I like that. I like that a lot.
Well, I mean it's pretty much the OTL process. Kennedy picked the Moon because the Soviets weren't planning on it, not because it was awesome.
I like that. I like that a lot.
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...
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?
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.
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."![]()
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.
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
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.
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...)
"It is a small step for me, and I hope I won't get 10 years in a gulag for it"
Yeah, cause Gagarin got treated so appallingly
Yes, he was sent on a manned mission to Venus. The plane crash was a cover up!
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?
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!Yes, he was sent on a manned mission to Venus. The plane crash was a cover up!![]()
Like the other guy said.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?