Space Program Options open to President Nixon

http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4221/ch4.htm

One alternative, at $3.5 billion per year, eliminated NERVA and stopped production of Saturn V and Apollo spacecraft. This option, however, would maintain a vigorous program in piloted flight, featuring Skylab with three visits as well as six additional Apollo lunar missions. Better yet, such a budget would accommodate "Space Transportation System and Space Station module development with launch of both in 1979."

Two other options, at $2.5 billion, also permitted flight of Skylab with its three visits, along with the six Apollos. There could even be a space station in 1980, with Titan III-Gemini for logistics. However, there would be no space shuttle. NASA-Marshall would close, while activity at the Manned Spacecraft Center would fall substantially.

At $1.5 billion, the piloted space program would shut down entirely: "All manned space flight ceases with Apollo 14 in July 1970." Not only NASA-Marshall but the Manned Spacecraft Center would close, with the Saturn launch facilities at Cape Canaveral shutting down as well. Yet NASA would continue to maintain a vigorous program of automated space flight. Even at $1.5 billion, the agency could send six Viking landers to Mars, and could take advantage of a rare alignment of the outer planets to send spacecraft to Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. NASA would conduct "at least one planetary launch each year in the decade," and would pursue "a relatively ambitious science and applications program with 95 launches in the decade."



What effect would taking the $2.5 billion or $1.5 billion options have had on the US Space program to date had one of these been chosen?
 

Archibald

Banned
The 3.5 billion option sounds interesting to me as I currently imagine a no-vietnam, no-shuttle space program whatif.

Otherwise I vote for the 2.5 billion option.

No regrets in scrapping the Shuttle in favor of Big Gemini.

According to Astronautix, were left after Skylab and ATSP
- 3*Saturn IB
- Saturn V SA-514 and SA-515
- Skylab 2
- CSM-102, 105, and 119 (status of CSM-115 is unclear)
- 2* LM.

Here's a scenario.

NASA decide first that ATSP will use Skylab-1, and connect the Soyouz rendez-vous to the last Skylab-1 mission which ended in november 1974.

I mean that Soyuz dock to Skylab-1 in october 1974.

This save the CSM used for ATSP, so now NASA has four Apollo CSM in reserve, not three.
Maybe the CSM-115 can be salvaged, then you would have five CSM available in the 1975-1981 era.
So what to do with them ?

First, send Skylab-2 to LEO using Saturn SA-514. According to Astronautix this was planned for May 1975.

The very last Saturne V, SA-515 is still available and can launch a 118 metric ton-load in LEO, so why wasting it?

Build a big module from a S-II or a S-IVB and launch it using SA-515.
Once again Astronautix help, mentioning that an "International / Advanced Skylab" was drawn in 1975 but never past the drawing board.
Fill this module with Spacelab or Columbus modules, AAP experiments palets...
Then dock it with Skylab-2.

You have now a 110+75= 185 tons space station in LEO, but its building is not finished.
As there's no Saturn available, ask the Soviets to dock a Saliut to the complex!

Four or five remaining CSM plus Soyuz will bring passengers and cargo in the 1975-1980 era.

Then come Big Gemini.
Have you ever heard of Chelomei TKS ? this would be Soviet answer to Big Gemini (as Buran answered to columbia in OTL).

The TKS was a formidable spacecraft, and its FGB cargo block would be very useful to boost our space station to higher height.
But one would need to kill Brejnev, Oustinov and Glushko to give Chelomei is chance... the TKS never flew manned thanks to the trio.

FGB Cosmos 1443 and 1686 boosted Salyut 6 and 7 in OTL.
The ATV will do the same thing to the ISS this year.

ATV, Big Gemini and TKS have the same diameter and close dimensions and mass...
 
Skylab was worn out after its 3rd manned visit, its launch damage plus 6 months of habitation left it in a sorry state. If it was up to me, and in this post it is, I would go the Skylab B option and incorporate the Soyuz visit into it. Skylab B could have 3 visits from Apollos and still have 1 spare for a resuce emergency, and host a number of Soyuz visits.

Just a thought about the ASTP adapter; it was launched inside the shroud/adapter on the Saturn IB much like the LEM on the S-V, the Apollo then turned around, docked with it and withdrew it for the ASTP docking. So WI instead of the adapter the same method was used to carry cargo into space with the S-IB/Apollo launch? The Apollo docks with the cargo adapter, docks it into the spare docking port on Skylab B and then docks on the other port. The crew then unloads the cargo from inside the Skylab. It would surely beat what could be carried inside the Apollo itself, and perhaps prolong missions to the full space lifespan of the Apollos themselves which we know can last about 100 days in space.
 

Hendryk

Banned
The 3.5 billion option sounds interesting to me as I currently imagine a no-vietnam, no-shuttle space program whatif.
I'm going to pay attention to this. My "Superpower Empire" TL has Nixon elected in 1960 and no Vietnam War (there is a nasty bit of CI warfare in Cuba after the US invasion in 1962, but nothing comparable to Vietnam), and I haven't paid all that much attention to developments in space exploration.
 

Archibald

Banned
:)Well, as a frenchman my own personal solution to avoid vietnam goes as far as 1946 and Leclerc.

I've opened a thread on the subject two weeks ago.
Indochina war broke out in november 1946 when D'Argenlieu ordered Suffren cruiser to shell Saigon, killing 3000 people.
this was enough for Ho and Giap, and war broke out one month later.

Truly bad luck, as peace efforts were on the way from february of the same year.

Had Leclerc and Ho-chi-Minh reached an agreement in summer 1946 (and they were very close from that!) there would have been no war in Vietnam for the next following 30 years...

Sadly Leclerc was not the highest-ranking officer in Indochina, it was Amiral D'Argenlieu.

Keep this one far from Ho / Leclercs talks, and you can really avoid Indochina war, and of course Vietnam 15 years later...


Let's go back to space.

----Skylab was worn out after its 3rd manned visit, its launch damage plus 6 months of habitation left it in a sorry state. If it was up to me, and in this post it is, I would go the Skylab B option and incorporate the Soyuz visit into it. Skylab B could have 3 visits from Apollos and still have 1 spare for a resuce emergency, and host a number of Soyuz visits.---

So we would need a quick decision around june 1973 about what to do with damaged Skylab-1.
Maybe NASA decide that repairs are not worth the price, and decide to invest all remaining CSMs and fundings to Skylab-2 ?
Soviet Union wasted a high number of early Saliut stations because of technical problems, this didn't prevent them sending other Saliut later...
 
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Thande

Donor
Third Law of AH: Absolutely any change to the OTL space programme will somehow make it better and have more manned missions than OTL ;)
 

Hendryk

Banned
Third Law of AH: Absolutely any change to the OTL space programme will somehow make it better and have more manned missions than OTL ;)
Which is why I didn't bother with space exploration issues in my TL. Okay, so China did send a moon expedition in 1972, but it still came second after the American one in 1969. But as I had implicitly assumed a similar timetable for the Apollo missions with OTL, I'd like to make sure I don't have to retcon anything.
 
Third Law of AH: Absolutely any change to the OTL space programme will somehow make it better and have more manned missions than OTL ;)

Corollary to the Third Law of AH: The Third Law only applies in instances where the author is ignorant of the Law. The instant the Third Law is mentioned or the author becomes aware of it, the Third Law is rendered null and void. See: The Cuban Missile War.
 
I did an AH once that had JFK choosing to do a large space station (an option that was actually considered) rather than the voyage to the Moon. We got to the Moon, using the space station as a stepping stone, around 1979.
 
http://www.dunnspace.com/leo_on_the_cheap.htm

Some interesting designs for 'Minimum Cost Design' boosters that might have made it had the Shuttle system not been around and in need of protection.

Some good stuff there. As always for space topics, astronautix is an excellent source, if a little difficult to navigate if you're not sure precisely what you're looking for.

Of course, what would really have been interesting is if NASA had gone down the Sea Dragon route. Talk about a Big Dumb Booster...
 
Some good stuff there. As always for space topics, astronautix is an excellent source, if a little difficult to navigate if you're not sure precisely what you're looking for.

Of course, what would really have been interesting is if NASA had gone down the Sea Dragon route. Talk about a Big Dumb Booster...

Imagine Apollo with Sea Dragon...

Anyway a bit later on from my original POD but on page 190 of the book, there is mention of a USAF program for a 1980 low cost launch vehicle, to supplement the Shuttle

In 1980, the Air Force contracted TRW to develop a low-cost booster configuration that would have a payload lift capability equal to the maximum capacity of the Space Shuttle. TRW took the original 1969 study that had been accomplished for NASA, which proposed a family of simple pressure-fed boosters, and updated it to be consistent with 1981 technology and cost. The result was an unmanned launch vehicle called the Low Cost Shuttle Surrogate Booster (LCSSB).

The LCSSB configuration was very similar to the original baseline vehicle in the 1969 NASA study. The booster had three pressure-fed stages, with a first-stage thrust of 30.25 million Newtons (6.8 million pounds). The first stage used four engines, each with a thrust of 7.56 million Newtons (1.7 million pounds). These four engines were identical to the second-stage engine, except that the first-stage engines had a higher chamber pressure and an expansion ratio of 6:l (for sea-level/low-altitude operations), compared with the second-stage engine expansion ratio of 31:l (for high-altitude/vacuum operations). Keeping the designs of the first- and second-stage engines essentially the same would have kept development costs down. The booster had a payload capacity to low earth orbit of 29,756 kilograms (65,600 pounds) when launching due east from Cape Canaveral. When launching into a 90-degree polar orbit, the LCSSB had a lift capacity of 23,178 kilograms (51,100 pounds). The system had a launch cost for production vehicles of $59.2 million per launch (including all launch processing and support costs). This equated to a cost of $1,989 per kilogram ($901 per pound) to LEO, assuming an easterly launch (see table 9).

Under Secretary of the Air Force Pete Aldridge encountered a storm of opposition from NASA and some members of Congress when he sought funding in the mid-1980s (pre-Challenger) for a small buy of Titan complementary expendable launch vehicles to augment the Shuttle fleet. It is therefore not surprising that the concept for the LCSSB, formally proposed one month after the first successful Shuttle flight, ended up going nowhere.



An on page 192 of the book.

The SEALAR Development Effort

Truax Engineering, Inc. (TEI) has championed the original Aerojet Sea Dragon concept since the late 1960s. TEI developed a phased approach for a family of launch vehicles that led up to Sea Dragon. Starting with a small single-stage sea launch and recovery demonstrator designated the X3, TEI proposed to follow with a booster having a Shuttle-class lift capability. Called Excalibur, it was to be essentially a scaled-down version of Sea Dragon. These developmental precursors would lead ultimately to the fielding of an operational Sea Dragon launch system.

In 1988, the Naval Research Laboratory’s Naval Center for Space Technology (NCST) issued a broad area announcement for the SEALAR (Sea Launch and Recovery) concept, and TEI was the successful bidder. NCST called for the SEALAR program to use the design-for-minimum-cost methodology as the booster’s guiding design criteria. The Navy wanted a simple, two-stage, launch system that could lift 4,500 kilograms (10,000 pounds) to low earth orbit. TEI proposed a down-sized Excalibur design, appropriately named Sub- Calibur, which was one-eightieth the size of the original Sea Dragon concept. Work moved forward over the next several years. There were a number of static tests of X3 vehicle variants, as well as drop tests from a helicopter into Monterey Bay, California. The X3 test articles represented near-scale demonstrators of the SubCalibur’s first stage.

Progress on the SEALAR program was so encouraging that in 1990 the
Senate Armed Services Committee praised the program, increased the Navy’s 1991 SEALAR budget request by 900 percent, and called for a competition between SEALAR and the Air Force’s Advanced Launch System (ALS) program. The Committee’s report on the FY91 defense budget said that SEALAR could lower launch costs and increase operational responsiveness “for a fraction of the cost of the Air Force’s advanced launch system.” The report characterized the ALS development program as being “entirely unrealistic."

Despite a promising start, the SEALAR program as originally envisioned did not come to fruition. An X3 test vehicle suffered a tank failure after repeated pressurization cycles, and the NCST decided to finish fabrication of a flight test demonstrator “in house.” The vehicle was close to achieving its first flight when the Navy terminated funding in late 1991.




 
How much of Saturn's cost was a result of the short nature of the programme? If a further production blocks had been undertaken surely the unit cost would drop considerably as a result of the learning curve, not to mention amoritsing the huge development and facility construction costs over an extended production run. I think it's the constant development, constant delays, retraining of people, modification of facilities etc that drives up the cost of spapce and as a result makes it achieve far less than it's potential. All that wasted effort and funds could make something great by building on the existing Saturn/Apollo system.
 

Archibald

Banned
How much of Saturn's cost was a result of the short nature of the programme? If a further production blocks had been undertaken surely the unit cost would drop considerably as a result of the learning curve, not to mention amoritsing the huge development and facility construction costs over an extended production run. I think it's the constant development, constant delays, retraining of people, modification of facilities etc that drives up the cost of spapce and as a result makes it achieve far less than it's potential. All that wasted effort and funds could make something great by building on the existing Saturn/Apollo system.

I've sought the date when Saturne V 'second batch was cancelled.
Before 1965 NASA wanted 10 more Saturn V.
Then they repeatedly asked for two more Saturn V (-516 and -517) from 1965 to 1968. As this never happen they were forced to shut down the production line, first as a temporary measure, then definitely after SA-515 completion in 1970.


Seems that improvemed Saturn Vs would have had
- F-1A with much more thrust
- slightly improved J-2s
- stretched S-IC
- 120 or 156 inch boosters
All this goodies pushing LEO pyalod up to 220 - 250 metric tons, enough to send the PPM (NERVA-stage) into LEO.

My own idea for a cheap expendable launcher is based on the "Jarvis" project of 1985.
One F-1A on the first stage, one S-IVB above it with a J-2S, and voila, 21 tons in LEO!
It would replace Atlas/Titan/Delta/Saturn IB thus killing the Shuttle.

Add two or four big segmented 156 inch boosters and you have 50 to 90 tons in LEO, enough to kill "small Saturn Vs" such as the INT-20/21 or the Saturn II.
 
I think that by 1985 it was about 15 years too late to save NASA with cheap launchers. The time of decision was in the late 60s when the decision to drop saturn and build the shuttle.
 

Archibald

Banned
Oops, forget to add that in my ATL the Jarvis concept came much earlier of course :p

In fact Johnson' deal around 1969 (yes, Johnson is reelected, because he is not doomed by Vietnam war, which simply never happened:D)
is as follow : ok for some more Saturn V, but they are darn expensive!

They must be complemented by a cheap launcher able to replace all current boosters... that's remind the Shuttle isn't it ? :)

What change is the way of achieving low-cost.
Not using a reusable spaceplane, rather building a cheap and simple launcher using Saturn V engines.
Their LEO payload are rather similar (22 tons was the maximum load ever bring to orbit by a Shuttle).

By the way in this ATL the in-service spaceplane is not NASA' Shuttle, it's USAF 'DynaSoar, which survived McNamara in december 1963.
Overall results are the same, not very good because of maintenance problems, cost overruns, delayed launches, maybe some accidents...
As a consequence, NASA manned spacecraft is Big Gemini, carrying a similar number of astronauts as the Shuttle does, seven to nine.

Jarvis (or Herakles, sounds better and there's no Challenger connexion in this ATL) takes the ominscient role the Shuttle was supposed to have - replace all current boosters by something cheaper.

Development of Big Gemini prompt a Soviet answer, the TKS being the obvious candidate.
Btw this mean that Chelomei found a way of overtaking Glushko and Ustinov - not an easy task!
 
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