A new and different "What If" -- WI N1/L3 program not cancelled

In article ,
Pat Flannery wrote:
...with N-1 the plan was to use it fr
many purposes right from the word go, even in a form that used the
second and third stages as a launch vehicle in their own right...try
that with a S-II/S-IVB combo sometime!

Actually, an S-II/S-IVB combo *was* suggested, although it would have
needed either solid strap-ons or an engine upgrade for the S-II (not
enough thrust, and not sea-level engines). A number of such combos were
sketched as Saturn-derived launchers, especially to fill the large gap in
lift capacity between the Saturn IB and the Saturn V. (The best of the
bunch were the S-IC/S-IVB combo, and the stage-and-a-half S-ID.)

Then, of course there is the N-1 derived super ICBM:
http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/n11gr.htm
Anyone ever figure out what the throw weight of a Saturn I was?

Probably about the same as that of Proton, which was originally also a
super-heavy ICBM with a warhead circa 100MT. (This is why Proton has
automated fueling and no umbilical tower.)
--
MOST launched 30 June; science observations running | Henry Spencer
since Oct; first surprises seen; papers pending. |

In message , Pat Flannery
writes


Ami Silberman wrote:

After reading "Challenge to Apollo", I'm struck with how close the Soviets
were to actually making significant traction on their Lunar program shortly
before it was cancelled. (It appears that they had ironed the bugs out of
the N1, for one thing.) What if Mishin had been given a little more time to
produce results? The Soviets have a viable lunar program culminating, by
1980, in a long-term (several week) mission with the LM3.


One of the big differences between their and our programs was that
unlike Saturn V, N-1 wasn't built for sending people to the moon
originally, but sending heavy payloads into Earth orbit; the original
design with the 24 instead of 30 first stage motors was developed as
much for space station construction as anything else; the rocket had to
be "stretched" to allow it to fly a comparable mission to Saturn
V/Apollo, and this may have contributed to its development problems
(one suffered a catastrophic failure just before first-stage separation
when the shutdown of the propellant flow to those added 6 center
engines led to a "water hammer" effect that ruptured the propellant
feed lines and caused a fire at the base of the first stage) With us,
the Saturn Applications Program was to figure out what a rocket like
the Saturn V could be used for _besides_ Apollo.

Wasn't Apollo Applications to use up some leftover Apollo hardware?
People knew what Saturn V could be used for - launching Voyager (the
original one) to Mars, just for starters. Big projects. Launching a
NERVA, even.
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"Ami Silberman" writes:

After reading "Challenge to Apollo", I'm struck with how close the Soviets
were to actually making significant traction on their Lunar program shortly
before it was cancelled. (It appears that they had ironed the bugs out of
the N1, for one thing.)

I don't think this is true. They very probably got the rocket engines
to work to the point they could use them for a launcher, but 4 out 4
launches had failed during the first stage burn. They hadn't ever fired
the upper stages, and we don't know how that would have gone.

(Henry Spencer) wrote:

In article ,
Pat Flannery wrote:

Anyone ever figure out what the throw weight of a Saturn I was?

Probably about the same as that of Proton, which was originally also a
super-heavy ICBM with a warhead circa 100MT. (This is why Proton has
automated fueling and no umbilical tower.)

Presumably however a Saturn I super-ICBM would have a greater yield,
given our better engineering of warheads, and Ted Tayor. OTOH, it's
more likely to have been used as a super-MIRV. (A while back in
a.w.n. there was discussion of a Lockheed scheme to built a
super-Titan with 80(!) MIRV warheads.)

D.
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Corrections, comments, and additions should be
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discussion.

In article ,
Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
Wasn't Apollo Applications to use up some leftover Apollo hardware?

No, the original Apollo Applications was the follow-on to Apollo,
including extended lunar exploration, Earth-orbit space stations, manned
flights to polar orbit, GSO, and lunar orbit, possible manned asteroid
missions, etc. Just about everything manned that could plausibly follow
Apollo, *except* Mars expeditions, was under that heading.
--
MOST launched 30 June; science observations running | Henry Spencer
since Oct; first surprises seen; papers pending. |

In article ,
says...
Perhaps we should define the circumstances a little more clearly and just
go with it and have some fun, so let's just say, perhaps, for the hell of
it, that:

* the Russians get the N1 program grinding perhaps a couple of years
prior to when they actually did

Let's suppose: Korolev goes in for surgery a couple of years earlier.
Result: he survives the operation and his managerial and technical
skills are applied to the N-1. Odds are pretty good that he can do
better than anyone else in getting the N-1 to work.


* so, here it is, Christmas Eve 1968, Apollo 8 is orbiting the Moon,

Let's take that O2 tank that flew on Apollo 13 and put it on Apollo 8
instead. Given that A:1 killed its crew and A:8 would have killed its
crew (no LM lifeboat), there would have been, at best, a lengthy stand-
down of Apollo. Was political support strong enough to insure that
Apollo would continue after two fatal accidents?


and here's the funky bit (paging Jim Oberg): if you're the
Russian program managers, based on the intelligence you're getting, do you
make your next mission the all-up Soyuz/LK "dress rehearsal" a la Apollo
10, or do you hang your ass out there and go for it?

With no chance of a US lunar flight in 1969, you may as well do a dress
rehearsal (even if you don't go into lunar orbit) and claim a partial
victory before trying a landing.

I can't say the USSR would have been first on the moon, but the race
could have been a lot closer than in our time-line.
--
Kevin Willoughby lid

Imagine that, a FROG ON-OFF switch, hardly the work
for test pilots. -- Mike Collins

* so, here it is, Christmas Eve 1968, Apollo 8 is orbiting the Moon,

Let's take that O2 tank that flew on Apollo 13 and put it on Apollo 8
instead. Given that A:1 killed its crew and A:8 would have killed its
crew (no LM lifeboat), there would have been, at best, a lengthy stand-
down of Apollo. Was political support strong enough to insure that
Apollo would continue after two fatal accidents?

While this scenario alone is stretching it (when you put two "what if's" in the
same scenario I call it a stretch), the more likely possiblity is the faulty O2
tank would have been in Apollo 10, which nearly did carry the same tank as 13
but had it replaced at the last minute. A major failure on 10, fatal or not (10
had a LEM lifeboat, the question is, when would the tank explode), could have
delayed the landing by the end of '69.

-A.L.

On Thu, 18 Dec 2003 11:01:41 -0500, "Ami Silberman"
wrote:

.....What if Mishin had been given a little more time to
produce results? ....

Well, remember, the result the Soviet leadership probably wanted most
of all was to beat us at our own game by landing on the Moon first, or
at least making it there. With the N1 failures and our successful
flights, it's understandable why they weren't given more time.

You can tell I'm not a big one for "what ifs."

That said, if the Soviets had seriously considered continuing a Moon
program instead of putting their resources into the Salyut space
stations (and acting as if they'd always wanted to do that), it's
possible they might have landed and built a Moon base. Whether we
would have done the same is questionable, considering that the cuts to
NASA's budget began right around the time of Apollo 11. We certainly
would have built the Shuttle; whatever other manned capabilities would
have been maintaned, I don't know. We might have a situation where
our Shuttle would ferry crews to a Russian Space station, and then
Russian spacecraft take them to the Moon, mirroring the arrangement we
had for missions to Mir. Or we might both have Moonbases. It's hard
to tell.

Remember, the Soviets had Space stations beginning in the early '70s;
on this side of the Atlantic, the idea (after Skylab) languished until
the mid '80s, and we only started bending sheet metal on it in 1997 or
thereabouts. So we might have sat back and watched the Russkies keep
going to Moone while finally getting around to our Moon Base before
collaborating on one with them.

Sad, but that's the way the ol' world works.



.... it appears that at least as of 2000, there were lots of engines
left over from the N1 program, and in much better conditions than the F1s.



Yes, but the N1 engines were smaller than the F1s; the N1 had
something like 30 main engines in its first stage whereas we had five.
And IIRC, the microfilms of the F1 blueprints still exist, s we could
put them back in production if we wanted to. And if we didn't, the
Shuttle-C could give us almost the same payload as a Saturn V (give or
take) with existing systems.

On Thu, 18 Dec 2003 13:14:39 -0500, "Ami Silberman"
wrote:


It's still unclear how much of the Soviet lunar program was due to the
actual "race" and how much was due to the drives of the individuals
involved....

Given that the Soviet Government that payed for it was interested in
the race, I'd say the former had a lot ot do with it.

.... It wasn't until Mishin was replaced by
Glushko on May 18, 1974 that the lunar plans were over. I think persisting
for five years is indication that at least parts of the Soviet space
program(s) were interested in lunar landings for their own worth ....

Maybe, but remember that, IIRC, by 1974, the Soviets had been
launching Cosmonauts to Salyuts, were planning their side of the
Apollo Soyuz Test Project, and had been denying they'd ever been
interested in lunar flight, which some on our side, including Walter
Cronkite(!) ate up. So, how much interest there could be when your
public actions contradict the other program are debateable, even for
the Soviets.

In article , Kevin Willoughby
wrote:

In article ,
says...
Perhaps we should define the circumstances a little more clearly and just
go with it and have some fun, so let's just say, perhaps, for the hell of
it, that:

* the Russians get the N1 program grinding perhaps a couple of years
prior to when they actually did

Let's suppose: Korolev goes in for surgery a couple of years earlier.
Result: he survives the operation and his managerial and technical
skills are applied to the N-1. Odds are pretty good that he can do
better than anyone else in getting the N-1 to work.

* so, here it is, Christmas Eve 1968, Apollo 8 is orbiting the Moon,

Let's take that O2 tank that flew on Apollo 13 and put it on Apollo 8
instead...

D'oh. You cold sonofabitch. (;^ Still, iirc, icbw, wasn't that originally
A10's tank? I may be misremembering that whole story.

...Given that A:1 killed its crew and A:8 would have killed its
crew (no LM lifeboat), there would have been, at best, a lengthy stand-
down of Apollo. Was political support strong enough to insure that
Apollo would continue after two fatal accidents?

Well, considering that the Cold War was still bubbling, and we were
getting a serious black eye in Vietnam, and one at home on social issues,
being first nation on the Moon might have been something to feel good
about, for a change. They may have squeaked it through, but just for
insurance, let's have Shepard and Armstrong testifying in front of
Congress, and say also, perhaps, that Walter Mondale's car pool "forgot"
to pick him up that day. Anyway, I'm a sentimental guy, so let's go with a
return to flight in late '69, after a year's stand-down to deal with the
tank issue (perhaps a retired engineer lurking here who's actually worked
on the SM might be able to give us a little more accurate SWAG). Like the
ironic silver lining of the AS204 accident, the stand-down after the A8
accident also "buys time" for Grumman to iron more bugs out of the LM
before it flies; A9 flies its original LM test flight in LEO, except they
also make it a two-week (or perhaps longer) endurance flight to shake down
the new SM tank revisions. A10 flies its original mission plan in the late
spring of '70, and Neil'n'Buzz read Genesis from Tranquillity Base on
Christmas Eve, 1970 -- which is still before the end of the decade, for
you anti-Year-Zero types. (;^


and here's the funky bit (paging Jim Oberg): if you're the
Russian program managers, based on the intelligence you're getting, do you
make your next mission the all-up Soyuz/LK "dress rehearsal" a la Apollo
10, or do you hang your ass out there and go for it?

With no chance of a US lunar flight in 1969, you may as well do a dress
rehearsal (even if you don't go into lunar orbit) and claim a partial
victory before trying a landing...

I know the Soviet disinfo apparatus was capable of some really spectacular
lies and fabrications -- even approaching some of our own whoppers from
the Bush Govt and Faux News -- but I would at least have sent the Soyuz/LK
on a lunar orbit shakedown (not just a flyby) before claiming "partial
victory". JimO?


I can't say the USSR would have been first on the moon, but the race
could have been a lot closer than in our time-line...

That's kind of what I was thinking with this, as well; what kind of breaks
would the Russians have gotten -- especially at a period in their lunar
program when they couldn't _buy_ a break -- in order to make a real horse
race out of it?


Any other interesting ideas on this one? Oh, and btw, I think that having
A1 catch fire on the pad during the actual launch countdown after being
made ready in time for a concurrent Apollo 1/Gemini 10 flight and thereby
causing the imho hair-raising Lunar Gemini project to be rushed into
production and testing in time to put Pete Conrad on the Moon in late '68
would be cheating. No "Geminimania" on this one. (;^

--
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along with their overcoats;
if Adolf Hitler flew in today,
they'd send a limousine anyway!" --the clash.
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