history

Let’s go back to 1969 (in the book).

Every mission after Apollo 14 was cancelled, leaving 6 unused Saturn V.

NASA planned to use these Saturn to build the Mars “Ares” stack, but NERVA delays and weight growth killed this plan.
The Primary Propulsion Module (home of the NERVA nuclear rocket engine) weighed 250 tons in LEO, twice as much a Saturn V could lift.

We all know how the 70's ended = Moonlab and Skylab A.

Of the six Saturn V

- one launched Skylab in LEO.
- The five remaining rockets were used for Moonlab.
Once Moonlab in Lunar orbit, four expeditions were send there, exhausting the first production run of Saturn V.

(section added - you never end improving an alt-history!)

Going to Moonlab meant that the Apollo CSM block.2 did not carried Lunar Module, even if a large numbers were available (what a waste not landing on the moon, just orbiting it!)

Surplus Lunar Modules ascent stages were changed into MPLM (MultipurPose Lunar Modules!).
MPLM were used to bring supplies to Moonlab via the Apollo CSM. As the LM before, they were housed within the S-IVB, and picked-up after the TLI.

Apollo CSM docked the MPLMs to the side port of Moonlab' MDA before the crew entered the station.
More exactly, MPLMs were grappled from the CSM by Moonlab small robotic arm, turned and docked to the MDA.
The MPLM were usually welcomed because they added a clean volume to the old laboratory. Astronauts quickly learned it was the best place to sleep...

Soyuz docking to Moonlab complicated matters; crews had to jettison their MPLMs and dock their CSM instead, Soyuz needing the front port.

President Nixon had to reopen Saturn V production line in 1972. Three more Saturn V were build (SA-516 trough SA-518).

Two more we built in the late 70’s ( -519 and -520) before production switched to Saturn VB in 1979.
These two Saturn V were hybrids called Saturn VA. They introduced the upgraded F-1A and J-2S but lacked the 156-inch SRBs.

More Saturn VA were build later to test the MEM in low-earth-orbit (1982- 1985) with an Apollo CSM block.4. Saturn VA could lift the MEM-Apollo stack to the Skylab A orbit
(51.6° at 435 km), the station being used as "safe heaven" if something went wrong during the test.

Fifteen Saturn VB were build.
- three were expended in unmanned tests
- another blew up
- one launched the disastrous Apollo-N mission.
- nine were used to build the Ares “chemical” stack
- two went in mothball.

Apollo CSM variants.

Three variants are mentioned by Baxter = block.3, block.4 (LEO ferries) and the Mars block.5.

Block.2 CSMs were not good for Skylab nor LEO.

First, their SPS and fuel cells had been tailored for short duration Moon missions, not for long storage in LEO.
Second, they were too heavy for Saturn IB. A CSM block.2 weighed 27 tons when Saturn IB lifted only 18 tons to Skylab orbit.
Thus the four CSM build for Skylab (CSM-116 to 119) were mothballed and later used for Moonlab missions.

An interim CSM block.3 was build for LEO.

It matched the performances of the Saturn IB, and more important changes were introduced, turning it into a true “American TKS” in Leonov words (sorry, Viktorenko words…)

The Block.3 CSM had no fuells cells, replaced by solar arrays. The Service Module and its SPS propulsion system were deleted, too, and replaced by a big cargo module. As the crew need to access this module, a large hatch was cut through the heatshield. The heatshield itself was thinner than the block.2; Apollo block.3 reentered the Earth atmosphere at 7 km/s, not the lunar missions’ 11km/s.

Apollo block.3 were build only in small numbers, to exhaust the stock of Saturn IB.

Apollo 7 had used Saturn SA-205; NASA decided to achieve building of Saturn IB through SA-214. Thus nine Saturn IB were available, for which nine CSM block.3 were build.
The nine CSM block.3 serviced Skylab A from 1973, two times a year, until 1978.

CSM block.4 and block.5 were build in parallel and used in the 80’s.

The block.5 CSM re-introduced the SPS and Service Module for NERVA tests, Moonlab, and Mars missions.

The block.4 CSM was an enlarged variant of the block.3. It had a bigger cargo module, a crew of five, modern avionics, and a small propulsion module to reboost Skylab and the wet S-IVB.
Total weight of 39 tons, which matched the performance of the new man-rated Saturn INT-20 (twin F-1 variant).

Apollo block.3 and block.4 were used for 1 months missions in LEO, using a dedicated flight profile.
Saturn IB or INT-20 S-IVB second stages went in orbit with the CSM; thus a large number of missions used the stage as a short duration “wet workshop” station.
USAF mounted such missions to replace the cancelled MOL; for NASA they completed the “dry” Skylab.

These missions partially filled the gap left by the Shuttle cancellation, the “wet workshop” being used as a kind of surrogate payload bay for Apollo. Payloads were returned using the CSM.

Launch pads

Saturn V, VA and VB were launched from Pad 39A. Pad 39B first launched Saturn IB to Skylab using the “milkstool” assembly.
With such large number of Saturn launches, it was no surprise if LC-34, LC-37A and LC-37B returned to service around 1976. These pads launched manned Saturn INT-20 in the two and three engines variants (Apollo block.4 and MEM tests).
The heaviest Saturn INT-20 with four F-1 had to use Pad 39B, then went to Pad 39A after Saturn VB cancellation.

D- NASA future after the Mars landing (1986)

Moral was low at NASA headquarters. The Mars landing had been highly successful, but in the long term it could be disastrous.
Fortunately NASA new administrator John Young (named by Ronald Reagan in person in 1987) shaked the agency.

Another mission to Mars was totally out of question because of chemical propulsion constraints. Young had to faced cancellation of Saturn VB second production run, and scrapping of the last two article.
Young wisely decided to head for the Moon. He had a strong argument for this : Moonlab urgently needed to be replaced. Young then heard of a certain Robert Farquhar, which pushed hard in favor of a “gateway station” at the Earth-Moon Lagrange point 2 (EML-2 or Emily).
Moonlab had to be reboost every two months because of the lumpy lunar gravitational field. EML-2 in comparison was much, much more stable.
Young obtained to use one of the remaining Saturn VB to launch an expedition to EML-2.
On July 21 1989, 20th Anniversary of Arsmtrong and… Muldoon moonwalk, the first human expedition to EML-2 happened. And Bush promised lunar colonization soon.
To achieve this goal, NASA administrator Young decided to build the gateway station using derivatives of the Mars vessel’s modules. Later the MEM was used as a “super LEM”, going back and forth between the gateway station and the lunar surface.
But Saturn VB had been cancelled. How could the gateway station be build without the super-heavy launcher ?
The answer laid in Saturn IV.

After the Mars landing, NASA only kept Saturn IVB and Saturn IVD in production.

Saturn IVB launched the Apollo CSM block.4 ferry; Saturn IVD with its 130 tons payload to LEO, could boost a fully-fuelled S-IVB into orbit.
This S-IVB become a lunar tug; a variant of it was used as a LEO propellant depot, refuelling spaceships on their way to the Moon.

A launch to the Gateway Station involved a Saturn IVD followed by a Saturn IVB.
The S-IVB tug went in orbit first, followed by the Apollo CSM block.4. The two docked, and the J-2S send the stack to EML-2.

Russia send Soyuz TM to the Gateway Station, as Soviet Union has done before with Moonlab.

The Gateway station was slowly build in the 90’s.
Then in 1999 someone at NASA noticed that
“Lagragian points are interesting for low-thrust propulsion systems such as solar electric propulsion. Located at the edge of the Earth gravity well, a spacecraft using SEP would easily left EML-2”.

Thus NASA administrator Natalie York and Nasa deputy administrator Robert Zubrin committed the space agency to another Mars mission for the 2016 opportunity. The Mission to Mars slipped to 2020, and ended in disaster when the crew was killed by mysterious forces. The rescue team found that a member of expedition 1 had survived, and brought him back to Earth. Before that, astronaut Jim Bobbins had been lost in a space accident. Then Captain Larry Sinize mysteriously disappeared and was never seen again. The rest of the crew came back to Earth telling bizarre stories of “having entered a martian face, met E.T, and lost Sinize there”. Scientists doubt that Martian dust damaged their brain.




Skylab = 9 manned missions using Saturn IB plus a single Saturn V flight to put Skylab in LEO.

Skylab-1 = Saturn V

Skylab 2
Skylab 3
Skylab 4

Skylab 5
Skylab 6
Skylab 7

Skylab 8
Skylab 9
Skylab 10

Moonlab
1 Saturn V for the Moonlab station itself
And
9 following manned missions

Moonlab 2
Moonlab 3
Moonlab 4

Moonlab 5
Moonlab 6
Moonlab 7

Moonlab 8
Moonlab 9
Moonlab 10

Moonlab and Skylab = 20 missions between 1973 and 1980.

With the NERVA disaster and the forthcoming chemical Mars mission, Moonlab missions were put on hold in 1981. By the way, the station was long in the tooth…












Mars program missions (1981 – 1985)

MEM / Mars missions

A1 = unamanned shakedown test of Saturn VB
A2 = unmanned shakedown test of Saturn VB
B = first manned Saturn VB
C = unmanned MEM
D = manned MEM (in orbit only)
E1 = manned MEM (first landing test)
E2 = manned MEM (second landing test)
F = Mars mission

This program was exposed by Joe Muldoon to the astronauts in June 1981. At the time consideration was given to make some testing in lunar orbit, but that was dropped later for cost and safety reasons. The C, D, and E missions went to Skylab instead, using less costly two-stage Saturn VA without SRBs.

The A1 and A2 boilerplate MEMs were send to escape velocity by three-stage Saturn VB. They entered heliocentric orbit and were followed over a long period of time, showing how the spacecraft matured in to outer space.

The B mission was the first true manned test of the Saturn VB since the tragic flight of the NERVA three years before.
As the S-IVB remained unchanged, NASA decided to send the crew to the Moon in an attempt to save Moonlab by adding a reboost module. Sadly the flight slipped and the station crashed on the lunar surface.
Instead Skylab B was taken out of storage, stripped down of the ATM and various hardware, and added as “ballast”, Saturn VB payload to TLI being 160 metric tons!
The mission was used for testing some manoeuvres planned during the flight of the Ares cluster to Mars. After TLI, the boilerplate MEM went to Skylab front docking port, while the Apollo CSM was moved to the side port. The stack entered lunar orbit thanks to a solid rocket motor hastily mounted on the boilerplate. The Apollo CSM let Skylab and the MEM into lunar orbit, blasting off toward Earth with its SPS. The boilerplate MEM was later undocked and smashed on the Moon.
Skylab B followed three months later.

The C mission send the unmanned MEM to Skylab orbit. The spacecraft fired its engine and went close to the OWS. When the Shuttle had been cancelled, its robotic arm had been added to Skylab. The canadarm (as it was called) went to the multiple docking assembly. The crew now used the canadarm to grapple the MEM, and docked it to the side of the MDA, on the secondary docking port (which was never used).
They never entered the MEM; the crew rather performed regular EVAs and monitored soaking of the spacecraft for 18 months.

On the D mission, a two-stage Saturn VA boosted an Apollo CSM / MEM to Skylab orbit. The station could be used as a safe heaven in the case something went wrong.

On the E1 and E2 missions, others Saturn VA boosted similar stacks to Skylab orbit. BUT the CSM stayed in orbit while a reinforced MEM reentered Earth atmosphere for a landing at Edwards AFB. The Apollo CSM reentered later, splashing in the Pacific ocean as usual.

In parallel with these test, Saturn VB were carrying huge amounts of fuel to the Ares cluster in its 450 km circular orbit.








D- NASA future after the Mars landing (1986)

November 7, 1986.

Discovery splashed down in the Pacific. Natalie York, Phil Stone and Ralf Gershon were back. The capsule landed only four kilometre away from the USS Iwo Jima, the very same ship which had recovered Apollo 13 long before. Helicopters rushed to the landing point. President Reagan was there, so were JFK and George Herbert Bush, among others.

Over the following weeks the three astronauts had to adapt again to 1G environment, a long and painful task. Radiation levels were quite reasonable; as of 2006, no sign of cancer has declared. But they were high enough to prevent any of the three to fly again in space, as Adam Bleeker had learned before…

Thursday, November 27 1986 was National Day of Thanksgiving.
This day, New York was the scene of the most astounding parade since Apollo 11 in 1969, or Lindbergh triumph back in 1927.
Over four million people massed along the way of the astronaut motorcade, zillion of bits papers flew from every windows of the Big Apple. Even Natalie York enjoyed this moment.

But things were not so bright for NASA. As predicted from 1984 onwards, times which followed the Mars landing were very, very hard. The space agency endured a winter 1986-87 as cold and harsh as the Martian surface York had walked on. So cold in fact that its budget was frozen to death…

Tim Josephson knew that the post- Ares times would be difficult. He offered its resignation to Reagan early December 1986, considering its time was over.
But Reagan refused, and Josephson stayed at the head of NASA until George Herbert Bush was introduced in the oval office in January 1989.
Josephson fought bitterly to obtain funding for a second batch of Saturn VB, in vain. The last two rockets on the first row were mothballed.
For 18 months, the US space program was lethargic; only missions to Skylab happened. But Skylab was very, very long in the tooth.

Since 1971 Ustinov had led the soviet reflexion on the US manned space program until his death in 1985. To him and Yuri Andropov, things were clear from the start. The Mars mission could only be a costly one-shot. Even if nuclear-propulsion was mastered, the cost would be so huge and delays so long that the adventure was not worth the price. Mars 9 success and cancellation of all Apollo missions led the soviets into a more balanced space program.

As they had done with Luna probes before, they claimed they could obtain more results much cheaper and sooner with unmanned probes. Ustinov decided to push hard for a Mars sample return mission; the horrendous task went to the Lavotchkin bureau. But the program ran into delays, and returned samples only in march 1988. This was nevertheless a great success. The soviet also filled the gap left by NASA in unmanned exploration of the solar system. Every US probe in the 1971 – 1985 era was part of the “Mars scout” program.
The Halley armada of ESA, Japanese, and Soviet probes sailed close of the comet the very same week Natalie York walked on Mars… march 1986 was some month in space exploration!


Thus the Soviet triumphed in the unmanned exploration of the Solar system… but no one send probes to the inner solar system after Pioneer, Voyager and Galileo cancellation. Mariner Mark.3 started as soon as York walked on Mars, but the unique “Grand Tour” opportunity had been lost…

The soviet also had an ambitious program of space stations in LEO and Lunar orbit, to beat Skylab and Moonlab.

The Soviet had built a huge LEO modular space station using the N-1F, the MOK.
Soyuz and Progress were long gone, replaced by Zarya and Progress M2 ships.

Since June 1978 they had the much smaller Salyut-6 in lunar orbit, battling to keep it functional and avoiding its crash to the lunar surface as Moonlab before it.

Salyut 2 and 4 successes in LEO, success of the N1F (at the 7th launch attempt in 1976…) and the Moonlab program had led to a launch of Salyut 6 in lunar orbit by a N1F, a N1 with improved engines and RD-56 cryogenic upper stage.

Lacking funds and time to build a true lunar landing program, the soviets then recycled the old LK design of 1971. Cosmonauts had to perform an EVA to enter the diminutive lander, which brought no useful payload to the surface. The LK had become, in Viktorenko words, the first “lunar scooter”. First soviet landing using the scooter had happened on 14th November 1979, and missions went on at slow pace since then.

Plans for the much bigger and capable LOK lander had been postponed by Gorbatchev in June 1985.

For years the Soviet Union violently negated the fact that a manned mission to mars was ever considered in the East.

In the western world, troubling evidences and reports from the CIA had led to lots of speculations.
The soviets had send a Salyut around the Moon; they had recognized that they prepared a mars-sample return mission.
The CIA briefed Tim Josephson that the Soviet would probably atempt a manned mars flyby in 1985.
CIA analysts thought that the soviet MSR mission and the manned mars flyby were totally different programs. They were wrong.

Russia opened soviet secret archives after 1992. In 1993 the soviet manned mars mission plans were revealed.

Project "Aelita"

The MSR mission would be first send to Mars by a N1F.
A large Marsokhod rover would dug the martian soil, retrieve sample and bring them to the lander ascent stage.

A Salyut would be send in LEO by a Proton rocket. Then a of crew would follow in a reinforced lunar-soyuz. The third launch would use a big N1F rocket to boost a cryogenic, 4*RD-56 large upper stage on the same orbit.
The cryogenic stage would boost the Salyut-Soyuz combination to MOI for a rapid flyby of the planet 8 month later.
The flyby would happen at very high speed, in less than one day. The cosmonauts would have to perform experiments, but, most importantly, a high-speed rendez-vous with the MSR upper stage carrying 1 kilogram of martian soil.
Three days before the encounter, the crew would radioed the probe to fire its big ascent stage. The stage would propell itself beyond mars orbit, for rendez-vous with the manned spacecraft.
Once docked it would be isolated from the crew. The whole stack would return to Earth months later.

To avoid any contamination, analyzis of the samples would happen in a Salyut laboratory located in LEO. The crew would reenter earth atmosphere at escape velocity using the Soyuz reentry module and leaving the whole soyuz-salyut-MSR stack behind.

Salyut would then use its own propulsion system to brake the stack into a highly elliptical orbit. Later a Progress would be send there, dock, and change the orbit to a more practical one. ASoyuz would follow, docking with the mars stack. The astronauts would use the mars-salyut as space laboratory for analyze of the samples.

If no contamination hazard were found in LEO, part of the Martian samples would be send back to Earth using the Progress, the crew coming back separetely in the Soyuz.

A Salyut was send around the Moon to monitor crew exposure to radiation and how the soviet station matured in deep-space.
The resulsts were not good, while the rendez vous between the two spacecrafts at high speed proved a daunting task.
The soviets switched the project to low-level priority in 1985; they pushed the MSR mission alone with complete sucess, but too late.
Project "Aelita" was not studied in vain; its main usefulness was to worry NASA and the CIA. A side effect of this project was to prevent any cancellation atempt on Ares, even after the NERVA diaster in november 1980.

In 1987 there was many talks in the Reagan administration about cutting the space program to low-earth orbit only, scrapping Moonlab and replacing Skylab by an enlarged station, period.

Since 1980 Josephson had fought bitterly to save Moonlab and obtain a second batch of Saturn VB beyond Ares, arguing that “we can’t let the Moon to the soviets!”
But he had no chance to succeed. Ares reached its peak funding in FY83. NASA budget was $100 billion this year (in constant 2008 $)
There was no budget for others missions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Budget

When Fred Michaels had launched the Moonlab program back in 1974, there were hopes to sustain lunar orbit stations with NERVA nuclear shuttles after the Mars landing in 1982. The NERVA shuttle would have been a cheap extension of the Ares program, led in parallel.
But the NERVA disaster was followed by budgets cuts, costs overruns, and Moonlab rapid deterioration. This had led to an indefinite postponement of lunar missions in 1982.

Then on a sombre day of January 1984, VP Bush had told Josephson that there would be no Saturn VB past the first production run.

NASA had thus no program beyond the Mars landing.

In 1989 come Bush and its SEI, Space Exploration Initiative, late 1988. Bush called for more Lunar missions in the next decade “to build a colony on the Moon for the year 2019”.

Mars was not mentioned; Bush knew another mission was not feasible in the next future, not with this bulky chemical propulsion. Some saw this as a retreat, a betrayal; other noticed how successful Moonlab had been.

Back in 1987 a group led by Natalie York redacted a report called "Leadership and America's Future in Space"; the SEI drew heavily from it.

Bush SEI called for a lunar station, citing the highly successful Moonlab experience. Astronauts Phil Stone and Joe Muldoon were more skeptical on the concept. They knew that the lunar gravitational field was very lumpy; every mission had to reboost Moonlab two times a month, otherwise it would have crashed on the lunar surface.
In fact Moonlab had crashed on the Moon two month after the last mission left it, in December 1981.

Then Stone and Muldoon heard of Robert W. Farquhar. As early as 1971, Farquhar had demonstrated how interesting the Earth-Moon Lagragian points were. EML-1 was located 300 000 km away from Earth, on the way to the Moon. Despite this proximity it was crap, needing more Delta V on the lunar ship to go there.
BUT, Farquhar added, you have to think like Gregory Dana: use gravitational swing-by and slingshot, to cut fuel, and go to EML-2, 40 000 km away from the Moon, 400 000 km from Earth, nothing compared to the Mars mission.

Robert Farquhar and Gregory Dana found that using a lunar flyby to go to EML-2 added only 330 m/s to your Delta V budget, even less than going to lunar orbit! Even better, Dana added, from EML-2 you cover the whole lunar surface much more easily than from Lunar Orbit. Communication and rescue are much easier; you are not limited to equatorial landings as with Apollo LOR profile.

Bush had established a new National Space Council headed by veepee Dan Quayle. Fortunately, Joe Muldoon and Gregory Dana were influent members of the council, and pushed Farquhar/ Dana mission profile.

Josephson was finally replaced by John Young in February 1989. Young had been preferred to Richard Truly, another former astronaut.
Back in 1985 Muldoon had decided to stay on its post at NASA, and was still there five years later. Thus Apollo astronauts were at the controls of NASA in a crucial moment.

John Young decided that the most important thing was to build the gateway station at EML-2. The station became the heart of the SEI.

NASA administrator built a clever space program based on a combination of Ares hardware remnants plus Dana / Farquhar gateway station.

Saturn INT-20D had four F-1A engines, and a payload to LEO of 140 tons. That was enough to put a fully-fuelled S-IVB in LEO.
This S-IVB was the cornerstone of SEI plans for lunar colonization. The NSC defined two phases for its use
- Phase 1 would use the S-IVB as an expendable tug to carry modules of the gateway station to EML-2
- Phase 2 = S-IVB could be clustered in LEO to form an orbital propellant depot. Saturn IVB second stage would be refueled once in orbit, and restarted to jump to EML-2 with its payload. Back to a single-launch architecture!

Then a Saturn IVB (two F-1A, 50 tons to LEO) would send the lunar payload to the same LEO orbit, for docking.
Lunar payload could be either an Apollo CSM block.5 or a station module. The S-IVB tug would send this payload in a halo orbit around EML-2 via a lunar swing-by.

That two-launch architecture avoided the costly Saturn VB and was more flexible. It also involved less-costly missions to LEO, a fallback option if the lunar program was cut. Last but not least, once the orbital propellant depot entered service, the architecture would switch again to a single launch.

The end of cold-war renewed US- Russian cooperation thanks to presidents Clinton and Yeltsin.
In 1993, NASA and the RKA reached the following agreement.
NASA was building a lunar station, but had no LEO station since Skylab destruction on February 7 1991 over Argentina.
Russia had the giant MOK station in LEO, but Salyut-6 had crashed on the Moon in 1991 because of Russia lack of funds for reboost.

The two countries decided to join their forces, each station completing the other.
NASA S-IVB propellants depots would be on the same orbit as the MOK, while the Soviets would launch Zarya spacecrafts to the gateway station using the N1-TMA.

The Gateway station was built from Ares various habitations modules, which were already armoured against radiation hazards.
Even better, the MEM itself was recycled as lunar lander. Landing on the Moon was much different than landing on Mars, leading to the deletion of the heatshield and other hardware.

The MEM had been built to assume survival of three men on Mars for a Month, including landing and take-off phases. A very demanding mission for a 50 ton spacecraft…

Now it had only to go back and forth between the Moon surface and the gateway station. The trip was 80 000 km long, taking some hours only.
The Lunar MEM had thus a very large security margin in lunar missions, which could be translated in a very large payload to the lunar surface, or a large number of astronauts.
Columbia aviation perfectly recycled its Mars lander.

On the year 2008, the gateway station was operational since many years, and LMEM were used to build the first lunar colony.
But the gateway station had found another role thanks to its unique location at the edge of Earth gravity well.
Thanks to that, it was the perfect place to launch missions to Mars using… solar-ionic propulsion!
Indeed the dream of more Mars mission had not dead with the year 1986, nor with the NERVA disaster.
But chemical propulsion was way too heavy, needing lots of expensive Saturn VB to fuel its tanks, resulting in a very small payload on the Martian surface.
NERVA was totally out of question since 1980; the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 didn’t helped a lot restoring public confidence in nuclear energy, to say the least.

Ionic propulsion looked promising, but needed large amounts of electricity… of which only a nuclear reactor could provide. Unless solar arrays could do the job! That was the SEP, Solar-electric propulsion.
After the NERVA disaster and with SEP in mind, Robert Zubrin had led a program linked to the Mars mission of 1986.
Solar arrays of the Ares stack had been monitored by the crew on regular basis; the aim was to study how solar arrays resisted to 18 months-trip to Mars. The results had been surprisingly good; micro-meteoric and solar particle erosion could be maintained to reasonable levels.
The results were precious for the next Mars mission; extrapolations proved that solar arrays could do the job.

Unmanned SEP probes also helped a lot.

The next Mars opportunity was for 2016; the next would happen in 2031. In 2008 professor Walt Miser exposed why a second mission to mars was necessary, mentioning York results studies on Martian samples brought back in 1986.

Thus the second mission to Mars left the gateway station in spring 2015, exactly twenty year after the first…

At the time, Apollo CSM had reached their limits with the block.5 variant. The Apollo-B program directly led to Orion, also known as “Apollo on steroids” thanks to NASA administrator Natalie York…
 
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I read this, no errors found

but there one thing is missing here,
A big Space Telescope
with Saturn VB you can launch a very big one
 

Archibald

Banned
Thank you all!

Yikes, that's 30 years, not twenty :) (don't forget people get older more slowly in zero-G)

No telescope possible, at least using Saturn VB : according to Baxter Hubble has been canned with 90 % of the unmanned space flight...

Well, maybe something based on the Saturn IVD and its 130 tons to LEO.
Hmmm, Hubble at EML-2...
Btw the OTL James Webb telescope could be called the "Fred Michael telescope" no ?

Of course from 1986 (once Ares launched to Mars) there would be a VERY large unmanned space program to cool down scientists.

Hmmm... the famous alignment of the four giants planets of the solar system happen every 165 years only
I remember the window closed in 1999...
Not many time to start Galileo or Mariner Mark.II (= Cassini) from scratch, without Pioneer precious experience.

Say 6 years to launch, meaning 1993... Jupiter in 1995, Saturn 1997... that's Cassini ! Uranus and Neptune (not mentionning Pluto) would be harder to catch.

And we'll lost Galileo monitoring of the Shoemaker-Levy 9 collision in 1994.

Halley, the Grand Tour "opportunity" and Shoemaker-Levy-9 don't give a damn about what happen on Earth. These events had to happen...

Venus and Mercury have been visited by the Soviets.
Maybe ESA should invest more and earlier in space probes (from 1980?)
--------

About Baxter's astronauts... I suspected he had invented them from real astronauts, and made my own inquiry. :)

To me, Natalie York looks a bit like Sally Ride.
Phil Stone would be Joe Engle
And
Ralf Gershon would be Guyon Buiford.

Buiford and Ride were both rookies of the 1978 selection (Aka "35 new guys").
It was the first astronaut selection since 1969, the first tailored for the Shuttle.

Ride was part of the Rogers commission on Challenger... York is part of the inquiry on Apollo-N.

Buiford was a Phantom pilot in Vietnam, and the first black people in space. Gershon, too, piloted aircrafts in Vietnam (Skyraiders)

And Stone was backup on Apollo 14, meaning it would have flown on Apollo 17.
He was also a former X-15 pilot... like Joe Engle, bumped of Apollo 17 in favor of H. Schmidt (a gelogist like Natalie York, by the way)

Can we suppose that Sally Ride, Guyon Buiford, and Joe Engle would have been the first crew on Mars, landing in March 1986 ? :D
 
Very interesting... but if I were you, I'd leave out that stuff in the first post about the, um, strange Mars landing. The rest of it is great up until then!

And I like the idea of the Voyage Ares crew being analogues of OTL people, too...
 

Archibald

Banned
I've borrowed "Mission to Mars" to a friend recently.
I was only interested in the Mars mission in itself, not the scenario, which really sucks. :mad:
De Palma, where did you talent go this day ?
 

Archibald

Banned
Very interesting... but if I were you, I'd leave out that stuff in the first post about the, um, strange Mars landing. The rest of it is great up until then!

And I like the idea of the Voyage Ares crew being analogues of OTL people, too...

I have teething problems with the forum interface.
Got the definitive variant of the text in a WORD file, but I can't cut/ paste the whole thing into a new post :mad::mad::mad:
 

Archibald

Banned
"Switch editor mode". How funny!
WTF is that thing ? :confused: :confused:

SEQUEL TO BAXTER NOVEL "VOYAGE"

When President Nixon took the historical decision to launch men on Mars in 1969, Saturn IB and Saturn V were the only booster of this class in production. This changed quickly.

The Saturn VB added four huge United Alliance 156-inch boosters to the basic Saturn V stack. These boosters were either of the three or four segment variant, depending from the payload.

A- List of Saturn variants

Saturn IB = 14 build. Launched Apollo CSM block.2 and block.3 in LEO.

Saturn II = solid/ reusable first stage, Agena or Centaur second stage.
Replaced Atlas, Delta and Titan II

Saturn III = replaced Titan III and Saturn IB to lift 20 tons in LEO.

Powered by a single F-1A; first stage - also known as S-III - build by North American, based on the S-II to save money.
Boeing S-IC was too heavy for a lone F-1, even in the upgraded F-1A variant.


Saturn IV = former INT-20.

Saturn IVB; two F-1; launched Apollo CSM block.4 in LEO, replacing Saturn IB.

Saturn IVC ; three F-1; was used to test the MEM in LEO.

Saturn IVC; four F-1; currently in use.

Saturn V = used for lunar landings and later for Moonlab station. First generation F-1 and J-2 engines. 118 tons in LEO.

Saturn VA = F-1A, J-2S, but no SRB. Interim / cheaper variant, used to test the MEM in low-earth-orbit. 140 tons in LEO.

Saturn VB = Saturn V with four 156-inch SRB. Used for heavy LEO missions. 260 tons in LEO.

(more detail below)

The Saturn VB had four stages

-SRB

-S-IC

-S-II

-S-IVB

Saturn V and VB were hardly affordable in 1969. NASA had to found a way of lowering their unit cost. To achieve that, each stage had to be mass produced.

This meant using them (or their engines) to build others rockets.

Thus NASA created a whole family of launchers based on Saturn stages, to cover every payload for every user. Users were NASA, USAF and the commercial sector (satellites).

Payloads ranged from 1 to 140 tons in Low Earth Orbit (LEO).


NASA administrator Fred Mickaels noticed bitterly in 1983 that

“we achieved with this whole family of Saturn derivatives what we planned for the cancelled Shuttle : replacing every launcher in the USA aside the diminutive SCOUT!”

B- Saturn family

a) Saturn II and Saturn III = commercial sector, small launchers under 30 tons in LEO

- 1 to 5 tons in LEO = Delta, Atlas, Titan II

A single Saturn SRB topped by a Centaur or an Agena. You can add or cut segments in the SRB (2 to 5 segments).

SRB+ Agena
SRB+ Centaur

- 15 to 30 tons in LEO = Titan III, Saturn IB.
To achieve this payload, you need a single F-1 engine plus a S-IVB.
(that’s an upgraded Saturn IB!)

b) Saturn INT-20 = Saturn IV = 30 – 140 tons in LEO.

Basically a S-IC topped by a S-IVB.
BUT you have to remove at least one F-1, because the S-IVB is much lighter than the S-II. Acceleration would be much too strong.

Saturn INT-20 = three variants varying the number of F-1 on first stage; two, three, or four engines.

Saturn IVB = Two engines = 39 tons in LEO
The two-engine variant was first developed in 1977 to replace Saturn IB. As of today, it is still used by NASA to launch the Orion (aka “Apollo on steroids”) spacecraft.

Saturn IVC = Three engines = 75 tons in LEO
The three engine variant was considered for Skylab follow-on, which were never build because of budget cuts around 1976. Cheap “wet workshop” were prefered.

Saturn IVD = Four engines = 130 tons in LEO

The four-engine variant was build only after the Mars landing (in 1987). This rocket was the heaviest launcher on hand after cancellation of the second batch of Saturn VB in 1985, and played an important role in the 90’s.

According to Boeing studies, removing or adding F-1 on the S-IC production line was quite easy.

Saturn IVs become the backbone of NASA manned spaceflight program in the 70’s and 80’s, supporting the Ares build-up and launching improved Apollo CSMs.

c) Saturn V and derivatives

Saturn V
Saturn VA
Saturn VB


d) Saturn SSTOs

Every Saturn stage can be reused, or turned into a SSTO.
SRB = dropped just like the Shuttle does

S-IC = an Atlas-like 1.5 SSTO (drop four engines, used the middle F-1 as sustainer)

S-II and S-IVB = Philip Bono, Gary Hudson, and the SASSTO concept.

The S-IVB and S-II received highly advanced aerospike (J-2T-300k).

Space enthusiasts Philip Bono, Gary C. Hudson and Bob Truax funded the SASSTO company in 1979 and build single-stage-to-orbit from Saturn stages.

They brought tourists in LEO in the early 90’s using an aerospike-reusable S-II SSTO topped by an enlarged Apollo CSM for 10 passengers.

The expendable S-IVB SSTO was used as a proof-of-concept and testbed for the aerospike in 1983.


C- Saturn / Apollo history

Let’s go back to 1971.

Every mission after Apollo 14 was cancelled, leaving 6 unused Saturn V.

NASA planned to use these Saturn to build the Mars “Ares” stack, but NERVA delays and weight growth killed this plan.
The Primary Propulsion Module (home of the NERVA nuclear rocket engine) weighed 250 tons in LEO, twice as much a Saturn V could lift.

We all know how the 70's ended.

Skylab B was cancelled in favor of "Skylab A extended mission" and Moonlab.

Moonlab originate from studies made by Douglas over utilisation of spent S-IVB for lunar missions.

S-IVB were usually crashed on the Moon or send into heliocentric orbit, but success of the "wet workshop" changed that.

The main goal of the studies was to land the S-IVB on the Moon as either a logistic vehicle or shelter.
An appendix noticed the stage could go in lunar orbit as well because of a pure coincidence : an empty S-IVB had a weight similar to a Lunar Module at 15 metric tons.

Hence a CSM block.2 could brake the spent stage in lunar orbit using its SPS, without carrying LM in this case of course.

Robert W. Farquhar 's suggestion of sending the station around EML-2 (not lunar unstable orbit!) was ignored at the time despite a promising report issued in 1971.
An Apollo / Moonlab mission to EML-2 was perfectly feasible, but NASA staff laughed at Farquhar as they laughed at Gregory Dana at the time.

The two men encoutered at the infamous July 1971 conference in which NASA selected the NERVA / Hohman mission profile without reviewing alternatives correctly.
(Farquhar was on the team which presented the SEP propulsion mode, low-thrust SEP need Lagragian points to depart Earth more easily)

Of the six Saturn V

- one launched Skylab in LEO.
- The five remaining rockets were used for Moonlab.

Once Moonlab in Lunar orbit, four expeditions were send there, exhausting the first production run of Saturn V.

Going to Moonlab meant that the Apollo CSM block.2 did not carried Lunar Module, even if a large numbers were available (what a waste not landing on the moon, just orbiting it!)

NASA didn't seem to have ever thought using LMs from Moonlab.
An unmanned Saturn VB could have hurled two or three LMs to Lunar orbit.
The soviet were cleaver : they landed on the moon using LKs from Salyut 6 later.

A frustrated Chuck Jones suggested the idea in september 1976 but was ignored. At the time NASA was deep in NERVA delays and costs overruns; Michales told Jones that new lunar landings were unaffordable.

For Muldoon the truth is not there. LMs had been build already; in fact lunar landings would have diverted Public and Congress attention from Mars.
"Thus we pushed the Soviets to the Moon by inviting them to Moonlab, then we let the Moon surface to them in the 80's" Muldoon bitterly conclude.

Moonlab and Skylab had similars MDA (Multiple Docking Assembly).
There was a front port (for Apollo CSM) and a radial port (on the side).

Surplus Lunar Modules ascent stages were changed into MPLM (MultipurPose Lunar Modules!).
MPLM were used to bring supplies to Moonlab via the Apollo CSM. As the LM before, they were housed within the S-IVB, and picked-up after the TLI.

Apollo CSM docked the MPLMs to the radial port of Moonlab' MDA before the crew entered the station.
More exactly, MPLMs were grappled from the CSM by Moonlab small robotic arm, turned and docked to the MDA.
The MPLM were usually welcomed because they added a clean volume to the old laboratory. Astronauts quickly learned it was the best place to sleep...

Soyuz docking to Moonlab complicated matters; crews had to jettison their MPLMs and dock their CSM to the radial port, Soyuz needing the front port.

President Nixon had to reopen Saturn V production line in 1972. Three more Saturn V were build (SA-516 trough SA-518).

Two more we built in the late 70’s ( -519 and -520) before production switched to Saturn VB in 1979.
These two Saturn V were hybrids called Saturn VA.

They introduced the upgraded F-1A and J-2S but lacked the 156-inch SRBs.

More Saturn VA were build later to test the MEM in low-earth-orbit (1982- 1985) with an Apollo CSM block.4. Saturn VA could lift the MEM-Apollo stack to the Skylab A orbit
(51.6° at 435 km), the station being used as "safe heaven" if something went wrong during the test.

Fifteen Saturn VB were build.
- three were expended in unmanned tests (lifting massives Primary Propulsion Modules NERVA-stages)
- another blew up
- one launched the disastrous Apollo-N mission.
- nine were used to build the Ares “chemical” stack
- two went in mothball after the Mars mission, and were used later.

Apollo CSM variants.

Three variants were build beyond Apollo : they were the block.3, block.4 LEO ferries and the block.5 for Ares missions.

Block.2 CSMs were not good for Skylab nor LEO.

First, their SPS and fuel cells had been tailored for short duration Moon missions, not for long storage in LEO.
Second, they were too heavy for Saturn IB. A CSM block.2 weighed 27 tons when Saturn IB lifted only 18 tons to Skylab orbit.
Thus the four CSM build for Skylab (CSM-116 to 119) were mothballed and later used for Moonlab missions.

An interim CSM block.3 was build for LEO.

It matched the performances of the Saturn IB, and more important changes were introduced, turning it into a true “American TKS” in Leonov words (sorry, Viktorenko words…)

The Block.3 CSM had no fuells cells, replaced by solar arrays. The Service Module and its SPS propulsion system were deleted, too, and replaced by a big cargo module. As the crew need to access this module, a large hatch was cut through the heatshield. The heatshield itself was thinner than the block.2; Apollo block.3 reentered the Earth atmosphere at 7 km/s, not the lunar missions’ 11km/s.

Apollo block.3 were build only in small numbers, to exhaust the stock of Saturn IB.

Apollo 7 had used Saturn SA-205; NASA decided to achieve building of Saturn IB through SA-214.
Thus nine Saturn IB were available, for which nine CSM block.3 were build.
The nine CSM block.3 serviced Skylab A from 1973, two times a year, until 1978.

CSM block.4 and block.5 were build in parallel and used in the 80’s.

The block.5 CSM re-introduced the SPS and Service Module for NERVA tests, Moonlab, and Mars missions.

The block.4 CSM was an enlarged variant of the block.3. It had a bigger cargo module, a crew of five, modern avionics, and a small propulsion module to reboost Skylab and the wet S-IVB.
Total weight of 39 tons, which matched the performance of the new man-rated Saturn INT-20 (twin F-1 variant).

Apollo block.3 and block.4 were used for 1 months missions in LEO, using a dedicated flight profile.
Saturn IB or INT-20 S-IVB second stages went in orbit with the CSM; thus a large number of missions used the stage as a short duration “wet workshop” station.
USAF mounted such missions to replace the cancelled MOL; for NASA they completed the “dry” Skylab.

These missions partially filled the gap left by the Shuttle cancellation, the “wet workshop” being used as a kind of surrogate payload bay for Apollo. Payloads were returned using the CSM.

Launch pads

Saturn V, VA and VB were launched from Pad 39A.

Pad 39B first launched Saturn IB to Skylab using the “milkstool” assembly.

With such large number of Saturn launches, it was no surprise if LC-34, LC-37A and LC-37B returned to service around 1976. These pads launched manned Saturn INT-20 in the two and three engines variants (Apollo block.4 and MEM tests).

The heaviest Saturn INT-20 with four F-1 had to use Pad 39B, then went to Pad 39A after Saturn VB cancellation.

Lists of missions

1-Skylab

9 manned missions using Saturn IB / CSM block.3 plus a single Saturn V flight to put Skylab in LEO.

Skylab-1 = Saturn V

Skylab 2
Skylab 3
Skylab 4

Skylab 5
Skylab 6
Skylab 7

Skylab 8
Skylab 9
Skylab 10

Many missions to Skylab or LEO followed in the 80's and 90's; they used Saturn INT-20A and CSM block.4

2-Moonlab

1 Saturn V for the Moonlab station itself
And
9 following manned missions

Moonlab 2
Moonlab 3
Moonlab 4

Moonlab 5
Moonlab 6
Moonlab 7

Moonlab 8
Moonlab 9
Moonlab 10

Moonlab and Skylab = 20 missions between 1973 and 1980.

With the NERVA disaster and the forthcoming chemical Mars mission, Moonlab missions were put on hold in 1981. By the way, the station was long in the tooth…

Ares missions
(1981 – 1985)

A1 = unmanned shakedown test of Saturn VB
A2 = unmanned shakedown test of Saturn VB
B = first manned Saturn VB
C = unmanned MEM
D = manned MEM (in orbit only)
E1 = manned MEM (first landing test)
E2 = manned MEM (second landing test)
F = Mars mission

These missions were exposed by Joe Muldoon to the astronauts in June 1981. At the time consideration was given to make some testing in lunar orbit, but that was dropped later for cost and safety reasons. The C, D, and E missions went to Skylab instead, using less costly two-stage Saturn VA without SRBs.

The A1 and A2 boilerplate MEMs were send to escape velocity by three-stage Saturn VB. They entered heliocentric orbit and were followed over a long period of time, showing how the spacecraft matured in to outer space.

The B mission was the first true manned test of the Saturn VB since the tragic flight of the NERVA three years before.

As the S-IVB remained unchanged, NASA decided to send the crew to the Moon in an attempt to save Moonlab by adding a reboost module. Sadly the flight slipped and the station crashed on the lunar surface.
Instead Skylab B was taken out of storage, stripped down of the ATM and various hardware, and added as “ballast”, Saturn VB payload to TLI being 160 metric tons!

The mission was used for testing some manoeuvres planned during the flight of the Ares cluster to Mars. After TLI, the boilerplate MEM went to Skylab front docking port, while the Apollo CSM was moved to the side (radial) port. The stack entered lunar orbit thanks to a solid rocket motor hastily mounted on the boilerplate. The Apollo CSM let Skylab and the MEM into lunar orbit, blasting off toward Earth with its SPS. The boilerplate MEM was later undocked and smashed on the Moon.
Skylab B followed three months later.

The C mission send the unmanned MEM to Skylab orbit. The spacecraft fired its engine and went close to the OWS. When the Shuttle had been cancelled, its robotic arm had been added to Skylab. The canadarm (as it was called) went to the multiple docking assembly. The crew now used the canadarm to grapple the MEM, and docked it to the side of the MDA, on the secondary docking port (which was never used).
They never entered the MEM; the crew rather performed regular EVAs and monitored soaking of the spacecraft for 18 months.

On the D mission, a two-stage Saturn VA boosted an Apollo CSM / MEM to Skylab orbit. The station could be used as a safe heaven in the case something went wrong.

On the E1 and E2 missions, others Saturn VA boosted similar stacks to Skylab orbit. BUT the CSM stayed in orbit while a reinforced MEM reentered Earth atmosphere for a landing at Edwards AFB. The Apollo CSM reentered later, splashing in the Pacific ocean as usual.

In parallel with these tests, Saturn VB were carrying huge amounts of fuel to the Ares cluster in its 450 km circular orbit.
Ares living quarters were brought to orbit by Saturn INT-20 to save costs.

D- NASA future after the Mars landing (1986)

November 7, 1986.

Discovery splashed down in the Pacific. Natalie York, Phil Stone and Ralf Gershon were back. The capsule landed only four kilometre away from the USS Iwo Jima, the very same ship which had recovered Apollo 13 long before. Helicopters rushed to the landing point. President Reagan was there, so were JFK and George Herbert Bush, among others.

Over the following weeks the three astronauts had to adapt again to 1G environment, a long and painful task. Radiation levels were quite reasonable; as of 2006, no sign of cancer has declared. But they were high enough to prevent any of the three to fly again in space, as Adam Bleeker had learned before…

Thursday, November 27 1986 was National Day of Thanksgiving.
This day, New York was the scene of the most astounding parade since Apollo 11 in 1969, or Lindbergh triumph back in 1927.
Over four million people massed along the way of the astronaut motorcade, zillion of bits papers flew from every windows of the Big Apple. Even Natalie York enjoyed this moment.

But things were not so bright for NASA. As predicted from 1984 onwards, times which followed the Mars landing were very, very hard. The space agency endured a winter 1986-87 as cold and harsh as the Martian surface York had walked on. So cold in fact that its budget was frozen to death…

Tim Josephson knew that the post- Ares times would be difficult. He offered its resignation to Reagan early December 1986, considering its time was over.
But Reagan refused, and Josephson stayed at the head of NASA until George Herbert Bush was introduced in the oval office in January 1989.
Josephson fought bitterly to obtain funding for a second batch of Saturn VB, in vain. The last two rockets on the first row were mothballed.
For 18 months, the US space program was lethargic; only missions to Skylab happened. But Skylab was very, very long in the tooth.

Since 1971 Ustinov had led the soviet reflexion on the US manned space program until his death in 1985. To him and Yuri Andropov, things were clear from the start. The Mars mission could only be a costly one-shot. Even if nuclear-propulsion was mastered, the cost would be so huge and delays so long that the adventure was not worth the price. Mars 9 success and cancellation of all Apollo missions led the soviets into a more balanced space program.

As they had done with Luna probes before, they claimed they could obtain more results much cheaper and sooner with unmanned probes. Ustinov decided to push hard for a Mars sample return mission; the horrendous task went to the Lavotchkin bureau. But the program ran into delays, and returned samples only in march 1988. This was nevertheless a great success. The soviet also filled the gap left by NASA in unmanned exploration of the solar system. Every US probe in the 1971 – 1985 era was part of the “Mars scout” program.
The Halley armada of ESA, Japanese, and Soviet probes sailed close of the comet the very same week Natalie York walked on Mars… march 1986 was some month in space exploration!


Thus the Soviet triumphed in the unmanned exploration of the Solar system… but no one send probes to the inner solar system after Pioneer, Voyager and Galileo cancellation. Mariner Mark.3 started as soon as York walked on Mars, but the unique “Grand Tour” opportunity had been lost…

The soviet also had an ambitious program of space stations in LEO and Lunar orbit, to beat Skylab and Moonlab.

The Soviet had built a huge LEO modular space station using the N-1F, the MOK.
Soyuz and Progress were long gone, replaced by Zarya and Progress M2 ships.

Since June 1978 they had the much smaller Salyut-6 in lunar orbit, battling to keep it functional and avoiding its crash to the lunar surface as Moonlab before it.

Salyut 2 and 4 successes in LEO, success of the N1F (at the 7th launch attempt in 1976…) and the Moonlab program had led to a launch of Salyut 6 in lunar orbit by a N1F, a N1 with improved engines and RD-56 cryogenic upper stage.

Lacking funds and time to build a true lunar landing program, the soviets then recycled the old LK design of 1971. Cosmonauts had to perform an EVA to enter the diminutive lander, which brought no useful payload to the surface. The LK had become, in Viktorenko words, the first “lunar scooter”. First soviet landing using the scooter had happened on 14th November 1979, and missions went on at slow pace since then.

Plans for the much bigger and capable LOK lander had been postponed by Gorbatchev in June 1985.

For years the Soviet Union violently negated the fact that a manned mission to mars was ever considered in the East.

In the western world, troubling evidences and reports from the CIA had led to lots of speculations.
The soviets had send a Salyut around the Moon; they had recognized that they prepared a mars-sample return mission.
The CIA briefed Tim Josephson that the Soviet would probably atempt a manned mars flyby in 1985.
CIA analysts thought that the soviet MSR mission and the manned mars flyby were totally different programs. They were wrong.

Russia opened soviet secret archives after 1992. In 1993 the soviet manned mars mission plans were revealed.

Project "Aelita"

The MSR mission would be first send to Mars by a N1F.
A large Marsokhod rover would dug the martian soil, retrieve sample and bring them to the lander ascent stage.

A Salyut would be send in LEO by a Proton rocket. Then a of crew would follow in a reinforced lunar-soyuz. The third launch would use a big N1F rocket to boost a cryogenic, 4*RD-56 large upper stage on the same orbit.
The cryogenic stage would boost the Salyut-Soyuz combination to MOI for a rapid flyby of the planet 8 month later.
The flyby would happen at very high speed, in less than one day. The cosmonauts would have to perform experiments, but, most importantly, a high-speed rendez-vous with the MSR upper stage carrying 1 kilogram of martian soil.
Three days before the encounter, the crew would radioed the probe to fire its big ascent stage. The stage would propell itself beyond mars orbit, for rendez-vous with the manned spacecraft.
Once docked it would be isolated from the crew. The whole stack would return to Earth months later.

To avoid any contamination, analyzis of the samples would happen in a Salyut laboratory located in LEO. The crew would reenter earth atmosphere at escape velocity using the Soyuz reentry module and leaving the whole soyuz-salyut-MSR stack behind.

Salyut would then use its own propulsion system to brake the stack into a highly elliptical orbit. Later a Progress would be send there, dock, and change the orbit to a more practical one. ASoyuz would follow, docking with the mars stack. The astronauts would use the mars-salyut as space laboratory for analyze of the samples.

If no contamination hazard were found in LEO, part of the Martian samples would be send back to Earth using the Progress, the crew coming back separetely in the Soyuz.

A Salyut was send around the Moon to monitor crew exposure to radiation and how the soviet station matured in deep-space.
The resulsts were not good, while the rendez vous between the two spacecrafts at high speed proved a daunting task.
The soviets switched the project to low-level priority in 1985; they pushed the MSR mission alone with complete sucess, but too late.
Project "Aelita" was not studied in vain; its main usefulness was to worry NASA and the CIA. A side effect of this project was to prevent any cancellation atempt on Ares, even after the NERVA diaster in november 1980.

In 1987 there was many talks in the Reagan administration about cutting the space program to low-earth orbit only, scrapping Moonlab and replacing Skylab by an enlarged station, period.

Since 1980 Josephson had fought bitterly to save Moonlab and obtain a second batch of Saturn VB beyond Ares, arguing that “we can’t let the Moon to the soviets!”
But he had no chance to succeed. Ares reached its peak funding in FY83. NASA budget was $100 billion this year (in constant 2008 $)
There was no budget for others missions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Budget

When Fred Michaels had launched the Moonlab program back in 1974, there were hopes to sustain lunar orbit stations with NERVA nuclear shuttles after the Mars landing in 1982. The NERVA shuttle would have been a cheap extension of the Ares program, led in parallel.
But the NERVA disaster was followed by budgets cuts, costs overruns, and Moonlab rapid deterioration. This had led to an indefinite postponement of lunar missions in 1982.

Then on a sombre day of January 1984, VP Bush had told Josephson that there would be no Saturn VB past the first production run.

NASA had thus no program beyond the Mars landing.

In 1989 come Bush and its SEI, Space Exploration Initiative, late 1988. Bush called for more Lunar missions in the next decade “to build a colony on the Moon for the year 2019”.

Mars was not mentioned; Bush knew another mission was not feasible in the next future, not with this bulky chemical propulsion. Some saw this as a retreat, a betrayal; other noticed how successful Moonlab had been.

Back in 1987 a group led by Natalie York redacted a report called "Leadership and America's Future in Space"; the SEI drew heavily from it.

Bush SEI called for a lunar station, citing the highly successful Moonlab experience. Astronauts Phil Stone and Joe Muldoon were more skeptical on the concept. They knew that the lunar gravitational field was very lumpy; every mission had to reboost Moonlab two times a month, otherwise it would have crashed on the lunar surface.
In fact Moonlab had crashed on the Moon two month after the last mission left it, in December 1981.

Then Stone and Muldoon heard of Robert W. Farquhar. As early as 1971, Farquhar had demonstrated how interesting the Earth-Moon Lagragian points were. EML-1 was located 300 000 km away from Earth, on the way to the Moon. Despite this proximity it was crap, needing more Delta V on the lunar ship to go there.
BUT, Farquhar added, you have to think like Gregory Dana: use gravitational swing-by and slingshot, to cut fuel, and go to EML-2, 40 000 km away from the Moon, 400 000 km from Earth, nothing compared to the Mars mission.

Robert Farquhar and Gregory Dana found that using a lunar flyby to go to EML-2 added only 330 m/s to your Delta V budget, even less than going to lunar orbit! Even better, Dana added, from EML-2 you cover the whole lunar surface much more easily than from Lunar Orbit. Communication and rescue are much easier; you are not limited to equatorial landings as with Apollo LOR profile.

Bush had established a new National Space Council headed by veepee Dan Quayle. Fortunately, Joe Muldoon and Gregory Dana were influent members of the council, and pushed Farquhar/ Dana mission profile.

Young obtained to use one of the remaining Saturn VB to launch an expedition to EML-2.
On July 21 1989, 20th Anniversary of Armstrong and… Muldoon moonwalk, the first human expedition to EML-2 happened. And Bush promised lunar colonization soon.

Josephson was finally replaced by John Young in February 1989. Young had been preferred to Richard Truly, another former astronaut.
Back in 1985 Muldoon had decided to stay on its post at NASA, and was still there five years later. Thus Apollo astronauts were at the controls of NASA in a crucial moment.

John Young decided that the most important thing was to build the gateway station at EML-2. The station became the heart of the SEI.

NASA administrator built a clever space program based on a combination of Ares hardware remnants plus Dana / Farquhar gateway station.

Saturn INT-20D had four F-1A engines, and a payload to LEO of 140 tons. That was enough to put a fully-fuelled S-IVB in LEO.
This S-IVB was the cornerstone of SEI plans for lunar colonization. The NSC defined two phases for its use
- Phase 1 would use the S-IVB as an expendable tug to carry modules of the gateway station to EML-2
- Phase 2 = S-IVB could be clustered in LEO to form an orbital propellant depot. Saturn IVB second stage would be refuelled once in orbit, and restarted to jump to EML-2 with its payload. Back to a single-launch architecture!

Then a Saturn IVB (two F-1A, 50 tons to LEO) would send the lunar payload to the same LEO orbit, for docking.
Lunar payload could be either an Apollo CSM block.5 or a station module. The S-IVB tug would send this payload in a halo orbit around EML-2 via a lunar swing-by.

That two-launch architecture avoided the costly Saturn VB and was more flexible. It also involved less-costly missions to LEO, a fallback option if the lunar program was cut. Last but not least, once the orbital propellant depot entered service, the architecture would switch again to a single launch.

The end of cold-war renewed US- Russian cooperation thanks to presidents Clinton and Yeltsin.
In 1993, NASA and the RKA reached the following agreement.
NASA was building a lunar station, but had no LEO station since Skylab destruction on February 7 1991 over Argentina.
Russia had the giant MOK station in LEO, but Salyut-6 had crashed on the Moon in 1991 because of Russia lack of funds for reboost.

The two countries decided to join their forces, each station completing the other.
NASA S-IVB propellants depots would be on the same orbit as the MOK, while the Soviets would launch Zarya spacecrafts to the gateway station using the N1-TMA.

The Gateway station was built from Ares various habitations modules, which were already armoured against radiation hazards.
Even better, the MEM itself was recycled as lunar lander. Landing on the Moon was much different than landing on Mars, leading to the deletion of the heatshield and other hardware.

The MEM had been built to assume survival of three men on Mars for a Month, including landing and take-off phases. A very demanding mission for a 50 ton spacecraft…

Now it had only to go back and forth between the Moon surface and the gateway station. The trip was 80 000 km long, taking some hours only.
The Lunar MEM had thus a very large security margin in lunar missions, which could be translated in a very large payload to the lunar surface, or a large number of astronauts.
Columbia aviation perfectly recycled its Mars lander.

On the year 2008, the gateway station was operational since many years, and LMEM were used to build the first lunar colony.
But the gateway station had found another role thanks to its unique location at the edge of Earth gravity well.
Thanks to that, it was the perfect place to launch missions to Mars using… solar-ionic propulsion!
Indeed the dream of more Mars mission had not dead with the year 1986, nor with the NERVA disaster.
But chemical propulsion was way too heavy, needing lots of expensive Saturn VB to fuel its tanks, resulting in a very small payload on the Martian surface.
NERVA was totally out of question since 1980; the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 didn’t helped a lot restoring public confidence in nuclear energy, to say the least.

Ionic propulsion looked promising, but needed large amounts of electricity… of which only a nuclear reactor could provide. Unless solar arrays could do the job! That was the SEP, Solar-electric propulsion.
After the NERVA disaster and with SEP in mind, Robert Zubrin had led a program linked to the Mars mission of 1986.
Solar arrays of the Ares stack had been monitored by the crew on regular basis; the aim was to study how solar arrays resisted to 18 months-trip to Mars. The results had been surprisingly good; micro-meteoric and solar particle erosion could be maintained to reasonable levels.
The results were precious for the next Mars mission; extrapolations proved that solar arrays could do the job.

Unmanned SEP probes also helped a lot.

The next Mars opportunity was for 2016; the next would happen in 2031. In 2008 professor Walt Miser exposed why a second mission to mars was necessary, mentioning York results studies on Martian samples brought back in 1986.

At the time, Apollo CSM had reached their limits with the block.5 variant. The Apollo-B program directly led to Orion, also known as “Apollo on steroids” thanks to NASA administrator Natalie York…

NASA administrator Natalie York and Nasa deputy administrator Robert Zubrin thus committed the space agency to another Mars mission for the 2016 opportunity.

The Mission to Mars slipped to 2020, and ended in disaster when the crew was killed by mysterious forces. The rescue team found that a member of expedition 1 had survived, and brought him back to Earth. Before that, astronaut Jim Bobbins had been lost in a space accident. Then Captain Larry Sinize mysteriously disappeared and was never seen again. The rest of the crew came back to Earth telling bizarre stories of “having entered a martian face, met E.T, and lost Sinize there”.

Scientists doubt that Martian dust damaged their brain...
 
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Archibald

Banned
Not exactly. I've moved some paragraphs and developped a bit more Moonlab history. :)

Too much ideas in my head!
 
One question. Could the E2 Misson be a Moon-landing. I mean to remember, that the E-Mission should be Earth/Moon-Landings.
 

Archibald

Banned
Yes, you're right about this one. I won't be dogmatic either.
In the book, Muldoon mention the E mission as "lunar and/or earth landings" so it's up to anyone guess...
 

Archibald

Banned
Bump.

A bunch of links on upgraded Apollo CSM for AES (1966) and AAP (1968)

Block-III, Block-IV and even Block-V !

http://nassp.sourceforge.net/wiki/Future_Expansion

http://www.ibiblio.org/mscorbit/mscforum/index.php?topic=741.msg16766

http://www.ibiblio.org/mscorbit/mscforum/index.php?topic=741.30

No solar arrays on these upgraded apollos : batteries, evolved fuel cells and even RTG (!) were preferred.
By the way, 6-man crew and land-landing were seriously considered.
Wow, thanks for the links... very interesting stuff there, although I had heard of the Block III-V CSMs via Voyage, of course.

Um, no real suggestions for the timeline, though... :eek:
 
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