How long to space w/o ICBMs?

Rusty wrote:


Wasn't the Viking design based on V-2 technology in the beginning?

Rusty



There was obviously a lot of input in the design from examination of how
the V-2 was made and worked, right down to the choice of propellants.
But Aerobee was pretty much an all-American design, and you can see it
evolving on its own even if there hadn't been a V-2.
The trick is the timeframe...having the V-2 to serve as a example that a
large rocket was possible served as a major incentive to build them, and
I think things would have advanced slower without it. Certainly we never
had the incentive to build something big along the lines of Goddard's
"basic rocket" in the 1930's.

Pat

Pat Flannery wrote:

The trick is the timeframe...having the V-2 to serve as a example that a
large rocket was possible served as a major incentive to build them, and
I think things would have advanced slower without it.

I didn't have a "trick" in mind (and probably shouldn't have phrased
the question so much in alt.history.what-if style). It's really a
two-stage :-) question:

If no Peenemunde program and no V-2, how long for *scientific*
motivations and budgets to push us to sounding rockets a la Aerobee?

AND

If no prospect of nuclear warheads, how long for *scientific*
motivations and budgets to push us from something like Aerobee to
orbit, with Vanguard or the like? Or would a first commercial commsat
or first miltary spysat have done the trick?

In a way, it's a question about Big Science and the associated Big
Bleeding-Edge Engineering, which historians agree was very much a
legacy of WWII. After radar, jets, the V-2 and the A-bomb, scientists
who previously had thought $50K was big money had access to millions,
so we would stay ahead with wonder weapons (or at any rate not be
surprised by somebody else's wonder weapons). But to what extent would
the US or USSR have seen a high-explosive-only uber-V-2, antipodeal
bomber etc. as a wonder weapon worth pursuing?

I remember a "won't it be great?" IGY poster in my classroom in 1956,
and in hindsight I know that planning for it had been going on since
1952-1953. Would a satellite (rather then just a slew of up-and-down
instrument packages to the exosphere) have been part of the mix if the
scientists hadn't had the benefit of pedal-to-the-metal engineering
towards the R-7, Redstone, Atlas etc?

Monte Davis wrote:

If no Peenemunde program and no V-2, how long for *scientific*
motivations and budgets to push us to sounding rockets a la Aerobee?

I suspect that although there were no formal long-range missile
programs in the immediate post-war period, a major motivation for
upper-atmosphere research was the possibility of developing long-range
missiles that would fly through the upper atmosphere. Thus, I suspect
that the V-2 indirectly stimulated Aerobee and Viking. Hence, without
the V-2, large sounding rockets would have come much later.

On the plus side, without the German Army's interest in the V-2,
Germany's amateur group, the VfR (Verein fuer Raumfahrt, i.e., Union
for Space Travel), would have retained Wernher von Braun and its own
accomplishments would probably have been more extensive, although
high-altitude sounding rockets would still have been unlikely.

If no prospect of nuclear warheads, how long for *scientific*
motivations and budgets to push us from something like Aerobee to
orbit, with Vanguard or the like? Or would a first commercial commsat
or first miltary spysat have done the trick?

It strikes me as unlikely that communications satellites by themselves
would have justified the expense of developing orbital launch vehicles.
Spy satellites seem a much more likely motivation, since, being
military, they could draw on large budgets. Without nuclear weapons,
however, the Soviet Union probably would not have seem frightening
enough to warrant satellites. And the Soviets would probably not have
bothered to develop spy satellites either, since they had many more
opportunities for traditional, on-the-ground intelligence gathering.

With commercially-viable uses of space other than communications
satellites being for the most part economically marginal today, even
after decades of governments covering sunk costs, I doubt that any
other commercial application would have yet spurred the development of
orbital technology. That leaves pure scientific research as the likely
motivation. The question is then at what stage would US GDP have grown
sufficiently that satellites would have been affordable in the context
of a government willing to spend x percent per year on pure research.

In this regard, what was the total cost, excluding sounding rockets and
satellites, of the US contribution to the IGY? How much money was
spent on pre-IGY antarctic research? What was typical US government
spending on astronomy in the late 50s?

Monte Davis wrote:

If no prospect of nuclear warheads, how long for *scientific*
motivations and budgets to push us from something like Aerobee to
orbit, with Vanguard or the like? Or would a first commercial commsat
or first miltary spysat have done the trick?


There are so many variables in that question that I don't know if it can
even be answered in any real form.
Without a nuclear weapon (or some sort of other highly destructive
payload such as Anthrax or Smallpox) a strategic SSM doesn't make a lot
of sense unless you can give it some form of terminal guidance to hit a
specific target with great accuracy.
What made things fluky was that both the German's and ourselves came up
with one part of a terrifying weapons system technology that when put
together worked extremely well as a combined system- the nuclear
warheaded SSM.
What really would have seriously stymied space exploration isn't a world
without V-2s, it's a world without the atomic bomb. If it hadn't been
possible to build, then the drive to build long-range rockets might
never of happened.
I went digging around for when the WAC Corporal program got started,
and what gets even it rolling is reports that the Germans are playing
around with long-range artillery rockets, although I doubt anyone
involved in the WAC Corporal program knows about the Manhattan Project,
so the design is very modest in size.
In a atomic bomb free world the bomber, not SSM, may be king, due to the
need for dropping its bombload with accuracy, requiring some guidance
input from the bombardier.

In a way, it's a question about Big Science and the associated Big
Bleeding-Edge Engineering, which historians agree was very much a
legacy of WWII. After radar, jets, the V-2 and the A-bomb, scientists
who previously had thought $50K was big money had access to millions,
so we would stay ahead with wonder weapons (or at any rate not be
surprised by somebody else's wonder weapons). But to what extent would
the US or USSR have seen a high-explosive-only uber-V-2, antipodeal
bomber etc. as a wonder weapon worth pursuing?

I remember a "won't it be great?" IGY poster in my classroom in 1956,
and in hindsight I know that planning for it had been going on since
1952-1953. Would a satellite (rather then just a slew of up-and-down
instrument packages to the exosphere) have been part of the mix if the
scientists hadn't had the benefit of pedal-to-the-metal engineering
towards the R-7, Redstone, Atlas etc?


That's a good question indeed...you might end up with something like the
Antipodal Bomber being developed, and that slowly evolving into
something like the Space Shuttle in the way the X-15 was to lead to
Dyna-Soar.
One incentive for hypersonic superbombers even with conventional
payloads is that the impact of the bomb at those velocities makes it
highly destructive from the viewpoint of kinetic energy alone. The "Rods
From God" concept may have shown up decades earlier.

Pat

Pat Flannery wrote:

The "Rods
From God" concept may have shown up decades earlier.

If only via some dense piece falling off during tests.

"WTF!?!? Did you *arm* that XB-227, Colonel?"

"N-no sir, General, sir."

"Then how do you explain that $#%^ CRATER 200 miles east of Nellis?"

"Let me get back to you on that, sir..."

In article ,
Jim Oberg wrote:
'Scout' rockets also were big stacks of solids that
could have come along as sounding rockets, then orbital vehicles.

Without missiles, I doubt that the technology for high-performance solid
rockets would have developed. The real incentive for solids was things
that had to sit in a magazine or a silo for years, and then be ready to go
on a moment's notice.

Of course, "missiles" doesn't have to mean *ballistic* missiles. Rockets
were in active development, and in some cases in use, for various tactical
military roles late in WW2.
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Or would a first commercial commsat or first military spysat have done the trick?

Well, who knows?

I could argue that, if the Cold War had developed more or less as it
did sans ICBMs (but with intercontinental bombers), the US would have
been driven to develop reconnaissance capabilities similar to the U2 -
CORONA succession anyway. The crux of this is that the US had pretty
much zip in the way of other intelligence capabilities that would allow
militarily useful reconnoitering of what was going on in the interior
of the USSR and, more importantly, where to send the bombers if it came
to such a pass. SIGINT was important, but generally not adequate for
the purpose. HUMINT didn't come close.

Or not. As said, quien sabe?

Henry Spencer wrote:

Without missiles, I doubt that the technology for high-performance solid
rockets would have developed. The real incentive for solids was things
that had to sit in a magazine or a silo for years, and then be ready to go
on a moment's notice.



Scout's first stage was a direct outgrowth of work on the Polaris project.

Pat

In article ,
Monte Davis wrote:
Similarly, even *with* the V-2 but without the A-bomb, you might have
seen considerable work on military missiles... but with only
high-explosive warheads...

Bear in mind that there are other types of weapons of mass destruction.
The British were immensely relieved when the warheads of the first V-2s
turned out to be just high explosive; they'd been worried about gas or
germs or radioactive isotopes.

(And the Germans actually had a good non-nuclear payload for even fairly
inaccurate missiles, since they'd discovered the first nerve gases.)

OK -- assume that impetus hadn't existed. In 1952 the Lord writes in
letters of fire in the ionosphe "No ICBMs, OR ELSE!!!" and afflicts
von Braun, Korolyov et al with leprosy and boils just to get the point
across. Cold War, yes... Eisenhower and Khrushchev and Kennedy, yes...
but no ICBMs.

Note that this isn't the same as no V-2s. The feasibility of large
liquid-fuel rockets still gets established, even if heavenly intervention
precludes their most obvious use.

Also, you have to assume that the heavenly grounding order includes
IRBMs as well as ICBMs. Thor saw as much use as Atlas in the US space
program; the Mercury capsule was originally going to fly on a Thor with
a new upper stage.

In that case, when do you think the first satellite would have reached
orbit? The first human? Where would we be today in space?

With V-2s but no ICBMs, the first satellite probably happens in the late
1950s, just like it actually did. The early US satellite launchers were
derivatives of sounding rockets and tactical missiles. And quite apart
from scientific applications, spy satellites would remain of intense
interest to the Cold War US military, preoccupied with trying to assess
the capabilities and activities of a secretive enemy with a closed,
tightly regimented society. The absence of ICBMs would make spysats a bit
less urgent, though.

Whether the Soviets would be in a position to beat the US to the first
satellite (or the first manned spaceflight) is a better question. Most
likely not.

I would expect strong military interest in a Thor-Agena class rocket as a
way to orbit spy satellites -- Jupiter-C and Vanguard wouldn't be enough
for that -- although development wouldn't be done at the breakneck pace of
the real late 50s. That rocket with a heftier upper stage might well
suffice for Mercury-class manned flights and early planetary probes,
perhaps in the late 1960s.

Still larger rockets would be slow to appear, and their developers might
well value reusability and low cost over rapid development. They would
probably benefit from a more extensive hypersonic-aircraft technology
base, since the cancellation of projects like the B-70 and the F-103 owed
a lot to competition from ICBMs. For a guess, you get a big reusable
orbital ferry rocket circa 1980. It wouldn't resemble the Shuttle much --
the payload would be smaller, the engines probably wouldn't burn LH2, and
there would be much more emphasis on low operating cost.

Military manned spaceflight might be stillborn just like it was in the
real world, killed by competition from unmanned spysats... although with
things happening more slowly, there would be time to build up more
momentum, and you might see military Mercury flights and experiments with
rendezvous as a way to build a small MOL-class military space station.
Possibly the ferry rocket would be partly or entirely a military project.
If so, military manned spaceflight might well continue, with much-reduced
costs and stronger institutional commitments acting to preserve it despite
the unmanned competition.

Whether anything like NASA would be created, and when, is a good question;
it was motivated partly by the urgency of the Space Race. Possibly it
might appear as the government's chosen vehicle for manned beyond-LEO
exploration, with the ferry rocket starting to make that practical (using
orbital assembly) and the military not very interested. Like pre-Sputnik
Vanguard, it would have been much hyped but not very well funded, so
progress would be slow despite the large advantage conferred by having
an off-the-shelf ferry rocket and off-the-shelf technology for small
space stations and orbital assembly.

So, where would we be today? As a wild guess... We'd be celebrating the
tenth anniversary of the first lunar landing. The expedition that will
plant the first permanent lunar base is in final assembly at NASA's
orbital operations base; they'd hoped to have it done for the anniversary,
but funding was tight and it ran late, despite the reduction in costs when
NASA started accepting commercial fuel deliveries at the ops base. The
second space hotel is in construction, and people are hoping that some
real competition will bring the first one's prices down. The military and
NASA are still flying their first-generation ferry rockets, which are
looking pretty dated despite numerous incremental improvements along the
way; with the Cold War over and commercial second-generation ferries now
flying, Congress has balked at funding a new government design. There is
talk of commercial lunar flights and even a non-profit private Mars
expedition, which NASA is not pleased about (but its own Mars plans, not
very far along, lost most of their funding recently, after the NSF's
Viking landers found no signs of life).
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spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. |

In article ,
Monte Davis wrote:
If no Peenemunde program and no V-2, how long for *scientific*
motivations and budgets to push us to sounding rockets a la Aerobee?

Probably not long. That was what Goddard was funded to build, remember.
(And he probably could have done it, with a more focused effort; he was
quite generously funded, by the standards of the day, but kept going off
on tangents as new ideas struck, rather than concentrating on getting
results from one line of development.)

If no prospect of nuclear warheads, how long for *scientific*
motivations and budgets to push us from something like Aerobee to
orbit, with Vanguard or the like? Or would a first commercial commsat
or first miltary spysat have done the trick?

Spysats would have been a strong driver... once people were persuaded to
take the idea seriously, which would have taken a while.

I remember a "won't it be great?" IGY poster in my classroom in 1956,
and in hindsight I know that planning for it had been going on since
1952-1953. Would a satellite (rather then just a slew of up-and-down
instrument packages to the exosphere) have been part of the mix if the
scientists hadn't had the benefit of pedal-to-the-metal engineering
towards the R-7, Redstone, Atlas etc?

I think there would still have been interest... but the initial design
study would probably have concluded that the launcher for it was too
ambitious a project to be ready in time.
--
spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. |