Historicish NASA play throw

[tmikesecrist3]

once all my mods I am planing to use get up dated, I am thinking about doing a what if nasa type game. What I am planning is what of nasa had not had its budget cut after Apollo. I am planning on useing FASA RSS RO RP0 tac lifesuport... Truing to think of what lifters I will need as well as a time table on missions... I will probly post mission files on this tread once I start

[Konstantine the Great]

You can probably use Nova from FASA.

[tmikesecrist3]

oh I know I can use A lot of thins form FASA and plane to use the most of them at least for a short time, I am sure the Juno and redstone with not have long operational lives, The nova, that was a planed but never built update to the Saturn V wasnt it?

[HMS Sophia]

Truing to think of what lifters I will need as well as a time table on missions...

Vanguard, Jupiter, Atlas, Titan, Redstone, Thor (later Delta), Saturn I and V... You'll also want upper stage boosters like Agena (yay for docking training) and Centaur.

Timetable? Explorer 1, 1958, Mercury is 1961, Gemini is... 1963?4?. Apollo first fly's in 67.

Are you going to go pure Original Timeline up until the end of Apollo? Or modifications earlier on?

oh I know I can use A lot of thins form FASA and plane to use the most of them at least for a short time, I am sure the Juno and redstone with not have long operational lives, The nova, that was a planed but never built update to the Saturn V wasnt it?

The Nova was a proposed follow on to Saturn V, but it was neither seriously considered nor planned. Saturn V was all that the Apollo applications program needed to build a moon base and run mars missions.

You might also want to look at the STS plan (Space Transport System, which eventually became the shuttle) for what Nasa wanted to do in the late 70's.

EDIT: Also, even if you just go for manned missions, this is circa... 25 launches or so. That's before you get into AAP and STS.

[Konstantine the Great]

Yes. If I remember correctly, (you may want to look this stuff up because I haven't read about it in a while), but there were some different planned variants of it, and the ultimate goal was I think a round trip to Mars. One variant was even said to be able to lift up to 1,000,000 lbs into LEO. Look it up though-you will find diagrams and stuff about the different plans. I also remember reading about some sort of an Earth-Moon nuclear shuttle

[tmikesecrist3]

Yes I was thinking I would try and stick close to the historic time table up to the moon ladings, so that means Explorer 1 and 2 and vanguard in year one, explorer 3 and vangard 2 and 3 and pioneer 0-4 in year 2 Mercury and corona in year 3 if I recall rightly that brings me to 1960. also something that would be nice for Emersion sake but not major would be a way to switch from metric to imperial. Nasa mission control still uses feet per sec.. Things get a little harder once I get after apollo 17. Ie Van brouns space station I think that would have been before his moon base. thinking about going with sky lab for that but may go with a modification of it, or something else... and hes moon base both would have been timed for prier to 1980. as for sts I am not sure I will need it, I mean other then being able to bring a payload back form orbit can it really do something that a Titan delta or Saturn V nova cant. one of the things I am trying to do is invest in capability and flexibility. A space shuttle cant be used out side of leo, if you tried coming back form high earth orbit or heaven foirbed the moon or interplanetary space. the Aerodynamic forces would tear the wings off. Thats why where going back to a capsule for Orion . I did find some info on van brouns moon base on nasa's page but it was um vary short on details as for what he intended for it to do. though now that I think about it, I may need to tinker with the contracts to make sure I can do every thing I am thinking about.... there are other possible projects though they dont really involve nasa, Blue Gemini (the air force takeing it over after nasa moved to Apollo) the air forces manned orbital lab, and the air forces moon base

[tmikesecrist3]

I think that was one idea Van Braun had for a earth mars ship...... To be build then fueled in orbet

[Sampa]

oh I know I can use A lot of thins form FASA and plane to use the most of them at least for a short time, I am sure the Juno and redstone with not have long operational lives, The nova, that was a planed but never built update to the Saturn V wasnt it?

Actually, according to history books, the Nova was originally supposed to have been the moon ship, not the Saturn V

[Konstantine the Great]

From what I understand, Nova was to be used with the Direct Lunar Landing, or two Saturn IB's for Earth Orbit Rendezvous, or the Saturn C-8(later renamed Saturn V, the one we witnessed built) for Lunar Orbit Rendezvous. I think it would actually be kind of cool if you tried some of these different proposals.

[tmikesecrist3]

yeah that could be an interesting though....... not sure though

[Konstantine the Great]

I know what you mean since you said that you wanted to play through the moon landings. Just an idea. I would consider using Nova after this though due to its extreme lifting capabilites.

[tmikesecrist3]

of course I am also trying to think of how to do Scout Rocket

[Konstantine the Great]

Maybe you could use procedural SRB's

[tmikesecrist3]

what I was thinking, I should be able to come close to thurst dv and burn times form the stages

[HMS Sophia]

Ie Van brouns space station I think that would have been before his moon base. thinking about going with sky lab for that but may go with a modification of it, or something else... and hes moon base both would have been timed for prier to 1980. as for sts I am not sure I will need it, I mean other then being able to bring a payload back form orbit can it really do something that a Titan delta or Saturn V nova cant. one of the things I am trying to do is invest in capability and flexibility. A space shuttle cant be used out side of leo, if you tried coming back form high earth orbit or heaven foirbed the moon or interplanetary space. the Aerodynamic forces would tear the wings off. Thats why where going back to a capsule for Orion .

Well, no, if you tried coming back from a lunar orbit in the shuttle, it would burn up before the wings had a chance to tear away. It's ceramic tiling wasn't designed to cope with the heat of such a fast re-entry. Of course, if you have the delta V you can always bring it back into a nice stable LEO orbit before re-entry, but that's not the point...

What I actually wanted to say, was look up the original STS plan, not the shuttle. Originally the shuttle was intended to be just a single part of a range of both vehicles and space bases. It was a very interesting proposal.

Also, if you want a serious, realistic development of the apollo program, look at the Apollo Applications Program, not one of Von Braun's monstrous insanities. He was a visionary, and a genius, but that doesn't mean his idea's were feasible. Assume your budget doesn't drop. You have 4-4.5% of the US annual budget. AAP can be run under that with ease. Most Von Braun idea's would need significantly greater funding.

Equally, once you have Saturn V, there isn't really a need for Nova. One of the main reasons for rejecting Nova was the sheer quantities of propellants involved in building such a god awfully enormous rocket. A launch accident would wipe out not just whatever brand new launch complex they built for the rocket, but a decent chunk of the land around it as well. Saturn V can do serious on-orbit construction, it has a payload to LEO of 118 tons, there were proposals for mars ships smaller than that. Nova is, quite simply, unnecessary, and considered dangerous.

Edited December 19, 2014 by HMS Sophia

[HMS Sophia]

From what I understand, Nova was to be used with the Direct Lunar Landing, or two Saturn IB's for Earth Orbit Rendezvous, or the Saturn C-8(later renamed Saturn V, the one we witnessed built) for Lunar Orbit Rendezvous. I think it would actually be kind of cool if you tried some of these different proposals.

Depends on if you want to go for the most efficient one or not. Though equally, LOR was only accepted at the last minute, so it wouldn't be that surprising if one of the Full-Team landing methods was chosen. You should see how damn huge a direct ascent lander is though, it's somewhat scary.

[Secuas]

r.i.p. english tho.

[Konstantine the Great]

Depends on if you want to go for the most efficient one or not. Though equally, LOR was only accepted at the last minute, so it wouldn't be that surprising if one of the Full-Team landing methods was chosen. You should see how damn huge a direct ascent lander is though, it's somewhat scary.

Ya I've seen pictures-von Braun was very creative just to say the least.

[tmikesecrist3]

I think mission of Van Brauns ideas as the start phase.... first you ask your self what you would like to do, then how do we do it. next you ask your self what can we do, both form a technical stand point and a funding one) then you say how can we do we get what we would like to do and get it to match what we can do. so we start with Van bruans idea for a space station which I still dont think we have the capability to build. if you dont have the capability all the funding in the world wont help. and we end up with skylab then as are technical capability expands we move to the ISS. start with hes concept of a moon base, and move on to AAP as a compromise between what we want to do and what we can do. That is one reason why I want to stress as much flexibility as possible. I am going to use contracts and funding to represent my budget.

[Konstantine the Great]

Ya I do think that you should build the moon base and also the Mars mission.

[tmikesecrist3]

The veanis fly by sounds interesting to, not sure what the pressing need would be to do that manned I mean we can do a manned landing there, the maned mars fly by makes more since

[LABHOUSE]

Why not play with rss and far also? Then there will be benefits for building exact replicas with the correct size.

[Konstantine the Great]

Why not play with rss and far also? Then there will be benefits for building exact replicas with the correct size.

Its in the OP.

[tmikesecrist3]

yes to bad there is really no way to do the x-15 launchs:(

[Tiberion]

You might find "Eyes turned Skyward" of interest - there was an ongoing KSP project working on replicating a lot of its "What if" designs, but its been inactive for a month or so.

Check it out here: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/81756-Eyes-Turned-Skywards-UPDATE-now-with-Signup-Sheet

And the original thread on Alternate History: http://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=208954

And the wiki with links to technical details about all the vehicles and such: http://wiki.alternatehistory.com/doku.php/timelines/eyes_turned_skywards

Edited December 20, 2014 by Tiberion