Alternate History of the Space Age

The Nixon alternative (part 4)

2012-02-27T21:02:00.004-08:00

President Nixon could be stubborn. After the Soviets launched their space station module, however, he realized quickly that he would have to adapt to changing circumstances. He called Vice President Lodge and NASA Administrator Mark to the White House, then called Lyndon B. Johnson, the Senate Majority Leader.

Nixon had told Johnson only a week earlier that he would veto the FY 1968 NASA Appropriation Bill if it included restoration of the $300 million cut from Apollo's budget in January. Now, with Mark and Lodge sitting nearby, he told Johnson that he would agreed to restoration of the funds.

Putting down the phone, Nixon told Mark he wanted it made clear that NASA already had a space station - the Apollo ARMM Mission Module. Apollo 3, scheduled for launch later in the month, was meant to last for two weeks. Mark suggested that the mission might be launched with an option to extend to four weeks, and Nixon agreed. Then the President told Lodge to form a Space Station Task Group after Apollo 3 returned to Earth.

Pobyeda 1 performed a series of automated maneuvers, but no crew had been launched to it by the time Apollo 3 was ready for launch. Observers speculated that the first Soviet manned flight since Titov's 1961 mission had been postponed, though Radio Moscow declared that the unmanned station flight had been the plan all along.

On July 22, 1967, Apollo 3's Saturn I launch vehicle lifted off from Complex 34 at Cape Canaveral with astronauts Frank Borman, Charles Conrad, and John Young on board. Borman, the backup commander, replaced Gordon Cooper a week before the launch. Cooper had suffered serious injuries in an automobile accident on July 15.

Stage 1 ascent, shutdown, and separation occurred as normal; then one of the six RL-10A engines in the Saturn I's S-IV second stage exploded upon ignition, destroying two neighboring engines and triggering the Apollo spacecraft's escape system. Its launch escape tower had already separated, so Apollo 3 separated from the burning S-IV stage, turned end for end, and fired its main engines to slow down. It then cast off its MM and descended to the Apollo Program's first splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Africa.

More to come.

The Nixon alternative (part 3)

2012-02-26T19:19:00.009-08:00

Apollo 1 reached Earth orbit - the first American piloted spacecraft to do so - on September 14, 1966. On board were three astronauts: Gus Grissom, Frank Borman, and Ed White. They orbited the Earth for three days, testing Convair Apollo Reentry and Mission Module (ARMM) systems and setting a new world space endurance record. White became space-sick, but showed signs of improvement by the mission's third day.

On September 17, the crew ignited the ARMM's main engines to perform their de-orbit burn, cast off their Mission Module (MM), and descended through Earth's atmosphere to a land landing at Edwards Air Force Base, California. President Nixon was on hand to bask in Apollo 1's glory.

At the same time, however, Nixon was considering changes in NASA's program. Apollo was running over budget. In December 1964, shortly after winning reelection, he had asked T. Keith Glennan to resign as NASA Administrator. He had then left the post vacant until December 1965, when he asked Hans Mark to become NASA's second Administrator. Mark was confirmed in February 1966.

Within a few months, the President became dissatisfied with Mark. He felt that NASA's second Administrator was insubordinate when, in May 1966, he created a Space Station Task Group without consulting the White House. Nixon disbanded the group barely two months later, and ordered Vice President Lodge to more closely supervise NASA.

Apollo 2 reached orbit on January 15, 1967, with astronauts Thomas Stafford, James McDivitt, and Elliot See on board. They tested their spacecraft for one week in orbit, then landed at White Sands in New Mexico.

Two days later, Mark and Lodge unveiled NASA's proposed FY 1968 budget. It contained funds for Ranger missions 12 through 17, development of a Ranger-based lunar orbiter, as well as continued funding for the Mercury capsule-based Recoverable Space Observatory (RSO), the Lunar Sample Returner, and the 1969 Mars Mariner with atmospheric probe missions. It also included a $300-million cut in Apollo's budget. This would reduce the rate of Apollo flights from four to two per year, Lodge explained.

At a press conference on July 8, 1967, Nixon explained that Apollo had been cut because the Soviets had apparently abandoned manned spaceflight. He hinted that the U.S. manned program might soon end. His statement was remarkably ill-timed. Even as the press conference drew to a close, in the pre-dawn darkness on the other side of the world, the Soviet Union launched the Pobyeda 1 space station into low-Earth orbit.

More to come.

The Nixon alternative (part 2)

2012-02-17T10:21:00.001-08:00

On March 15, 1962, President Richard Nixon invited the Mercury 7 astronauts and their wives to a formal White House dinner held in their honor. The dinner, on April 12, 1962, was widely seen as a response to Yuri Gagarin's six-month, 67-nation goodwill tour, which was nearing its end. By that time, two of the Seven (Scott Carpenter and Gordon Cooper) had resigned from NASA rather than wait for an Apollo mission that might never fly, but they nevertheless dutifully attended the high-level White House function.

Despite the fact that they had yet to fly into space and were unlikely to do so before 1966, the seven men were treated like heroes by the normally staid and skeptical Congressmen, Supreme Court Justices, and Cabinet Secretaries. Nixon took notice.

On April 29, 1962, the President told NASA Administrator T. Keith Glennan that "Americans need heroes." He asked that the Mercury astronauts be given positions of responsibility within the Apollo Program. He also asked that NASA try to "get Carpenter and Cooper back in harness" and asked that a second astronaut selection take place.

It is probably no coincidence that the first successful Ranger lunar rough-lander, Ranger 4, reached the moon's Mare Imbrium on April 26, 1962, three days before Nixon spoke with Glennan. It was the first successful robotic lunar landing. The spherical capsule contained a battery-powered seismograph which transmitted data from the lunar surface for six days.

On July 4, 1963, Nixon himself introduced the 10 new NASA astronauts. They were Neil Armstrong, Frank Borman, Charles Conrad, Karl Henize, James Lovell, James McDivitt, Elliot See, Thomas Stafford, Edward White, John Young. Henize was the first scientist-astronaut NASA selected.

In the meantime, progress continued toward the first manned Apollo launch. On April 7, 1964, NASA successfully launched a boilerplate Apollo Reentry and Mission Module (ARMM) on Saturn IB SA-6. A second boilerplate ARMM reached orbit on August 15, 1964.

In January of the election year 1964, Nixon secretly asked several of the astronauts to campaign with him for his reelection. Frank Borman, Ed White, Thomas Stafford, Alan Shepard, and Gus Grissom all "volunteered" to participate in Nixon campaign events. The President also toured the new NASA Mission Control Center at Lewis Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio, on October 9, 1964. Nixon was reelected by a comfortable margin over his challenger, Lyndon B. Johnson, in November 1964.

More to come.

The Nixon alternative (Part 1)

2012-02-12T08:19:00.002-08:00

In November 1960, Vice President Richard Nixon (bottom image above), a Republican, narrowly defeated John F. Kennedy for the White House. In February 1961, he appointed the Space Task Group (STG) to advise him on space and made his Vice President, Henry Cabot Lodge, its chairman. He retained Eisenhower's NASA Administrator, T. Keith Glennan, but did not make him a member of the STG.

Two months later, the Soviet Union launched Vostok 1 into Earth orbit with Yuri Gagarin on board. At the end of a single 90-minute orbit, Vostok 1 automatically oriented itself and fired its retro rocket to begin reentry. The spacecraft then malfunctioned; the spherical capsule containing Gagarin remained attached to its service module by a stuck umbilical, so that the two modules tumbled end over end until the umbilical burned through. This brush with disaster was not reported in the West until decades later.

Alarmed that the U.S. had again fallen behind the Soviets in space, Americans demanded a response; Nixon pointed to the STG. Then, on May 5, 1961, he nixed the planned manned Mercury suborbital flights. In a nationally televised speech, he explained that U.S. suborbital flights would be anticlimactic after Gagarin's orbital flight. If one were to fail, killing an astronaut, then the U.S. "would fail at being second-best." He allowed preparations for a Mercury orbital flight to continue, however.

The Soviets, meanwhile, launched Gherman Titov on board Vostok 2 on a 25-hour mission on August 6, 1961. Titov became the first person to suffer from Space Motion Sickness, an alarming malady which at the time was poorly understood. Vostok 2 also malfunctioned during reentry exactly as had Vostok 1.

The STG released its report on September 15, 1961. It noted that Project Mercury would barely advance U.S. missile technology and that it had failed in its goal of placing an American into space ahead of the Soviets. The STG suggested that the Mercury capsules be re-purposed as recoverable automated bio-satellites and astronomical observatories.

It did not, however, propose that Americans abandon manned spaceflight. NASA had accepted proposals from industry for Mercury's successor, Project Apollo, in May 1961. Glennan had briefed the STG on the Apollo industry proposals in July. In its September 1961 report, the STG advised Nixon to fund Apollo and commence an Earth-orbital space station program.

The STG also proposed that the U.S. fund robotic exploration. Development of robotic spacecraft technologies, it explained in a classified annex to its report, would feed directly into missile and surveillance satellite development. It proposed that NASA explore the moon robotically with the aim of returning lunar surface samples by 1970.

Nixon formally suspended preparations for manned Mercury orbital flights on September 20, 1961. On September 30, 1961, the Soviets, alarmed by Titov's unexpected illness and the Vostok 1 and Vostok 2 malfunctions, concerned that they might lose prestige by killing a cosmonaut, and mindful of the U.S. Mercury suspension, decided secretly to suspend the Vostok Program. They began work on a new three-man spacecraft called Sever ("North") and a small space station called Pobyeda ("victory").

On January 5, 1962, Glennan announced that Nixon would request funding for Apollo in NASA's Fiscal Year 1963 budget. On January 23, 1962, Nixon appointed a second Space Task Group to outline a robotic exploration program. The President refused, however, to request funds for a space station.

On February 20, 1962, Glennan selected the Apollo design put forward by the Convair Division of General Dynamics (link). He selected the Convair design in part because it included an integral mission module that would give it a minimum space station-like capability.

More to come.

Helios 1 mission patchwork

2012-02-09T19:44:00.001-08:00

The Helios 1 mission patch designs are coming in. Here's one by Łukasz Sołtykowski.

Robert Nagy submitted this patch design and an alternate-history portrait of Helios 1 CDR Paul Weitz.

Here's a classically inspired design from David Cummer.

Please send your designs to dsfportree AT hotmail DOT com.

Announcing the Helios 1 crew

2012-02-04T07:17:00.000-08:00

Helios 1 Commander Paul J. Weitz
Commander Paul J. Weitz (1966 astronaut class) (5th spaceflight)
Pilot Edward G. Givens, Jr. (1966 astronaut class) (4th spaceflight)
Flight engineer Carlton H. Webb (1973 astronaut class) (3rd spaceflight)
Science engineer 1 Richard K. Fountain (1971 astronaut class) (2rd spaceflight)
Science engineer 2 Shannon M. Lucid (1975 astronaut class) (2nd spaceflight)

Weitz was Pilot on the Hyperion B-1R1 mission in April-June 1971, during which he spent 42 days in space, then was Pilot of the Hyperion 1-2V1 mission in (February-March 1972, 14 days in space). He commanded the Hyperion 1-7V5 mission in April-May 1973 (15 days in space) and Hyperion 2-7V6 (January 1976, 16 days in space).

Givens was Pilot on the Hyperion C-1R1 mission in August-November 1971 (84 days in space), the Hyperion 1-7V5 mission in April-May 1973 (15 days in space), and Commander of the July 1976 Destination Mankind mission to GEO (14 days).

Webb was Pilot on the Hyperion 2-4V3 mission (October 1974, 5 days in space) and on the July 1976 Destination Mankind mission (14 days in space).

Fountain was Science Engineer on the Hyperion 1-4R2 mission (August 1972-August 1973) (366 days in space).

Lucid was Science Engineer on the July 1976 Destination Mankind mission (14 days in space).

Anyone want to design a mission patch? I'll post all proposed patch designs on this blog.

After Helios 2 (part 2)

2012-02-03T05:06:00.000-08:00

Reader Kerry Foster's comment on yesterday's post got me thinking. I had assumed a relatively painless transition from Robert Kennedy to his successor, with some belt-tightening for NASA but a continuation of the programs RFK put in place. What if his successor pulled a Nixon and sought to change NASA's direction in a big way?

The RFK years would be about preparing to leave LEO and then taking incremental steps out of LEO. There would be no talk of one final destination because the Hyperion and Helios programs would be about getting ready to go anywhere. Stations in Earth orbit would trial astronauts and technologies; then, at the end of the second RFK Administration, the first planetary mission, a Venus-Mars-Venus manned flyby, would leave Earth orbit.

What if Mathias let Helios 2 fly but canceled Helios 3, as I've already suggested, then called for a 33-foot space station for exploring the industrial potential of space, Solar Power Satellites (SPSs), and lunar missions to seek out resources for building SPSs and set up a lunar base? What if he also proposed a gradual phase-out of Apollo-based transportation systems in favor of a reusable winged spacecraft and reusable lunar shuttles? In other words, a complete redirection of the NASA program from open-ended exploration to industrialization on a massive scale.

All of this would involve massive expenditures, yet Mathias would trim NASA's budget, not raise it. This would be much like Richard Nixon. He might even let NASA's future direction remain an open question until January of 1980, the year he would seek reelection. Nixon did this (he announced the Shuttle in January 1972, trumpeting the many jobs it would create), as did Reagan (he announced the Space Station in January 1984) and Bush II (he announced his "Vision" for space exploration in January 2004).

This would be an exploration of what happens to long-term space plans in a democracy. It would make depressing reading, but it would be realistic.

Let's assume that Mathias is reelected in 1980. NASA puts Helios 3 in mothballs, starts work on the 33-foot station, and begins designing a reusable space plane. It dusts off its old Apollo lunar landing plans (the ones preempted by the program to deflect the asteroid Icarus in 1967-1968). The effort would be ridiculously underfunded for its scale, with target dates so far in the future as to be meaningless. NASA, spoiled by two decades of inspired leadership, would grow demoralized.

Then, in 1984, Mathias's Vice President, Howard Baker, is elected with George H. W. Bush as his running mate. Baker, who had been in charge of Mathias's National Space Council, had grown increasingly uncomfortable with the direction Mathias had laid out. For one thing, Mathias's initiatives had led to very little in the way of hardware or missions in his second term. The 33-foot station had been delayed, as had the lunar and reusable Shuttle efforts. NASA had launched Apollo-derived CSM/OM combinations to GEO to conduct SPS experiments, but that was about it. The bipartisan support RFK's program had enjoyed was gone; Democrats trimmed NASA's budget to rein in Mathias's already crippled program, further slowing progress.

Baker would order Bush, his National Space Council chair, to assemble a blue-ribbon bipartisan panel to reexamine NASA's future course. They would point to the enormous cost of the Mathias program and propose a return to an evolutionary manned planetary program as a cheaper alternative.

Baker would receive their recommendations in 1987, but would not respond to them immediately. NASA would, meanwhile, finally launch the 33-foot station into LEO, launch an unmanned lunar orbiter to seek out mineral-rich landing sites, and commence unmanned lifting-body hypersonic reentry tests. Then, in January of the 1988 Presidential election year, Baker would announce a cheaper goal for NASA: land a man on Mars by the end of the 1990s. Specifically, he would call for a manned Mars flyby in 1992, a manned Mars orbiter in 1995, and a manned Mars landing in 1998.

Baker would not, however, be reelected in 1988. The new President, Democrat Paul Simon of Illinois, would, however, favor the course Baker and Bush had set. In his inaugural address on January 20, 1989 - 20 years to the day after RFK called for Solar System exploration as NASA's post-Icarus goal - Simon would endorse the Baker plan. Many in NASA would heave a big sigh of relief. It was time to pick up where they had left off nearly a decade before.

In the months that followed, Simon and his Vice President, Al Gore, sought to make the new space program a vehicle for international cooperation with the Soviets. The advent of Mikhail Gorbachev in 1984 had led to wide-ranging reforms in the USSR, which had in turn led to virtual economic collapse as the Soviet system sought to move from communism to capitalism. Its aerospace sector strapped for funds, there was talk of Soviet engineers selling their expertise to countries that opposed Western interests.

A hardline coup in late 1989 led to the collapse of the USSR. President Simon and Russian President Boris Yeltsin signed an agreement in June 1990 calling for cooperation between the U.S. and the Russian Federation in space. Russian brought to the table its Pobedya space station, N1-A rocket, and advanced automated Marsokhod rovers. By the terms of the agreement, N1-A rockets would launch propellants for Mars missions and joint U.S.-Russian crews would teleoperate Russian rovers bearing U.S. instruments on Mars. Russian cosmonauts would, in return, join the Ares 1, Ares 2, and Ares 3 crews.

After Helios 2

2012-02-02T14:18:00.000-08:00

Helios 2, the second five-person piloted Venus-Mars-Venus flyby mission, would depart Earth in November 1978, fly past Venus in May 1979, fly past Mars in November 1979, fly past Venus again in January 1980, and return to Earth on January 31, 1981. When it returned to Earth, the 24-man Spacelab "industrial park in space" would have been in orbit for 2.5 years. Spacelab would not have been meant to be the follow-on to the Helios missions; in fact, until U.S. President Charles Mathias cancelled it in May 1977, it would have been followed by a third Venus-Mars-Venus flyby which would have left Earth in May 1981.

Mathias would not be anti-space. The main justification for the Hyperion stations and the Helios missions - to explore the Solar system in search of new threats and new opportunities - would still resonate, especially considering that the 10th anniversary of the successful Icarus deflection would occur during the second year of the Mathias Administration. He would, however, have other priorities than had Robert Kennedy during his eight years in office. No doubt NASA's budget would take a hit.

I expect that Spacelab would appeal to Mathias's sensibilities, so would carry on without interruption. Mathias would, however, delay the manned planetary program. In addition to cancelling Helios 3, he would redirect Helios 4, planned originally as a 1983 Venus Orbiter. Re-named Ares 1, it would become a 1984 mission to orbit Mars.

Naming the 33-foot station

2012-01-30T13:53:00.000-08:00

On July 4, 1978, NASA would launch its first 33-foot space station on an uprated two-stage Saturn V rocket. The station's diameter, 11 feet greater than any previous NASA station, would match the diameter of the Saturn V S-ID and S-IIB stages. The station would have a mass of 150 tons and a height of 100 feet. It would be designed to operate in low-Earth orbit for a decade.

Although it would borrow Helios/Hyperion technology and techniques, the 33-foot-diameter station would not be part of NASA's manned planetary program. Instead, it would be designed to serve as an "industrial park in space." Universities and companies would be provided with space on board to conduct experiments. Some, such as the research centrifuge ringing the station's inner wall and the station's comfortable living quarters, would be used in common by all tenants. Others would be off-limits to potential competitors.

In our timeline, research has revealed little that can be manufactured in space cheaply enough to generate a profit. In the Icarus timeline, on the other hand, NASA would put in place an infrastructure where intensive research could be conducted at a relatively low cost. NASA and its tenants would know full well that the likelihood of creating wildly profitable products in space would be small. The 33-foot station would be a gamble for all concerned, but that is in the nature of applied research.

Crews would reach the station in six-person Apollo CSM-derived spacecraft based on the Helios HERV design. A NASA crew of six would live on board at all times, and up to 18 tenant researchers could live on board. The six NASA crewmembers would maintain the station and fly the crew transport spacecraft. Resupply and experiment equipment delivery would be by Freighter (read). Manufactured products would reach Earth inside an annual or semi-annual CSM with two NASA pilots.

What to call the 33-foot station?

Bad things happen (part 1)

2012-01-30T06:16:00.000-08:00

So far my alternate timeline has ticked along like clockwork, but we all know that the Real World doesn't work that way. So, what can go wrong in the Project Icarus alternate timeline?

In our own timeline, astronauts and cosmonauts experienced many life-threatening (and life-ending) accidents. Gemini VIII's emergency return to Earth. The Apollo 1 fire. The Apollo 13 oxygen tank explosion. The Soyuz 1 crash. The Soyuz 11 depressurization. The Challenger and Columbia accidents. The Apollo 16 SPS problem. The "April 5 Event" Soyuz booster malfunction. The Soyuz T-10-1 launch pad explosion. The Progress collision with Mir's Spektr module. And the list goes on.

Beginning in early 1969, NASA would aim for the Venus-Mars-Venus flyby launch opportunity set to occur on January 23, 1977 (for a description of this mission, please see here). NASA's extended build-up to the January 23, 1977 Earth-orbital launch of the Helios 1 Venus-Mars-Venus piloted flyby spacecraft would be designed to anticipate and avoid problems, but problems would almost certainly occur, nonetheless. Crew illness during one of the Hyperion 2 extended-duration flights might, for example, force a long-duration crew to return to Earth early, thus delaying acquisition of biomedical data essential for certifying the Helios 1 mission plan.

Although NASA would work hard to launch Helios 1 on January 23, 1977, just three days after the end of President Robert Kennedy's second term, it could fall back to the November 1978 Venus-Mars-Venus flyby opportunity if some technical hitch (or major calamity) prevented the January 23, 1977 launch.

Alternately, the Helios Program might elect to use the October 1977 Mars flyby launch opportunity or the August 1978 Venus flyby opportunity. The former would take it as far from the Sun as the inner edge of the Main Asteroid Belt, 2.2 times Earth's distance from the Sun, so if Helios 1 were solar powered, it would need solar panel augmentation ahead of its October 1977 launch. In general, though, the Helios spacecraft design could accommodate either a Venus flyby or a Mars flyby alone without significant modifications because it would be designed for a mission taking in both Venus and Mars flybys.

The Venus flyby mission launched in August 1978 would last just one year, so could be of interest if data from the long-duration stays on the Hyperion stations in Earth orbit showed that the triple-planet flyby missions were simply too long to be carried out safely (but that a one-year flight was acceptable). NASA could fly the Helios 1 spacecraft past Venus without modification, thus making incremental progress toward eventual planetary orbiters and landings while it sought to meet the challenges of missions longer than one year.

One interesting fact to close off this post. Imagine that Helios 1 suffered a major malfunction at the end of its mission. Screams from the crew, thumps and bangs, and the Helios 1 Earth-Return Vehicle (HERV) descends to Earth as a swarm of high-speed meteors. The Helios Program could not be grounded even in such an extreme case because Helios 2 would already be under way. That's right - the missions would overlap. Helios 2 would leave Earth orbit in November 1978 and the Helios 1 crew would reenter Earth's atmosphere on January 9, 1979.

Such a malfunction would be unlikely - the HERV would have been exhaustively tested before Helios 1 left Earth orbit - but unlikely hardly means impossible. In the aftermath of such a shocking accident, NASA would do everything it could to understand the malfunction and relay any necessary and possible remedies to the Helios 2 crew so that they could avoid a similar fate when they returned to Earth.

Weekend Weirdness 1

2012-01-28T11:36:00.000-08:00

I like to imagine that the events portrayed in the classic 1951 Robert Wise film The Day the Earth Stood Still were real historical events: that is, that a spaceship bearing a lone humanoid alien ambassador named Klaatu and an implacably destructive robot called Gort arrived on the National Mall in 1951 and issued an ultimatum to humankind. It went something like this:

A long time ago, we worked out that we could not have peace unless we gave absolute power to enforce peace to a race of Gort robots. The Gorts don't mind about your petty squabbles as long as you keep them on Earth. Now, however, you have atomic weapons and rockets. If you choose to spread your madness beyond Earth, then the Gorts will reduce your world to a burnt-out cinder. If, on the other hand, you decide to venture into the universe in peace, then you will be welcomed into a community of planets. You choose. We'll be waiting.

I further like to imagine that the alternate 1951 of The Day the Earth Stood Still is part of the back-story of the 1956 classic Forbidden Planet. Inspired by Klaatu's technology, humans figure out how to imitate it, more or less. They join the community of planets. Then a couple of hundred years go by and a lot of clues about the nature of the galactic political scene emerge (it's a lot more complicated than Klaatu let on). The Krell are still around, there are space pirates, and there's a civil war under way.

Every time astronomers in our reality find a new extrasolar planet, I imagine the C-57D, Captain J. J. Adams commanding, having a bit of a visit. I have done this for years. I pretended my hand was the C-57D at a Geoff Marcy lecture (one can get away with a lot if it appears that one is trying to entertain one's young child).

So, there you have it, an utterly implausible alternate history thing I've played around with off and on for, oh, 15 years. More "serious" stuff soon.

Some possible (?) Hyperion 1 & 2 crews

2012-01-25T15:44:00.000-08:00

I don't know as much about the personalities and interests of the astronauts as I should, so when it comes to choosing crews for the missions in my alternate history of the space age, I'm at a disadvantage. If you have opinions about the crews I've selected, please feel free to share them.

A bit of background: after the U.S. decided to attempt to deflect Icarus in November 1966, NASA cancelled all planned piloted space missions. The astronaut corps, primed for moon missions, was suddenly in limbo. It remained in that uncomfortably uncertain state until Robert Kennedy's inaugural speech on January 20, 1969.

No new astronauts were selected until April 1971, when six "pilot-astronauts" and six "scientist-astronauts" were selected. Some of these would be astronauts who were selected and flew in our timeline, while others would be fictional. Soon after the last of the flights listed below, NASA would select its first female astronauts.

February 19 - March 12, 1971 (21 days aloft)
Station: Hyperion A (Orbital Module-1)
Transport: CSM Liberty/Orbital Module (OM)-1
Mission/Crew: Hyperion A-1/Virgil Grissom, Donn Eisele, Roger Chaffee

April 25-June 6, 1971 (42 days aloft)
Station: Hyperion B (OM-2)
Transport: CSM Horizon/OM-2
Mission/Crew: Hyperion B-1 Resident (R) 1/Frank Borman, James Lovell, Michael Collins

May 8-20, 1971 (12 days aloft)
Station: Hyperion B (OM-2)
Transport: CSM Aurora
Mission/Crew: Hyperion B-2 Visitor (V) 1/Charles Conrad, Alan Bean, Richard Gordon

August 10-November 3, 1971 (84 days aloft)
Station: Hyperion C (OM-3)
Transport: CSM Shenandoah/OM-3 (up); CSM Shenandoah/OM-3/OM-4 (down)
Mission/Crew: Hyperion C-1R1/Russell Schweickart, Bruce McCandless, Joseph Kerwin

September 2-11, 1971 (9 days aloft)
Station: Hyperion C (OM-3)
Transport: CSM Eagle/OM-4 (up); CSM Eagle (down)
Mission/Crew: Hyperion C-2V1/Neil Armstrong, Edwin Aldrin, Story Musgrave

October 3-11, 1971 (8 days aloft)
Station: Hyperion C (OM-3/OM-4)
Transport: CSM Electra
Mission/Crew: Hyperion C-3V2/James Lovell, Don Lind, Jack Lousma

December 4, 1971 - July 21, 1972 (168 days aloft)
Station: Hyperion 1
Transport: CSM Ocean (up); CSM Yosemite/OSM-1 (down)
Mission/Crew: Hyperion 1-1R1/Alan Bean, Gerald Carr, Owen Garriott

February 25-March 11, 1972 (14 days aloft)
Station: Hyperion 1
Transport: CSM Yosemite/OSM-1 (up); CSM Ocean (down)
Mission/crew: Hyperion 1-2V1/Walter Cunningham, Paul Weitz, Roger Chaffee

May 25-June 8, 1972 (14 days aloft)
Station: Hyperion 1
Transport: CSM Arcturus
Mission/crew: Hyperion 1-3V2/Vance Brand, Don Eisele, Joseph Kerwin

August 10, 1972 - August 11, 1973 (366 days aloft)
Station: Hyperion 1
Transport: CSM Polaris/OSM-2 (up); CSM Olympia/OSM-2 (down)
Mission/crew: Hyperion 1-4R2/Michael Collins, William Gibson, William Pogue

November 1-15, 1972 (14 days aloft)
Station: Hyperion 1
Transport: CSM Yellowstone (up); CSM Polaris (down)
Mission/crew: Hyperion 1-5V3/John Young, Charles Duke, Bruce McCandless

January 23-February 6, 1973 (14 days aloft)
Station: Hyperion 1
Transport: CSM Artemis/OSM-3 (up); CSM Yellowstone (down)
Mission/crew: Hyperion 1-6V4/Richard Gordon, Edwin Aldrin, Don Lind

April 18-May 3, 1973 (15 days aloft)
Station: Hyperion 1
Transport: CSM Olympia (up); CSM Artemis/OSM-3 (down)
Mission/crew: Hyperion 1-7V5/Paul Weitz, Story Musgrave, Owen Garriott

December 1-21, 1973 (21 days aloft)
Station: Hyperion 1
Transport: CSM Friendship
Mission/crew: Hyperion 1-8R3/Russell Schweickart, Donald Slayton, Joseph Kerwin

January 23, 1974 - January 23, 1976 (730 days aloft)
Station: Hyperion 2
Transport: CSM Prometheus (up); CSM Argo (down)
Mission/crew: Hyperion 2-1R1/Vance Brand, Jack Lousma, Don Lind

The Presidential Election of 1976

2012-01-23T09:41:00.000-08:00

As the American electorate went to the polls on the first Tuesday of November 1976, a large fraction would not have known a time when a Democrat was not President. In fact, the only Republican who held office between 1933 and the 1976 poll would have been Dwight Eisenhower (1953-1961). There would have been no Watergate scandal, no Nixon resignation, and no pardon.

Bobby Kennedy would be stepping down, having served two terms, leaving the field wide open. Ted Kennedy would be a contender on the Democratic side, though he would be weighed down by Chappaquiddick, unease over the prospect of a "permanent Kennedy dynasty," and the continued U.S. presence in Southeast Asia. More popular among the Democratic contenders, however, would be Ronald Reagan, California governor between 1971 and 1975, though his switch to the Republican Party in 1962 and back to the Democrats in 1969 would lead many to see him as an opportunist. On the Republican side, Charles Mathias, Howard Baker, and Charles Percy would emerge as the leading candidates.

Ronald Reagan, with Georgia governor James Carter as his running mate, would receive the Democratic nomination. Charles Mathias would win the Republican nomination with Howard Baker. The Presidential poll would be close, but the Mathias-Baker ticket would win the White House.

NASA managers would suspect that neither Reagan nor Mathias would support their programs at the same level as RFK. Most of their attention in 1976 would, however, be devoted to launching Helios 1 on its way. They would take some comfort when new President Mathias attended the Helios 1 crew's launch to Earth orbit on February 14, 1977.

Mathias' first NASA budget would cancel Helios 3, scheduled for launch in May 1981, but would preserve the agency's planned "permanent" 33-foot-diameter Space Station 1, set for launch in mid-1978. Helios 2 would leave Earth orbit as planned in November 1978. After that, however, the way forward for NASA would be less than clear.

Launching Helios 1

2012-01-23T06:42:00.000-08:00

An interplanetary voyage is an extremely complex venture. Crews must be tested, selected, and prepared, machines must be designed, manufactured, and launched, and then all the astronauts and machines must be brought together in Earth orbit for launch toward the target planet or planets during a launch window that would stand open for at most a week.

The Helios 1 Venus-Mars-Venus flyby mission, humankind's first venture into interplanetary space, would be scheduled to depart Earth orbit on or close to February 19, 1977. The launch campaign would, however, begin nearly two months earlier, in late December 1976, with the launch of the Helios 1 spacecraft into low-Earth orbit.

Shortly thereafter, a four-person checkout crew would launch in a CSM (designated Checkout 1) with an OM (OM-9) on an upgraded Saturn IB rocket and dock with the Helios 1 spacecraft. They would activate its systems, work to repair any problems that cropped up after the launch, and exhaustively test as many of its systems as they could. A second CSM/OM would stand by to deliver replacement parts if any beyond the stock launched with Helios 1 and Checkout 1 were needed.

After the six-week shakedown in low-Earth orbit, it would be time (assuming that all was well) to launch the three Saturn S-IVB-derived Helios interplanetary boosters. The boosters would need to be "salvo" launched, docked, and used in rapid succession lest the liquid hydrogen propellant they contained boil and escape. In addition to liquid hydrogen fuel, the Helios boosters would carry liquid oxygen oxidizer.

For a brief time in early February 1977, five uprated Saturn V rockets would stand tall on Launch Complex 39 Pads A, B, C, D, and E. If all went as planned, only three would launch. If a booster failed, then another would stand ready. If the Helios 1 spacecraft itself failed, and the cause could be traced to an immediately correctable flaw, then a backup spacecraft could be launched. The Helios 1 backup would reach its pad first, on January 15, 1977, after which it could be launched within days of a Helios 1 prime spacecraft failure.

If neither the backup booster nor the backup spacecraft were called upon, then they would be rolled back to the cavernous Vehicle Assembly Building for unstacking and storage. The backup Helios 1 spacecraft would become the Helios 2 prime spacecraft, which would be scheduled for launch in November 1978.

The Helios 1 checkout crew would board Checkout 1 and undock as the first interplanetary booster, designated #3, moved toward a docking with the aft end of the Helios 1 spacecraft. The procedure would not be unprecedented. The booster-spacecraft docking would have been tested in February 1976, a year before Helios 1 departure, using the Hyperion 2 station after its final crew departed.

The first piloted CSM of the Helios 1 launch campaign, Monitor, would have stood by as booster A and its detachable Orbital Rendezvous Module (ORM) closed on Hyperion 2. They would have been able call off the docking if trouble developed during the automated rendezvous and docking procedure, or intervened to help to ensure that the docking came off as planned; for example, they could have performed a spacewalk to re-position a stuck rendezvous antenna.

The Hyperion 2/booster A had docked as planned, then ORM-A had separated, revealing booster A's twin uprated J-2A engines. As the stack neared perigee - the lowest point in its orbit about the Earth - booster A ignited its engines. It shut down its Engine 1 early to test contingency single-engine booster operation; then 17 minutes after ignition, precisely on schedule, the booster shut down and separated from Hyperion 2, leaving both booster and space station in a 412-by-12,214-nautical-mile elliptical Earth orbit.

The Helios 1 checkout crew in Checkout 1 would stand by as each booster docked with Helios 1 over a six-day period. Between the second and third interplanetary booster dockings, the Helios 1 flight crew would arrive in CSM Crew 1. They would dock with their home for the next 750 days, enter and perform a cursory checkout, then stand by in Crew 1 as the third interplanetary booster (#1) arrived.

If the unthinkable happened - a crippling collision between booster #1 and the Helios 1 stack - then they could separate and move to safety. If, on the other hand, the final interplanetary booster docking occurred as planned, then they would reenter Helios 1 and hand over control of Crew 1 to the Mission Control Center (MCC). MCC would undock Crew 1 and hold it in reserve at a safe distance. Checkout 1 and its crew would, meanwhile, radio their best wishes to the Helios 1 crew and return to Earth.

At the appointed time on February 19, 1977, booster #1, the last of the three added to the stack, would ignite its twin uprated J-2A engines at perigee. About 20 minutes later, it would shut down, separate, and move away. Booster #2 would then discard its ORM and ignite briefly at apogee, 12,550 nautical miles above the Sahara, to adjust the plane of Helios 1's orbit relative to the ecliptic, the plane of Earth's orbit about the Sun.

Late in the day on February 19, booster #2 would fire at perigee. Because it would be pushing less mass than had booster #1, the crew would feel more acceleration. Booster #2 would shut down, then separate, leaving itself and Helios 1 in a 530-by-145,200-nautical-mile orbit about the Earth.

In the middle of the day on February 21, 1977, 530 nautical miles over the South Pacific Ocean, Helios 1 booster #3 would discard its ORM and ignite to place Helios 1 on course for a close flyby of Venus in July 1977. The Helios 1 crew would discard booster #3, then use the twin RL-10 engines in the CSM-derived Helios Earth-Return Vehicle (HERV) to adjust their course. In addition to placing distance between their spacecraft and booster #3, the maneuver would test the HERV's engines during the brief window for an abort with an Earth-return time of less than a month. At the same time, booster #3, which would be charged with making up any propellant deficit caused by an Earth-orbit departure late in the launch window, would fire its engines until they depleted their propellants to ensure that it would not follow Helios 1 to Venus.

The HERV would be available throughout the two-day Earth-departure. In fact, the crew would remain inside it during each powered maneuver. In the event of a catastrophic failure during booster firing, they would blast away from Helios 1 in the HERV. Until mid-way through the booster #3 burn, the HERV could return the Helios 1 crew to Earth within two weeks of an abort declaration.

Introducing Helios 1

2012-01-21T06:19:00.000-08:00

The Icarus timeline would culminate in at least one and perhaps as many as three Venus-Mars-Venus piloted flyby ("encounter") missions. Four attractive launch windows for Venus-Mars-Venus flyby missions would open in the 1977-1981 timeframe. These are described in some detail here:

http://beyondapollo.blogspot.com/2009/11/triple-planet-manned-flybys-1967.html

The first of these, in February 1977, would be especially attractive from a political standpoint, because it would occur one month after the end of President Robert F. Kennedy's second term in office. Even if the next President in line were hostile to the RFK's Solar System exploration program, it would be unlikely that Helios 1 would be stopped. The Helios 1 spacecraft and its checkout crew would launch into Earth orbit even as the new President was inaugurated.

The Hyperion Earth-orbital missions would test whether a team of astronauts could withstand the rigors of spaceflight for long enough to safely complete an interplanetary odyssey lasting from 720 to 800 days. Beginning in 1976, NASA would also test the machines required to carry out these missions. These would include the S-IVC interplanetary booster, the Helios Earth-Return Vehicle (HERV), and the mission's suite of automated probes.

Testing of the piloted Helios spacecraft design would, of course, occur in the Hyperion series. The Hyperion 1 station, launched in December 1971, would be considered a low-fidelity Helios spacecraft prototype. Hyperion 2, launched in January 1974, would be hopefully billed as a high-fidelity prototype. In practice, Hyperion 1 would have only a passing resemblance to Helios 1, and Hyperion 2 experience would result in many changes to the Helios 1 crew compartments in the final year before its launch to make them more amendable to a five-person interplanetary crew.

Helios 1 would resemble the 1966 NASA Planetary Joint Action Group flyby spacecraft design, though I reserve the right to make changes. This design is described in some detail here:

http://beyondapollo.blogspot.com/2010/03/planetary-jag-manned-mars-flyby-1966.html

An earlier, alternate design with some features I like is described here:

http://beyondapollo.blogspot.com/2011/02/manned-planetary-recon-study-1965.html

More to come.

Manned missions outside the Hyperion/Helios Programs, 1971-1978

2012-01-20T21:28:00.000-08:00

Most NASA manned missions flown in the 1970s were Hyperion Program (1971-1976) missions that supported the three Venus-Mars-Venus missions of the Helios Program (1977-1983). Most - but not all.

July 15-22, 1971 (7 days aloft)
Transport: CSM Pulsar
Mission/crew: GEO-A/TBD
First in series of Saturn V-launched geosynchronous orbit (GEO) missions focused mainly on observation and communications technology development and high-Earth-orbit environment studies; GEO-B, -C, -D, -E, and -G included Department of Defense participation

November 4-25, 1971 (21 days aloft)
Transport: CSM Nautilus/OM-5
Mission/crew: GEO-B/TBD

September 2-30, 1973 (28 days aloft)
Transport: CSM Enterprise/OM-6
Mission/crew: GEO-C/TBD

September 5-October 2, 1974 (28 days aloft)
Transport: CSM Valhalla/OM-7
Mission/crew: GEO-D/TBD

March 5-April 12, 1975 (28 days aloft)
Transport: CSM Canopus/OM-8
Mission/crew: GEO-E/TBD

July 1-14, 1976 (14 days aloft)
Transport: CSM Independence
Mission/crew: Destination Mankind Mission (GEO-F)/TBD
See Destination Mankind (1972)

September 9-17, 1977 (8 days aloft)
Transport: CSM Condor
Mission/crew: Hyperion 1 Controlled Deorbit/TBD
Crew performed spacewalks to test new EVA equipment and retrieve space exposure samples but did not enter Hyperion 1 station; deorbited Hyperion 1 over Pacific Ocean at end of mission

April 5-30, 1978 (25 days aloft)
Transport: CSM Draco/OM-10
Mission/crew: GEO-G/TBD
Satellite servicing mission in GEO; demonstrated satellite intercept and inspection capability, first operational use of new EVA equipment

Complete Hyperion 2 launch list

2012-01-20T17:15:00.000-08:00

January 23, 1974 - January 23, 1976 (730 days aloft)
Station: Hyperion 2
Transport: CSM Prometheus (up); CSM Argo (down)
Mission/crew: Hyperion 2-1R1/TBD
Long-duration crew on board high-fidelity prototype Venus-Mars-Venus spacecraft

April 25-29, 1974 (4 days aloft)
Station: Hyperion 2
Transport: CSM Altair/OSM-4 (up); CSM Prometheus (down)
Mission/crew: Hyperion 2-2V1/TBD
CSM replacement & biomedical sample return

July 25-August 1, 1974 (7 days aloft)
Station: Hyperion 2
Transport: CSM Oracle (up); CSM Altair (down)
Mission/crew: Hyperion 2-3V2/TBD
CSM replacement, biomedical sample return, and doctor visit

October 20-25, 1974 (5 days aloft)
Station: Hyperion 2
Transport: CSM Adventure (up); CSM Oracle (down)
Mission/crew: Hyperion 2-4V3/TBD
CSM replacement and biomedical sample return

January 12-23, 1975 (11 days aloft)
Station: Hyperion 2
Transport: CSM Endurance (up)/CSM Adventure (down)
Mission/crew: Hyperion 2-5V4/TBD
First 180-day CSM; CSM replacement, Earth observation, biomedical sample return, doctor visit

July 12-22, 1975 (10 days aloft)
Station: Hyperion 2
Transport: CSM Argo (up)/CSM Endurance (down)
Mission/crew: Hyperion 2-6V5/TBD
Second 180-day CSM; CSM replacement, Earth observation, biomedical sample return, doctor visit

January 11-27, 1976 (16 days aloft)
Station: Hyperion 2
Transport: CSM Galaxy
Mission/crew: Hyperion 2-7V6/TBD
doctor visit, biomedical sample return, failed equipment return, long-duration crew assistance

Hyperion 2 visits

2012-01-20T06:09:00.000-08:00

The 730-day flight on board Hyperion 2 would be intended as a high-fidelity simulation of the February 1977 Venus-Mars-Venus flyby mission. Originally I planned that the crew would receive no visitors or resupply, just as if they were flying between worlds.

However, now I'm looking at flying Visitor missions. Two reasons: it seems to me a good idea to send up an MD periodically to check out the crew, and the five-man crew would generate a lot of biomedical samples, which would need to be picked up every few months and returned to Earth.

The Hyperion 2 Visitor missions that would include a doctor would include three people, not just two, as I wrote yesterday. The two-person missions would return more samples. I expect that they'd alternate between sample retrieval (two-man) and medical exam (three-man) flights. In general, interaction between the visiting and long-duration resident crews would be minimized and, except for an initial supply delivery, no supplies would be delivered.

The one exception would occur midway through the flight, when a CSM would deliver a suite of ersatz Mars samples for the crew to analyze. This would simulate the operation of the Mars Surface Sample Returner planned for the VMV flyby missions.

During Hyperion 2, NASA would test CSM lifetime extensions and reentry at interplanetary speeds. Most of those tests would not include crews.

Another launch list (manned missions only)

2012-01-19T12:47:00.000-08:00

Here's a list of launches. Project Icarus occurs as in the January 16 timeline, which uses verbatim the dates in MIT's 1968 Project Icarus report. No need to repeat those. The rest of this is new; the schedule is based on a planned February 1977 launch for the Helios 1 Venus-Mars-Venus flyby mission, not the November 1978 launch window, as was used previously.

The Hyperion A, B, and C stations are made up of one or two Orbital Modules (OMs). Each OM is launched on a Saturn IB with a CSM bearing a three-person crew. Hyperion A and B each comprise one OM and Hyperion C comprises two.

Hyperion 1 is a relatively low-fidelity prototype of the planned Helios flyby spacecraft design; Hyperion 2 is a high-fidelity prototype. Both Hyperion 1 and 2 measure 22 feet in diameter and are launched on two-stage Saturn V rockets. At launch, they would each look a lot like Skylab did in our timeline (image above).

Hyperion 1 Resident crews include three astronauts, as do Hyperion 1 Visitor crews. Hyperion 2's single Resident crew includes five astronauts, and all its Visitor crews except its last have two astronauts. Its last Visitor crew has three.

Hyperion 1 and 2 are resupplied by CSMs with modified OMs called Orbital Supply Modules (OSMs). Each CSM/OSM combination reaches space on a Saturn IB rocket with twin liquid-propellant strap-on boosters and an uprated J-2A engine in its S-IVB second stage.

February 19 - March 12, 1971 (21 days aloft)
Station: Hyperion A (Orbital Module-1)
Transport: CSM Liberty/Orbital Module (OM)-1
Mission/Crew: Hyperion A-1/Virgil Grissom, Donn Eisele, Roger Chaffee

April 25-June 6, 1971 (42 days aloft)
Station: Hyperion B (OM-2)
Transport: CSM Horizon/OM-2
Mission/Crew: Hyperion B-1 Resident (R) 1/TBD

May 8-20, 1971 (12 days aloft)
Station: Hyperion B (OM-2)
Transport: CSM Aurora
Mission/Crew: Hyperion B-2 Visitor (V) 1/TBD

August 10-November 3, 1971 (84 days aloft)
Station: Hyperion C (OM-3)
Transport: CSM Shenandoah/OM-3 (up); CSM Shenandoah/OM-3/OM-4 (down)
Mission/Crew: Hyperion C-1R1/TBD

September 2-11, 1971 (9 days aloft)
Station: Hyperion C (OM-3)
Transport: CSM Eagle/OM-4 (up); CSM Eagle (down)
Mission/Crew: Hyperion C-2V1/TBD

October 3-11, 1971 (8 days aloft)
Station: Hyperion C (OM-3/OM-4)
Transport: CSM Electra
Mission/Crew: Hyperion C-3V2/TBD

December 4, 1971 - July 21, 1972 (168 days aloft)
Station: Hyperion 1
Transport: CSM Ocean (up); CSM Yosemite/OSM-1 (down)
Mission/Crew: Hyperion 1-1R1/TBD

February 25-March 11, 1972 (14 days aloft)
Station: Hyperion 1
Transport: CSM Yosemite/OSM-1 (up); CSM Ocean (down)
Mission/crew: Hyperion 1-2V1/TBD

May 25-June 8, 1972 (14 days aloft)
Station: Hyperion 1
Transport: CSM Arcturus
Mission/crew: Hyperion 1-3V2/TBD

August 10, 1972 - August 11, 1973 (366 days aloft)
Station: Hyperion 1
Transport: CSM Polaris/OSM-2 (up); CSM Olympia/OSM-2 (down)
Mission/crew: Hyperion 1-4R2/TBD

November 1-15, 1972 (14 days aloft)
Station: Hyperion 1
Transport: CSM Yellowstone (up); CSM Polaris (down)
Mission/crew: Hyperion 1-5V3/TBD

January 23-February 6, 1973 (14 days aloft)
Station: Hyperion 1
Transport: CSM Artemis/OSM-3 (up); CSM Yellowstone (down)
Mission/crew: Hyperion 1-6V4/TBD

April 18-May 3, 1973 (15 days aloft)
Station: Hyperion 1
Transport: CSM Olympia (up); CSM Artemis/OSM-3 (down)
Mission/crew: Hyperion 1-7V5/TBD

December 1-21, 1973 (21 days aloft)
Station: Hyperion 1
Transport: CSM Friendship
Mission/crew: Hyperion 1-8R3/TBD

January 23, 1974 - January 23, 1976 (730 days aloft)
Station: Hyperion 2
Transport: CSM Prometheus (up); CSM Argo (down)
Mission/crew: Hyperion 2-1R1/TBD

April 25-May 7, 1974 (13 days aloft)
Station: Hyperion 2
Transport: CSM Altair/OSM-4 (up); CSM Prometheus (down)
Mission/crew: Hyperion 2-2V1/TBD

Looks to me like we're on schedule for an on-time Helios 1 Earth-orbital launch in February 1977, just one month after RFK leaves office, assuming that the five-person Hyperion 2-1R1 crew makes it through its marathon 730-day stay in Earth orbit - and that nothing else goes wrong. More to come.

A work in progress

2012-01-19T05:49:00.001-08:00

Creating a world can be a messy process: just look at the early history of our Solar System. Never mind that, though, because I'm talking about creating a fictional world. Creating one in public, online, in real-time, is a little daunting. People begin to get confused as they begin to witness major changes in the timeline. If they don't understand that this is a work in progress, they might begin to see the writer as incompetent, unable to keep track of his own story.

I won't address here whether I'm competent or not - that could become humbling very fast - but please bear in mind that this is a work in progress. Names, dates, engineering approaches, and everything else are subject to change, and then it might all change back.

For example, I'm looking again at the Orbital Module (OM) concept (image above). For an overview of the OM, please see Imagining another Apollo (part 3). My thought here is that NASA would want to get off the mark fast, so it would favor a simple early space station design, and that it would not want to convert S-IVB rocket stages to Skylab-type Orbital Workshops, because it would need those S-IVB rocket stages to launch things.

The OM would have a simple design; as shown above, it would be a cylinder with two independent pressurized compartments. It would ride within the Saturn Launch Adapter (SLA) between the top of the Saturn IB S-IVB stage and the CSM Service Propulsion System (SPS) engine bell.

The OM would include Apollo drogue docking units at both ends and a pressure hatch between the two compartments. Following arrival in Earth orbit, the crew of the CSM would separate their spacecraft from the SLA, which would fold back against the sides of the S-IVB stage, revealing the OM. They would then turn the CSM end for end and dock with the top/front port on the OM. After hard dock was confirmed, they would ignite explosive connectors linking the OM to the top of the S-IVB and pull it away.

The OM would serve three distinct purposes in the Hyperion space station program. First, it would serve as a small space station. Second, it would serve as a resupply module. Third, it would serve as an experiment module.

The first OM space station, designated Hyperion-A, would reach Earth orbit in mid-1971. Its crew (Gus Grissom, Donn Eisele, and Roger Chaffee) would live on board Hyperion-A and their attached CSM (designated Liberty) for 21 days. NASA's shorthand designation for their mission would be HA-1. They would then deorbit Hyperion-A at the same time they returned to Earth in Liberty's Command Module. Assuming that they suffered no medical problems during or immediately after their three-week stay in space, Hyperion-B would follow soon after.

The Hyperion-B/CSM Horizon/HB-1R (Resident) crew would remain aloft for 42 days/six weeks. Halfway through their stay, the CSM Aurora/HB-2V (Visitor) crew would arrive at Hyperion-B's aft port to drop off supplies and pick up experiment products, such as film. After one week in space, they would undock from Hyperion-B and return to Earth. The HB-1R crew would deorbit Hyperion-B when they returned to Earth.

Hyperion-C/CSM Shenandoah/HC-1R would remain aloft for 84 days/12 weeks, near the maximum endurance of the Block III CSM. Twenty-four days into their stay, CSM Eagle would arrive with the HC-2V crew and a second OM, which it would attach to the Hyperion-C aft port. The second OM would include supplies and extra living space. After a week, Eagle would undock and return to Earth.

56 days after launch, the CSM Electra/HC-3V crew would arrive without an OM. They would drop off spare parts and return experiment results to Earth. Four weeks later, CSM Shenandoah would deorbit Hyperion-C as it returned to Earth.

With the return of the HC-1R crew, NASA would be ready to launch its first 22-foot-diameter single-launch station on a two-stage Saturn V. The Hyperion-1 station would be a prototype for the piloted flyby spacecraft NASA would launch from Earth orbit toward Venus and Mars in the late 1970s.

The first Hyperion-1 Resident crew (H1-1R) would arrive on board CSM Ocean for a 168-day stay. The first Hyperion-1 Visitor crew (H1-2V) would arrive 84 days into the mission on board CSM Yosemite. They would deliver the first OM Supply Module (OMSM-1), then would undock in CSM Ocean, leaving behind OMSM-1 and CSM Yosemite for the H1-1R crew. As the H1-1R mission drew to a close 84 days later, the H1-1R crew would undock in CSM Yosemite with OMSM-1 attached. They would deorbit the spent OMSM as they returned to Earth.

More to come.

What to call it?

2012-01-18T15:09:00.001-08:00

The space program I describe in this alternate history uses Apollo hardware, but it isn't Apollo as we know it. In late 1966, the Johnson Administration directs NASA to stop the dead comet Icarus from smashing into the Earth on June 19, 1968. The space agency, its contractors, and the Department of Defense divert Apollo to the task. Apollo 1 is canceled, so Grissom, White, and Chaffee do not burn.

NASA's deflection plan uses seven Saturn V rockets, six Command Modules, nine Service Modules, and six 45-megaton nuclear warheads. Four of the six nukes reach their targets and explode as planned. After the second blast, Icarus breaks into two major pieces, exposing deeply buried fresh ice that gives each fragment a short but obvious tail. On June 19, 1968, both fragments miss the Earth.

Project Icarus, as the deflection effort is named, leaves Project Apollo in tatters. There's no hope of reaching the moon by 1970, and the fact that the Soviet Union could not help deflect Icarus reveals that it is incapable of launching a man to the moon. In any case, respect for U.S. technological prestige soars after NASA deflects the menace from space; a mere moon-landing would be an anti-climax.

So, we have Project Apollo, which dies stillborn, then Project Icarus, which saves the world. Then President Robert F. Kennedy, victor in the November 1968 poll, directs NASA to prepare itself for manned exploration missions beyond the moon. The goal: to seek out new threats and find opportunities for the U.S. in space.

What to call this new project?

NASA and contractor engineers would mine Apollo hardware in much the same way that they would have if the Apollo Applications Program had flown in its original 1966 form. In our timeline, some within NASA hoped that Apollo Applications would culminate in a series of piloted Mars and Venus flyby missions. Congress swatted them down hard in August 1967, and the piloted flyby concept all but disappeared from NASA's corporate memory.

In this alternate timeline, long-duration flights on board Earth-orbiting space stations would lead toward and culminate in as many as three Venus-Mars-Venus manned flyby missions. The mission or missions could depart Earth orbit during any of three available launch windows: February 1977, November 1978, or May 1981. Manned planetary flyby missions could serve as incremental precursors for eventual manned Mars and Venus orbital and Mars landing missions.

So, this would really be two projects: the preparatory project in Earth orbit and the flyby mission or missions, which would themselves prepare NASA for planetary orbital and landing missions. So, we need two project names.

Any suggestions?

An American Progress?

2012-01-17T14:51:00.000-08:00

In the Icarus timeline, NASA would hurriedly modify six Apollo Command and Service Modules (CSMs) to turn them into Icarus Interceptors. The drum-shaped Service Module (SM) would undergo only modest changes; the most obvious would be replacement of fuel cells with a single solar array and batteries. A cylindrical Payload Module (PM) based on SM structure would be bolted to the SM's front to contain the nuclear warhead, and a stripped-down Command Module (CM) bolted to the front of the PM would house guidance systems and proximity sensors. The latter would trigger the warhead 550 feet from the mile-wide dead comet Icarus. It would explode less than a second later at a distance of between 50 and 100 feet.

The Interceptor CM would include neither crew systems (couches, life support, storage compartments, windows, control consoles, lights, air-tight hatch) nor recovery systems (parachutes, heat shield, reentry batteries, reaction control thrusters) because it would carry no crew and would be destined to be vaporized when the nuke in the PM exploded. It would also lack the external severable umbilical connection that linked the Apollo CM to the Apollo SM; all necessary connections between the Icarus CM and SM would run through conduits offset from the PM's interior walls.

After Icarus missed Earth on June 19, 1968, NASA drifted for a time. Apollo lay in ruins, having been gutted to carry out Project Icarus, yet the agency and the United States were the toast of the planet. President Lyndon Baines Johnson announced that he would not run for reelection, then declined to put NASA back on course for the moon; he believed that that decision was one for the next President to make.

The next President was Robert F. Kennedy. In his Inaugural Address on January 20, 1969, he took the unusual step - Inaugural speeches seldom mention specific policies - of declaring a new future for NASA. The civilian space agency, he announced, would explore space to seek out new threats and identify new opportunities.

RFK neither named a target world nor set a timetable, causing some to complain. His first NASA budget put to bed many concerns, however. It saw an increase in Fiscal Year (FY) 1970 to $5.671 billion, a jump of nearly $2 billion over FY 1969. More than $350 million went toward planning NASA's new course, an unheard-of sum for advance planning. The budget passed Congress with only token opposition.

As for a timetable, RFK's response to a reporter at a press conference on March 2, 1969, supplied an answer:

In 18 months, NASA went from building toward the moon to saving us from the greatest destructive threat in human history. I don't expect the space agency to continue at that killing pace. I would, however, say this: I can only be reelected once.

In a rare show of unity, by October 1969 the NASA centers rallied around a series of Earth-orbital space stations as their first post-Icarus goal. The stations would be used to conduct research with application to Earth problems; they would, however, have as their overarching purpose to prepare astronauts and astronaut-support systems for long-duration expeditions beyond cislunar space. The agency awarded its first Space Station Program contracts in October 1970.

Critical to the Space Station Program would be reliable delivery of equipment for station outfitting and supplies for maintaining crews. NASA engineers quickly realized that they had available a vehicle that they could adapt to the task of station resupply: the automated Icarus Interceptor.

The Interceptor would, of course, need to undergo many modifications before it could become a space station logistics vehicle. It became a two-module spacecraft again; NASA engineers opted to scrap the CM shell and move CM systems into the PM and SM. They stretched the PM so that it was nearly the same length as the SM. Then they installed pressure vessels - tanks for water, oxygen, and nitrogen, plus a central cylindrical pressurized cargo compartment, 16 feet long and seven feet in diameter. An Apollo-type probe docking unit led through a short tunnel into the pressurized compartment.

The engineers then mined the defunct Lunar Module (LM) program for a new main engine. They already had in mind to place two LM Descent Stage (LMDS) engines on the CSM-derived Earth-Return Vehicle (ERV), the spacecraft that would transport between four and six astronauts through Earth's atmosphere at the end of interplanetary voyages; using one such engine on upwards of 20 expendable Freighters would permit exhaustive testing.

Engineers then took a radical step: they flipped the Freighter, as the vehicle became known, so that on the launch pad the SM's aft end faced upwards. A simple conical shroud would cover the Freighter's LMDS engine during ascent through the thick layers of Earth's atmosphere, and firing the engine the first time would trigger explosive connectors that would blast away the shroud.

Engineers elected to flip the Frieghter because doing so would place the PM inside the streamlined four-segment Saturn Launch Adapter (SLA). The SLA linked the top of the Saturn IB rocket's S-IVB second stage to what had been the front of the SM. Safely tucked away inside the SLA, the PM could lose much of its skin, freeing up mass for cargo. The move also meant that the Freighter could enter space with its docking unit, cameras, targets, and antennas already positioned for docking. They would not need to be folded to fit within a tight-fitting nose shroud. This would, it was hoped, help to increase the docking system's reliability.

The first Freighter reached orbit in November 1971 after 13 months of development. It performed simulated docking maneuvers, operated its water pump and gas valves under ground control, and then, before its batteries ran out, deorbited over the Pacific.

The first "operational" Freighter docked with Space Station-A, the "wet workshop," in late April 1972, shortly before the station's first crew arrived. It carried ballast in place of gases and water, but it did carry experiment apparatus and fresh food. F-1, as it was known, undocked and deorbited early after developing thermal control system leaks.

The Freighters flew bimonthly without incident during the career of Space Station-B (1973-1975). The last baseline Freighter, F-19, docked with Space Station-B in February 1975, shortly before the end of the 365-day Endurance mission, and was deorbited with the derelict station in July 1979.

Imagining another Apollo (part 5)

2012-01-16T08:21:00.001-08:00

This is a new installment in my recent series of alternate history speculations. In our timeline, the asteroid Icarus passed about four million miles from Earth on June 19, 1968. In this alternate timeline, which is based on MIT's Project Icarus Report (see link below), Icarus was found to be on a collision course with Earth, with impact due on June 19, 1968. Despite long odds, the U.S. opted to abandon the moon and use Project Apollo hardware to attempt to deflect the menace from space. The gamble paid off, and U.S. prestige soared worldwide.

There was some question, however, about whether U.S. piloted spaceflight should continue. Some argued that lack of Soviet participation in the Icarus deflection effort had demonstrated that they lacked the ability to launch a man to the moon. NASA, they contended, had been racing a phantom, making the entire space program a national embarrassment and a foolish waste of money. Others argued that the Icarus deflection effort had demonstrated the efficacy of automated spacecraft. Space exploration, they argued, should continue, but without astronauts.

In our timeline, Robert Kennedy was assassinated in Los Angeles on June 6, 1968. Changes in his campaign schedule indirectly related to Icarus meant that he lived to be elected President in November 1968. He used his Inaugural Address in January 1969 to put NASA back on course. Standing at the podium on the Capitol steps, Kennedy told his audience that

We have lived in the shadow of Icarus for more than half a decade. First we learned of the threat, then we took on the responsibility of ending that threat; then, following our success, we asked ourselves whether we should resume the exploration of space. I will now answer that question: while I am President, we will explore beyond Earth. Our Solar System might contain new threats to humanity, as well as new opportunities, and we must explore it if we are to discover them.

To those who would say that robots can and should perform all space exploration, I say this: robot explorers are essential for the exploration of space, and one day might be capable of replacing or even out-performing scientist-astronauts. But that day has not yet dawned.

Below is a list of Saturn rocket launches between 1967 and 1975 from this alternate timeline. The missions and design approaches described (or implied) all have their basis in real NASA plans (see links below). In particular, please note the single-launch space stations dedicated to providing NASA with long-duration space experience ahead of its planned Venus-Mars-Venus piloted flyby mission, scheduled to begin in late 1977.

Saturn-Icarus 0
November 9, 1967 - January 11, 1968
Launch vehicle: SA-501
Spacecraft: Test Article-01
Successful first unmanned test of Saturn V rocket; dummy payload launched onto interplanetary trajectory and tracked for two months

Saturn-Icarus 1/Interceptor 1
April 7 - 11, 1968
Launch vehicle: SA-502
Spacecraft: CSM-017-I
Pogo damaged S-IVB third stage, preventing restart and LEO departure; Interceptor 1 deorbited over Southern Indian Ocean

Saturn-Icarus 2/Interceptor 2
April 22 - June 9, 1968
Launch vehicle: SA-503
Spacecraft: CSM-101-I
100-megaton nuclear warhead exploded as planned 75 feet from Icarus, 15.5 million miles from Earth

Saturn-Icarus 3/Interceptor 3
May 6 - June 12, 1968
Launch vehicle: SA-504
Spacecraft: CSM-103-I
First launch from Pad 39C; Interceptor 3 warhead exploded 150 feet from Icarus, 11 million miles from Earth

Saturn-Icarus 4/Interceptor 4
May 17 - June 14, 1968
Launch vehicle: SA-505
Spacecraft: CSM-104-I
Interceptor 4 collided with Icarus fragment A 7.7 million miles from Earth; warhead did not explode

Saturn-Icarus 5/Interceptor 5
June 14 - 19, 1968
Launch vehicle: SA-506
Spacecraft: CSM-106-I
Interceptor 5 warhead exploded 100 feet from Icarus fragment B, 1.4 million miles from Earth

Saturn-Icarus 6/Interceptor 6
June 14 - 19, 1968
Launch vehicle: SA-507
Spacecraft: CSM-107-I
Interceptor 6 warhead exploded 50 feet from Icarus fragment A 1.25 million miles from Earth; last three-stage Saturn V

Space Station Test Flight 1
January 23 - April 30, 1971 (99 days in space)
Crew: none
Callsign: none
Launch vehicle: SA-205
Spacecraft: CSM-108
Unmanned endurance test of first Block III CSM in LEO; docked with CSM-109

Space Station Test Flight 2
February 19, 1972 - March 12, 1972 (21 days in space)
Crew: Virgil Grissom, Donn Eisele, Roger Chaffee
Callsign: Liberty
Launch vehicle: SA-206
Spacecraft: CSM-109
Manned test of Block III CSM in LEO; docked with CSM-108

Space Station A
April 2, 1972
Launch vehicle: SA-207
First 22-foot-diameter Space Station

Space Station A-1
May 27, 1972 - June 24, 1972 (28 days in space)
Crew:
Callsign: Horizon
Launch vehicle: SA-208
Spacecraft: CSM-110

Space Station A-2
July 25, 1972 - September 20, 1972 (56 days in space)
Crew:
Callsign: Aurora
Launch vehicle: SA-209
Spacecraft: CSM-111

Space Station A-3
October 31, 1972 - January 23, 1973 (85 days in space)
Crew:
Callsign: Polaris
Launch vehicle: SA-210
Spacecraft: CSM-112

Space Station B
April 19, 1973
Launch vehicle: SA-509
Second 22-foot-diameter Space Station

Space Station B-1
SS-B Resident-1
April 20-August 20, 1973 (121 days in space)
Crew:
Callsign: Pioneer
Launch vehicle: SA-210
Spacecraft: CSM-113 (up), CSM-114 (down)

Space Station B-2
SS-B Visitor-1
June 25-July 5, 1973 (10 days in space)
Crew:
Callsign: Explorer
Launch vehicle: SA-211
Spacecraft: CSM-114 (up), CSM-113 (down)

Space Station B-3
SS-B Resident-2
August 11, 1973-March 15, 1974 (216 days in space)
Crew:
Callsign: Orion
Launch vehicle: SA-212
Spacecraft: CSM-115 (up), CSM-120 (down)

Space Station Test Flight-3
August 25-26, 1973 (2 days in space)
Crew: none
Callsign: none
Launch vehicle: SA-301
Spacecraft: Test Article-02
Unmanned test of Saturn-IC launch vehicle

Space Station B-4
SS-B Visitor 2
September 14-24, 1973 (10 days in space)
Crew:
Callsign: Argo
Launch vehicle: SA-213
Spacecraft: CSM-116/Supply Module-1 (up)/CSM-116 (down)
First Supply Module

Manned Planetary Flyby Test Flight-1
October 16, 1973-October 15, 1975 (729 days in space)
Crew: none
Callsign: none
Launch vehicle: SA-302
Spacecraft: CSM-117
Unmanned endurance test of Block IV (Manned Planetary Flyby Earth Return Vehicle) CSM

Space Station B-5
SS-B Visitor-3
November 15-25, 1973 (10 days in space)
Crew:
Callsign: Eagle
Launch vehicle: SA-214
Spacecraft: CSM-118 (up), CSM-115 (down)

Space Station B-6
SS-B Visitor-4
January 11-21, 1974 (10 days in space)
Crew:
Callsign: Altair
Launch vehicle: SA-215
Spacecraft: CSM-119 (up), CSM-119/Supply Module-1 (down)
CSM-119 deorbited Supply Module-1, which burned up in the atmosphere

Space Station B-7
SS-B Visitor-5
February 1-10, 1974 (10 days in space)
Crew:
Callsign: Arcturus
Launch Vehicle: SA-216
Spacecraft: CSM-120 (up), CSM-118 (down)

Space Station B-8
SS-B Resident-3
March 9, 1974-March 9, 1975 (365 days in space)
Crew:
Callsign: Endurance
Launch vehicle: SA-217
Spacecraft: CSM-121 (up), CSM-124 (down)

Space Station B-9
SS-B Visitor-6
June 3-13, 1974 (10 days in space)
Crew:
Callsign: Friendship
Launch vehicle: SA-218
Spacecraft: CSM-122 (up), CSM-121 (down)

Space Station B-10
SS-B Visitor-7
September 12-22, 1974 (10 days in space)
Crew:
Callsign: Mariner
Launch Vehicle: SA-303
Spacecraft: CSM-123/Supply Module-2 (up), CSM-122 (down)

Space Station B-11
SS-B Visitor-8
December 16-26, 1974 (10 days in space)
Crew:
Callsign: Enterprise
Launch Vehicle: SA-219
Spacecraft: CSM-124 (up), CSM-123 (down)

Space Station B-12/Space Station A-4
SS-B Visitor-9/SS-A Resident 4
March 3-28, 1975 (25 days in space)
Crew:
Callsign: Constellation
Launch vehicle: SA-220
Spacecraft: CSM-125 (up), CSM-125/Space Station-A (down)
Assisted Endurance crew with preparations for return to Earth; mothballed SS-B, then moved to SS-A to assess its condition, collect space-exposure panels, and deorbit it

More to come.

References

http://beyondapollo.blogspot.com/2011/12/project-icarus-1967.html

http://beyondapollo.blogspot.com/2011/11/mcdonnell-douglas-phase-b-12-man-space.html

http://beyondapollo.blogspot.com/2011/06/modap-1963.html

http://beyondapollo.blogspot.com/2010/03/planetary-jag-manned-mars-flyby-1966.html

http://beyondapollo.blogspot.com/2010/03/venus-exploration-by-manned-flyby-1967.html

http://beyondapollo.blogspot.com/2009/11/things-to-do-during-manned.html

http://beyondapollo.blogspot.com/2009/11/triple-planet-manned-flybys-1967.html

http://beyondapollo.blogspot.com/2009/11/dual-planet-manned-flybys-1967.html

http://beyondapollo.blogspot.com/2009/10/elliptical-versus-circular-1967.html

Imagining another Apollo (part 4)

2012-01-16T08:18:00.000-08:00

In the alternate timeline I have developed over my last three "Imagining another Apollo" posts, the Soviet Union would announce in 1977, the 60th anniversary of the October Revolution and the 20th anniversary of Sputnik 1, that it intended to launch humans to Mars by 1992. President Nelson Rockefeller would shrug off this new Soviet plan; the Russians had, after all, never landed a man on the moon, and had not successfully launched a Saturn V-class rocket until 1976.

On May Day in 1980, the Soviets would use their G-class rocket to launch a space station only a little smaller than the U.S. Apollo Space Base (ASB) space station. The Soviet station would amount to a prototype Mars spacecraft without propulsion systems, and would be intended for long-duration mission simulations.

By then, Rockefeller would have died in office, the victim of a fatal heart attack in 1979, and his Vice President, Gerald Ford, would have succeeded him. Ford, who would win the Republican nomination and the 1980 election, would also play down the new Soviet space station.

Following Ford's assassination in April 1983, Vice President Howard Baker would succeed him. In June 1983, Baker would order a sweeping reassessment of NASA goals ahead of the projected end of K-class Apollo Lunar Exploration (ALE) missions in mid-1984 and ASB missions in early 1986. Six months later, in January 1984, Baker would accept the recommendations of his carefully selected review panel. Chief among these would be that NASA should drop its long-held plans to use lunar resources to build a total of 60 $100-billion Solar Power Satellites (SPSs) in geostationary orbit. Instead, the panel advised, NASA should aim for Mars.

Baker would announce during his 1984 State of the Union address that ALE missions would conclude as scheduled, but would not be followed by a lunar mining base. NASA would extend the operational life of the ASB with the aim of completing a two-year Mars voyage simulation on board by the end of 1987, not replace it with a SPS manufacturing station in geostationary orbit.

The Mars simulation, which would be intended to ensure that astronauts could remain healthy for the duration of a Mars voyage, would include a 60-day stay on the moon by three astronauts on board a modified piloted Mars lander. The 60-day stay in 1/6 gee would be meant to simulate the effects of a 30-day stay on Mars in 1/3 gee.

In 1988, NASA would launch an 18-month piloted Mars/Venus flyby mission. In 1990, a piloted Mars orbiter would rendezvous with the martian moon Phobos and, using teleoperated rovers and sample returners pre-deployed on Mars's surface, would collect rock and soil samples for analysis on board the Mars orbiter and in Earth laboratories. If no pathogens were found in the samples, then the first U.S. Mars landing mission would depart Earth in 1992, in time for the 500th anniversary of Columbus, and just before the end of Baker's second elected term in office.

Baker's radical change in NASA's course would have its critics; some, for example, would lament that he wanted to abandon the moon even as it had shown itself to be an excellent source of raw materials for large space construction projects. Others would call Baker short-sighted for not replacing the ASB. Still others would accuse him of trying to start a "race to Mars" akin to the Cold War moon race.

Baker would argue that large space construction projects such as the SPS program would require space operations experience that NASA, despite 15 years of moon landings, still lacked. He would tell the nation that, by performing lunar and space station missions for more than a decade, NASA had become complacent. It had also lost much of its old luster, leading a generation of young engineers to choose jobs not in the space field, but rather in new high-tech industries which, ironically, NASA's investment in technology had helped to create.

Baker would declare that only by aiming for a challenging new destination could NASA generate new enthusiasm, drive space technology forward, and adequately prepare itself for ambitious long-range space goals. The President would also point to Phobos as an alternate (and possibly cheaper) source of propellants and space construction materials.

In truth, Baker's decision to redirect NASA toward Mars would be based on cost considerations. While Rockefeller had enthusiastically supported the ALE and ASB programs intended to lead to the SPS project, Baker would balk at the 30-year SPS construction program's projected $6-trillion cost.

A Mars program including ASB upgrades, robotic precursor missions, the ASB/lunar sim, the piloted flyby, the piloted Phobos rendezvous/Mars sample return mission, and three piloted Mars landings would, by contrast, cost at most $400 billion by 2005, when the third Mars mission crew would return to Earth after a 450-day stay on Mars. This cost would remain in line with historic NASA funding levels; it would not require a rapid ramp-up to ten times the previous average annual NASA budget.

Aggressive lobbying, Baker's bipartisan popularity, and public enthusiasm for a new race with the Russians would ensure approval of Fiscal Year 1984 new-start funding for the Mars program. Following Baker's election in November 1984 and the January 1985 decision to reject nuclear-thermal propulsion on grounds of safety and cost, Mars mission hardware development would move ahead in earnest. The Mars program would mine Apollo and the Apollo-derived ALE and ASB for technology; NASA would, for example, upgrade the Apollo Command and Service Module to serve as a six-person Mars mission Earth-reentry vehicle.

Imagining another Apollo (part 3)

2012-01-16T08:16:00.001-08:00

Here are a few of the "guiding principles" I have established for my developing alternate history of U.S. human spaceflight. Beginning in 1971 and lasting into 1979, NASA would buy eight Command and Service Modules (CSMs) per calendar year, which translates to eight manned Apollo missions per calendar year because all Apollos would need a CSM. The space agency would also buy four Operations Modules (OMs) and two LMs. This would add up to just over 60 missions over eight years. Of these, a little less than two-thirds would remain in low-Earth or geosynchronous orbit and a little more than one-third would explore the moon.

NASA would buy either two or three Saturn Vs and five or six Saturn ICs in a calendar year. Saturn IBs left over from the original Apollo Program buy would fly at a rate of about one per year between 1970 and 1975.

These Apollo spacecraft and Saturn rockets would support Apollo Earth Orbit (AEO), Apollo Lunar Exploration (ALE), and Apollo Geosynchronous Orbit (AGO) missions. A Saturn V could launch a CSM/LM combination to the lunar surface, a CSM/OM combination to lunar orbit, or a CSM/OM combination to geosynchronous Earth orbit. A Saturn IB could launch a CSM to low-inclination or high-inclination low-Earth orbit. A Saturn IC could launch a CSM/OM combination to low-inclination or high-inclination low-Earth orbit.

A CSM/OM could support a crew of three in Earth orbit for 45 days. In that period of time, the crew would accumulate data in the form of exposed film, paper notes, magnetic tape, and samples. If data collection proceeded at its highest feasible rate, then a CSM with a three-man crew could return to Earth a 25-day supply of data. A CSM would thus need to visit midway through a 45-day mission to take away data. The visiting CSM could also deliver fresh food, clothing, mail, and other supplies for the resident crew.

A 90-day AEO mission would occur as follows: a CSM/OM combination would launch into Earth orbit. Twenty-five days into the mission, a CSM would arrive to drop off supplies and take away data. A partial crew change would be possible at that point; for example, if a crew member had become ill.

Forty-five days into the mission, a CSM/OM would arrive and dock. After two or three days in space, its crew would undock in the CSM that launched the first crew and return to Earth, leaving the fresh CSM/OM docked with the old OM. Twenty-five days later, another CSM would arrive to take away data (and carry out a partial crew exchange, if necessary).

As they approached 90 days in space, the resident crew would pack data into the CSM that had arrived 45 days earlier, then would use SPS to perform a deorbit burn. The CSM's Service Module (SM) and two OMs would burn up in the atmosphere and the CM bearing the crew and one quarter of the data their mission had collected would splash into the Atlantic off Florida or the Pacific near Hawaii.

AEO missions would fall into four categories. Earthlab missions would last up to 45 days. Manlab biomedical research missions would last up to 90 days. Sunlab missions would last up to 45 days. Techlab missions would last up to 45 days; at the end of each, the CSM would boost the OM to a higher orbit to forestall decay before undocking and returning to Earth. A CSM would later rendezvous with the derelict OM so that its crew could conduct spacewalks to retrieve space-exposure cassettes. They would then safely deorbit the OM.

While each AEO mission would return data with immediate value, the overarching goal of the AEO program would be to prepare astronauts, flight controllers, engineers, mission planners, scientists, and equipment for the Apollo Space Base (ASB) that NASA would launch late in 1976. The 12-man space station, launched into Earth orbit in one piece atop an uprated Saturn V, would be designed to operate in space for a decade.

After ASB missions commenced, OMs would provide it with logistics resupply. They would also be outfitted as temporary space station experiment modules and left docked to the ASB for long periods.

CSMs would deliver the OMs to the ASB until 1978, when NASA would begin operational flights of a six-man fully reusable space shuttle. The OM would be modified for transport in the shuttle's 14-foot-diameter, 20-foot-long payload bay. Modifications would include addition of a solid-propellant deorbit propulsion package, freeing the shuttle of the need to deorbit spent OMs.

After arrival in orbit, the crew would open the shuttle's single payload bay door. They would then command the OM to tip upright, positioning it for docking with the ASB and linking its pressurized volume to the single-deck Shuttle crew cabin. The Shuttle would dock with a vacant port on the side of the ASB using the OM's free second port.

Barring disaster, CSM/LM combinations would continue to carry out semi-annual lunar landing missions at least until 1984. Both spacecraft would undergo upgrades over time. The first four Apollo moon landing missions after the G-class Apollo 11 mission would be H-class, corresponding to Apollos 12, 13, and 14 in our timeline. H-class LMs would be capable of operating for 36 hours on the moon. H-class astronauts would perform up to two moonwalks with an operational radius of 1.5 kilometers from the LM.

Between the H and J missions, NASA would fly one I-class mission. The mission would see a three-stage Saturn V launch a CSM/OM combination to lunar polar orbit. The astronauts would use sensors and cameras in the OM to survey and map the entire lunar surface at high resolution over 21 days. The mission would fly in January 1972, in time for my 10th birthday.

J-class missions would include CSMs with instrument pallets. The CSM pallet instruments would be used to fill gaps in I-mission coverage and to examine surface targets of special interest. J-class LMs would have 72-hour lunar surface stay-times and would carry two-man Lunar Roving Vehicles (LRVs). The first such mission, designated J-1, would fly in mid-1972, and the last, J-5, would explore the moon in late 1974.

K-class missions would include CSMs with instrument pallets and LMs with 144-hour lunar surface stay-times, dual single-person LRVs, and lunar flyers. Lunar-orbiting relay satellites would enable Farside landings. Some K-class CSM pallets would be configured to study the whole Earth or the Sun rather than the moon, and some K-class CSMs would carry four astronauts so that two could work on board the CSM while two others intensively explored a landing site on the moon.

Some K-class missions would operate in conjunction with pre-landed robot rovers, The six-wheeled rovers would land on a modified Surveyor lander, travel a hundred or so kilometers across the lunar surface in a few months, collecting and caching samples along the way, then would park at the planned Apollo landing site. The crew would land nearby, retrieve the automated rover's sample cache, service the rover as necessary, and then dispatch it on a new traverse.

Because K-class LM ascent stages would be incapable of boosting to lunar orbit more than about 400 pounds of lunar samples, the lunar surface crew would have at their disposal rudimentary sample-analysis tools to enable them to assay the rocks they collected and discard those of lesser interest. To maximize returned sample weight, these tools would themselves be discarded on the lunar surface prior to LM ascent stage liftoff.

The ASB and K-class missions would see the rapid development of diversity in the astronaut population, much as took place in the Space Shuttle Program of our timeline. Minority astronauts would work on board the ASB and walk on the moon. The first American woman would reach space as early as 1974, and several women would reach the moon by the end of the K-class mission series. Foreign astronauts would also fly on American spacecraft.

NASA would fly as many as 25 K-class lunar landing missions between early 1975 and late 1984. A July 1979 mission to Tranquillity Base would celebrate the 10th anniversary of the first manned moon landing.

All of these missions would launch from Launch Complex (LC) 39 at Kennedy Space Center, Florida. By 1970, LC 39 would include three launch pads (Pads 39A, 39B, and 39C), all of which would be capable of launching standard and uprated Saturn V rockets, Saturn IB rockets, and Saturn IC rockets. The Saturn IB and IC rockets would launch from a "milk stool" similar to that used to launch the Skylab and Apollo-Soyuz Saturn IB rockets. A fourth LC 39 pad (Pad 39D) configured for Saturn rockets and the reusable shuttle would be completed in 1974 and a fifth (Pad 39E) would be completed in 1978.

Imagining another Apollo (part 2)

2012-01-16T08:13:00.000-08:00

Last week I established a basic historical framework upon which to hang the details of an alternate NASA space program. In my alternate timeline, Vietnam is an obscure country in the Chinese sphere of influence that fell to communists very quickly in the mid-1950s. The U.S. engaged in covert action against its government, as it did against many communist governments, but active military intervention never took place. The U.S. thus avoided the disillusionment and defeat it experienced in our timeline and entered the 1970s a very different country.

Avoiding the Vietnam quagmire meant that in the 1960s and 1970s more Federal funding was available for non-military national priorities. Increased investment in education, infrastructure, health care, science, and technology kept the U.S. economy robust throughout the 1960s and 1970s.

No Vietnam War also meant that "Mr. Space," as Lyndon Baines Johnson had become known in the late 1950s, was able to win a second elected term as President in 1968. Richard Nixon never became President, so the nation was spared Watergate. Nelson Rockfeller, a moderate Republican, succeeded Johnson in 1973 with Gerald Ford as his Vice President. Ford succeeded Rockefeller after the latter's fatal heart attack in 1979. He completed Rockefeller's second term but lost the 1980 election to Democratic dark horse Edmund Muskie.

In my alternate timeline, NASA's space program diverged from our own as early as 1966, but this yielded new manned missions only after the April 1970 Apollo 13 accident. As in our timeline, NASA temporarily halted lunar missions pending the report of the Apollo 13 Review Board. A planned series of Apollo Earth-Orbital (AEO) missions was, however, judged to be acceptably safe, since abort to Earth or orbital rescue would always be a possibility. The AEO series commenced as planned in June 1970 with the launch of Apollo 14.

The 1970s Earth-orbital Apollos amounted to a return to the program's roots. When first conceived in 1959, Apollo was an Earth-orbital spacecraft. Early Apollo designs featured three sections: an equipment section containing propulsion, power, and life support systems; a reentry section including guidance and control equipment, acceleration couches, parachutes, and a heat shield; and a living and working section providing habitable volume and experiment space. In some designs the reentry section nested within the living and working section; in others, only a hatchway linked the two habitable sections.

Soon after President John F. Kennedy called upon NASA to reach for the moon (May 1961), Apollo became the U.S. lunar spacecraft. Before the July 1962 decision to use the Lunar-Orbit Rendezvous (LOR) mission mode, a landing stage that would lower the Apollo spacecraft to the surface of the moon replaced the living and working section. After the LOR decision, the manned lunar lander, or Lunar Module (LM), replaced the landing stage. The Apollo spacecraft would comprise only the drum-shaped Service Module (SM), which corresponded to the equipment section, and the conical Command Module (CM), which corresponded to the reentry section. Together they were known as the Command and Service Module, or CSM.

LOR meant that the CSM would wait in lunar orbit while the LM descended to the moon. The CSM included at least one vestige of its early role as part of a lunar lander: the Service Propulsion System (SPS) main engine on the SM was larger and more powerful than was necessary for lunar-orbit capture and escape because it was originally designed to launch the CSM off the surface of the moon.

The AEO missions saw the return of the living and working section in the form of the Operations Module (OM), a 17-foot-long, 12-foot-diameter drum with fore and aft docking ports and twin wing-like solar arrays. The OM included independent life support; in an emergency, an AEO crew could abandon their CSM and wait in the OM until a rescue CSM arrived. Pallets on its zenith side could carry space-facing instruments, while nadir-side pallets could carry Earth-facing instruments.

The latter were of special interest to the Johnson Administration, which, as early as 1968, had sought to make NASA a part of its new environmentalist thrust. In my alternate timeline, people are not anti-technology. They never witnessed the horrors of technological warfare on their living room TV screens. They are increasingly aware of the environmental costs of technology-based economic growth, but are not reluctant to use technology to understand and attempt to solve environmental problems.

The environmentalism had existed in the United States for decades, but had grown rapidly during the 1960s following the publication of Rachel Carson's seminal book Silent Spring. Photographs of the Earth taken in lunar orbit in December 1968 by the Apollo 8 astronauts also spurred environmental activism. They showed Earth to be a blue-white oasis in the black desert of space.

The first Earth Day was held in April 1970. President Johnson addressed the Earth Day celebration on the National Mall. As celebrants waved placards and flags emblazoned with Apollo 8 Earth images, the President spoke of the beauty of his Texas Hill Country ranch, described the upcoming Apollo 14 "Earth mission," and declared his support for a new Cabinet-level Environmental Protection Administration.

The Apollo 14 CSM, code-named Shenandoah, reached high-inclination low-Earth orbit (HILEO) atop a "two-and-a-half stage" Saturn IC rocket on June 12, 1970. The Saturn IC, first tested unmanned in 1968, was a Saturn IB with uprated first- and second-stage engines and four solid-propellant strap-on boosters adapted from the U.S. Air Force Titan rocket program.

Apollo 14's three-man crew separated Shenandoah from the S-IVB stage that had propelled it into orbit, then turned it end for end and docked with the OM. After they gingerly pulled the module free of the S-IVB, they performed an orbit-circularization maneuver that moved them well away from the spent rocket stage. Then, with some ceremony, they undogged the hatch leading into the OM, extended its solar arrays, and activated its complex Earth-sensor suite.

Some who watched the Apollo 14 S-IVB shrink into the distance (image above) did so with mixed feelings. Until January 1968, NASA had planned to convert spent S-IVB stages into spacious orbital "workshops." Astronauts would have flushed the stage that delivered them into orbit of any residual hydrogen, pumped in breathing oxygen, then entered the tank to outfit it with living quarters and experiment equipment.

After the January 1967 Apollo 1 fire, however, the space agency reviewed its programs with an eye toward safety, and the spent-stage workshop concept was found wanting. NASA opted instead to create an interim workshop capability by developing the OM and proposed development of a "monolithic" single-launch space station. Congress would approve the new space station program in August 1970, a little more than a month after Apollo 14 returned to Earth. The 33-foot-diameter, 75-foot-tall station was scheduled for launch in 1975 on an uprated Saturn V.

Apollo 14 gathered data on crop growth, forest diseases, algal blooms, desert sandstorms, fisheries, river deltas, icebergs, volcanic eruptions, erosion, deforestation, ocean currents, human encroachment on nature preserves, and urban pollution over 70% of the Earth's surface for 22 days. The Soviet Union told the world that Apollo 14 was a spy mission; President Johnson countered by announcing that the data it collected would be shared with the world "without regard for economic or political system."

In addition to gathering data on Earth's environment, the crew studied themselves. Their record-setting 22-day mission was eight days longer than the previous longest NASA flight (Gemini 7, December 1965) and three days longer than the Soviet Soyuz 9 mission, which concluded after 19 days in space as Apollo 14 neared the end of its first week in orbit. Blood and urine samples were stored in a portable freezer in the OM for return to Earth in Shenandoah's CM.

Over the course of the mission, nearly half of the 19 OM Earth-oriented instruments malfunctioned. The astronauts were, however, able to repair them, so at mission's end all but one were taking valuable data.

On July 4, 1970, the Apollo 14 crew packed film, magnetic tape, biomedical samples, and themselves into Shenandoah's CM, closed the hatch leading into the OM, and fired the SPS to return to Earth. They cast off the OM shortly before they cast off the SM. The OM and SM burned up in Earth's atmosphere and the CM bearing the crew splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean near Florida. The first AEO mission was hailed as a resounding success.

Addendum, 12/14/11: Apollo 15 and Apollo 16 would also be AEO missions. Apollo 15 would resemble Apollo 14, except that its main focus would be on life sciences. It would orbit the Earth in a low-inclination orbit for 45 days. Apollo 16 would launch with a crew of two on a standard Saturn IB and dock with the Apollo 15 OM; its purpose would be to deliver spare parts, fresh food, and mail, to return to Earth the biomedical samples collected during the first 25 days of the Apollo 15 mission, and to demonstrate docking of a CSM/OM and a CSM. Lunar missions would resume with Apollo 17, which would correspond to Apollo 14 in our timeline.

Apollos 15, 16, and 17 would all launch from Complex 39, which by 1970 would include three launch pads (39-A, 39-B, and 39-C). All three would be capable of launching Saturn V, uprated Saturn V-A, Saturn IB, and Saturn IC rockets. The smaller Saturn IB and IC rockets would launch on a "milk stool" similar to that used to launch the Skylab and Apollo-Soyuz Saturn IB rockets from Complex 39 in our timeline (image below).

Imagining another Apollo (part 1)

2012-01-16T08:12:00.000-08:00

Professional historians typically view alternate history with disdain. This is understandable, for it's enough of a job to interpret the historical events that did happen without complicating matters with events that did not.

In recent years, however, the counterfactual - as historians often label alternate history - has gained some traction in the world of historical scholarship. Serious historians have produced essays and articles that look at key events that might have happened otherwise.

Often they have used the counterfactual as a tool to explore why key events happened as they did. Other times they have used it to explore subjective issues that would otherwise spoil objective interpretation of historical data; for example, issues of ideology.

Very few professional historians pay attention to space history, so to date very few space history counterfactual essays have seen print. This dearth of space-age counterfactuals might be the result of insecurity: space historians already operate on the fringe, and those who would delve into counterfactuals would operate on the fringe of the fringe.

Lucky for me, I'm not a professional historian. I write this blog. I have published credible space history, but I haven't taught or worked with students in a formal sense. At the moment, I'm an archivist, a lonely advocate for the value of faded, mouse-nibbled old papers in a team of forward-looking planetary scientists. So, I can delve into the alternate history of the space age as I damn well please, safe in the knowledge that no one will notice.

I find it especially entertaining to imagine Apollo missions that never happened. The March 1974 Earth-observation mission of Apollo 24, for example, which saw the crew of the CSM Shenandoah test Earth-resources sensors in high-inclination low-Earth orbit for 10 days.

I have, however, found that it is surprisingly difficult to locate any single credible point of divergence that leads to Apollo missions extending into the 1980s. Besides, even if one could identify a point in our history where a plausible change might have led to full exploitation of Apollo capabilities, then a crisis would inevitably have occurred. Decision-makers would eventually have reached a point where they could not support the investment needed to enable human spaceflight to move up to a higher plateau of operational complexity and capability.

In our timeline, that crisis point was nearly reached in 1969-1972, when President Richard Nixon put in motion Apollo's premature demise and rejected NASA's expansive plans for its future. The Shuttle, which Nixon saw mainly as a handy means of winning aerospace votes in California, saved the day.

The crisis point was nearly reached again in 1993, when President William Clinton took office and almost opted to end NASA's 30-year romance with the space station concept. Propping up the Russian aerospace establishment so that it would not go to work for rogue states - a policy begun tentatively under Clinton's predecessor, George H. W. Bush - gave NASA a pass.

Many within NASA did not understand how close they had come to an insoluble crisis. They groused about the difficulties of working with the Russians when they should have been thankful that a politically acceptable justification for the continuation of U.S. piloted spaceflight had been discovered.

They would not be so lucky a decade later, when, nearly a year after the Columbia accident, President George W. Bush marked the start of the 2004 election year by setting a date for the termination of the Shuttle Program. He also announced a manned moon and Mars program that he said would replace it. Savvy non-partisan observers understood that he did not really mean it. Predictably, Bush the Younger promptly lost interest, failing to fund or even talk very much about his initiative.

Plans to scrap the Shuttle went ahead, however. By some accounts, the "point of no return" - the point past which the Shuttle Program could not be readily revived - was passed in 2008, as Bush prepared to leave office. In 2011, the Space Shuttle Program ended after thirty years and 14 deaths. NASA gave up its ability to launch humans into space. Fortunately, the U.S.-Russian space relationship now keeps American astronauts in orbit on board the International Space Station.

But I digress. Is there a plausible point of divergence that leads to an extended and expanding Apollo Program? I have not discovered any. I have, however, refused to let that stop me. There are still implausible points of divergence to consider. More on those soon.

Addendum, 4/12/11: I think that in order for Apollo to continue, we have to assume a different United States of America. We need a different 1960s. Removing Vietnam from the mix is a radical, implausible step, but one that would have without a doubt produced a different America. Perhaps it would have yielded a country that would not have seen fit to, as LBJ put it, "piss away" the Apollo investment.

Without the war in Indochina, the Federal budget would not have edged into deficit territory. LBJ could have run and been re-elected in 1968, permitting him to shepherd Apollo through the post-Apollo 11 transition.

This different America would still have become concerned about the environment. Images of the blue Earth set against the vastness of space would still have inspired environmentalists. It could hardly have been otherwise, when industrial pollution made rivers into fire hazards. Earth Day might have gone ahead in 1970, as in our timeline. By being spared images of the horrors of technological warfare in their living rooms for years, however, Americans might have given space technology more of a role in addressing their environmental concerns.

The ironic phrase, "If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we. . ." might have been replaced with, "We put men on the moon, so we can do anything." Peter Glaser, Gerard O'Neill, Krafft Ehricke, David Criswell, and others of their ilk might have found a more receptive audience for their visions of space solar power satellites, space settlements, and lunar mines. Apollo could have evolved into a test-bed for space industrialization based on the idea that moving industry off of the Earth could help to preserve our unique oasis in space.

I suspect that Nixon could not have made a comeback had Vietnam not dragged down LBJ and the Democratic Party. A Republican might have been elected in 1972, when LBJ's second term ended; no doubt the country would have been ready for a change after 12 years of Democratic rule. A candidate such as Nelson Rockefeller, who was wealthy but philanthropic, could have been elected. Rockefeller, a liberal Republican by modern standards, was seen as a moderate when he was Gerald Ford's Vice-President in 1974-1977. I could see the tables turned, with Rockfeller choosing Ford as his running mate.

Without Nixon, it seems likely that the country would have been spared Watergate. Without Vietnam and Watergate, it seems likely that the crisis of confidence that marred the 1970s would not have occurred. The country would have been ripe for new challenges, not beset by deep-seated anxiety.

The Arab Oil Embargo of 1973-1974 might well have occurred, but it would have been inflicted upon a confident nation with a healthy economy and a willingness to consider technological solutions. One could imagine President Rockefeller calling for a space solar power initiative that would make the U.S. less dependent on foreign oil and give it a new export product to compete with OPEC.

The U.S. and Soviet Union might have come together in space, as they did briefly in our 1975, but in a more meaningful way. Perhaps Rockefeller would have invited the Europeans, the Japanese, and (after a time) the Soviets into an international space solar power consortium. This should not seem far-fetched; initially, the exchange of letters that led to Apollo-Soyuz concerned U.S. Shuttle dockings with future Soviet spacecraft. In our timeline, the Soviets balked, offering up Apollo-Salyut, then balked again at the last minute, offering Apollo-Soyuz.

Rockefeller's fatal heart attack in 1979, near the end of his second term, would have put Ford in power. By then, Ford might already have become the front-runner for the 1980 Republican presidential nomination. Perhaps Ford would have considered tapping Ronald Reagan to serve as his Vice President. Rockfeller's death at age 70 could have made Reagan seem too old, however. Perhaps instead Ford would have selected a younger man, such as popular Illinois governor Jim Thompson, as his running mate.

In our 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. Space cooperation made little difference in the larger world of geopolitics; talks on a Shuttle-Salyut mission were under way even as Red Army tanks rolled over the border. Would the Soviets have invaded Afghanistan if they had shared the world with a confident America? Perhaps the relative instability in the U.S. produced by Rockfeller's death would have encouraged them to go adventuring. It might equally well have given them pause, however.

Space would be an issue in the 1980 election, for NASA would have made itself ready to build the solar power satellites its Apollo-based research had emphasized since 1973. It would be time to phase out Apollo and move up to more complex and capable systems: basically, time to move up to space-based civilization.

NASA's budget would have needed to double, double, and double again in the 1980s. Would the President who followed Rockefeller have been prepared to make the necessary investment? Or, would he have balked at the cost and, citing the renewed flow of oil from the Middle East, left NASA to repeat Apollo-based missions indefinitely?

This is a good place to conclude. I invite your comments.