How long to space w/o ICBMs?

We all know the timeline from Peenemunde via White Sands, Kapustin Yar
etc. to Canaveral and Tyuratam, and then to space. If the German army
of the early 1930s hadn't wanted the long-range artillery denied it by
the Versailles treaty, no job for young Wernher von Braun, no major
effort leading to the V-2 in time for WWII. You'd still have GIRD in
the USSR, Goddard and GALCIT etc. here... parallel efforts in other
countries, JATO and surely some anti-aircraft missile work. But you
wouldn't have that stunning summer 1944 realization that the V-2,
however inaccurate and non-cost-effective, was an *unstoppable*
weapon.

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, the bang/buck payoff would have been much
less, and the progress much slower. It was the *combination* of
ballistic missiles and nuclear warheads -- especially the
fast-shrinking H-bomb, powerful enough that you could afford to be a
few miles off target -- that kicked off the big spending, and headlong
progress towards ICBMs, in the early 1950s.

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.

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

Or to put it another way: just how strong -- in terms of funding and
engineering effort -- would our desire to get into space have proved
*in the absence* of huge military missile programs?

On Thu, 07 Sep 2006 19:28:03 GMT, in a place far, far away, Monte
Davis made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:

We all know the timeline from Peenemunde via White Sands, Kapustin Yar
etc. to Canaveral and Tyuratam, and then to space. If the German army
of the early 1930s hadn't wanted the long-range artillery denied it by
the Versailles treaty, no job for young Wernher von Braun, no major
effort leading to the V-2 in time for WWII. You'd still have GIRD in
the USSR, Goddard and GALCIT etc. here... parallel efforts in other
countries, JATO and surely some anti-aircraft missile work. But you
wouldn't have that stunning summer 1944 realization that the V-2,
however inaccurate and non-cost-effective, was an *unstoppable*
weapon.

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, the bang/buck payoff would have been much
less, and the progress much slower. It was the *combination* of
ballistic missiles and nuclear warheads -- especially the
fast-shrinking H-bomb, powerful enough that you could afford to be a
few miles off target -- that kicked off the big spending, and headlong
progress towards ICBMs, in the early 1950s.

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.

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

Or to put it another way: just how strong -- in terms of funding and
engineering effort -- would our desire to get into space have proved
*in the absence* of huge military missile programs?

An interesting notion for an alternate history, but there are, of
course, multiple versions. Short answer, probably much later, and it
may have been done privately first.

h (Rand Simberg) wrote:

Short answer, probably much later, and it
may have been done privately first.

Maybe communications satellites as the driver? Boy, would *that* have
made Arthur C. Clarke proud.

Or possibly spy satellites first anyway? Even without missile-gap
worries, the Cold War powers would have wanted to keep an eye on each
other's airfields and naval bases.

On Thu, 07 Sep 2006 20:20:28 GMT, in a place far, far away, Monte
Davis made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:

(Rand Simberg) wrote:

Short answer, probably much later, and it
may have been done privately first.

Maybe communications satellites as the driver?

Yeah, that's what I was thinking, though that wouldn't give low costs.


Boy, would *that* have
made Arthur C. Clarke proud.

Or possibly spy satellites first anyway? Even without missile-gap
worries, the Cold War powers would have wanted to keep an eye on each
other's airfields and naval bases.

That, too, but it still wouldn't have provided low costs. On the
other hand, it might not have occurred to anyone to throw the launch
vehicle away if they didn't have the ICBM model to work from...

Well, the Vanguard rocket used a Navy 'Viking'
missile, but it certainly also was buoyed up by
rocket science from parallel projects. 'Scout'
rockets also were big stacks of solids that
could have come along as sounding rockets,
then orbital vehicles.

"Monte Davis" wrote in message
news

About 8-12 minutes.

Jim Oberg wrote:
Well, the Vanguard rocket used a Navy 'Viking'
missile, but it certainly also was buoyed up by
rocket science from parallel projects. 'Scout'
rockets also were big stacks of solids that
could have come along as sounding rockets,
then orbital vehicles.

Maybe we would have gone the X-15 route to orbit building on
aircraft/rocket plane technology.

Rusty

Monte Davis wrote:


Maybe communications satellites as the driver? Boy, would *that* have
made Arthur C. Clarke proud.

Or possibly spy satellites first anyway? Even without missile-gap
worries, the Cold War powers would have wanted to keep an eye on each
other's airfields and naval bases.



Vanguard was developed from civilian rockets (Aerobee and Viking) and so one can picture space exploration coming about even in a ICBM-free world.

Pat

Pat Flannery wrote:
Monte Davis wrote:


Maybe communications satellites as the driver? Boy, would *that* have
made Arthur C. Clarke proud.

Or possibly spy satellites first anyway? Even without missile-gap
worries, the Cold War powers would have wanted to keep an eye on each
other's airfields and naval bases.



Vanguard was developed from civilian rockets (Aerobee and Viking) and so one can picture space exploration coming about even in a ICBM-free world.

Pat


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

Rusty

Rusty wrote:

Maybe we would have gone the X-15 route to orbit building on
aircraft/rocket plane technology.

Rusty
Also, without ICBMs, it seems fair to suppose that much of the money
would have gone into the development of supersonic/hypersonic bombers
and cruise missiles.

Having the first stage available makes things like blackstar or spiral
50/50 a bit more attractive.