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Dreaming A Different Apollo, Part Four: Naming Names

A lunar outpost near an abandoned Apollo Lunar Module descent stage (left). Image credit: European Space Agency
The names we give to places on and off Earth and to vessels of sea and space have long fascinated me. The moon is one of my favorite places because it is covered with names of scientists and engineers, each of whom has an intriguing biography. At the insistence of Carl Sagan, Mercury bears the names of artists, musicians, poets, and the like, so is also interesting.

Other worlds have other themes assigned to them. The Uranian moon Miranda, for example, draws names from Shakespeare's The Tempest and locations in Shakespeare's plays.

The Royal Navy in the Age of Fighting Sail is a great source for picturesque ship names, and science fiction seldom disappoints. The late, great Iain M. Banks had a particular talent for irreverent names, which he applied to the intelligent starships of his The Culture setting: I Blame the Parents is one of my favorites.

In Part One of this series (see link below), I described a world in which Apollo did not die; one in which U.S. taxpayers opted to squeeze our $24-billion Apollo investment for all it was worth instead of (as President Lyndon Baines Johnson put it) pissing it all away. I did not give the Apollo Command and Service Module (CSM) and Lunar Module (LM) spacecraft in that post names for fear of making more confusing an already complicated series of missions. In this post, I mean to rectify that omission.

In Apollo as flown, we saw the following spacecraft names (or, perhaps more properly, call-signs): Apollo 7, none; Apollo 8, none; Apollo 9, CSM Gumdrop and LM Spider; Apollo 10, CSM Charlie Brown and LM Snoopy; Apollo 11, CSM Columbia and LM Eagle; Apollo 12, CSM Yankee Clipper and LM Intrepid; Apollo 13, CSM Odyssey and LM Aquarius; Apollo 14, CSM Kitty Hawk and LM Antares; Apollo 15, CSM Endeavour and LM Falcon; Apollo 16, CSM Casper and LM Orion; and Apollo 17, CSM America and LM Challenger. Apollo 7 and Apollo 8 were CSM-only missions, so their spacecraft did not need names to distinguish them from their LMs in radio communications. Their CSMs were thus known by their mission designations alone.

Part One of this post series continued the Apollo series with the Saturn V launch of the Olympus 1 space station in late 1971. My alternate-history NASA designated the uncrewed station launch Apollo 18. Olympus is, of course, the name of the lofty home of the Greek Gods. It was a favorite name among 1960s space station planners - for example, Edward Olling - at NASA's Manned Spacecraft Center (since 1973, Johnson Space Center) in Houston.



The first Apollo CSM to reach Olympus 1 was Apollo 19. It was another CSM-only mission, so bore no spacecraft name - much as the Skylab CSMs in our timeline had only numbers (Skylab 2, Skylab 3, and Skylab 4 - Skylab 1 was the launch of the Skylab station). Apollo 20, nearly identical to Apollo 19 apart from its duration (its crew lived on board Olympus 1 for 56 days in early 1972, twice as long as the Apollo 19 crew) also bore no name.
 
After that, though, NASA had a change of heart. It developed and retroactively applied an alphanumeric designation system for flights and encouraged crews to name their spacecraft, much as it had during Project Mercury (but not Project Gemini). The alphanumeric system pleased NASA bureaucrats; naming piloted spacecraft in single-spacecraft missions was a public-relations ploy meant to point up the distinctive qualities of the individual CSM-only missions to the Olympus stations.

NASA called it Skylab; I call it Olympus. Image credit: NASA
The Apollo 19 mission, which flew the first K-class CSM with modifications for long-duration space station missions, became O-1/K-1/R1 (Olympus 1/K-class CSM 1/Olympus 1 Resident Crew 1). Apollo 20 became O-1/K-2/R2.

Apollo 21 (I-1), the one and only I-class piloted CSM-only lunar polar orbiter mission, was dubbed Endurance by its two-man crew, who orbited the moon for 28 days to image potential landing sites for advanced L-class Apollo lunar landing missions planned to begin in late 1974. An automated imaging orbiter was considered for the mission, but was rejected because it would have required costly new development (for example, a complicated Earth-return capsule system for exposed film) as well as a unique Saturn IB upper stage configuration.
 
The crew of Apollo 22 (O-1/K-3/R3) named their CSM Discovery. They docked with Olympus 1 in June 1972 for a 112-day stay. Ninety days into their flight, the two-person crew of Apollo 23 (O-1/K-4/V1), the first space station short-stay visitor crew, docked at Olympus 1's radial port to check on the health of the Apollo 22 crew and certify continuation of their mission. In a poetic reference to their short stay of only 10 days, they named their CSM Hummingbird.

Apollo 24 (J-3), launched in October 1972, was a J-class mission resembling our Apollo 15, Apollo 16, and Apollo 17 missions. In fact, it carried the original Apollo 17 crew of Eugene Cernan, Joseph Engle, and Ronald Evans. In our timeline, Apollo 17 was the last crewed mission to the moon of the 20th century and geologist Harrison Schmitt, the only professional scientist to reach the moon, replaced Engle as LM Pilot. Cernan, Engle, and Evans named their CSM America and their LM Challenger, just as Cernan, Schmitt, and Evans did in our timeline.

Schmitt was one of six scientist-astronauts selected as part of Group 4 in June 1965. He would fly Apollo 17, and three others - Joseph Kerwin, Owen Garriott, and Edward Gibson - would fly as Science Pilots on the three Skylab missions. Garriott also flew a Space Shuttle mission. In our timeline, Schmitt was originally assigned to fly Apollo 18; after it was cut, he was moved to Apollo 17.

It would be different in the alternate timeline. Schmitt would not be the first Group 4 scientist-astronaut to fly; several would reach Olympus stations before he set out for the moon. He would become the first Group 4 astronaut to reach the moon, but not (as was the case in our timeline) the only one. He would also fly to the moon a second time and never run for U.S. Senator from New Mexico.

NASA selected the 11 scientist-astronauts of Group 6 in August 1967, just as Congress slashed President Johnson's request for funds to begin major work on the Apollo Applications Program (AAP). AAP shrank rapidly and morphed into Skylab. Of the eleven Group 6 scientists, seven eventually flew Space Shuttle missions. In the alternate timeline, most would fly Apollo missions before 1976.

This is a good place to consider how astronaut selection would unfold in the alternate timeline. Seven refugees from the cancelled U.S. Air Force Manned Orbiting Laboratory would join NASA in August 1969 as Group 7, just as they did in our timeline. In our timeline, they were the last astronauts selected until January 1978, when Group 8 - which included among its 35 members the first minority and women astronauts - was selected to crew Space Shuttles.

In the alternate timeline, NASA would select new astronaut groups of about 10 members every three or four years to bring in new skills and make up for attrition. Group 8 would, as in our timeline, include the first U.S. women and minority spacefarers, but they would join NASA in January 1971, not January 1978.

Older astronauts of our timeline's Group 8 might join Group 9 (1974) and younger ones might join Group 10 (1977) or Group 11 (1981). In general, though, NASA would need fewer astronauts. Because of this, many individuals who flew in space in our timeline would never join the space agency.

Given the "morality" and prejudices of the 1970s, it seems likely that NASA would find excuses not to fly women as members of Resident or lunar crews, though several would reach Olympus 3 as members of Visitor crews. One would serve as Visitor crew Commander. In an era when the proposed Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution was struck down, however, mixed crews on long-duration and minimal-privacy lunar missions would make many American taxpayers uncomfortable.

In the early 1980s, however, this would change. Once the spaceflight "glass ceiling" was shattered, many women would fly in space in many roles, just as in our timeline.

Apollo 25 (J-4) was an engineering/technology-development mission to the Apollo 24 site meant to prepare NASA for L-class missions and eventual lunar outposts. In addition to accomplishing a precision landing almost exactly one kilometer from the Apollo 24 LM descent stage, which they inspected in considerable detail, the Apollo 25 crew collected materials-exposure cassettes and meteoroid, dust, and solar-particle capture cells the Apollo 24 crew had left behind. They also collected geologic samples scientists studying Apollo 24 photos had determined to be of special interest. They named their CSM Franklin and their LM Edison for the famed American inventors.

Journey to a lava tube cave. Image credit: NASA
Apollo 26 (O-2) was the uncrewed launch of the Olympus 2 station. Apollo 27 (O-2/K-5/R1) saw three astronauts live in orbit for 224 days. They named their CSM Freedom, which led one stand-up comedian to quip that it should have been named "Incarceration."

The crew received the Apollo 28 (0-2/K-6/V1) CSM Athena, Apollo 29 (O-2/K-7/V2) CSM Amity, and the Apollo 30 CSM (O-2/K-8/V3) Liberty. Apollo 28 included the first American woman in space, Apollo 29 the first non-U.S./non-Soviet astronaut in space, and Apollo 30's Visitor crew returned to Earth in the Apollo 27 CSM, leaving their CSM for the Apollo 27 Resident crew.

The uncrewed Apollo 31 Saturn V launched a pair of Radio/TV Relay Satellites to Earth-moon L2 and the uncrewed Apollo 32 (O-3) Saturn V launched Olympus 3, first of the "long-life" stations. The Apollo 33 (O-3/K-9/R1) crew, the first to stay on board a space station for what became the "routine" interval of 180 days, arrived in the CSM Eos, which was named for the Greek goddess of the dawn.
 
Apollo 34 (J-5) in February 1974, the last of the J-class missions, landed in dark-floored Tsiolkovskii in the moon's Farside hemisphere. Harrison Schmitt was the mission's LM Pilot and the first geologist on the moon. They named their CSM Infinity and their LM for the red-golden star Arcturus, long seen as a harbinger of springtime.

The Apollo 35 (O-3/K-10/V1) CSM Hermes delivered the first drum-shaped Cargo Carrier (CC-1) to Olympus 3 and the Apollo 36 (O-3/K-11/V2) CSM Independence caused it to reenter after the Apollo 33 crew unloaded it. Hermes was, among other things, the Greek God of Commerce, The Messenger of the Gods, and the half-brother of Apollo. The Apollo 37 (O-3/K-12/R2) CSM Celeste (a feminine name meaning "heavenly") delivered the large Argus telescope module to Olympus 3.
 
The uncrewed Apollo 38 (L-1A) mission saw the LM-derived Lunar Cargo Carrier-1 (LCC-1) launched on a Saturn V on a direct path to the planned landing site of the Apollo 40 (L-1B) mission. Apollo 38 included no CSM. The Apollo 39 (O-3/K-13/V3) CSM Shenandoah was the first of more than a dozen Earth-orbital CSM spacecraft named for U.S. national parks and monuments.

The Apollo 40 CSM was the first L-class Advanced CSM (ACSM) and its LM was the first L-class Advanced LM (ALM). The Apollo 40 crew named their ACSM Aquila, for the constellation The Eagle, and their ALM Altair, for its brightest star. The lunar surface crew used Altair as their base camp to explore a complex landing site for one week. This more than doubled the three-day J-class lunar stay-time.
  
The Apollo 41 (O-3/K-14/R3) CSM Constitution delivered the Olympus 3 station's third Resident crew while its second Resident crew was still on board, marking the beginning of continuous station occupation. The Apollo 42 (O-3/K-15/V4) CSM was named Adventure.

The Apollo 43 (O-3/K-16/V5) crew named its CSM Yosemite, and the Apollo 44 (O-3/K-17/R4) crew named its CSM Acadia. Yosemite is, of course, a famous national park in California; Acadia, the first eastern national park, is on the other side of the country, in the Mission Commander's home state of Maine.
 
My first Dreaming a Different Apollo post ended with the launch of Apollo 44 in December 1975. The timeline could, of course, continue (and, I suspect, probably will). One can imagine an ACSM called Draco paired with an ALM named Thuban, Draco's rather faint brightest star. I am sure that we will see an Enterprise at some point. 

Direct Ascent moon lander with Apollo-style Earth-reentry module (top) from NASA's 1991-1994 First Lunar Outpost (FLO) study. Image credit: NASA
I expect that the Apollo series would continue into the late 1980s or early 1990s. By the beginning of the 1990s decade, the Lunar-Orbit Rendezvous Apollo mission scheme would give way to Direct-Ascent missions, in which a single spacecraft would launch from Earth and travel directly to a lunar base. Opportunities for naming spacecraft would become fewer, but almost certainly would continue.

More Information

Dreaming a Different Apollo, Part One

Space Station Resupply: The 1963 Plan to Turn the Apollo Spacecraft Into a Space Freighter

Apollo's End: NASA Cancels Apollo 15 & Apollo 19 to Save Station/Shuttle (1970)
Source: Dreaming A Different Apollo, Part Four: Naming Names

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Odp: [Spaceflight History Blog] Dreaming A Different Apollo, Part One
« Odpowiedź #1 dnia: Kwiecień 22, 2017, 16:40 »
Dreaming a Different Apollo, Part One (1)
16 May 2015


Skylab 1 Orbital Workshop atop a Saturn V rocket (foreground) and Skylab 2 Saturn IB rocket (background). Image credit: NASA

Apollo didn't die; it was killed. The Apollo Program might have continued for many years, evolving constantly to achieve new goals at relatively low cost. Instead, programs designed to give Apollo a future beyond the first lunar landing began to feel the brunt of cuts even before Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon. By the time Apollo drew to its premature conclusion - the last mission to use Apollo hardware was the joint U.S.-Soviet Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP) of July 1975 - NASA was busy building a wholly new space program based on the Space Shuttle. Throwing out the Apollo investment and starting over with Shuttle was incredibly wasteful both in terms of learned capabilities and money.

Apollo as we knew it included over its seven-year series of flights a total of seven major hardware elements. They were: the Saturn V rocket, available in three-stage and two-stage varieties; the two-stage Saturn IB rocket; the Apollo Command and Service Module (CSM) spacecraft; the Apollo Lunar Module (LM) moon lander; the jeep-like Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV); the Skylab Orbital Workshop, a temporary space station; and the ASTP Docking Module (DM).

Apollo missions 1, 2, and 3 either did not fly (in the case of Apollo 1, which killed astronauts Gus Grissom, Edward White, and Roger Chaffee on 27 January 1967) or were cancelled (in the case of Apollo 2 and Apollo 3). Flown missions began with Apollo 4, the first unmanned test of the Saturn V rocket (9 November 1967). Apollo 5 was a Saturn IB-launched unmanned LM test. Apollo 6 was a second unmanned Saturn V rocket test.

All subsequent Apollo and Apollo follow-on missions save one (Skylab 1) were launched bearing three-man crews. Apollo 7 (11-22 October 1968), the first piloted Apollo, was a Saturn IB-launched CSM-only mission in low-Earth orbit. It accomplished the mission originally planned for Apollo 1. Apollo 8 (21-27 December 1968) was a Saturn V-launched lunar-orbital CSM-only mission motivated by rumors of a Soviet piloted circumlunar flight, Apollo 9 was a Saturn V-launched, Earth-orbital CSM/LM test, and Apollo 10 was a lunar-orbital dress rehearsal for Apollo 11 (16-24 July 1969), which carried out the first piloted lunar landing.

NASA gave alphanumeric designations to the Apollo missions; Apollo 8 was, for example, designated C-prime. Apollo 11 was the first and only G-class mission. The Apollo 11 moonwalk lasted a little over two hours and the crew remained on the moon for only 22 hours. Though momentous (and the signal to most people that Apollo could end), Apollo 11 was really a full-up engineering test of the Apollo lunar mission system from Earth launch to Earth splashdown and post-mission quarantine. It paved the way for the H-class missions: Apollo 12 (H-1) which, after a pinpoint landing near the unmanned Surveyor III lander, included a 32-hour surface stay and two moonwalks; Apollo 13 (H-2), the "successful failure" (as NASA called it) which through adversity hinted at Apollo's untapped potential; and Apollo 14 (H-3), which included the longest lunar surface traverse on foot of the Apollo Program.

NASA originally planned for Apollo 15 to be H-4, but upgraded it to J-1 after NASA Administrator Thomas Paine, in an ill-advised attempt at horse-trading with the Nixon White House, cancelled one H mission and one J mission. J missions included LMs with longer landing hover times, lunar surface stays of about three days, improved space suits supporting up to four moonwalks, and an electric-powered LRV. Individual moonwalk duration was stretched to almost eight hours, in part because of suit improvements, but also because riding the LRV reduced astronaut metabolic rates; seated, they used less oxygen and cooling water than when on foot.


Apollo 17 Lunar Module Challenger at Taurus-Littrow, December 1972. Image credit: NASA

Apollo 16 was called J-2 and Apollo 17 in December 1972 was J-3. The last piloted moon mission of the 20th century, Apollo 17 was the final flight of the LM, the LRV, and the three-stage Saturn V.

Six months after it abandoned the moon, NASA launched Skylab 1, the first and only Skylab Orbital Workshop, unmanned atop the first and only two-stage Saturn V to fly. Three Saturn IB rockets each launched a CSM bearing three men to Skylab 1 for stays of up to 84 days. They lifted off from a makeshift raised platform ("the milkstool") on Saturn V Pad 39B. The last mission, Skylab 4, returned to Earth in February 1974.

Eighteen months after Skylab, the last Saturn IB to fly launched the last CSM to fly into low-Earth orbit for a meet-up with a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft. The last CSM was named only "Apollo." The first and only DM, an airlock that enabled crews to move safely between the incompatible atmospheres of the Apollo and Soyuz spacecraft, rode inside the tapered shroud that linked the bottom of the CSM to the top of the Saturn IB's S-IVB second stage.

Upon reaching Earth orbit, the ASTP Apollo spacecraft turned end for end, docked with the DM, detached it from the S-IVB, and began maneuvers that led to the first international docking in space. On 24 July 1975, six years to the day after Apollo 11 returned from the moon, the ASTP Apollo CSM parachuted to a splashdown in the Pacific.

Though Apollo hardware remained, none of it reached space. A second Skylab workshop was placed on display in the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. Two Saturn Vs, one of which might have launched the second Skylab, and an assortment of Saturn IB rockets, CSMs, and LMs in various states of completion were parceled out to NASA centers and museums for display or were scrapped.

President Lyndon Baines Johnson, a NASA supporter (in 1958, as Senate Majority Leader, he had been instrumental in its creation), predicted Apollo's premature end. In 1967, Congress slashed to just $122 million the $450 million he requested to start the Apollo Applications Program (AAP). AAP - which would rapidly shrink to become the Skylab Program - had been intended to exploit Apollo hardware and operational experience to accomplish new lunar and Earth-orbital missions. As news of the deep cuts in his AAP request reached the White House, Johnson mused that, "the way the American people are, now that they have all this capability, instead of taking advantage of it, they'll probably just piss it all away."

What if Johnson had got it wrong? What if, somehow, Americans cared more about space exploration and so sought to wring from their $24-billion Apollo investment everything they could?

The Soviet Union for many years numbered its Soyuz missions consecutively regardless of changes in spacecraft purpose and design. If Apollo had been allowed to survive and thrive, perhaps the United States would have adopted a similar numbering policy, ultimately yielding impressively high alphanumeric mission designation numbers. What follows is an unabashed exercise in alternate history speculation (and, above all, shameless wishful thinking). It is based on actual NASA and contractor plans and is written as though the events it recounts actually occurred.

A word of caution: in order to simplify an already complex timeline, I have ignored the possibility of accidents. Spaceflight is risky, yet in this alternate history all missions occur exactly as planned. The likelihood that every mission described below would come off as planned, with no mishaps or outright disasters, would in fact be very small.

1971-1972

Because no one sought to kill Apollo, NASA boss Paine felt no urge to trade away two Apollo missions in the vain hope that Nixon would support his plans for a large Earth-orbital space station. This meant that Apollo 15 remained H-4. The first J mission (J-1) was Apollo 16 and Apollo 17 was J-2.

Apollo Earth-orbital space station flights began in late 1971. Apollo 18 was the unmanned launch of the first two-stage Saturn V bearing a temporary Earth-orbiting space station. In keeping with NASA’s old penchant for program names from Greek and Roman mythology, the station was dubbed Olympus 1. The Olympus name had a heritage in the world of space station planning going back to the early 1960s.

The Apollo-derived Olympus station resembled the Skylab Orbital Workshop of our timeline, but lacked its side-mounted Apollo Telescope Mount and "windmill" solar arrays. It also included more internal decks.

Within days, Apollo 19, the first K-class Earth-orbital CSM, lifted off on a Saturn IB from Launch Complex 34 bound for Olympus 1 with three astronauts on board. K-class CSMs included batteries in place of fuel cells, an electricity umbilical for linking to the Olympus station power system, a retractable main engine bell to make more room in the S-IVB shroud, extra storage compartments in the Command Module (CM) capsule, an option to install up to two extra crew couches, a pair of small steerable dish antennas in place of lunar Apollo's large four-dish system, and smaller main-engine propellant tanks. It also included modifications that enabled it to remain semi-dormant attached to an Olympus station for up to six months (for example, heaters to prevent fluids from freezing in its tanks and propellant lines).

Apollo 19 remained docked to Olympus 1's axial ("front") docking port while its crew worked on board the station for 28 days – twice as long as any U.S. space mission before it. They returned to Earth on Christmas Eve 1971. The Apollo 20 (K-2) crew, launched on 23 January 1972, subsequently demolished Apollo 19's new record by living on board Olympus 1 for 56 days.

Apollo 21 (I-1), a Saturn V-launched mission to lunar polar orbit, marked the start of a new phase of Apollo lunar exploration. Two astronauts orbited the moon for 28 days in a CSM with an attached Lunar Observation Module (LOM) in place of an LM. From mid-March to mid-April 1972, the astronauts charted the moon's surface in great detail to enable scientists and engineers to select future Apollo landing sites and traverse routes.

Apollo 22 (K-3), launched in June 1972, delivered a three-man crew to Olympus 1 for a 112-day stay, doubling Apollo 20's stay-time. Ninety days into their mission, the two-man Apollo 23 (K-4) CSM docked at Olympus 1's single radial ("side") docking port for 10 days. One of the Apollo 23 astronauts was a medical doctor; he conducted health evaluations of the Apollo 22 astronauts. If any member of the Apollo 22 crew had been found to be unhealthy, then all would have returned to Earth in either their own CSM or with the Apollo 23 crew in its CSM, which included three spare couches (the empty Science Pilot couch and two couches located against the Apollo 23 CM’s aft bulkhead).

As it turned out, the Apollo 22 astronauts were in good shape and high spirits, so NASA authorized continuation of their mission to its full planned duration. Before returning to Earth, the Apollo 22 crew used their CSM's main engine to boost Olympus 1 to a higher orbit, postponing its reentry by up to 10 years.

NASA referred to the Apollo 22 astronauts as the third Olympus 1 resident crew and the Apollo 23 astronauts as the first Olympus 1 visitor crew. The full alphanumeric designations for Apollos 22 and 23 were O-1/K-3/R-3 and O-1/K-4/V-1, respectively. Most people did not pay attention to those designations, however, being satisfied to call the missions by their Apollo numbers.

NASA ordered 15 Saturn V rockets for the Apollo Program. In 1968, NASA Deputy Administrator for Manned Space Flight George Mueller asked NASA Administrator James Webb for permission to order more Saturn V rockets for AAP. With budgets for post-Apollo space programs already under fierce attack, Webb rejected Mueller’s request.

In our alternate timeline, Webb's answer was different. Apollo 24 (J-3) (October 1972) used the last Saturn V of the original Apollo buy. This fact aroused only passing interest, however, since in our alternate timeline no one ever seriously considered halting the Saturn V assembly lines. Apollo 25 (J-4) launched atop the first new-buy Saturn V, the 16th Saturn V to be built.

Two months after the Apollo 24 LM ascent stage lifted off from the lunar surface, the Apollo 25 LM landed about a kilometer away from the derelict Apollo 24 LM descent stage. The Apollo LM descent engine kicked up potentially damaging dust during landing, so the Apollo 25 astronauts inspected Apollo 24's descent stage, LRV, and ALSEP experiments to determine whether a one-kilometer landing separation distance was adequate.

The Apollo 25 crew carried out other technology experiments. They deployed an experimental solar array designed to withstand the cold of the two-week lunar night and a small battery-driven remote-controlled rover. Controllers on Earth drove the small rover several hundred meters in preparation for longer remote-controlled traverses to come.

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Dreaming a Different Apollo, Part One (2)

1973

Apollo 26 (O-2) (January 1973) was the Saturn V launch of the Olympus 2 space station. It lifted off from Pad 39C, a new Complex 39 launch pad north of the existing 39A and 39B pads at Kennedy Space Center (KSC), Florida. 39C was designed for both Saturn V and Saturn IB launches, putting NASA on track to retiring the Complex 34 Saturn IB pad located south of Kennedy Space Center, within the boundaries of Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

Soon after Olympus 2 reached orbit, the last Saturn IB to use Complex 34 launched Apollo 27 (O-2/K-5/R-1). Its epic mission: to stretch the world spaceflight endurance record to 224 days. Over the course of the Apollo 27 mission, NASA launched four unmanned Saturn IB rockets with Centaur upper stages. Though not given Apollo numbers, the flights are often referred to unofficially as Apollo GEO A, Apollo GEO B, Apollo GEO C, and Apollo GEO D. Two lifted off from Pad 39C and two from newly upgraded Pad 39A.

Each boosted into geostationary orbit one Radio/TV Relay Satellite (RTRS); three operational satellites and a spare. Olympus 2 thus became the first space station capable of uninterrupted voice, data, and TV contact with Mission Control at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, and Payload Control at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

The Saturn IB-launched Apollo 28 CSM lifted off from Pad 39C 45 days into the Apollo 27 crew's stint on board Olympus 2. The six-day, three-person mission, designated O-2/K-6/V-1, included the first female U.S. astronaut. Apollo 29 (O-2/K-7/V-2), another six-day, three-person mission, reached Olympus 2 110 days into the Apollo 27 mission. It included the first non-American to fly on a U.S. spacecraft.

Apollo 30 (O-2/K-8/V-3), a 10-day, two-person mission nearly identical to Apollo 23, reached Olympus 2 190 days into the Apollo 27 mission. The Apollo 27 astronauts proved to be in good health, so NASA authorized them to continue their mission to its full planned duration. The Apollo 30 crew returned to Earth in Apollo 27's CSM, leaving behind their fresh CSM for the long-duration astronauts. The Apollo 27 crew used the Apollo 30 CSM's main engine to boost Olympus 2 to a higher orbit with an estimated lifetime of more than a decade.

Just before the Apollo 27 crew ended their record-setting stay in space in July 1973 - a record that would hold for more than a decade - the unmanned Apollo 31 Saturn V launched a pair of modified RTRS satellites (one operational and one spare) into a loose orbit around the quasi-stable Earth-moon L2 point, 33,000 miles beyond the moon. When NASA launched Apollo 34 (J-5) to the moon’s Farside hemisphere, out of sight of Earth, the satellites provided continuous radio, data, and TV communication with both the CSM while it orbited over the Farside hemisphere and the LM parked on the Farside surface.

The Apollo 32 (O-3) Saturn V launched Olympus 3 - intended to be the first "long-life" space station - from Pad 39A (December 1973). Olympus 3 included three equally spaced radial docking ports, expanded solar arrays, an uprated life support system, a "greenhouse" plant growth chamber, improved internal lighting, an observation cupola, and guest living quarters.

1974

The next month, the three-man Apollo 33 (O-3/K-9/R-1) crew lifted off from Pad 39C to begin a 180-stay on board. Starting with Apollo 33, 180 days became the standard duration for Olympus station missions. The Apollo 27 crew had remained on board Olympus 2 for 224 days so that NASA could have in place a "cushion" of biomedical knowledge in the event that a 180-day mission had to be extended; for example, if a resident crew's CSM proved faulty when time came to return to Earth and a rescue mission had to be mounted.

Apollo 34 (J-5) (February 1974) was, as indicated above, the first piloted mission to the moon's hidden Farside. The last of the J-class lunar landing missions, its crew included the first woman on the moon.

Olympus 3 could support visiting crews for longer periods, permitting Apollo 35 (O-3/K-10/V-1) to be the first three-person, 10-day visitor mission. It delivered the first Cargo Carrier (CC-1) to Olympus 3 60 days into the Apollo 33 mission. Drum-shaped CC-1 rode to orbit inside the segmented shroud between the top of the Saturn IB's S-IVB second stage and the bottom of the Apollo 35 CSM's engine bell.

After S-IVB shutdown, the Apollo 35 crew separated their CSM from the shroud, which peeled back in four parts and separated from the stage. They then turned their CSM end-for-end to dock with CC-1's "outboard" docking port and detached the carrier from the S-IVB.


Image credit: NASA/David S. F. Portree

The Apollo 35 CSM docked with one of Olympus 3's three radial ports using CC-1’s "inboard" docking port. Its crew then entered the station through CC-1's meter-wide central tunnel. When their visit with the Apollo 33 crew drew to an end, they undocked their CSM from CC-1, leaving the carrier attached to Olympus 3 so that it could serve as a "pantry" or "walk-in closet."

Apollo 36 (O-3/K-11/V-2) was another 10-day, three-person visitor mission to Olympus 3. Its crew included an African-American mission Commander who had flown first as Command Module Pilot on Apollo 24. The Apollo 36 CSM docked with CC-1's outboard port 120 days into Apollo 33. When time came to return to Earth, they undocked CC-1's inboard port from Olympus 3. Following their deorbit burn, they undocked their CSM from CC-1's outboard port and performed a small separation maneuver. CC-1, packed with trash, burned up in Earth’s atmosphere, and the Apollo 36 CM capsule splashed down in the Pacific.

The Apollo 33 resident crew undocked from Olympus 3 and returned to Earth, and two weeks later the Apollo 37 (O-3/K-12/R-2) CSM arrived with Olympus 3's second resident crew and, on its nose, a hefty telescope module. The crew gingerly docked the telescope module to the radial port on the side of Olympus 3 opposite the radial port used for Cargo Carriers, then undocked their CSM from the telescope module's outboard port and redocked with Olympus 3's axial port. Olympus 3 thus became the world's first multi-modular space station.

Attention then shifted back to the lunar track of the on-going Apollo Program. Apollo 38 (L-1A) (August 1974) saw an unmanned uprated Saturn V-B rocket launch directly to the lunar surface an LM-derived Lunar Cargo Carrier (LCC-1) bearing a nuclear-powered Dual-Mode Lunar Rover (DMLR). The piloted Apollo 40 (L-1B) mission saw the first Augmented CSM (ACSM) and the first Augmented Lunar Module (ALM) launched to lunar orbit on a Saturn V-B. The Apollo 40 ACSM remained in continuous contact with Earth over the moon's Farside hemisphere through the RTRS satellites at Earth-moon L2.

The ALM descended to a landing within about a kilometer of LCC-1. The astronauts deployed the DMLR and drove it on five traverses during their one-week stay on the moon. They then reconfigured it for Earth-guided operation. After the DMLR retreated to a safe distance under Earth control, the Apollo 40 ALM ascent stage ignited to return the crew to the orbiting ACSM and, subsequently, to Earth.

In October 1974, a month after the Apollo 40 astronauts left the moon, DMLR began a 500-kilometer overland trek to the next planned Apollo landing site. As it moved slowly over the rugged surface, it imaged its surroundings, took magnetometer readings, and occasionally stopped to collect an intriguing rock or scoop of dirt. A pair of spotlights permitted limited lunar night-time driving. Assuming that the DMLR reaches its goal, the next ALM crew, set to land next to a pre-landed LCC in July 1976, will retrieve its samples for return to Earth, reconfigure it for astronaut driving, use it to explore their landing site, and then reconfigure it again for Earth-guided operation.


Image credit: NASA

Sandwiched between Apollo 38 and Apollo 40 was Saturn IB-launched Apollo 39 (O-3/K-13/V3), a routine 10-day visitor mission to Olympus 3 bearing Cargo Carrier-2. Apollo 39 docked CC-2's inboard port with one of Olympus 3's two unoccupied radial docking ports.

1975

The Apollo 41 (O-3/K-14/R-3) CSM docked with the third Olympus 3 radial port bearing the station's third resident crew in early January 1975. The start of their mission overlapped the end of the Apollo 37 resident crew's 180-day stay in space. The handover in marked the start of Olympus 3's continuous occupation, which lasted until the station was safely deorbited in July 1979.

Apollo 42 (O-3/K-15/V-4), another 10-day visitor mission to Olympus 3, docked at the CC-2 outboard port in March 1975 and, when they returned to Earth, deorbited CC-2 over the Pacific Ocean. Apollo 43 (O-3/K-16/V-5) in May 1975, was the second 10-day mission to visit the Apollo 41 resident crew. They delivered CC-3.

Apollo 44 (0-3/K-17/R-4) docked with Olympus 3 on 19 December 1975. On their way to Olympus 3, they performed a rendezvous with Olympus 1 to assess its condition. Apollo 41's return to Earth on 31 December 1975 rounded out NASA's 1975 piloted spaceflight schedule.

On our alternate timeline, NASA's Apollo-based piloted space program is hitting its stride. Earth-orbital operations are becoming routine; lunar-surface operations are continuing to evolve and advance.

On our own timeline, Apollo has drawn to its ill-considered close. Apollo would attract general public notice twice before the first Space Shuttle flight in April 1981: in September 1977, when funding cuts compelled NASA to shut off the science instruments the six Apollo lunar landing crews left behind on the moon; and in July 1979, when Skylab reentered Earth's atmosphere less than a week ahead of Apollo 11's 10th anniversary, pelting Australia with debris.

Source: Dreaming a Different Apollo, Part One

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Dreaming a Different Apollo, Part Two
04 August 2015 David S. F. Portree


Space Shuttle Mission-62: Discovery awaits the imminent arrival of its crew, August 1994. Image credit: NASA

In January 1978, President James Carter announced a surprise decision: NASA's Space Shuttle, then under development but plagued by delays, cost overruns, and technical snags, would be redesigned to launch and land without a crew on board. A spacecraft based on the tried-and-true Apollo Command and Service Module would launch astronauts to the Orbiter in space. They would enter the Orbiter through a docking unit in the Orbiter Payload Bay and use it as a mini-space station for scientific experiments and satellite servicing. Mission completed, the astronauts would return to Earth in the expendable Apollo, then the Orbiter would return to Earth for refurbishment and reuse. Carter justified his decision by pointing to the Shuttle's lack of credible crew escape systems and abort modes.

Carter's 1978 decision piqued the ire of spaceflight purists in a way that even the Sortie Lab decision of 1972 had not, for it turned the rationale for the Shuttle completely upside-down. The Shuttle had been conceived originally as crew rotation and resupply vehicle for a Saturn V-launched core Space Station. After President Richard Nixon refused to fund the core Station and scrapped the Saturn V, NASA studied a Shuttle-launched Station until it became clear that no Station would receive Nixon's blessing.

Deprived of its true purpose, the Shuttle Orbiter became a piloted spacecraft meant to replace all existing expendable space launch vehicles. It would, NASA promised, dramatically reduce the cost of spaceflight, ushering in a new age of space development. It would also reduce the cost of satellites by servicing them in orbit, serve as a short-term space laboratory by carrying in its Payload Bay a can-shaped Sortie Lab module, and make space readily accessible to non-astronauts.

The 1978 decision to turn the Shuttle into a robot spacecraft ceased to be controversial on the morning of 28 January 1986, when the Orbiter Challenger was destroyed a little more than a minute into Space Shuttle Mission (SSM) 25. Had astronauts been on board, they would have been unaware of the Solid Rocket Booster malfunction that was the root cause of Challenger's destruction. Had they somehow learned of the malfunction, they would have been unable to intervene and would have been trapped at least until the Shuttle stack's twin Solid Rocket Boosters had spent their propellant and detached. That would have been too long, for Challenger was destroyed as its Solid Rocket Boosters still burned.

As it was, Challenger's five-person crew for SSM-25 watched as the automated spacecraft they had been meant to board in orbit for a two-week stay was torn apart by aerodynamic forces and tumbled in fragments into the Atlantic. The Solid Rocket Boosters emerged still firing from the fireball created when the Shuttle's large, fragile External Tank broke up, spilling its liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen propellants. The Solid Rocket Boosters each painted a twisting smoke-trail across the blue Florida sky until a Range Safety Officer sent the radio command that destroyed them.

As Challenger disintegrated, the Astronaut Transport Spacecraft (ATS) meant to launch the SSM-25 crew into orbit the following day stood atop a Saturn II expendable rocket on nearby Pad 39B. The ATS was an Apollo Command and Service Module spacecraft redesigned to carry five astronauts. The Saturn II rocket comprised the top two stages of the Saturn V - that is, the 33-foot-diameter S-II and 22-foot-diameter S-IVB. It included six uprated J-2 engines - five in its first stage and one in its second - and six small solid-rocket boosters evenly spaced around its base. Without an ATS on top, the Saturn II could launch a 20-ton payload.

After Challenger, some called for an end to unmanned Orbiter flights. They pointed out that the ATS/Saturn II combination included a sizable cargo volume in the tapered shroud that linked the base of the ATS with the top of the Saturn II S-IVB. They referred to early 1970s NASA and contractor studies that showed that increasing the number of solid-rocket boosters to 10 would permit the Saturn II to launch both the ATS and up to 20 tons of cargo .

President Carter, since his election in November 1984 the first President since Grover Cleveland to serve non-consecutive terms, surprised many by declaring his support for the Shuttle. This should perhaps not have come as a surprise, given that it had been Carter who made the 1978 decision to launch and land the Orbiter without a crew. The "come-back President" pointed to the Challenger accident as the vindication of his 1978 decision, and called for continued unmanned Orbiter flights on the grounds that upgrading the Saturn II would not replace all Shuttle capabilities. It is widely assumed that he also sought to continue the unmanned Orbiter flights to preserve the thousands of jobs the Shuttle Program had created.

In August 1986, Carter signed off on NASA's post-Challenger plan to redesign the SRBs and begin construction of two new Orbiters. This would increase the total number of Orbiters in the Shuttle fleet to four, enabling more downtime for inspections and upgrades between flights. To pay for the new Orbiters, Carter reduced the number of annual Orbiter flights to three from the six planned before Challenger was destroyed. As each new Orbiter came online, one additional flight per year would be added, so the four-orbiter fleet would eventually fly five missions per year.

In the meantime, the Hubble Space Telescope reached orbit in May 1986 atop a Saturn II without an ATS. Repairing its flawed optics became a goal for one of the first post-Challenger Shuttle missions. A Saturn II/Centaur launched the third Radio Relay and Tracking Satellite to geostationary orbit in July 1986, enabling for the first time continuous contact between orbiting spacecraft and flight controllers and researchers on the ground.

A Department of Defense-sponsored ATS solo mission designated SSM-X5 launched in December 1986 with a three-person crew to test polar-orbiting missions. (SSM-X1 through X4 had been Orbiter and ATS test missions in the 1980-1981 period.) Shortly after its return to Earth, new NASA Administrator Sally Ride announced that the Defense Department had opted to forego future Orbiter/ATS flights in favor of ATS solo flights.

The Shuttle Orbiter Enterprise soared into space in September 1987 to start the SSM-26 "Return-To-Flight" mission. Its five-person crew arrived in the SSM-26 ATS two days later. The astronauts spent three weeks on board Enterprise.

Columbia reached orbit in November 1987 to begin SSM-27; after its crew docked their ATS and boarded, they piloted the Orbiter to a rendezvous with the Hubble Space Telescope. Through a series of ambitious spacewalks, the astronauts corrected its faulty optics. They returned to Earth after 10 days in orbit. Columbia landed two days later.

Enterprise reached orbit the next time in May 1988 for SSM-29, but returned to Earth early after the Saturn II rocket bearing the SSM-29 ATS malfunctioned shortly after clearing Pad 39A's lightning mast. The ATS's Launch Escape System activated and pulled its Command Module free of the disintegrating Saturn II rocket. The five astronauts on board were uninjured. They would reach Enterprise to carry out SSM-29R in May 1989. The ATS/Saturn II combination had a flight record going back to the first Apollo Saturn V flight in November 1967, so troubleshooting the J-2 engine malfunction that destroyed the SSM-29 Saturn II and returning the system to flight needed only a few months.

The new Shuttle Orbiter Discovery flew an uncrewed orbital test mission (SSM-X6) in December 1989. In October 1991, the new Orbiter Endurance performed a nearly identical test mission (SSM-X7).

Endurance was the first Orbiter upgraded to permit a 12-week orbital stay and docking with two ATSs at one time. It carried out its first long-duration mission (SSM-60) and received two ATSs between mid-April 1994 and mid-July 1994.

Shortly after Columbia's retirement to the National Air and Space Museum in mid-1995, the new long-duration Orbiter Adventure joined the fleet. It would be the last Orbiter constructed and the last retired; its final mission was SSM-90 in February 2003.

By then, the U.S.-Russian-Chinese-European-Japanese-Brazilian International Space Station had become operational, and NASA and Europe had begun flight tests of the jointly developed Hermes shuttle, which became operational in June 2009. NASA retired the ATS in July 2011, ending 43 years of Apollo and Apollo-derived spacecraft missions.

A note on the Presidents: In this alternate timeline Ronald Reagan defeats James Carter in November 1980, but falls to an assassin's bullet (as he very nearly did) in April 1981. His Vice President, George H. W. Bush, finishes Reagan's term, but Carter narrowly defeats him in November 1984 after Bush's Vice President, Alexander Haig, announces a third-party candidacy that draws votes away from the Republican incumbent. Carter declines the nomination in 1988, in part because of Constitutional questions, and Republican James Thompson of Illinois defeats Carter's Vice President, New Jersey Democrat Bill Bradley, to win the White House. Thompson's two terms (1989-1997) see the collapse of the Soviet Union and the start of the International Space Station. 

Sources

The Unmanned Shuttle Decision: Prudence and the Presidency, John Logsdon, NASA, January 1999, pp. 36-49, 53, 111

SSM-25 Press Kit, NASA, December 1986

SSM-27 Press Kit, NASA, November 1987

Enterprise, Discovery, Endurance, Adventure: NASA's Orbiter Fleet, NASA Facts, December 1996

Chronology of Space Shuttle/Astronaut Transport Spacecraft Missions, 1980-2011, David S. F. Portree, NASA, 2012, pp. 20-22, 26-28, 33-34, 37-40, 45-55, 61-63, 88-91, A-13

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Source: Dreaming a Different Apollo, Part Two

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Dreaming a Different Apollo, Part Three
03 November 2015 David S. F. Portree


Image credit: NASA

Had anyone told him on 4 January 1964 that he'd be standing on the moon on 4 January 1974, he'd probably have punched whoever that was in the nose. That was the day Al burned and they lost the race. They'd stumbled, taken too long to get up again, and so had emboldened their adversary.

The Soviets had taken a different approach to piloted moon-flight; one less costly, safer, and more likely to succeed than the American Apollo plan. They never tired of saying that. They had used their converted R-7 missiles, the same rockets that had launched Sputnik and Laika and Gagarin and Leonov. They had ignored their captured Germans, they said, had gone with native Russian wisdom.

Five launches, five pieces orbiting Earth, with the last one carrying two men. They had chased down the other four, docked with them. Those four payloads turned out to be rocket stages; by the time the next-to-last exhausted its propellants and was cast off, the two cosmonauts were on course for the moon.

No one expected them to land. Everyone thought it was a fly-around circumlunar mission - which would have been bad enough, as far as American prestige was concerned. Yet land they did. 8 October 1968 - the date that men, products of the superior Soviet system, stood for the first time on another world. Even after almost six years, he could not quite believe that it had happened.

The two cosmonauts spent their last rocket stage and most of the propellants in their tiny lander to set down not far from a robot lander launched a month before. They hadn't said much about that lander after they launched it, so everyone thought it had crashed. Suddenly, though, its purpose became clear: besides providing a landing beacon for the manned lander, it was tanker.

After they'd planted and saluted their flag, the first thing they did was drive the tubby tanker, with its eight little wheels, to within hose length of their lander. Then they fastened on the hoses and pumped across the propellants.

The Russians called the place they landed Tranquility Base. Of course it wasn't a real "base" - that came later. They picked up a few rocks and saluted their flag a second time for the camera. Then, five hours after they landed, they blasted off for home.

"Charlie, you daydreaming over there?" The voice from his headphones gave him a start. He cleared his throat. "No, boss. Keepin' an eye on things." He heard Young chuckle, then his commander appeared out of the long shadow Lander-2 cast on the stark gray plain.

Beyond stood three more landers, L-1, L-3, and L-4, scattered off into the distance. L-1 was short, empty, abandoned. L-3 and L-4, with their pointy Earth-Return Vehicles on top, were the tallest things for a hundred miles around.

Native Russian wisdom, Duke thought, snorting. No way the Russians could do what they were about to do, even with the Proton and Salyut rockets they had used to win the second moon race, the race to establish a permanent lunar outpost.

The pressurized rover Endurance was already unloaded from L-1, powered up, and checked out. Argo, its near-twin, still stood atop L-2, its front windows pointed at the sky. Argo's four cleated wheels glinted in stark sunlight; its roof was in shadow, but visible by light reflected from the lunar surface. The wheels were locked onto the ramp Argo would roll down to reach the ground.

Now the ramp and Argo's rounded nose began to tip slowly - ever so slowly - off vertical, toward the rising lunar Sun. "Gene-o," Duke said, "tip start looks good from this side. Do you copy?" Cernan, commander of Endurance, spoke up after a moment. "Yeah, Charlie - looks nice and straight here, too. Over."

"Good resistance on the motors," said Evans, Cernan's pilot. He stood close by L-2, reading the lighted display on the flip-down rover-release control panel. Argo was now tilted about 30 degrees from vertical. "Stand by for the drop," Evans said.

Argo continued to tip, passing horizontal. As its nose began to angle downward, the ladder-like lower ramp slid out and touched the surface in two puffs of dust. "Ramp is locked," Evans reported.

Duke moved forward to watch the wheel locks disengage. "Ready for wheel lock release," said Evans. "Go ahead, Ron," said Young. Duke saw the three locking mechanisms disengage and tip out of the way. On Earth, there'd been three rapid loud bangs - pyros cutting the locks. Here, in lunar vacuum, utter silence.

Argo rolled the last yard to the surface, bounced a little on its suspension and stirred up some dust. As it rolled to a stop, the umbilical linking it to L-2 pulled free and, after a moment, the rover's low-gain antenna tilted and slewed automatically and found Earth.

"Rover boys, this is Houston." That was Ken Mattingly on Capcom. Mission Control shift had changed from White to Maroon. A long, crackling pause. "We are receiving Argo telemetry. Looks good."

"Whew-ee! That's two for two," said Cernan.

"Can't wait to get behind the wheel," said Young as he circled Argo, video recording its exterior for the engineers back on Earth. "Ken - how are we on the timeline? Over."

A pause. "John, you're about 10 minutes behind. Not yet into your PLSS reserve. No one is worried here. Over." "Roger that," said Young, as he stowed his recorder in his hip bag.

Mattingly spoke again after a moment. "Rover control says - he says, 'no racing once you're behind the wheel.' He keeps saying that. He's worried about you hotshots. Over." Young and Cernan both chuckled.

Cernan spoke. "John, Charlie, Ken - Ron and me, we're headed back to Endurance. We're hungry. Over."

"Go ahead, get your dinner," Young said, hopping past Duke, toward their lander. "Charlie and I will return to L-4 in a coupla minutes. That OK, Ken?"

A pause. "Gene, John - you are go to close out EVA-1. Over."

Duke hopped over to Young. He turned, minding his footing, and looked back at Argo, glittering on the surface of the moon, and at the retreating PLSS backpacks of Cernan and Evans, who followed the trail of footprints leading to Endurance. Argo had light blue painted highlights and Endurance had red ones. They matched the red stripes on Cernan's suit and the blue stripes on Young's.

"All right, Charlie, let's get inside," Young said. "Tomorrow we test-drive our new ride. Can you believe it?"

Duke felt a lump in his throat. They had come so far, and now they were ready to make history. The first lunar surface circumnavigation. They'd follow the route the engineers and scientists had so carefully plotted for them using the high-res images from the Apollo 12 and Apollo 14 lunar polar orbiters. They'd cross the north pole and drive south over the high center of Farside, then cross the south pole and drive north. They'd rendezvous with Surveyor-derived cargo landers every couple hundred miles or so to take on supplies and refuel.

If all came off as planned, in two months they'd all be back here, in Sinus Medii, ready to power up L-3 and L-4 and return to Earth. And it would all come off as planned, Duke was sure of it. It was time America scored a victory on the moon.

After that, other astronauts - most likely Jack and Karl doing science, plus Dick and Ken in command - would drive around the moon along its equator. If all went as planned, the second circumnavigation would be under way during the U. S. Bicentennial.

"We're on our way, John," said Duke, as he hopped toward L-4's ladder. "It feels real good."

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Dreaming a Different Apollo, Part Five: Victory Lap

Source:  Dreaming a Different Apollo, Part Three
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Dreaming a Different Apollo, Part Six: Star Trek as an Exemplar of Space-Age Popular Culture
24 June 2017 David S. F. Portree


U.S.S. Enterprise filming model hanging in the National Air & Space Museum, Washington, DC, March 1986. Image credit: David S. F. Portree

(Excerpt from a graduate thesis by David S. F. Portree; submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements for a Master's degree in History, August 1987)

II.

No element of popular culture better exemplifies the enthusiasm Americans felt for their space program in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s than the Star Trek phenomenon. The television program, the brainchild of Gene Roddenberry, aired on the NBC network in its original form from September 1966, as the last Gemini flights blasted off, to June 1971, on the eve of the launch of Olympus 1, the first U.S. space station.

The program, set on board a 23rd-century faster-than-light starship called Enterprise, might have continued for many years but for the ambitions of members of its cast. By early 1971 it was clear that both William Shatner, who played Captain James T. Kirk, and Leonard Nimoy, who played First Officer Spock, wished to build on their fame by tackling new acting challenges. Both would become A-list motion picture stars in the 1970s and 1980s.

For a time, Roddenberry considered continuing Star Trek with a new Captain and First Officer. Many popular actors petitioned him to take over the Captain's chair or the Science Officer's scanner. He noted, however, that the Enterprise would complete the "five-year mission" of Star Trek's opening monologue by the time Shatner and Nimoy moved on. More significant was his concern that fans would not accept the sudden arrival of a new Captain and First Officer in the familiar setting of the Enterprise.

Over the objections of Paramount Studios and NBC, Roddenberry determined to tie off the original Star Trek series. The studio and the network, for their part, threatened to continue the program with a new creative team.

Roddenberry ended the impasse in April 1971 by floating a new Star Trek series. Set "on the other side of the Federation" on board a new starship, it would star Martin Landau, one of the many supplicants who had approached Roddenberry to step into Shatner's shoes. Paramount agreed with some reservations; NBC, for its part, played coy.

The original Star Trek series, meanwhile, went into syndication, earning big profits for Paramount. Roddenberry, who treated the new Star Trek series as a given, demanded that a share of those profits should be invested in the new series so that it could "go where no television series - including the original Star Trek - has gone before."

In August 1971, the CBS network showed interest in the new Star Trek, leaving NBC with little choice but to sign on and accept most of Roddenberry's terms. Development of the new series began in October 1971 and continued through 1972 and the first half of 1973.

Star Trek's popularity and its hopeful vision of a human future in space attracted NASA's notice by the beginning of 1971. Soon the fictional space program of Star Trek began to insinuate itself into the real-life space program.

A small model of the starship Enterprise reached Olympus 1 with the Apollo 19 crew, the first to live on board the station (November-December 1971), and returned to Earth with the Apollo 22 crew, the last to live on board (July-November 1972). The model now resides in the Smithsonian.

During the Apollo 25 lunar landing mission (December 1972), which was given over to lunar surface technology testing and development, Commander Dick Gordon produced a Star Trek communicator from a space suit pocket and asked to be beamed up to the lunar-orbiting Apollo Command and Service Module (CSM) spacecraft Enterprise. The communicator, an actual series prop Roddenberry loaned to Gordon, was, unfortunately, accidently left behind on the moon.

The Apollo 29 crew, the second short-duration visiting crew to pay call on the long-duration Apollo 27 crew on board the Olympus 2 station, released a small herd of fuzzy stuffed "tribbles," alien animals made famous in the second-season Star Trek episode "The Trouble with Tribbles" and the fourth-season episode "More Tribbles, More Troubles." They reached the station in the seventh K-class CSM; thus, going by NASA's alphanumeric mission designation system, it was CSM K-7. Space Station K-7 was the setting for "The Trouble with Tribbles."

Roddenberry's new Star Trek, called Star Trek: Farthest Star, launched in September 1973, at a time when NASA had no astronauts in space. After hosting the record-setting 224-day orbital stay of the Apollo 27 crew, Olympus 2 was boosted to a high-altitude storage orbit in July 1973. Olympus 3, the first "permanent" station, was not due to launch until December. The night before the new series premiere, Tonight Show host Johnny Carson joked in his monologue that NASA's astronauts were all staying home on Earth so as not to miss the new Star Trek premiere. His headline guest that night was Martin Landau, who revealed that his character was named Thelar.

The next night, the premiere of Star Trek: Farthest Star drew a record audience, with more than a third of American households tuning in. Viewers found themselves in a familiar place, but with intriguing changes.

Thelar, it turned out, was an Andorian. According to the Star Trek: Farthest Star series bible, he was the first non-Human formally promoted to captain a starship with a crew made up mostly of Humans. His starship, the Endeavour, patrolled a pie-slice region of Federation space between the Federation Central Beacon and the Galactic Core. The series partially overlapped the original series in time. Endeavour was of the same class as Kirk's Enterprise, differing from it only in detail.

Blue-skinned, white-haired Captain Thelar had a complex back-story. It grew from the original Star Trek season four episode "A Knife in the Heart," which in turn grew from the original Star Trek season one episode "Balance of Terror." Much like "Balance of Terror," "A Knife in the Heart" portrayed a Romulan incursion into Federation space.

The Romulans, it was established, were descended from the crew of a Vulcan cargo ship that had crashed on the bleak planet Zeta Reticuli B V more than 2000 years earlier, in the era before the Vulcans nearly destroyed themselves and embraced logic. Even as they increased their numbers, the proto-Romulans lost their technology. Two hundred years after the crash, Earth and Romulus had roughly equivalent technology; they were both at the technological level of the first-century Roman Empire.

Romulus and Earth continued to advance, with the former outpacing the latter. In about the Earth year 1700, the Romulans fought their first nuclear war, retarding their development. Nevertheless, in about the Earth year 1900, they managed to launch settlers to Romii, a planet orbiting Zeta Reticuli A. By the Earth year 2100, Romulus and Romii were at war.

Humans, meanwhile, split the atom, established a base on Earth's moon, fought the Eugenics Wars, settled Mars, developed warp drive, and contacted the Vulcans, Tellarites, and Andorians. The Vulcans were technologically more advanced than Humans, the Tellarites roughly equivalent, and the Andorians more primitive (they were experimenting with steam and electricity when Earth came to call).

In 2163, the United Earth starship Pax entered the Zeta Reticuli system. A "wolf-pack" of Romulan vessels immediately attacked her and crippled her warp drive with a lucky shot. Because their sensor technology was primitive, they may have mistaken Pax for an enemy Romii vessel. When the Romulans refused communication and attempted to board, Pax's captain transmitted the ship's datalogs to Starfleet Command and overloaded the twin fusion reactors that powered her warp drive, destroying Pax and most of the Romulan vessels.

The Earth-Romulus War was fought almost entirely within the Zeta Reticuli system. Earth's objective was to learn whether the Romulans constituted a threat to Earth and other inhabited worlds outside their system and to attempt dialog. After the Romulans realized that they were fighting a technologically advanced alien species, their objective became to capture technology. In 2169, for example, they reverse-engineered subspace radio.

Nearby Iota Horologii, the Andorian home system, became Earth's forward base in the war. Andorian technology leapt ahead as Humans offered Andorians work in their fleet yards.

The Earth-Romulus War ended in 2174. Earth destroyed Romulan space defense facilities, leaving them vulnerable to the Romii and forcing them to conclude a humiliating treaty via subspace radio. Earth withdrew and surrounded the Zeta Reticuli system with heavily shielded asteroid bases. The Romii and Romulans continued their war. In 2254, a decade before the events portrayed in "Balance of Terror," the Romulans at last crushed the Romii. They then began to look outward.

In "Balance of Terror," Enterprise destroyed a Romulan vessel sent out by the impulsive Romulan Praetor to test Earth's resolve. The Romulans had in the century since the Earth-Romulus War developed an invisibility cloak and a powerful plasma weapon, but apparently had yet to develop warp drive. Earth, meanwhile, had replaced fusion reactors with matter/anti-matter ones, developed photon torpedoes, and become a founding member of the United Federation of Planets. Zeta Reticuli, once on the frontier, now lay deep within Federation space.

Three years after the events of "Balance of Terror," civil war broke out on Andor as its ruling clans split over continued Federation membership. Some sought to withdraw from the Federation and build an Andorian star empire at the expense of other Federation species.

On the face of it, the anti-Federation clans were archaic in outlook and hopelessly out-matched. They had, however, allied in secret with the Romulans, who had at last built a warp-capable battle fleet.

Thelar was a junior officer on board the Federation starship Lexington, which the Federation Council had dispatched to Andor in an effort to defuse the civil war. Her captain offered to mediate a ceasefire. The Romulan fleet suddenly arrived, however, and Lexington's bridge was destroyed.

Thelar became the most senior officer left alive aboard the starship. Standing before the view screen in Lexington's Auxiliary Control Room, he found himself in confrontation with the patriarch of his own anti-Federation, Romulan-allied clan, who was, it turned out, also one of his fathers.

When his patriarch and part-father ordered him to turn Lexington's weapons on the pro-Federation Andorian forces in space and on Andor itself, Thelar declared on an open channel that his allegiance was to something greater than one man, greater than one clan, and, indeed, greater than Andor - his allegiance was to the United Federation of Planets. He then destroyed the patriarch's vessel with a volley of photon torpedoes.

Thelar's decisive act changed the course of the battle. It emboldened the pro-Federation Andorian clans and frightened the Romulan Praetor. In a fit of panic, the latter ordered his flagship to go to warp without notifying his fleet.

A week later, the Federation starships Enterprise, Kongo, and Potemkin drove the Romulans back into the Zeta Reticuli system as they sought to rendezvous and regroup. Following his fleet's defeat, the Praetor was overthrown, creating an opportunity for Federation-Romulan diplomacy. Romulus would eventually join the Federation, though not during the run of Star Trek: Farthest Star.

"A Knife in the Heart" had referred only briefly to Lexington's battle at Andor. Spock remarked during a briefing that the starship had been "badly damaged while scattering the Romulan fleet at Iota Horologii," so could not join the fight at Zeta Reticuli. Thelar was not mentioned in the original series episode.

Star Trek: Farthest Star was not in general about space battles. The series delved instead into relations between humanoids and truly alien species. Most intelligent species in Endeavour's patrol zone, on the Coreward side of the Federation, were non-humanoids. Portraying these species convincingly became possible through improved special-effects technology and a much more generous budget for special effects than had been available to the original Star Trek production team.

Roddenberry sought to use non-humanoid species in part to point up both Thelar's humanity and his occasionally shocking "otherness." As portrayed by Landau, the Andorian captain became a sympathetic character, but also one who sometimes created difficult social and moral conundrums for his human crew and Roddenberry's audience.

On two occasions, Endeavour encountered Kirk's Enterprise. In the third-season episode "Green Torchlight," the two vessels called simultaneously at Starfleet Headquarters, a giant space station in deep space near the Federation Central Beacon. In the fourth-season episode "Aliens," Leonard Nimoy guest-starred as Spock. Nimoy's return to the world of Star Trek made "Aliens" the most popular TV episode in the U.S. in 1978.

Star Trek: Farthest Star featured scripts by many science fiction authors. C. J. Cherryh penned "Destroyer," a second-season show, while Isaac Asimov wrote "Empire and Robots," a fan favorite of the third season. Theodore Sturgeon returned with a sequel to his original Star Trek episode "Shore Leave." Poul Anderson won a Hugo Award in 1979 for his season six episode "Conquest of Five Worlds." Frederick Pohl contributed the controversial season eight episodes "Doorway" and "Gem."

NASA maintained its link to Star Trek. Recordings of episodes - often with added special greetings from stars of both series - made their way to Olympus 3 as crew recreational cargo throughout the station's "five-year mission" (it actually lasted closer to six years, but few argued the point).

A large collection of Star Trek toys and posters accumulated on board Olympus 3. Not everyone found this pleasing. During a spacewalk, astronaut Stu Collins released eight starship models in succession and filmed them as they drifted away. Star Trek fans at first believed he did this because it "looked cool," but then Collins quipped during an orbital press conference that he had released the models "to cut down on the damned Star Trek clutter" inside the station. He then revealed that he had also released a trash bag full of toy tribbles before closing out the spacewalk.

When Collins returned to Earth, he found his office door at NASA Johnson Space Center covered with newspaper clippings reporting angry fan reactions to his "attack" on Star Trek. When he opened the door, he found letters from outraged fans piled almost to the ceiling. The letters on top of the pile, from his astronaut colleagues, contained (mostly) tongue-in-check admonishments.

Star Trek: Farthest Star ran for nine seasons. Its last season overlapped the launch of NASA's first piloted Mars orbiter mission. The crew on board the Mars orbiter Endeavour named the robots they teleoperated on the martian surface for the program's main  characters. Of the six, Thelar, painted a distinctive blue, operated the longest. In fact, it remained functional in October 1984, at the end of Endeavour's 500-day stay at Mars, when the crew fired their spacecraft's main engine to begin the six-month flight home to Earth.

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Source:Dreaming a Different Apollo, Part Six: Star Trek as an Exemplar of Space-Age Popular Culture

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Dreaming a Different Apollo 1.0
22 January 2018 David S. F. Portree


Lunar Truck. Image credit: Grumman

As long-time readers of this blog know, occasionally I get creative and change history. Not in my history posts, if I can help it, but through alternate history posts I group under the general title "Dreaming a Different Apollo." Some are silly, some not, and some (most?) are brazen exercises in wishful thinking. All, however, are entertaining to a greater or lesser degree (or so my readers seem to think) and maybe even a bit instructive, since I try to make them as realistic as possible.

Below is a list of all the "Dreaming a Different Apollo" posts so far, with a brief description hinting at what each is about. Have fun.

Dreaming a Different Apollo, Part One: Shameless Wishful Thinking (Apollo/Saturn continues indefinitely, much as has Soyuz in our timeline, but with more capabilities.)

Dreaming a Different Apollo, Part Two: Jimmy Carter's Space Shuttle (President Jimmy Carter looked carefully at the Space Shuttle he inherited from Nixon and Ford and said, "Holy crap, this thing is dangerous!")

Dreaming a Different Apollo, Part Three: Circumnavigation (The Mercury-Atlas 10 mission ended in tears, discouraging President Kennedy and emboldening the Soviets. The U.S. lost the moon race - but soon opened a new chapter in lunar exploration.)

Dreaming a Different Apollo, Part Four: Naming Names (Fleshing out Dreaming a Different Apollo, Part One.)

Dreaming a Different Apollo, Part Five: Victory Lap (A fully reusable Space Shuttle was phased in during the 1980s. A vignette about a hero returning to Earth.)

Dreaming a Different Apollo, Part Six: Star Trek as an Exemplar of Space Age Popular Culture (An excerpt from my Master's Thesis in an alternate timeline.)

Source: Dreaming a Different Apollo 1.0

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Dreaming a Different Apollo, Part Seven: Hypersonic NASA
02 March 2018 David S. F. Portree


Artist concept of Space Clipper Alpha c. 1985. Image credit: NASA

In January 1972, President Hubert H. Humphrey, mindful of the "aerospace depression" afflicting California, directed NASA to assist U.S. industry in the development of supersonic civilian passenger and cargo aircraft. California was critical to Humphrey's bid for reelection, and polls showed him to be neck-and-neck with liberal Republican candidate Nelson Rockefeller. The new program would, Humphrey declared, create tens of thousands of new jobs.

At the same time, Humphrey announced that the United States would "taper off" manned spaceflight by 1975. Questioned further, he called for a "prudent reduction in spaceflight expenditure" during his second term in office. NASA's budget declined by about 20% by 1976.

Apollo spacecraft visited the Moon three more times. The Apollo 16 Lunar Module (LM) Orion landed in the lunar highlands near the crater Lade in May 1972. The Apollo 17 Command Service Module Endurance, with a crew of two, entered lunar polar orbit in December 1972 and mapped the entire Moon at high resolution for 28 days, setting a short-lived spaceflight endurance record. The Apollo 18 LM Discovery landed among the Marius Hills in July 1975.

Between Apollo 17 and Apollo 18, NASA launched 85-ton Skylab A into Earth orbit on a two-stage Saturn V rocket (May 1973). The station, a converted Saturn V S-IVB third stage originally intended for the cancelled Apollo 20 lunar mission, received three three-man crews: the Skylab 1 crew repaired Skylab A, which was damaged during launch, then lived on board for 29 days in June-July 1973; the Skylab 2 crew occupied Skylab A for 56 days in September-October 1973; then the Skylab 3 crew set a new endurance record of 85 days starting in December 1973. Skylab A's Apollo Telescope Mount (ATM) was designed mainly to observe the Sun.

Skylab B - originally the Apollo 19 S-IVB stage - reached orbit in May 1974 and received two crews: the Skylab 3 crew lived on board for 131 days (June-October 1974), setting a spaceflight endurance record which stands today, and the Skylab 4 crew closed out the program with a 58-day stay in January-March 1975. Skylab B's ATM was designed to look to the stars.

The end of U.S. manned spaceflight and NASA's shift back to aviation research - its prime focus during the four decades (1915-1958) when it was the National Advisory Council on Aeronautics (NACA) - meant major changes across the agency. The Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC) in Houston was hit hardest; it shed more than two-thirds of its contractors and half of its civil servants by 1976.

Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) in Huntsville, Alabama, proved more adaptable; under its second director, Wernher von Braun's long-time colleague Ernst Stuhlinger, it became NASA's lead center for space solar power and electric propulsion research. In 1980, NASA Headquarters made MSFC the development center for the robotic Comet Halley rendezvous-and-landing mission. MSFC also worked with NASA's Langley Research Center (LaRC) in Hampton, Virginia, to develop and test materials and structures for supersonic aircraft.

Robotics assumed a new importance for NASA. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, operated on contract to NASA and the Department of Defense (DOD) by the California Institute of Technology, focused on planetary flyby and orbiter spacecraft. The four-spacecraft Grand Tour series visited all the Outer Solar System planets in the 1980s and 1990s.

LaRC managed Project Viking with JPL as a contractor responsible for the twin Viking Orbiters. Buoyed by the successful landings of the twin Viking Mars landers, the Virginia center emphasized planetary lander development in partnership with contractor Martin Marietta-Denver. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) in suburban Washington, DC, focused on Earth-orbiting science satellites in partnership with the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Baltimore. GSFC assisted MSFC with the Halley's Comet mission, and also worked with the Electronics Research Center (ERC) in Boston. The ERC partnered with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to develop remotely operated Earth-orbital repair & assembly robotics.

By virtue of its long association with aeronautics development, former NACA lab Ames Research Center (ARC) became the prime development center for Humphrey's supersonic program with NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC) in an important support role. As might be expected, given President Humphrey's motives, at first ARC worked mainly with California-based contractors and operated test vehicles exclusively out the Dryden Flight Research Center near Los Angeles.

Soon, however, other NASA centers got their pieces of the pie. They were helped along by the gradual extension of supersonic experimentation into the hypersonic realm (that is, to speeds faster than five times the speed of sound) and above the Karman Line (the boundary between air and space at 330,000 feet - 62 miles - above sea level).

Under President Nelson Rockefeller, in the early 1980s MSC experienced a partial rebound as an extraterrestrial materials institute, crew equipment design center, and crew science training center. NASA Lewis Research Center (LeRC) in Cleveland, Ohio, another former NACA lab, found a role in crew escape systems and lightweight structures, and NASA Kennedy Space Center rebounded as the "East Coast Dryden."

In his January 1984 State of the Union address, Rockefeller called for a piloted "high-hypersonic" aircraft capable of reaching Earth orbit. He named the development program Project Space Clipper, and gave NASA until 1990 to accomplish the task. Many in the aerospace industry greeted Rockefeller's speech with derision; they confidently predicted that a reusable single-stage-to-orbit aircraft was at least a decade away.

On 23 January 1990, however, Space Clipper Alpha carried out Hypersonic Orbital Test (HOT) 1, the first U.S. piloted orbital spaceflight since Apollo 18. Using a "trimodal engine" shrouded in secrecy, Alpha flew from a Dryden runway to low-Earth orbit, orbited Earth three times, reentered over the Pacific, and flew at low hypersonic speed to a landing on the same runway it had departed six hours earlier. A test-bed for hypersonic experimentation with room for only two crew, Alpha flew to orbit six more times before its retirement in late 1993. By then, two operational Space Clippers were undergoing integration and ground testing.

Critics argued that Space Clipper was a sophisticated spacecraft with no mission. A 1989 MIT study (the Minsky Study) conducted for new President Jack Kemp had, however, identified a crew-tended/semi-automated space station as a logical next step for NASA after Space Clipper development. In January 1992, at the start of both his reelection campaign and the International Space Year, Kemp called for just such a station.

Roadblocks soon appeared, however. Space Clipper, with a mass at takeoff of 110 tons, had a maximum payload mass of just six tons, so could not launch the new station. In addition, NASA had pared down its stable of expendable rockets so that its most capable - the Atlas VI - could only place about 20 tons into low-Earth orbit. This was adequate for robotic Earth-orbital and planetary missions, which had been shrinking in mass since the late 1980s, but was judged insufficient for launching a crew-tended Earth-orbiting space laboratory.

In addition, the Soviet Civil War of 1993-1995 intervened. Following the Alma Ata Incident, President Kemp grounded NASA lest its operations be misinterpreted by the warring sides. Most of his second term focused on containing the conflict, which saw at least ten nuclear weapons exploded in anger within former Soviet territory.

During the stand-down, MIT continued research into the space lab mass problem. In a 1994 report, it found that a 20-ton space laboratory could be launched almost empty atop an Atlas VI and economically outfitted in orbit using the Space Clippers and automated assembly systems.

Spacelab 1 reached Earth orbit in 1999. The twin Space Clippers each visited Spacelab 1 twice per year to outfit the station, then, after that was completed, to resupply and change out experimental apparatus, retrieve experiment results, and service and upgrade on-board automation systems. Station visits lasted no longer than 10 days. Spacelab 2 replaced Spacelab 1 in 2006 and operated until 2014.

The 1994 MIT report also pointed to the potential for space tourism. In late January 2003, a coalition of long-established aerospace companies led by Pan American Airlines launched the first commercial Space Clipper, Space Clipper-C, with six passengers on board. They were selected by lottery from a pool of more than 200,000 applicants and subjected to minimal training before their flight. They orbited Earth for two days, reveling in the sights and sensations of space travel (which, it must be admitted, included a fair amount of vomiting and some toilet accidents).

Though derided as a stunt, the Space Clipper-C flight led to dramatic changes for NASA. In January 2004, President Al Gore cited the commercial flight when he called on the aerospace agency to develop larger, more capable hypersonic orbital vehicles, a permanently staffed space station, and a versatile tug that could be upgraded to orbit and landed on the Moon bearing a crew. Gore also called for corporate-government partnerships, with government accepting development costs and initial risk and private companies seeking to prove that robust piloted spaceflight could pay its operating costs.

The development risk associated with all three new systems was substantial, and concern mounted as the three-pronged piloted program threatened to divert funding from widely supported NASA projects, such as the Vera Rubin Space Telescope. The program received a shot in the arm in June 2007, when the Chinese-Siberian Alliance launched its first piloted hypersonic orbital vehicle. A new space race developed as the European Confederation in partnership with Japan and the Central Asian Coalition in partnership with Ukraine and India launched hypersonic vehicles to Earth orbit in 2009 and 2013, respectively.

The 245-ton Space Clipper Mark II, with a maximum payload capacity of 16 tons, debuted in 2011. President John Silverton declared it operational in 2014. Its design drew upon ultra-lightweight, heat-resistant materials manufactured on board Spacelabs 1 and 2. The following year, an upgraded Atlas VII booster with a prototype Space Tug upper stage placed a 45-ton space station core module into low-Earth orbit. The station, the fifth launched by the United States after Skylab A and B and Spacelab 1 and 2, was named Space Station 5. NASA gradually expanded the station using 20-ton modules based on the Spacelab design maneuvered into place using automated Mark I Space Tugs.

Whether spaceflight can pay its operations costs remains uncertain. Some aerospace observers have argued that Space Clipper II is simply too large to pay for itself, while others counsel patience. Some - in fact, a growing number - argue that spaceflight is, after all, very young and is potentially important enough to operate indefinitely at a loss.

NASA continues Space Tug development. This year, in time for the 50th anniversary of the first manned mission to reach lunar orbit (Apollo 8, December 1968), the aerospace agency plans to launch a reusable dual Space Tug Mark II stack from Space Station 5. It will carry three astronauts around the Moon on a free-return trajectory and, after a high-speed aerobraking pass through Earth's upper atmosphere made feasible by nearly 40 years of hypersonic research and development, return them to the station. Nine Space Clipper II flights will launch the Tug components and propellants to Station 5 for automated assembly.

Though funding is tight, NASA seeks to land humans on the Moon in 2025 for the first time since Apollo 18. China, Europe, Central Asia, and their partners have announced similar plans, though none has offered a timetable.

There can be no doubt that President Humphrey thought only of short-term political gain in 1972 when he called on NASA to shift its focus to supersonic development. Nevertheless, as can be seen here, his decision had far-reaching implications.

As I write these words in 2018, passengers can fly around the world non-stop in less than nine hours. No major airport in the contiguous U.S. is more than an hour from any other. Weekly flights depart for tourism accommodations on board Space Station 5 (passenger numbers have, however, fallen off as the novelty of becoming motion-sick in low-Earth orbit has faded). Soon the Moon will be within reach of astronauts for the first time in 50 years. There is already talk of a crew-tended base at one of the lunar poles, where Apollo 17 detected abundant ice in permanently shadowed craters. As NASA and its commercial partners experiment with Moon ships and spaceflight cost reduction, one may be cautiously optimistic about our future off the Earth.

A Note on the Presidents

1969-1977 - Hubert H. Humphrey, Democrat

1977-1981 - Lloyd Bentsen, Democrat

1981-1989 - Nelson Rockefeller, Republican

1989-1997 - Jack Kemp, Republican

1997-2005 - Albert Gore, Democrat

2005-2013 - John Silverton, Republican

2013-present - Janet Napolitano, Democrat

Souce: Dreaming a Different Apollo, Part Seven: Hypersonic NASA

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