Work is going on behind the scenes, and I can now confirm that Part 6 will be coming this week. Been a very busy summer for myself and others, but SSGL is still in our hearts and minds.
Small Steps, Giant Leaps: An Alternate History of the Space Age
- Thread starter ThatCallisto
- Start date
Part 6: Lunar Dreams and Lunar Activities
Small Steps, Giant Leaps - Part 6: Lunar Dreams and Lunar Activities
By the dawn of the new decade, the Apollo Program's explorations of the lunar surface were off to a running start.
Apollo 11 had successfully proven that putting a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth was possible; the next goal, then, became to land on-target, to allow for planned, directed exploration of scientifically interesting sites. This, then, was the goal of Apollo 12, which launched into the clear blue Florida skies without issue on November 14th, 1969.
Apollo 12 was, by all accounts, the textbook Apollo mission. The combined stack of CSM Yankee Clipper and LM Intrepid arrived at the Moon on-time and on-target, and Intrepid landed within 600 feet of its target on the lunar surface - the Surveyor 3 probe, launched over 2 years prior.
The first mission to bring a color television camera to the lunar surface allegedly boosted sales of color TV sets in 1969's 4th quarter by some 15% in the United States. While never remotely coming near Apollo 11’s record-setting 650 million viewers worldwide, Apollo 12’s viewership remained respectable, bolstered in part by the comedic duo of Commander Charles “Pete” Conrad Jr. and Lunar Module Pilot Alan Bean, narrating their activities on the lunar surface. The flag planting during EVA-1 alone is estimated to have been watched by 40 million American households, some 27 million of which were able to view the stars and stripes in full, glorious red, white, and blue against the stark grey lunar surface.[1] In addition, the crew carried with them a timer for their Hasselblad film camera, which they used to take a now-famous image of both astronauts standing next to Surveyor 3 with Intrepid visible in the background.[2]
[Apollo 12 Commander Charles "Pete" Conrad Jr. unfurls the American flag on the lunar surface, November 19, 1969. Image credit: NASA]
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Whereas Apollo 12 went perfectly, Apollo 13 seemed destined to be about as cursed as superstition would imply, given its 'unlucky' number. Originally scheduled for launch in early April of 1970, Apollo 13’s launch was pushed back to May when, during final spacecraft assembly in the Manned Spacecraft Operations Building in late 1969, the Service Module (SM-109) was dropped several feet while being winched off of its delivery flatbed into a vertical position for integration. While the spacecraft component sustained no outward signs of damage, NASA engineering teams chose to partially disassemble the Service Module to verify this. The resultant inspections revealed minor damage to several interior components, and SM-109 was set aside for possible repair and use on a future Apollo mission. In its place, the Service Module originally destined for Apollo 14, already delivered to Cape Kennedy by that point, was swapped in, but the resultant delays still meant that it would not be until May 10, 1970, that Apollo 13 would launch.
After the incident with the Service Module was resolved, integration, rollout, and the Countdown Demonstration Test all proceeded perfectly, and the crew of Apollo 13 - Commander Neil A. Armstrong, Command Module Pilot Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin Jr., and Lunar Module Pilot Fred W. Haise Jr. - boarded the Command/Service Module Tyche (named for the Greek goddess of luck and fortune) atop their Saturn V the morning of May 10th, and lifted off from Launch Complex 39A. One last major concern came when, 5 minutes and 32 seconds into flight, the S-II second stage’s center engine shut down 2 minutes too early due to pogo oscillation.[3] This wasn’t mission critical, thankfully - the Saturn V’s design allowed for possible engine failure, and the center engine would nominally shut down earlier than the rest anyways; Apollo 13 simply compensated for this early shutdown by burning the remaining 4 engines on the S-II and the S-IVB third stage for longer. After one parking orbit of Earth, the S-IVB was reignited, and Apollo 13 was on its way moonward, bad luck 'curse' seemingly broken.
[Apollo 13 lifts off from LC-39A, May 10, 1970. Image credit: NASA]
May 15th, 1970
Apollo 13 MET 133 hours, 25 minutes
“It really is a- a really magnificent sight up here.”
Cone Crater was, in a word, big. At 1000 feet across and around 250 feet deep, this scar of an ancient impact was the largest of its type thus far visited on mankind’s three voyages so far to the lunar surface. The inner walls were covered with streaks of bright material, pointing down towards the center where the crater floor leveled out, relatively speaking, into an uneven surface of rubble and lunar dust. All around, both within and without, the landscape was scattered with boulders. They littered the crater’s floor, walls, and rim; and beyond the rim, they created a maze-like boulder field of impact ejecta, radiating out onto the slopes.
And here Commander Neil Armstrong stood, staring down into Cone Crater from its southern rim. There wasn’t much time to admire the view, however - they had a timetable to keep.
“Okay. Estimated time of departure from Cone is in about 10 minutes, fellas.”
Lunar Module Pilot Fred Haise responded first, with a quick “Copy that.”
Time was a constant adversary on the Moon - only so much air and cooling water in a spacesuit, only so long before they needed to rest. Neil and Fred had already spent the better part of their second, nearly 2.5-hour moonwalk simply trying to get here, navigating up the side of Cone’s outer slope through increasingly rocky and confusing terrain. They’d very nearly given up on reaching Cone’s rim when, during one last push, Fred had taken a few steps north past a boulder they’d been sampling, and caught sight of it.
Neil turned away from Cone Crater for a moment now to see that his Lunar Module Pilot stood some twenty feet back from the crater rim. Far away, back down the slope of Cone, he could just about spot the gold glint of their Lunar Module, Eagle, among the rolling, hummocky lunar terrain of Fra Mauro. It was quite the picture of lunar exploration at work. Ever the photographer, Neil raised his camera.
“Hey Fredo, hold it right there- This is a good shot, with the LM down in the valley, and you and the boulders.”
Fred looked up from the pair of tongs he’d been fiddling with, and, seeing the camera, struck a pose, holding the tongs straight down in one hand and shifting to the side, to give the appearance - as best one could in a bulky, dust-darkened spacesuit - of a man casually leaning upon a walking stick. With a laugh at this display, the Commander snapped a picture, before turning back to the rushed work of geological sampling.
[Lunar Module Pilot Fred Haise Jr. on the lunar surface at Fra Mauro during EVA-2, May 15, 1970. Image credit: NASA]
While NASA pushed forward with the first lunar landings of Project Apollo, on the other side of the Iron Curtain, the Soviet program under Mishin’s direction continued slow and steady progress towards their own lunar mission.
The spectacular failure of the N1 rocket on its first flight emphasized the need for further development. Rodina 1 had provided a much-needed boost in funding and support, and Luna 15’s success in returning lunar samples only served to bolster this. Mishin and his program now had the political capital needed to afford a step back, so that they could truly begin the work required to turn the Soviet Union’s lunar dreams into a reality.
In support of this, Mishin ordered the construction of a massive test stand at Baikonur that would enable test firings of the N1 booster components - this way, if something went wrong during a test, they wouldn’t have to contend with their vehicle falling out of the sky and exploding on impact, and subsequently having to pick through the charred wreckage to determine what happened.
Two of the N1 vehicles being built would also be sacrificed to this cause - Booster 4L had already been partially disassembled after cracks had developed in its Blok A LOX tank,[4] so its components would be utilized in testing and inspection. In addition, Booster 5L was broken up so that its stages could be individually test-fired.[5]
Although this expanded testing effort in support of the N1-L3 complex would push the potential date of a Soviet lunar landing well into 1971, Mishin - and, importantly, his allies among the Politburo - felt that the prestige of a manned Soviet lunar landing was well worth the delay, and much more desirable than a rushed, costly, and embarrassing failure.
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Thank you for reading, and sorry for the delay! It's been a particularly busy summer, but we're still chugging along.
Notes for Part 6:
[1]: IOTL, Alan Bean accidentally pointed the TV camera directly at the sun, burning it out and reducing Apollo 12’s mission coverage to audio-only.
[2]: For an example of what that photo might look like, spacesuit replica-maker Ryan Nagata recreated it and posted it on Twitter [link]. IOTL, they did actually bring a timer, but couldn’t find it when they made it out to Surveyor 3 - Bean later found it when offloading samples at the end of the mission, and threw it out onto the lunar surface, where it remains to this day.
[3] and [4]: These are as OTL.
[5]: IOTL, Booster 5L was launched on July 3, 1969, and fell back onto the pad shortly after liftoff, detonating in one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history and leveling Pad 110 East, delaying all future N1 launches as they had to rebuild the launchpad.
Notes for Part 6:
[1]: IOTL, Alan Bean accidentally pointed the TV camera directly at the sun, burning it out and reducing Apollo 12’s mission coverage to audio-only.
[2]: For an example of what that photo might look like, spacesuit replica-maker Ryan Nagata recreated it and posted it on Twitter [link]. IOTL, they did actually bring a timer, but couldn’t find it when they made it out to Surveyor 3 - Bean later found it when offloading samples at the end of the mission, and threw it out onto the lunar surface, where it remains to this day.
[3] and [4]: These are as OTL.
[5]: IOTL, Booster 5L was launched on July 3, 1969, and fell back onto the pad shortly after liftoff, detonating in one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history and leveling Pad 110 East, delaying all future N1 launches as they had to rebuild the launchpad.
Apollo 12 and 13 are away, this time without any award-winning docudrama movies after the fact, and the N1 staggers ever closer to actually working.
Next time, Apollo 14 and 15, and further Soviet developments, but before that, an interlude on probes.
Thanks as always to @ThatCallisto, my amazing cowriter, @e of pi and the ever-awesome Paculino for behind-the-scenes assistance, @nixonshead for upcoming renders, and our new cowriter @Exo!
You don't even know the half of it. I'm so excited for when we get there.
This was basically what I said when @nixonshead agreed to do renders for us. Unfortunately (but justifiably given that he's basically a god at 3D modeling), the commissions are quite expensive and none of us have the apparently-inexhaustible pocket change of the likes of e of pi, Workable Goblin, and TimothyC, so we might only end up with 10 total across the entire timeline. If our computers stop exploding we might supplement that with KSP Real Solar System renders: less professional to be sure, but much easier on the wallet.
The most important test firing would be on Blok A, given that it's been the primary failure mode for everyprevious launch, and Blok B and Blok V shouldn't be too hard to test-fire as well if their engines' nozzle extensions are removed.
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So let’s see....
Looks like 12 took place more or less as OTL,I’m guessing down to the lightning strikes and all.....but hey,Surveyor selfie! I’m gonna have to retcon that into my own timeline lol.
And Fred gets to walk on the Moon! Hopefully Buzz gets to (as 19 CDR if the rotation is kept?)
Looks like 12 took place more or less as OTL,I’m guessing down to the lightning strikes and all.....but hey,Surveyor selfie! I’m gonna have to retcon that into my own timeline lol.
And Fred gets to walk on the Moon! Hopefully Buzz gets to (as 19 CDR if the rotation is kept?)
"This, then, was the goal of Apollo 12, which launched into the clear blue Florida skies without issue on November 14th, 1969."
No rain.
That's how the rotation works out, yeah. Whether or not something happens to the rotation... 😏
We decided against the rainstorm because weather is literally the textbook example of the butterfly effect, yeah.
IIRC, IOTL Collins was offered the backup commander slot on Apollo 14, which by crew rotations would made him the commander of Apollo 17, but he declined.
We have Apollo missions up to 20 and a wet workshop Skylab revealed so far. Whether or not there's more than that... 🤫