I agree , it was the Great Society that killed the space program from fulfilling its potential. The great sucking hole in govt. spending that we still live with was the reason it was killed. Much to our determent.
With or without the vietnam war Apollo was in trouble from the beginning - from 1963. the key issues are: it was done for the wrong reasons (fuck the Soviets) the wrong way (lunar orbit rendezvous) and it was a crash program (before this decade is out, or burst)
Technically LOR was the best mode to achieve JFK deadline. It was, however, unsustainable over the long term.
Had Von Braun EOR (Earth orbit rendezvous) been picked up, NASA would have had a space station, propellant transfer and smaller, less expensive Saturns. The whole thing would have been more sustainable. Propellant depot and transfer would have given the shuttle (had there be a shuttle in that ATL, which remain to be seen) a better mission.
I agree , it was the Great Society that killed the space program from fulfilling its potential. The great sucking hole in govt. spending that we still live with was the reason it was killed. Much to our determent.
I've been giving myself a bit of a crash course in learning about space history but mostly focusing on the stations/bases aspect. If we went with EOR for moon missions, what kind of ship design would we be looking at for getting there and back?
Some sort of advanced LM that puts all 3(?) astronauts on the surface and a module to get them back to the station? I'm assuming the shuttle also handles transportation with the alt-Saturns flying up separately by remote?
Man, if only America had done nothing about civil rights, we could have gone to the moon two more times! But that whiner MLK had to go and ruin it for everybody!
On the lunar ship side - the Apollo and LM somewhat fuse together, and the whole thing lands on the lunar surface. You have to figure a fatter LM with the Apollo capsule ontop of it.
As for the translunar stage (the S-IVB) it depends from the size of the Saturns that haul the propellant to Earth orbit.
To simplify, the S-IVB hold 80 tons of liquid oxygen and 20 tons of liquid hydrogen. Total 100 tons.
A Saturn V can lift that in a single launch, but it expensive.
Smaller saturns takes more flights but cost less to produce. There was a whole bunch of Saturns on the drawing board, with different payloads.
For example a couple of Saturn C-3 with a payload of 50 tons each also do the job. Or five Saturn C-2 with a payload of 20 tons.
They didn't knew how to transfer liquid hydrogen (damn cold), so only liquid oxygen woul be transfered.
The tendency as of 1962 was to go with the more powerful Saturns to reduce the number of flights. Surely, the more flight the more risk of failure. BUT the smaller Saturns would have been produced in large numbers, cost less and their smaller payload would have made easier for a shuttle to replace them on the long term.
Okay, so the space fleet would consist of smaller Saturn rockets with the Apollo-LM hybrid and enough fuel to get to a LEO station for refueling, then sent on their way for the landing.
For support we have supply/transport rockets to top off the station's fuel tanks that can shift to a reliable shuttle design as technology improves.
Returning astronauts can handle re-entry within capsules or the shuttle.
Potential for experiments would be very limited on the station with primary emphasis being on resupply/refueling/construction/repair. I suppose there could be a second station sent up to focus on science experiments, but that's entering no-go fantasy sky-pie territory when politics come into the picture.
One trouble was the psychological aspect (outlined quite well in Michener's fictionalisation of the Us Space programme, imaginatively titled Space). Once the race to the moon had been won, psychologically the whole venture was less and less exciting and sexy. The race was won, the Us had beaten the Soviets to the Moon...so...what else. The programme just didn't have that Commie-beating factor to grab the attention of the Cold Warriors any more.
EOR isnt a help, probably.
Basically, to land an apollo capsule on the moon means a MUCH bigger LEM. So, instead of smaller Saturns, you end up with two of otls saturn vs. Which means each moonflight costs twice as much, which means tthe lunar program shuts down even sooner.