Lost the game wrote:
What if, in the early 1970s, NASA painted themselves into a corner by insisting on the most outrageously expensive version of the Shuttle they had, refusing to accept the reality of post-Apollo budget cuts, and ended up stuck with a capsule-based launch system, leading to the construction of a Mir-style space station.
See "Eyes Turned Skyward" for an excellent treatment of this subject. In general getting 'stuck' with having to use the systems you already would be a GOOD thing to have as long as you can get over being spoiled rotten since 'birth' and learn how to 'adult' a space program
Little changes ITTL, except for the fact that Jimmy Carter taps John Glenn as his running mate, and a few states in 1976 and 1980 get switched around, but not enough to change the outcomes of either elections. Then, in 1984 space becomes a bigger issue because a former astronaut is the Democratic nominee (Gary Hart still can't keep it in his pants) so in the 1985 State of the Union, President Reagan announces that he will order NASA to revisit the idea of a Space Shuttle, with a deadline of 1995.
Couple things with this is you should keep in mind that Glenn as Carter's VP is going to get 'splattered' with a lot of the negativity of Carter's tenure and he may very well NOT be a viable candidate in 1984. The other thing is with a more visible and immediate and in the news so "space" will have both more and less 'relevance' as an election issue anyway. (OTL the Shuttle was barely up and running, in TTL there is one or more space stations and even though they are supported by mostly expendable launch vehicles those vehicles have greatly dropped in price and more 'regular' use also lowers costs even if no "reusability" is included. And there were serious plans to incorporate reusable elements if the use of the Apollo hardware continued instead of the Shuttle) Given Reagan's focus on repairing and rebuilding American military and foreign policy leadership he may call for NASA to reduce space access costs even more but I'd see him going the "NASP" route as per OTL instead of the Shuttle. You may see more interest in DCX as part of the SDI program but more likely given the 'existing' capability there will be more focus on incremental improvement on existing LVs and more incorporation of reusable elements.
What is the Space Station like?
Skylab-1 is probably as per OTL with or without the early problems. Under the circumstances I'd expect Skylab-II to fly as planned but with lessons-learned from Skylab-1, technology advances, and modular expansion included. With effort Skylab-1 can last till the mid-80s or so, while Skylab-II with upgrades, improvements, and careful planning can be very useful and expansive space station from the early 80s to almost the 21st Century. Assuming geopolitics remains similar to OTL then sometime in the late 90s we'd be looking at discussions on building a cooperative station with the Russians but a lot would depend on the politics involved.
What effect does an extra 15-20 years of technological advance have on the new and improved Space Shuttle?
Depends on the concept of the "Shuttle" TTL. I would suspect it would be very much smaller and more efficient, optimized for crew and very light payload, (10,000lbs or less) and specifically as a Space Station resupply and support vehicle since it doesn't have to "do" everything as per OTL Shuttle. Station modules and larger payload will continue to be lofted on multi-stage boosters of varying reusability. NASP and SSTO work would still benefit from advancing technology but that would also help improve performance of any existing boosters and allow greater reusability without resorting to an OTL "Shuttle" type vehicle.
Do the Soviets do better in space because they don't feel compelled to play catch-up with Buran?
Depends on a lot of factors of what the US does as well as how the Soviets see themselves as compared to the US overall. It should be noted that originally they were planning a 'simpler' Vertical Take Off, Vertical Landing (by parachutes) "shuttle" like vehicle called the MTKVA, (
http://astronautix.com/m/mtkva.html) to be launched on their "Vulkan" (
http://astronautix.com/v/vulkan.html) booster which evolved with and from "Energia" and it was not until political pressure intervened and forced the engineers to focus on actually equaling (copying as close as possible) the American Shuttle's capability instead of focusing on more practical factors. In fact the Soviets designers had already come up with several concepts for reusable 'spaceplane' vehicles that while they neither carried the crew or payload of the American Shuttle were in fact both more practical AND less complex/expensive overall. Examples would be System-49, (
http://astronautix.com/s/system49orbiter.html) LKS/OK-M, OK-M1 and OK-M2 designs, (
http://astronautix.com/o/ok.html) MAKS, (
http://astronautix.com/m/maksseries.html), and the VKK, (
http://astronautix.com/v/vkk.html) which while seeming 'odd' was originally patented in the US in the early 60s as a "Two Stage Reentry Vehicle" concept.
In the end the Soviets STARTED on the most obvious and efficient path to orbital vehicle reuse but got 'side-tracked' trying to follow the American's down the wrong path instead.
Does this later Space Shuttle do better without the DoD breathing down NASA's necks since they'd have had to learn to live without the shuttle too?
The DoD was in fact NOT interested in the Shuttle as their launch needs, satellite design and missions were ill-matched with the Shuttle as a whole. The "requirements" given to NASA to win Air Force support, (note this was NOT the DoD/Air-Force/CIA group that was at the time still the highly classified NRO and who actually OPPOSED being forced to use the Shuttle but the more open Air Force space interests) were very general and mostly of little value to any actual operations needs for military launch. The NRO tried with little success, (since no one actually KNEW who they were and they were obviously NOT higher ups in the Air Force itself) to convince the Air Force to take the Shuttle seriously, (especially the part where it would be required to fly ALL US space payloads in order to even have a chance of reaching it's economic goals) and NOT support NASA in this and also to convince NASA that the supposed "requirements" given by the Air Force were neither as restrictive as they had been told and also were "flexible" and could be negotiated in order to close a more practical design.
Neither NASA nor the Air Force listened or understood what was being said and so the "requirements" the Air Force weren't really interested in getting were made official, further the Air Force was informed that once flying ALL their space missions would be required to fly on the Shuttle, (which they never took seriously) and the ELV program would be cut in accordance suddenly found themselves scrambling to cope. Meanwhile the NRO was quietly working behind the scenes to keep at least minimal ELV production and launch on the table and calling both NASA and the Air Force some colorful names while hoping to mitigate the upcoming 'damage' to launch availability.
In TTL the Air Force/DoD/NRO never lose or have their "own" launch capability endangered and in fact may find their LVs being used by NASA instead of legacy Apollo vehicles as it was proposed by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) that NASA use the Titan-III LV as a 'cheaper' alternative to the Saturn series for LEO and Space Station orbital missions. It's been argued either way in several Time Lines and threads here so your mileage may very
In essence the "shuttle" (note the case as opposed to OTL "Shuttle") in TTL will be a very different vehicle BECAUSE it has a deeper and more focused mission and purpose that OTL.
What might they call the new shuttles ITTL? (personally between Star Wars and the calendar, I'm betting on a Space Shuttle Millennium)
They may have names based on early space pioneers such as Berth, Goddard, etc. Then there are explorers, stars, space phenomenon and such. I think it will be very unlikely they will get named after media items as the original "name-game" that got the Enterprise named will never have happened. Though you can get some pretty nifty 'cross-over/easter-eggs' if you're clever enough. Naming some of the shuttles "Polaris" or "Altair" will get some cred as will naming one "Galileo 7" to honor both the person and the original Mercury 7. And then there's the one named "Jupiter II" after the original "Jupiter" launch vehicle. I doubt you'd get one named "Millennium" but you could see an "Odyssey," or "Endeavor," (sideways shout out to ACC and "Rama" which could be a name as well) and maybe even "Orion" though I doubt it would be in TWA livery

"Falcon" is always possible, but "Eagle" is much more likely though really both were criticized when used in Apollo due to the more obvious 'confrontational' and military nature of the names. Beside there would be confusion since the military has fighter aircraft using those names already.
And I need to point out that they might not in fact BE "named" at all since that practice has fallen out of favor in aircraft circles by the time in question. (And come and gone again several times since, a couple of airlines still name their aircraft "City of..." but this is totally unofficial as it is common under the circumstances to have several of the same "Cities" at the same airport at the same time and tail number ID is the only official tracking ID in both civil and military operations) It has been suggested more than once that the idea of 'naming' a service vehicle (which the Shuttle was originally supposed to be and what the "shuttles" ITTL will in fact be) actually detracts from it's work-a-day operational nature and continues to imply that space access is limited and extraordinary rather than open and inclusive. Ferry and servicing vehicles like shuttles and transport capsules may not be named so that they do not detract from future Space Exploration Vehicles that WILL be named and to point up the difference between 'working' and 'exploring' vehicles in the public mind. Similarly "Mission Patches" and such were officially in decline towards the end of Apollo in the idea of transitioning from PR requirements for "Exploration" versus practical "Operations" modes. While they would continue in an unofficial but often used capacity they would neither detract from nor compete with more higher profile "missions" much as they do today for various purposes.
It may not seem like it but when you are at a point where it is said internally that "we're launching balls-7* to Skylab-II on Tuesday at 08:00" is more common than "Tuesday the Space Shuttle Challenger will launch into orbit carrying a payload and crew for the ISS consisting of..." on every new channel in a 10 second blub that is mostly fluff because it only happens once or twice a year says a LOT about what kind of space program you have.
*= "Balls7" is operator/maintainer speak for a vehicle with an ID number ending in "007" This in no way detracts from the professionalism of the people working on the vehicle it simply means this is ROUTINE and is actually more efficient than trying to use names.
There's a TL here, I can't remember the name, where NASA goes with Big Gemini because they hold out longer for the biggest fanciest space shuttle design they had and by the time they settle for the OTL design several months later than OTL Congress ultimately refuses to fund even that. I'm thinking a similar scenario where by the 1984 SOTU we have a space station similar to Mir, the DoD figures out they don't need a manned satellite launcher, but no there is no shuttle
Michal Van's or Nixonhead's I think.
Ennobee wrote:
I recall that with the Shuttle designed in the 1970's the planners got three things wrong that made the Shuttle basically a solution looking for a problem instead of the other way round.
Not 'wrong' actually but the design as driven by certain assumptions and bias' that while "logical" and "reasonable" arrived at a very different set of solutions to requirements that were in fact not driven by an actual plan. Recall that the "shuttle" (note the capitalization or lack there of) was originally going to be the 'main-work-horse' launch vehicle for an ambitious and extensive space program post-Apollo with space stations and LEO orbital infrastructure supporting mission to the Moon, Mars and beyond. It's "purpose" therefor was to deliver components, supplies, and people to build and support that infrastructure. To that end it had to be able to carry large spacecraft and space station modules as well as bulk supplies and crew to man the facilities and spacecraft. For the most part any 'satellites' it would carry would delivered to LEO where it would be "processed" further up the line by dedicated orbital space tugs or mated to delivered upper stages for different missions. In order to do all this and remain economic the shuttle system had to be fully reusable and while single-stage was considered two-stage was more operationally efficient with a better payload and therefor the base line design.
Of all that the ONLY component of all of that plan that got approved was the shuttle itself which now had to take on several of the individual "missions" of the infrastructure it was originally supposed to only be in support of. So it became the "Shuttle" and the design compromises to allow it to be built began.
The Shuttle was originally designed to carry satellites into orbit but:
1) In 1970 the planners didn't grasp the importance of geosynchronous orbit. By the time the Shuttle made its first flight almost every satellite was designed for the higher, geosynchronous orbit, but the shuttle was only designed to reach the lower ones.
2) The shuttle was designed to carry two of the largest satellites of the 1970's because the planners reckoned that with getting more complex and powerful, satellites would also get bigger. Thanks to the silicone chip revolution, satellites did get more complex, but at the same time they actually got smaller.
3) Likewise, as it was expected that placing and servicing satellites into orbit would be a tedious and time-consuming enterprise, planners wanted the Shuttle to carry a large crew for extended time. By the time the Shuttle flew automation and improved handling techniques made most of the crew unnecessary. After the first dozen of flights, improved routines and protocols cut down on the time necessary just as well. In particular the one handling arm the Shuttle carried in it's loading dock replaced the need for multiple astronauts taking a spacewalk so for a pure satellite launcher, the Shuttle now carried an airlock and a wardrobe stocked with spacesuits that it really didn't need.
So for its original taskb of launching, retrieving and servicing satellites, the Shuttle ended up too big and carried too large a crew but couldn't fly high enough.
Even after the "Shuttle" became the "program of record" as the end-all-be-all of NASA's existence the above is mostly wrong in overall context. (You kind of admit this below I notice) The Shuttle wasn't designed to carry satellites per se as it's primary mission, it was designed to be able to carry large space station modules into LEO and support that station with crew and cargo delivery. However as the budget and initial planning proceeded it became clear that in order to meet the economic goals set as part of the 'deal' to get the Shuttle in the first place that it would have to fly enough to amortize it's overall costs model. In order to do THAT it would have to have enough payloads to support a large number of flights. Allowing for an expansion of required launches that could be foreseen and was in the process of expanding at the time it was found that the only reasonable way to achieve the needed flight numbers was by having the Shuttle be the ONLY launch vehicle for ALL of Americas foreseeable launch's in the future. Period.
In addition to being America's ONLY launch vehicle, without a "space station" any and all experiments that needed to be performed on-orbit would have to be done WITH the Shuttle so it would require a larger crew and space for such experiments to be carried out in addition to an extended life support and power system. It got bigger and more complex. (Originally the shuttle had a 'crew' of between 2 and 4 with up to 8 passengers if a 'crew' vehicle. Delivery of a station module or supplies ONLY required a crew of two as they would be assisted by on-orbit crew from space stations and space tugs. Similarly satellites would require only a few crew in the deliver vehicle which would be further 'delivered' up-chain by on-orbit assets. If you look at it no satellite launch or servicing mission needed the full "Shuttle" crew of the 7 only 4 were used for these missions directly while the others had on-board work and experiments as their missions)
Most of the requirements loaded onto the Shuttle to gain Air Force support were in fact NOT required for military missions as planned or satellites in development and the people who actually knew this tried to get both NASA and the Air Force to not slavishly fall into making them direct design considerations. They failed and as the Air Force realized that they were indeed going to be forced to use the Shuttle, (as was all US launches) they scrambled to adjust their planning and design accordingly. However...
By this point the Shuttle design is set and it is no longer a fully reusable Two-Stage-To-Orbit vehicle but what was known as a TAOS or "Thrust Augmented Orbiter Systems" which was the only possible way of keeping within the budget given for the program. In addition there will be only a very few "Shuttles" available and no possible way they can meet the current let alone future US launch demand. At this point most commercial satellite operators are already going outside the US or booking the few available US launchers and the entire "economic" basis of the Shuttle has fallen apart, but everything still DEPENDS on the Shuttle at least doing most of the basic work until and unless a space station ever gets authorized...
America however had a potent large carrier and when the ISS came along, the Shuttle, 15 years after it's first flight, finally had the role it was designed for: To carry lots of people and lots of payload into low earth orbit. As a result the space station was literally constructed around the Shuttle, or at least around it's carrying capacities.
Close, as it was actually designed to not actually NEED a station since it didn't have one on the horizon when it was designed. So in effect the ISS was 'designed' around the capacity of the Shuttle, (and the Russian Proton and Soyuz) but the significant compromises of the Shuttle itself lead to multiple compromises on the ISS and once the Shuttle was retired any hope of expansion or replacement of the ISS was gone which is exactly what the original shuttle concept was trying to avoid. Further because of political and budgetary finagling over the years what little promise the "Space Transportation System" had was squandered as any attempt to expand it's use or utility became in effect a direct threat to the Shuttle itself. So even the design and justifications for the Shuttle and the entire TAOS concept were denied the ability to evolve and possibly become something closer to the original concept. Shuttle could never in fact become a shuttle because it was so much more than that but it never became what it was supposed to be even after it finally was allowed to 'build' and 'service' a space station. Instead like Apollo it was institutionally driven into a dead end and eventually abandoned. Could it have been different even with what we got as a "Shuttle"? Yes, but it would have taken a political (Washington) and institutional (NASA) change of heart that has never been available to do so.
So what if the Space Shuttle was instead planned in the 1980's and built in the early 90's? What if at the same time there was already a space station, international or not in orbit?
The first question is: Will the new Shuttle be designed to service and build out the space station or will it keep its original role of launching and servicing satellites? If the Shuttle's main task is the space station, we might see something like the original Shuttle: A large craft designed to carry lots of people and massive payload into low orbit. Probably it would even keep its own airlock. If on the other hand the Shuttle was still designed for satellites, we would see a completely different craft: Smaller both in cargo space as well as in crew but more powerful and especially able to reach geosynchronous orbit and beyond. Possibly even the halfway point between Earth and Moon.
As for how the Shuttle would look like? The designers would probably stick with the delta wing layout, but apart of that all options are possible.
Note that this, and the OP, presupposes an already existing means to service and support the space station which in and of itself means you have a certain launch capacity and ability. Along with this follows if you have been doing this for 20 or so years either you have reached a point where this is relatively 'economic' and acceptable or it is in fact your only option and in either case you have very little 'incentive' to build a "Space Shuttle" as suggested rather than improve what you have.
This has been explored in time lines like "Eyes Turned Skyward," "2001: A Space Time Odyssey" and discussions such as "No-shuttle alternative timeline " where the Shuttle wasn't the chosen "next-step" in space. The main point is that under the given circumstances you HAVE some capability and in order to make that 'work' even in the short run you have to make some decisions that change the whole rationalization that would have lead to the Shuttle in OTL and it is very unlikely those circumstances will come again within the 'new' time line. So while Reagan, (as per the OP) might call for more economic and regular access to space he would probably do so in the context of either calling on significant improvement of existing designs or if more radical something like the NASP program. The former could lead to something 'like' the shuttle as a reusable, vertical take off and horizontal landing vehicle for small crew and payload support but such could already exist or be in development as a natural extension of current vehicles and could be totally different than anything we might 'think' of when we think of the Shuttle. The latter of course could be very much the same bloated and eventual dead-end as OTL or it could lead to several different outcomes but none would probably be anything approaching the "Shuttle" as we think of it.
As examples let me assume that we kept some part of the Apollo program in production and operation to support the Skylab stations and its eventual successors. I'll use my personal favorite; We keep the Saturn-1B booster and S-IVB along with the Apollo CM/SM modified for LEO operations. Eventually we will replace this with a reusable but enlarged Apollo type command and service/cargo module, ("Big Apollo") which would evolve into a 12 person, 10K to 15K cargo deliver vehicle. To support future work and planning we need to up-rate the Saturn-1B which will include supports for anywhere from two to four heavy Titan SRBs for augmentation and future tank stretches up to 20ft in length. (Both are rather in-expensive though the changes in the infrastructure of MLPs and pads will be a large one-time cost)
At this point we must consider two options; Economics can be enhanced in one of two ways, either we build to the best cost as an expendable launch vehicle and push to increase the flight rate to justify mass-production economics. Studies of both the Saturn-1B and S-IVB assuming this path showed a significant savings though reusability of any type showed more promise. Reusability is of course the other path and here it comes down to the individual stages and factors effecting them. Recover and reuse of the first S-1B stage was studied and found to be feasible, ocean recovery down-range by parachute and retrorockets being the most economic. Experiments with attempting to return the first stage to a land landing were found to be complex and less economical than the simpler and more straightforward ocean landing. Fears over engine exposure to salt water soaking were put to rest in early 1961 experiments where it was found that even long exposure, little cleaning, long storage all before refurbishment had little effect on the cost of the refurbishment and that the engines were robust enough to allow a refurbishment cost of less than 5% of the initial engine cost even at it's worst. Cost of building and maintaining a recovery system were found to be reasonable in context and a booster useful lifetime was estimated to be anywhere from 8 to 12 flights and averaged to 10. (Engines meanwhile had a 20+ flight/refurbishment useful life)
First stage tank and spider beam construction costs were fully amortized for the tanks, (Redstone and Jupiter program) and mostly covered by Apollo for the spider beam. In addition the spider beam and over-built thrust structure of the S-1B easily allowed modification for the planned SRBs and recovery gear and allowed a very robust structure which was highly resistant to damage. Overall the S-1B stage was perfectly adapted to being made into a recoverable stage. (Which is what had been planned initially anyway)
The S-IVB was also considered for recovery using a Douglas concept for a 'recovery' package consisting of a heat shield, reentry balloot-stabilization system, parachutes, deployable stabilizing legs and a crushable foam 'nose' cushion in the inter-stage section. This package was estimated to mass about 6000lbs but I'd assume Douglas lowballed it by at least half since OTHER then the parachutes everything else was untested but based on previous work on a much smaller scale. Thing is, in an upper stage any added mass is almost directly subtracted from effective payload so that's mass you lose from your primary mission. On the one hand you can make up with that through the SRBs and first stage tank stretches, and you can stretch the S-IVB tanks as well but that changes return aerodynamics and heating which again will probably add mass to the recovery package. In this case when all is said and done, while eventual recovery is desirable it may be better in the near-term to accept the loss of the upper stage and go the 'cheap-stage' route.
Especially if your working on recovering you manned segment since you can then modify and adjust your upper stage to take a number of payloads and not be hampered by having to worry about interference from the recovery package.
So for the next 10 to 15 years this is your basic "main" launch vehicle for station support and expansion capable of between 14K and 60k payloads to LEO depending on the configuration and at least mostly recoverable. Evolutionary changes such as the engines, (continued upgrades of the H1 to a level of around 250,000lbs thrust, followed by evolution to the RS27/27A and finally RSX versions as done/planned in OTL) controls and materials upgrades and better SRBs. Evolution of the S-IVB into a recoverable unit is possible along with integration of the S-IVB and "Apollo" component into a fully recoverable vehicle making the whole system a fully reusable TSTO vehicle. This could include a lifting/winged configuration capable of carrying a dozen or more passengers and several thousand lbs of cargo payload while still being able to switch out the upper stage(s) to loft larger and heavier payloads into orbit. (In other words it's also a 'shuttle' as required per the OP but is not OUR Shuttle

)
Another example would be as found in "Right Side Up" where the S-1C stage is built into a fully recoverable "Lifter" booster and later a purpose built Orbiter is added. Again the Orbiter is going to little resemble what we know as the Shuttle but will fulfil a similar mission.
Going the NASP/Air Breathing route is IMHO not going to end well as unless your POD is sometime in the early 50s almost everyone WILL fall into the Scramjet trap since it is so seductive. Zero to near-light-speed is damn hard to argue with despite decades of engineering to show it's FAR from simple or easy to accomplish and we still have yet to do so on an 'operational' basis for air-breathing propulsion. On the other hand there are a lot of possible PODs along the way from the OP POD to today where SOMEONE might have managed to get some real work done
Randy