Soviets reach the moon first

Well, I imagine that eventually a replacement for Apollo would be needed, and a reusable lifting-body design would offer a lot of advantages over a disposable capsule, just as long at they didn't try to make it a satellite launcher/retriever as well... :D

So, something much smaller than the OTL shuttle - a five-seat, crew-only spaceplane launched by a semi-reusable rocket (a descendant of the cheaper Apollo-launching rocket they'd ideally want for the station programme) - leave satellite launches to great big rockets. And with the capability for EVAs as well, so they could do things like the OTL Hubble maintenance. Heh - mission creep already!

I dunno when it would enter service though ITTL, with all of the 70s budget going on space stations and continued Apollo tech. Late 80s? Maybe the 90s?

Have you ever heard of the X-20 Dyna-Soar? It was an Air-Force project for a reusable spaceplane launched by a Titan rocket. It could have been modified to carry 5. Perhaps after its cancellation, NASA takes over.

Also, the Super Skylab can be Von Braun's original wet workshop idea: The S-II stage. Take the OTL Skylab launcher (Just S-IC and S-II, with a dry workshop payload), only replace Skylab with a 9.8 meter wide dry payload that can be hydraulically pushed into the empty S-II after cutoff.

The moon base idea can also be based on S-IVB stages. There were studies in landing the S-IVB on the lunar surface as a station. With that, you could have a station that satisfies the "round and round, and always looking down" space station crowd, and the moon base crowd.
 
They didn't have a spare CSM/Saturn IB (well, okay, technically they did, however they were museum pieces by the end of the decade). They did reboost it, but a combination of greater-than-expected drag from the atmosphere, the delays in the Shuttle program (remember, it was originally supposed to fly in 1979), and the sheer long time frame (the last Skylab flight was in 1974, after all) combined to destroy Skylab.

Aha - understood. But then, I suppose here, as in your TL thread, they would have extra CSMs to keep reboosting as and when needed until the station hardware just wore out, at which point they'd still have at least one Saturn V from the second production run (and probably more than that) to launch a replacement.

I read a book where Alexei Leonov called the prospect of spacewalking in lunar orbit in order to go down to the lunar surface "Sporty." :D

Hehe :D

Have you ever heard of the X-20 Dyna-Soar? It was an Air-Force project for a reusable spaceplane launched by a Titan rocket. It could have been modified to carry 5. Perhaps after its cancellation, NASA takes over.

Yeah, I've always thought the Dyna-Soar was pretty cool, and I suppose this would be something along those lines (or something like the X-38 or HL-20). Of course, if NASA's immediate term attention and budget is focused on space stations using Apollo-era technology, it's going to be a while before they look at developing a new spacecraft.

I think truth is life was thinking something like an S-II-based station; it would represent something dramatically bigger than OTL Skylab, and I guess the aim ITTL is to do something as dramatic as possible. A moon base would be even better... Do you know how they proposed to give the S-IVBs a "soft" landing on the lunar surface?
 
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Aha - understood. But then, I suppose here, as in your TL thread, they would have extra CSMs to keep reboosting as and when needed until the station hardware just wore out, at which point they'd still have at least one Saturn V from the second production run (and probably more than that) to launch a replacement.



Hehe :D



Yeah, I've always thought the Dyna-Soar was pretty cool, and I suppose this would be something along those lines (or something like the X-38 or HL-20). Of course, if NASA's immediate term attention and budget is focused on space stations using Apollo-era technology, it's going to be a while before they look at developing a new spacecraft.

I think truth is life was thinking something like an S-II-based station; it would represent something dramatically bigger than OTL Skylab, and I guess the aim ITTL is to do something as dramatic as possible. A moon base would be even better... Do you know how they proposed to give the S-IVBs a "soft" landing on the lunar surface?

http://www.astronautix.com/craft/apossivb.htm

Basically, an S-IVB with its remaining hydrogen and oxygen fuel lands vertically on the lunar surface with landing gear. It can carry 11 tonnes payload (in addition to its own structure), making it more capable than an LM as a habitat (the structure of the stage is your hab. Your payload includes air, consumable, and equipment). It would require its own unmanned Saturn V, but it should be possible.
 
http://www.astronautix.com/craft/apossivb.htm

Basically, an S-IVB with its remaining hydrogen and oxygen fuel lands vertically on the lunar surface with landing gear. It can carry 11 tonnes payload (in addition to its own structure), making it more capable than an LM as a habitat (the structure of the stage is your hab. Your payload includes air, consumable, and equipment). It would require its own unmanned Saturn V, but it should be possible.

Landing it remotely would probably be a pretty delicate procedure, from what I know of the manned landings (in fact, the diciness of the landing and the whole malarkey with Leonov or whoever having to spacewalk from the Soyuz to the lunar module, is a big, big question hanging over the success of any Soviet effort, even if they had an earlier, working, N1 and all of the other hardware was somehow ready in time too). If they could make that work, though, it seems like a very plausible means of building a moonbase. Of course, they'd really need that second Saturn V production run to keep ferrying crews there, and if the moon rase was "lost" in '68, maybe the politicians would just want to steer clear of the moon altogether - you know, the idea that it wouldn't matter what impressive stuff the US did there, it would be kind of tarnished by the fact that the Soviets went first.

I've been looking at the Venus flyby stuff; it'd be a logical progression from a beefed-up spacestation programme (essentially the same technology), it'd be much cheaper and sooner-attained than a Mars mission, which would require stuff like NERVAs, adding years and billions to the programme, and it provides a clearly-understood, set objective rather than an open-ended commitment to LEO missions in an effort to prove something (I'm trying to look at this from the point of view of what would be the best political stunt rather than what would be the most technically and scientifically useful course of action). My main doubt there, though, apart from the fact that it would be pretty damn risky, with little margin for error really, is the idea that a flyby is somehow inherently less impressive than a landing (and a Venus landing programme would probably take about twenty years of development, insane budgets, not to mention a hefty dose of ASB fairy dust...a Mars shot would be cheaper and less risky... :D)
 
Landing it remotely would probably be a pretty delicate procedure, from what I know of the manned landings (in fact, the diciness of the landing and the whole malarkey with Leonov or whoever having to spacewalk from the Soyuz to the lunar module, is a big, big question hanging over the success of any Soviet effort, even if they had an earlier, working, N1 and all of the other hardware was somehow ready in time too). If they could make that work, though, it seems like a very plausible means of building a moonbase. Of course, they'd really need that second Saturn V production run to keep ferrying crews there, and if the moon rase was "lost" in '68, maybe the politicians would just want to steer clear of the moon altogether - you know, the idea that it wouldn't matter what impressive stuff the US did there, it would be kind of tarnished by the fact that the Soviets went first.

I've been looking at the Venus flyby stuff; it'd be a logical progression from a beefed-up spacestation programme (essentially the same technology), it'd be much cheaper and sooner-attained than a Mars mission, which would require stuff like NERVAs, adding years and billions to the programme, and it provides a clearly-understood, set objective rather than an open-ended commitment to LEO missions in an effort to prove something (I'm trying to look at this from the point of view of what would be the best political stunt rather than what would be the most technically and scientifically useful course of action). My main doubt there, though, apart from the fact that it would be pretty damn risky, with little margin for error really, is the idea that a flyby is somehow inherently less impressive than a landing (and a Venus landing programme would probably take about twenty years of development, insane budgets, not to mention a hefty dose of ASB fairy dust...a Mars shot would be cheaper and less risky... :D)

Shouldn't be too hard to land the S-IVB unmanned. Surveyor could land unmanned, remember?

And the Venus flyby could be part of preparation for a Mars mission. The Mars flight could take 18 months in space (assuming minimum energy transfers both ways), so the Venus flyby can be proof that humans can survive that long. But to return from Venus landing, you'd need, best case, something like three Mercury-Atlas rockets, with a spacewalk from the mercury capsules (one astronaut in each capsule) to the return ship. Good luck with that. But a flyby is possible.

A Mars Shot would theoretically be possible. If an idea similar to Zubrin's ISRU pops up, they might try that. Besides, Mars-Direct style flight calls for just 2 Saturn V class rockets. If Von Braun has his way, we could be talking rockets of a million pounds to orbit developed, with NERVA stages, capable of throwing on the order of 250 tonnes of useful payload to Mars. At that point, you may as well send a crew of twenty to Mars on the first flight, complete with a dozen geologists and biologists. And yes, there were designs floating around in 1968 for a 500-tonne to orbit Saturn-derived launcher. It would lash 4 stretched Saturn first and second stages together.
 
Yeah, cause Gagarin got treated so appallingly

Yes, he was sent on a manned mission to Venus. The plane crash was a cover up!:p

But that does beg the question of what the Russians would do after Luna. The Saturn V could be scaled up (SRBs, LRBs, lashing 4 saturns together), but would something similar be possible for the N-1?
 
Yes, he was sent on a manned mission to Venus. The plane crash was a cover up!:p
Ah - you've read that short story too (Zemlya). Though I disagree with the synopsis of 'Mitteleuropa' on that site. Just having Goering in it doesn't make it Nazi Germany!
But that does beg the question of what the Russians would do after Luna. The Saturn V could be scaled up (SRBs, LRBs, lashing 4 saturns together), but would something similar be possible for the N-1?
Like the other guy said.
 
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I think the thing is that in the political and financial context of 1969-70, even if Nixon feels he has to make a real effort to "beat" the Soviets on something, the money isn't going to be unlimited. I don't really see NASA funding getting ramped back up to the levels it was at in the mid-60s, like, ever, so it'll have to be something impressive but relatively modest.

I think the thing about Mars is that realistically, a Mars mission can't be mounted until the early 80s at best, maybe not until the mid-80s, even assuming everything goes right. Although, I could maybe see a Mars programme as the 80s-90s follow-on to whatever they do in the 70s, once someone like Reagan gets in and ups the budget a bit.

And the thing about the Venus flyby is that the study suggests it can be done by the mid-70s (maybe a bit optimistic). In other words, while Nixon is still in office (planning, as he does, on winning a second term by hook or by, er, crook)!

On the other hand, the concept of a mere flyby might be a bit unimpressive to the public and the press, and really there's nothing a flyby can do that an unmanned probe or probes couldn't do equally well (and probably better!). Mind you, some planetary scientists might say the same about the moon landings. Although, they can do plenty of scientific experiments etc during the before and after phases of the flight.

As for the Soviets...yeah, they'll be up to something too. Maybe stations as OTL, but really big, N1-launched stations, more along the lines of Skylab than Salyut? Could they maybe get a lunar-orbit station going ITTL as a slightly less risky follow-on to their series of uber-risky moon landings? I bet there will be at least one Apollo 13-type situation in the course of the Soviet moon programme, possibly with fatalities.

One thing that was pointed out in truth is life's ongoing thread; in OTL, the Soviets spent some ridiculous amount of money on the completely unnecessary Buran shuttle-clone programme. ITTL, the US has no shuttle, and therefore the Soviets will be spared going down a costly and time consuming blind alley. So, they might just have the resources to pull off one more grand spectacular, perhaps in the 80s, having laid the ground work with a decade or more of station missions. It'll be the technical stuff that hinders them, I'd wager; that poor quality control coming back to bite them.

I don't know if any of this stuff will make any real difference to the ongoing political landscape or the Cold War and its eventual end, though. Although those butterflies could stack up eventually, I guess...
 
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