Author Topic: More developed European Space Agency/Program  (Read 19951 times)

Offline elmayerle

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More developed European Space Agency/Program
« on: October 05, 2014, 09:17:32 PM »
Hmm, Europe doing the supporting infra-structure could definitely influence how NASA approached the moon landing effort (Apollo having the option of recovering to a space station would be nice).  I could see NASA using their heavy lift rockets, developed for Apollo, to loft space station segments as part of a joint effort with ESA doing the cargo, passenger, and re-supply means.  You'd definitely get an ISS earlier, even without Soviet/Russian participation.

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Re: More developed European Space Agency/Program
« Reply #1 on: October 06, 2014, 02:31:19 AM »
The background is a rough one that I worked out where an earlier and better-funded ESA does a deal with NASA in the 1960s. Instead of wastefully competing, Europe does the small steps "infrastructure" stuff like a space station and a spaceplane, while NASA concentrates on the cash-hungry beat-the-Soviets-to-the-moon program.

I love your scenario! :)  This could provide some very interesting ideas.
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Offline Weaver

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Re: More developed European Space Agency/Program
« Reply #2 on: October 06, 2014, 06:10:45 AM »
Hmm, Europe doing the supporting infra-structure could definitely influence how NASA approached the moon landing effort (Apollo having the option of recovering to a space station would be nice).  I could see NASA using their heavy lift rockets, developed for Apollo, to loft space station segments as part of a joint effort with ESA doing the cargo, passenger, and re-supply means.  You'd definitely get an ISS earlier, even without Soviet/Russian participation.


IIRC, I suggested a space-station recovery for Apollo, but someone pointed out that the velocity of the retuning craft would be so high that that would take a large amount of fuel and time to slow it down and do the orbital maneuvering. The original discussion is here: http://www.whatifmodelers.com/index.php/topic,33142.0.html
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Offline elmayerle

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Re: More developed European Space Agency/Program
« Reply #3 on: October 06, 2014, 06:47:11 AM »
Well, if you've got a working orbital base, you can go with a full-up, non-streamlined, spaceship for Earth-orbit to lunar orbit/landing operations, much as Bonestell depicted for Willy Ley's books in the 1950's (or, really, in some of Clarke's stories from that time frame).

Alternatively, you could go with the three classes of space ship that the Hariman Corporation used in Heinlein's series of stories, Earth-to-orbit and return, space-to-space, and space-to-airless-landing, operating from stations in both Earth orbit and Lunar orbit.
« Last Edit: October 06, 2014, 07:27:25 AM by elmayerle »

Offline Weaver

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Re: More developed European Space Agency/Program
« Reply #4 on: October 06, 2014, 11:37:27 AM »
The way I see it now is that during the 1960s, NASA does the Apollo program pretty much as per real life (because politically, they need the speed), while ESA develops a semi-recoverable rocket that's sized for commercial satellite launches and can be "clustered" to launch heavier payloads, including a spaceplane upper stage, with the ultimate goal of getting a small space station into orbit by 1970.

Then in the mid 1970s, roles reverse somewhat. ESA uses it's space station, modular rocket system and NASA's pioneering moon experience to assemble three multi-vehicle "super-science" moon missions in orbit which can do far more science than any Apollo mission. Meanwhile, NASA starts using Saturn V technology and ESA's pioneering space station experience to start lifting large components for a really serious space station.

Next steps are a high-capacity, fully (or mostly) reusable launch system (not neccessarily of RW shuttle configuration) as a full joint project, large, unmanned planetary probes, using the modular launch system, and preparations/research for a manned Mars mission.
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Offline elmayerle

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Re: More developed European Space Agency/Program
« Reply #5 on: October 06, 2014, 12:10:42 PM »
That sounds quite plausible (NASA might even continue Saturn 5 production longer and keep the last three Apollo missions; I can certainly see Saturn 5 elements boosting modules for a serious space station - Skylab was launched by a Saturn 1B, IIRC, and the Saturn 5 could lift more).  The multi-vehicle moon missions sound like some of the 1950's concepts made real.  Personally, I wish things had proceeded that way.

Given the on-going research into lifting bodies, I could see the fully reusable system using such for the upper stage.  For the lower one, I like the supersonic air-breather concept described in the novelization of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

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Re: More developed European Space Agency/Program
« Reply #6 on: October 06, 2014, 12:34:00 PM »
Folks,

A dedicated thread for the scenario(s) involving a more developed European Space Agency/Program - spinning off from the above discussion.

Kind regards,

Greg
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Offline Weaver

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Re: More developed European Space Agency/Program
« Reply #7 on: October 07, 2014, 09:26:25 AM »
Given the on-going research into lifting bodies, I could see the fully reusable system using such for the upper stage.  For the lower one, I like the supersonic air-breather concept described in the novelization of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Indeed. Although I support efforts like Skylon, I've always thought that SSTO is kind of missing the point, i.e. if all the parts of the vehicle are recoverable, then it doesn't matter how many stages you have. A high speed, high altitude carrier vehicle (SR-71 engines plus a rocket motor?) that launched a spaceplane off it's back at 150,000 ft at Mach 3 would be one way to go.
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Offline elmayerle

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Re: More developed European Space Agency/Program
« Reply #8 on: October 07, 2014, 10:25:08 AM »
The original Space Shuttle concept was fully reusable, it only became what it was when it got proxmired in the early 1970s.  I still think that the horizontal take-off approach to a two-stage fully-reuseable system that Clarke used in his 2001 novel or his earlier [/I]Prelude to Space[/I] (1951) made a lot of sense and still does.  It does make me wonder what Sierra Nevada's efforts to have Spacelifter launch Dream Chaser will lead to, if anything.  That would probably need an unmanned, fully reusable booster stage from the drop aircraft, but it could work.

Offline Weaver

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Re: More developed European Space Agency/Program
« Reply #9 on: October 07, 2014, 12:26:04 PM »
That sounds quite plausible (NASA might even continue Saturn 5 production longer and keep the last three Apollo missions; I can certainly see Saturn 5 elements boosting modules for a serious space station - Skylab was launched by a Saturn 1B, IIRC,

Actually Skylab was launched by a Saturn V (it was basically a Saturn V third stage shell). Saturn 1Bs were used to launch the Apollo capsules that ferried crew to it.
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Offline Weaver

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Re: More developed European Space Agency/Program
« Reply #10 on: October 07, 2014, 12:54:16 PM »
The original Space Shuttle concept was fully reusable, it only became what it was when it got proxmired in the early 1970s.  I still think that the horizontal take-off approach to a two-stage fully-reuseable system that Clarke used in his 2001 novel or his earlier [/I]Prelude to Space[/I] (1951) made a lot of sense and still does.  It does make me wonder what Sierra Nevada's efforts to have Spacelifter launch Dream Chaser will lead to, if anything.  That would probably need an unmanned, fully reusable booster stage from the drop aircraft, but it could work.

The Brooke Bond tea company used to issue cards in their packs which you collected and stuck into albums, and I have a large collection of these from the early 1970s. One of them, issued in the middle of Apollo (after Apollo 13 but before any missions with rovers) is all about the space race and has quite a few future projects that look rather folorn now. These include a space shuttle with short, swept wings that rides on top of a "booster" that's just a bigger version of itself (vertical launch though), the US space station after Skylab, and serried ranks of NERVA-powered boosters ready to send two ships to  Mars. Just about the only one that actually happened was The Grand Tour which became Voyager.

I'll try to scan some of the pages tomorrow.
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Offline elmayerle

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Re: More developed European Space Agency/Program
« Reply #11 on: October 07, 2014, 07:47:41 PM »
That was a very early iteration of the space shuttle derived from studies of recoverable Saturn 5 stages.  The first real shuttle design that I remember seeing was something similar to the final fuselage with barely swept wings (1/4 chord line was swept, trailing edge was not) and conventional tail surfaces, launched, underside to underside, on a larger, similar, fly-back booster.  This Orbiter configuration was the first one I actually saw in low-speed wind tunnel testing (low-speed, 7' x 10' tunnel at Texas A&M, out by Easterwood Field).

Offline Weaver

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Re: More developed European Space Agency/Program
« Reply #12 on: October 07, 2014, 10:39:35 PM »
Okay, here's the pics. I've editied some half-pages and small images together and blown up the shuttle images as much as I can. I think the graininess in the latter is actually in the painting, not a digital artifact, as though it was painted on heavily textured board.








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Offline elmayerle

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Re: More developed European Space Agency/Program
« Reply #13 on: October 08, 2014, 01:17:09 AM »
Yeah, that looks like one of the earliest iterations.  The next round had them underside to underside for a more compact vehicle and simpler interfaces.  That's very much the first shape I saw in the wind tunnel, though.

Of course, the underside-to-underside configuration also keeps the orbiter's exhaust plume from impinging on the vertical tail of the booster.  That and allowing parallel burn of both booster and orbiter engines for vertical lift-off is a pretty good argument for that configuration.
« Last Edit: October 08, 2014, 12:20:51 PM by elmayerle »

Offline Rickshaw

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Re: More developed European Space Agency/Program
« Reply #14 on: October 08, 2014, 01:57:51 PM »
Yeah, that looks like one of the earliest iterations.  The next round had them underside to underside for a more compact vehicle and simpler interfaces.  That's very much the first shape I saw in the wind tunnel, though.

Of course, the underside-to-underside configuration also keeps the orbiter's exhaust plume from impinging on the vertical tail of the booster.  That and allowing parallel burn of both booster and orbiter engines for vertical lift-off is a pretty good argument for that configuration.

So, one crew will always be hanging upside-down?  Who gets to decide which way is "up"?  ;)

Offline elmayerle

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Re: More developed European Space Agency/Program
« Reply #15 on: October 08, 2014, 07:57:07 PM »
Since that concept was still a vertical launch, neither.

Offline Frank3k

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Re: More developed European Space Agency/Program
« Reply #16 on: October 09, 2014, 12:12:59 AM »
Wow, two+ years in space without any obvious shielding. Do you want to die from radiation induced cancers? Because that's how you die from radiation induced cancers.

It's sad to compare the progress made in the 30 years of spaceflight between 1951 and 1981 (the flight of the first Shuttle) and the lack of progress made in the 30 years between 1981 and 2011. I wish we would have had Von Braun stations by 1980.

Offline Rickshaw

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Re: More developed European Space Agency/Program
« Reply #17 on: October 09, 2014, 08:15:42 AM »
Since that concept was still a vertical launch, neither.

But what about "roll over" (I think that is the term) when the stack starts going down range and moves from vertical to an angled climb?

Offline Rickshaw

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Re: More developed European Space Agency/Program
« Reply #18 on: October 09, 2014, 08:21:39 AM »
Wow, two+ years in space without any obvious shielding. Do you want to die from radiation induced cancers? Because that's how you die from radiation induced cancers.

What about Osteoporosis?

Space in those days was much more benign.  All you had to worry about was that pesky vacuum.

Quote
It's sad to compare the progress made in the 30 years of spaceflight between 1951 and 1981 (the flight of the first Shuttle) and the lack of progress made in the 30 years between 1981 and 2011. I wish we would have had Von Braun stations by 1980.

However, as you've noted, building stations like that would have been quite dangerous.

In some ways the "lack of progress" is reflective of how much more difficult things became as people found out the realities of designing and building for such a hostile environment.   Economics was the main reason though.   The 1970s "stagflation" and the "Vietnam syndrome" did more to kill the space programme than anything else IMO.   Basically the US lost it's bottle and became risk adverse.  It had won the space race and didn't really have anything driving further space efforts.  The fUSSR had lost it, so what was the point?   Nothing like a bit of healthy competition and an existential crisis to drive things along.

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Re: More developed European Space Agency/Program
« Reply #19 on: October 09, 2014, 09:08:07 AM »
Hn some ways the "lack of progress" is reflective of how much more difficult things became as people found out the realities of designing and building for such a hostile environment.   Economics was the main reason though.   The 1970s "stagflation" and the "Vietnam syndrome" did more to kill the space programme than anything else IMO.   Basically the US lost it's bottle and became risk adverse.  It had won the space race and didn't really have anything driving further space efforts.  The fUSSR had lost it, so what was the point?   Nothing like a bit of healthy competition and an existential crisis to drive things along.

The Space Shuttle was a poor compromise and a flawed design by the time it flew.  It should have been sent to museums long before 1986 (much as the Russians did with the Buran.) The ISS was a good aerospace welfare program and a good place to send rich people and high paid maintenance workers, but little else.  NASA is definitely risk adverse.

Offline Alvis 3.1

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Re: More developed European Space Agency/Program
« Reply #20 on: October 09, 2014, 09:27:17 AM »
While being a compromise and having flaws (and name me one manned spaceflight vehicle that wasn't?) the Shuttle was far from needing to be put in a museum by 1986. The ONLY heavy lift flying body, with a damn good safety record for an experimental craft. Yes, it lost two orbiters in the entire time it was in service. That's the risks you take with rocketry. Stick with a limited, tiny capsule like Soyuz, and sure, you can keep them flying for a long time, but don't forget, they lost two crews with that vehicle early on, and have had a fail to orbit on one occasion as well.
As for Buran, the Russians shelved it as they were broke and in disarray. It had some advantages over the US Shuttle, but would have likely shown to have had failings as well.
NASA and the US have had two situations where they were nearly shut down: Apollo 1 and Apollo 13. Given the public nature of their funding, and the high profile they had from day 1, anything that led to a loss of life was highly troublesome for their funding. Then you get into the whole Proxmire style politicians, who saw NASA as a nice place to claw money from for their own pet projects, and a population that's not the most attentive or capable of anything long term, and you have an organization that cannot make those great leaps into the unknown in fear of being eliminated if something bad happens.
You want to look at a welfare program, well, look at any country's military program. There's more money going into keeping people employed for no real purpose other than keeping them employed than those organizations, but god help you if you try to cut there, you're labelled a traitor or worse.

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Offline Alvis 3.1

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Re: More developed European Space Agency/Program
« Reply #21 on: October 09, 2014, 09:31:17 AM »
Since that concept was still a vertical launch, neither.

But what about "roll over" (I think that is the term) when the stack starts going down range and moves from vertical to an angled climb?

I would have to guess the booster would be the one facing down, as it would be required to make the downward pitch to recovery. The orbiter would be the one needing to go upwards. The STS Shuttle rotated to be on the bottom on the way up, but it was for communication purposes, the antenna in the orbiter being blanked out by the ET and SRBs. Lacking that requirement, it could have ridden on the top side.
I think when you're undergoing 4+ gs, whether you are oriented up or down doesn't really matter much.

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Offline Alvis 3.1

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Re: More developed European Space Agency/Program
« Reply #22 on: October 09, 2014, 09:33:49 AM »
Elmayerle, are you visualising Ariane type boosters being used by the ESA, or the older Blue Steel derived vehicles? Timeframe wise, the Blue Steel would allow the Europeans decent sized launch capability by the early 70s.

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Offline Frank3k

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Re: More developed European Space Agency/Program
« Reply #23 on: October 09, 2014, 09:56:27 AM »
While being a compromise and having flaws (and name me one manned spaceflight vehicle that wasn't?) the Shuttle was far from needing to be put in a museum by 1986.

The Shuttle and the ISS are what killed the US space program.  The US did nothing worthwhile in space during the Shuttle period, other than lob some people into LEO. Over and over again. About all that has been learned is that microgravity is bad for you (which was known in the 70s) and if your spaceship breaks up going up or coming down, you're going to have a Bad Time.

OTOH, the period from the early 50's through late 70's saw a steady evolution in space capabilities and goals, from launching mice 50 miles up in a V-2 to landing several men on the Moon and building a space station that had more living space than the ISS. NASA and the manned US space program from 1980 on has been a deep embarrassment.

Offline Weaver

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Re: More developed European Space Agency/Program
« Reply #24 on: October 09, 2014, 10:49:39 AM »
Elmayerle, are you visualising Ariane type boosters being used by the ESA, or the older Blue Steel derived vehicles? Timeframe wise, the Blue Steel would allow the Europeans decent sized launch capability by the early 70s.

Alvis 3.1

Think you mean Blue Streak rather than Blue Steel. Before Ariane there was Europa, which used Blue Streak as it's first stage, and it turned out to be the only bit of it that actually worked reliably. My proposed European rocket would use Blue Streak technology, although not neccessarily being limited to literally using the same components.
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"I've jazzed mine up a bit" - Spike Milligan

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