2001: A Space-Time Odyssey - Solo Mission

[Michel Van]

Part 13 - Apollo 12 & 13 vs Soyuz 12 & 13

November 14th 1969
Being the last mission of the year, the engineers on Apollo 12 wanted to make sure this mission count.
Since Soviet were not launching do issue with their Lunniy korabl.
This mission marked the second manned lunar landing of the Apollo program and rendezvous with Surveyor 3 probe,

Launching on schedule on November 14th 1969, the Saturn V was taking off during a rainstorm.
36 seconds after lift-off, the vehicle triggered a lightning discharge through itself and down to the earth through the Saturn's ionised plume.
Protective circuits on the fuel cells in the service module falsely detected overloads and took all three fuel cells offline,
Along with much of the CSM instrumentation. A second strike at 52 seconds after launch knocked out the "8-ball" attitude indicator.
The telemetry stream at Mission Control was garbled.
However, the Saturn V continued to fly correctly as the strikes had not affected Saturn V's Instrument Unit.
with quick manual override to backup the mission continue and Conrad and Alan Bean manage close landing near Surveyor 3
Charles Conrad first word on moon were:
"Yippee ! did you see that commies ?, we can do spot on landing too !".


This was televised nationwide to millions of people and was followed by a fit of coughing by Walter Cronkite on NBC.
During 31 hours on Moon they conducted 3 EVA were several sample were taken also from Surveyor 3.
With both the color television film and the fantastic selfie photo next to Surveyor (with the LM easily seen in the background)
Apollo 12 was featured prominently in Time Magazine as a year end consolation for losing the Moon race.

The 1960s was a time of great change in social, political, technological and economic worldwide.
The decade began with a series of crisis: the Brezhnev Crisis, the failed invasion of Cuban, the Berlin Crisis,
The assassination of the President of the United States John F. Kennedy, the race riots, civil unrest, the Vietnam war etc.

The Vietnam War was a particularly shocking blow to the United States.
As the crisis following the death of Mao Zedong in China lead to increased militarism at Vietnam border,
The United States was forced to choose pullback and defeat or risk of a Korea-like conflict sparking an all out nuclear conflict.
Thankfully, Johnson chose the pullback although, with the prise that Republicans swept into the White House at decades end.
In USA racial barriers were broken as Martin Luther King Jr lead the civil rights movement,
Ultimately leading to the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 (abolishing Jim Crow & Segregation)

But not only in US but in Europe and East block happened changes
Alexander Dubcek played a big role in reforming Czechoslovakia to create "Socialism with a human face".
While East Germany would undergo a drastic changes in coming years, as Walter Ulbrich public critiqued the german Communist !
In West Germany the government face radical leftist Terrorist inspire by Vietcong.
France had almost civil War in May 1968 as student riots let nationwide uprise !
While group of environmentalist voted for armed combat. they will become the Rainbow Warriors

People were look onwards on 1970s in hope and fear what would bring that new Decade ?

The problems of Soyuz 11's landing made overwork of the LK necessary, along with getting ready to launch for April 1970.
To honor Vladimir Lenin's 100th Birthday.
In the mean time Apollo 12 made their precision landing in November 1969.
Beginning in January 1970 Lunokhod 4 landed on the lunar surface, driving until it they found what it was looking for and switched on The radio beacon, after an unusually long search time.

Soyuz 12.

Beginning in April was launch of an N1 Luna rocket with Soyuz-12 on board Georgi Grechko and Aleksey Guarev
for Orbital mission and landing of the unmanned LK Backup.
After Lunar Surface Mapping they return to earth passing by Apollo 13 on way to the Moon.
Guarev on this unique encounter:

It is strange there was another manned complex on way to Moon, we knew there were out there, but not could see them.
While they fighting for Survival on board, we fall back to Earth unable to help them..

Apollo 13

On April 11, Apollo 13 was launched to moon with Lovell, Mattingly, Haise, under a lack of interest with the US public and media.
The Saturn V showed a malfunction suffering from pogo oscillations and on second stage one of J-2 engine shut down too early.
56 hours into the mission, Mattingly activate the stirring fans in Oxygen tank number 2 which then exploded!

Mattingly: Houston, we have a master alert here!
CAPCOM: This is Houston, Say again, please
Mattingly: Houston, We’ve got MASTER ALERT!
Lovell: We’ve hav a MAIN B BUS UNDERVOLT!!!

The CSM main power system died in minutes, The Crew activated the LM and used it as a Lifeboat
From now on Apollo 13 mission became a struggle for the survival of three Astronauts,
Suddenly the world media show interest in Apollo mission.
In a Heroic effort NASA manage to bring the Crew safe back to Earth, calling it "A successful failure"

Apollo 13 showed America that Space flight were not easy.
The cause of the explosion was found in damaged Teflon isolation tape on electrical wires of the stirring fan inside the oxygen tank.
The Oxygen tanks were redesigned and moved farther apart, also a third oxygen tank and a emergency battery were installed,
Also started a program to replace the lithium hydroxide canister from LM and CSM with molecular sieve beds for future mission.
This delayed Apollo 14 mission to January 1971.

Soyuz 13
The next Luna rocket brought Soyuz-13 into the Moon's orbit with Vesily Lazarev and Oleg Makarov on board.
on 22 April 1970, Makorov landed 55 km away from Apollo 12 & Surveyor 3 Landing site confirmed by their ALSEP seismograph.
The Target was near Luna 5 crash site, a probe that failed to land on may 9, 1965.
Oleg Mekarov's first word on Moon were:

To Honor Vladimir Lenin 100th Birthday, We came back to the Moon, to unravel it’s secrets.

After that he deployed the Scientific equipment package near by.
Then he collected samples of the Lunar soil and rocks. after that he went for a pause inside the LK
Then on the second EVA, he used the help of the Lunokhod 4 to drive to the Luna 5 crash site,
Makorov study the man made crater, took samples of the probe's remains and lunar material in crater, helped by Lunokhod 4.
He made an excellent job by photographing the site and position were he took the samples
After 7 hours the LK worked perfect and start of the moon back into orbit to rendezvous with LOK
On command of Ground control activated Backup LK to test its systems, it work perfectly just like the previous one.

Thanks to excellent work of Oleg Mekarov, the scientists could analyse the contamination by Probe propellants on Lunar soil.
This gave valuable information how Lunar soil get saturated with organic materials by rocket engines exhaust or asteroid impact.
Also change in tactic on Soviet landing, from now on the each lunar Soyuz mission would land a cosmonaut.

The Soviet Government made diplomatic requests to NASA for research data of the Apollo 12 and Surveyor 3.
What let to political turmoil in Washington D.C. Allot of Anti communist were upset that NASA would help the "Evil Ones".
To end this, President Nixon gave word of Command !
Reasoning that NASA is US government agency with free access to their research data, if the Soviet academy of sciences, gives free access to there research data.
The Soviets, they not only sent their research data and some Lunar sample,
Vasily Lazarev and Oleg Makarov even came to USA to gave a briefing on their mission at NASA.
This was the begin of "Lunar Diplomacy" between USA and Soviet Union, a short thaw period of Cold War known as 1970s Détente.

 

[Michel Van]

Part 14 - Apollo 14/15 and Soyuz 14/15

The Apollo 13 accident had a profound impact on the Space Race.
The accident highlighted the feeling that the American space program was struggling to compete with the Soviet Union
and paradoxically increased support for the Manned Space Program by grabbing the public's attention and putting focus back on the Moon.
The heroic rescue efforts of NASA and the daring of the astronauts returned a sense of romanticism, adventure and danger to Manned Spaceflight.
As the budget battles raged on in Congress, NASA worked hard to improve the safety of the Command Service Module (CSM)
and return America to the Moon as quickly as possible.
Apollo 14 was also the return of Alan Shepard to Space flight, after he lost his flight status do to Méniére's Disease in 1964.
But this would also be his last flight.

Alan Shepard, Edgar Mitchell and Stuart Roosa launched on 31 January 1971 as the crew of Apollo 14.
Just as the previous H-Class missions it faced allot of problems, beginning with docking difficultly of CSM Kitty Hawk with LM Antares, Rossa had to ram CSM nose into the docking system of LM on the sixth attempt.
During Lunar Descent the LM computer switch into ABORT mode, Mitchell with help of MIT manage reprogram the LM computer to believe ABORT had happen!
At the same time a bug caused malfunction of LM Radar altimeter, after cycling the Radar system breaker,
They gained control over LM in 5500 meter altitude.
Because of this Shepard and Mitchell could not make a pinpoint landing at planned site on the Fra-Mauro Highlands.
In lunar orbit Roosa faced new problem, one of CM windows became opaque, the one with the camera for mapping the lunar surface.
Shepard first words on moon were:

"And it's been a long way, but we're here"

During they first EVA, after deploying the ALSEP package they went with a "Moon wheelbarrow" for a walk.
After 4 hours and 47 minutes the crew returned to LM and sleep until the next day.
At the end of a second EVA Shepard tried to play Golf, with a six iron head fixed on his lunar excavation tool and two golfballs.
Shepard manage to kick one golf ball for around 300 yards. In total for 42.28 kilograms on Lunars samples were collected in two EVA.
On February 9 landed Apollo 14 safe in pacific and they were the last to be quarantined.

Apollo 14 return to business and Media attention were good for NASA public image, despite the problems the crew faced.
Meanwhile at NASA the future was looking promising. The Agency had scraps next H-Class mission (Apollo 15) and introduced
4 J-Class missions for Apollo 15 to 18 while 5 more J-Class missions (Apollo 19 to 23) mission were under review as Saturn V production was reactivated.

On Soviet site...
In 1971 the Soviet Space Agency (MoM) had several Problems.
OKB-1 ran on it's full capacity, building per year, Two Luna, dozens Protons and Soyuz rockets for MoM and Military needs.
Next to that they built Spacecrafts like LOK-LK, Spying Satellites and were working on the advanced Soyuz 7K-SM,
Therefore the Space Station program suffered under a lack of personnel and material.
MoM had to take measures, they order of OKB-52 to help to build the Station on OKB-1 plans, it had certain irony that OKB-52 had to build now the space station.
It's boss Vladimir Chelomei had proposed his Almaz, a military space station to MoM,
What had refused the proposal, because Chelomei insisted on development of the UR-500 rocket and TKS spacecraft for it.
Although as the Boss of OKB-52 could be happy to do something for the Space race,
Instead he went to Military complaining about the status of Salut program and promoted Almaz.
Military-industrial Commission Chairman Ustinov was not amused at all, about Chelomei arrogant behavior and his talking shit about his colleagues.
MoM had enough of Chelomei escapade and threatened him to follow orders or OKB-52 would become subdivision of OKB-1 !

The Alita Study had serious setback by provoking a major nuclear disaster!
A test run of Experimental Thermal nuclear engine RD-0410 ended in meltdown and massive contaminations of Semipalatinsk test site and near by Irtysh River!
Responsible for Disaster was a engineer named Anatoly Stepanovich Dyatlov,
The investigation report found him guilty for "criminal mismanagement of potentially dangerous device“.
He was sentenced to ten years in prison.
MoM changed the Alita Study mission architecture in favor of Nuclear Electric Engines.
Next to that the Soviet authority notice that soviet citizens had lost interest in the Soyuz Missions.

Soyuz 14 with Lev Dyomin and Gennadi Sarafanov were launch to the Moon on 10 March 1971
This time to the north edge of Oceanus Procellarum at Luna 13 landing site.
The Soviet academy of sciences wanted geological data from several site of Oceanus Procellarum.
on 18 march, 1971 the LK landed near Lunokhod 5 right on target.
Gennadi Sarafanov first comment on landing site:

"This is so flat, like the Russian Plains…“

The LK had a new Features installed: A external TV color camera and Core sample drill, for taking 4 meter deep samples.
But Sarafanov was not lucky he hit in 3 meter depth a hard layer of magma, the drill ran out of it's operational life time of 60 minutes.
Second EVA went with Lunokhod 5 to Luna 13 landing site collection parts of probe to study the longtime exposure of Soviet hardware on Lunar Environment
On the end of this EVA Sarafanov make report in front of TV color camera about mission and make a surprise
He pulled a red sphere out LK and put on ground and kicked it.

"We Soviets prefer Football over decadent Golf…“

Then he returned into the LK and took off after a seven hours surface mission, the crew returned 3 days later safely to earth.
In comparison of other landing with Apollo 12, the Soyuz 14 samples show
That Oceanus Procellarum is homogeneous mixture of incompatible elements (called by Americans) KREEP and low calcium pyroxene.
What increase the mystery how Oceanus Procellarum is formed, special after Soyuz 14 discovery, a finding that even NASA surprised.
The Lunar 13 parts exposed 5 years to Lunar Environment gave precious Data for Columbus Study on L3M and Lunar base hardware.

Soyuz 15

The launch of Soyuz 15 with Yuri Artyukhin and Pavel Popovich was schedule for June 1971.
This time the mission went to Mare Crisium on right edge of Moon
in May Lunokhod 6 touchdown on Mare Crisium and started to look for LK landing site.
June 22 the Lunar rocket was launch to Moon, Soyuz 15 arrived on 28 June.
Popovic landed on 29 June near where Lunokhod 6 landed a month ago.
On first EVA he deployed Scientific equipment and prepare Core sample drill, and collect lunar samples.
Then he returned into LK for rest and a snack.
On second EVA he use the Core sample drill and drilling 2 meter into soil getting 1.7 kg sample.
Then Popovic return with LK to Moon orbit, were Artyukhin was busy cartographing the Lunar surface
3 days later the crew landed safe in Soviet union.
The Mare Crisium drill samples had a surprise for Soviets
They discover It contain 0.1% water, something not expected, MoM send Samples to NASA who confirmed the findings.


Apollo 15
Administrator Bush had cancel the planned H-mission for Apollo15 and replaced it, with the J-Class mission.
The LM was modified for stay for 72 hours on lunar surface.
It carry a Lunar Rover and more scientific experiment, what allow for more EVA and bigger range as past H-mission.
While the CSM got science bay what scann and mapping the Lunar Surface,
With more Scientific results per mission, NASA hope to get the lead in Moon race.

Apollo 15 was launch on July 26, 1971 with David Scott ,Alfred Worden and James Irwin on board.
LM Falcon landed on July 30, over 66 hours Scott and Irwin made 4 EVA and drove 29 km with Lunar rover
And collected 77 kilograms on Lunar samples, this made look the Soviet one man mission insignificant.

Sample 15415 is sensation ,one on oldest stone found 4 billion years labelling it as the Genesis Rock.
While the Sub-satellite the CSM eject in Lunar orbit crash later what let to discovery of the Lunar mass concentration.

Sadly had Apollo 15 a bitter aftertaste, the Crew had made deal with German stamp dealer
and smuggle unauthorised commemorative postal covers onboard of CSM
The crew made this to offer Trust fund for their children education.
Next to that also unauthorised was bringing the “Fallen Astronaut" statuette to Moon
and Two watches by manufacture to test them in Microgravity.
The Investigation by US Senate and NASA show that only NASA regulation were violated.
The Crew of Apollo 15 were guilty misbehavior and were remove from Flight plan, also were rule exalted what astronaut can carry on personal items into Apollo spacecraft.

On August 12, Caspar Weinberger responsible for US budget, try last effort at Nixon on the subject of NASA budget reduction.
But Nixon refused Weinberger proposition, sending his memo back with this note in red:

I will not stand by and watch how the commies conquer Space !

While the Saturn V and IB production-line are unwrapped and make ready for a second production run.
At NASA they prepared the J-Class missions for Apollo 16 to 18 and Skylab is rush to completion.
In same time start final battle about NASA Odyssey program in Capitol Hill,
While China start to increase their space activity since they launch their first satellite two years ago.
what were they up to ?

 

[e of pi]

On August 12, Caspar Weinberger responsible for US budget, try last effort at Nixon on the subject of NASA budget reduction.
But Nixon refused Weinberger proposition, sending his memo back with this note in red:

I will not stand by and watch how the commies conquer Space !

While the Saturn V and IB production-line are unwrapped and make ready for a second production run.
At NASA they prepared the J-Class missions for Apollo 16 to 18 and Skylab is rush to completion.

I has just reading Logsdon's book about Nixon's space policy plans, and it seems odd that this is left so late? Nixon dithered on space policy for two or three years because he had the luxury of viewing it almost entirely within the context of domestic policy, their planning and policy directives make that very clear. Nixon repeatedly seriously debated cancelling Apollo 16 and 17 for minor cost savings, more for the domestic policy reason that he didn't want another Apollo 13 incident in the leadup for the '72 midterms. With the Soviets having flown by the moon in '68 here and beaten the US to the Moon in '69, this pivot in US policy taking until '71 seems...to underestimate Nixon, and fail to understand what drove him historically to do what he did.

 

[Michel Van]

So far i know the story, Nixon not care about US space program, hell he not even went to KSC for launch of Apollo 11.
He ignored the US Space Program until 1972 Reelection taking the Shuttle Program to gain support of California and other States with Aerospace companies.
It seem he was well informed by CIA about state of Soviet Moon Program or the lack of it...

Here in this TL this took radical different turn, Soviets land first on Moon on 4 of July, While Apollo 11 undergoes preparation.
(and hurting Nixon ego and US Reputation in prosess)
Now Nixon goes full throttle on US Space Program even fight hard to push program true Capitol Hill, a battle that took several years!
mention in previous post and find conclusion in Future post.

 

[e of pi]

o far i know the story, Nixon not care about US space program, hell he not even went to KSC for launch of Apollo 11.

Now Nixon goes full throttle on US Space Program even fight hard to push program true Capitol Hill, a battle that took several years!
mention in previous post and find conclusion in Future post.

Logsdon's book "After Apollo" is an interesting read on that front, and helps convince me Nixon would have acted more decisively IF there appeared to be a need. Nixon liked the idea of space more than the practice, and thought space was a useful metric for nation's to measure their achievement on, but he thought with Apollo NASA had met every challenge thrown at it and more, without any sign of Soviet response, and especially after Apollo 13 worried about being blamed if any astronauts died. He didn't go down for Apollo 11, in part Thus, he and his OMB dithered more than Congress did. NIxon's White House and OMB were taking the lead in cutting NASA, not Congress, and if they'd been trying harder to spare it (especially actually being beaten to the moon) while there may have been some Congressional pushback to slowing or eliminating cuts, I don't think there'd be three year's worth.

On the President not viewing Apollo 11, per Logsdon, it was not for lack of interest, but instead two specific pieces of advice he received from advisors, on an astronaut, and one a doctor at NASA:

By mid-June, Frank Borman had arrived at the White House and had begun to work with Flanigan and Chapin on Apollo 11 activities. He relayed the information that the Apollo 11 crew was “very pleased the President will accept their invitation to dinner.” He recommended that Nixon “should not stay” for the next morning’s launch, since “there is the possibility of last minute delays.” Borman felt that the dinner with the crew would “set the stage” and “the President’s activity will build—with the television from the moon and the events thereafter.” The decision that Nixon would be present as the crew splashed down in the Pacific had been made by this time, and “plans are being made aboard the carrier for the President and his party—up to a total of 30.” After the crew’s release from quarantine in August, the White House was planning “a swing to New York City, Chicago and back to Los Angeles for the dinner in the evening.” Borman had objected to this plan, suggesting that the crew travel only to Los Angeles, but he was overruled. Nixon wanted a nationwide celebration of the mission’s success.14

Logsdon, John M.. After Apollo? (Palgrave Studies in the History of Science and Technology) (p. 12). Palgrave Macmillan US. Kindle Edition.

Richard Nixon got much of his information about what was going on in the world from assiduously reading his “daily news summary,” a digest of stories from around the world, usually prepared by his young staff assistant Patrick Buchanan. The July 7, 1969, news summary reported that NASA medical officials were “extremely upset by the President’s plans to have dinner with the APOLLO 11 astronauts the night before they blast off.” The source of the reported concern turned out to be NASA’s Dr. Charles Berry, who billed himself as the astronaut’s personal physician, although according to Mike Collins, “we seldom saw him.” Berry apparently was worried that the president might be carrying germs that could affect the crew’s health during the mission. The Apollo 11 astronauts thought that this concern was absurd, given that they were in daily contact with a number of others not under quarantine restrictions, and would have dinner a few days before the flight with NASA Administrator Paine who, noted Collins sarcastically, “was apparently germ-free.” Borman called Berry’s warning “totally ridiculous” and “dammed stupid,” but advised Nixon to cancel the planned dinner because “if anyone sneezes on the Moon, they’d put the blame on the president.” As the story gained wide circulation, Nixon’s staff accepted Borman’s advice and decided it had no choice but to cancel the president’s prelaunch dinner with the crew. Armstrong, Collins, and Aldrin on July 9 sent a telegram to the president, expressing their “deepest regrets over the unfortunate circumstances that precluded your coming . . . You are welcome in our quarters at any time.” Instead of dining with the Apollo 11 crew on July 15, Richard Nixon called them as they were having dinner and sent them a telegram saying: “On the eve of your epic mission, I want you to know that my hopes and my prayers—and those of all Americans—go with you . . . It is now your moment.”17

Logsdon, John M.. After Apollo? (Palgrave Studies in the History of Science and Technology) (pp. 13-14). Palgrave Macmillan US. Kindle Edition.

 

[Michel Van]

Thanks for inside look of Apollo 11 launch.
i have to buy Logsdon's book "After Apollo" !
And delete some Nixon article in my archive do lack of journalist quality and objectivity...

By the way
how is this TL for moment, better as previous version ?

 

[e of pi]

i have to buy Logsdon's book "After Apollo" !
And delete some Nixon article in my archive do lack of journalist quality and objectivity...

Read Logsdon's book before you delete them. I think, as with most real humans and not the historical cartoons we can sometimes want to turn them into, Nixon was more complicated--very aware of the press and how things were playing to the public, averse to risks if they were pointed out to him and might fall on his shoulders in the public eye at least in space (if not in, say, Plumbing...), liked space much more in theory than as an abstract ever-onwards, ever-upwards money pit. Like I said, he had to be repeatedly talked out of cancelling Apollo 16 and 17, and apparently gave serious thought to trying to convert NASA from a spaceflight agency into a high-tech research agency aimed at mass-water desalinization for the southwest. Space, as a mission, was useful to the degree of limited specific applications for uncrewed launches, and political grandstanding--and if the grandstanding could be had other ways, then the rockets were expendable. But if there was grandstanding to be done, he would do it.

As for the TL, I like the art and the thought given to everything. I'm always glad to see you still at this, I know how hard it can be.

 

[Michel Van]

Nice Illustration about advance Lunokhod rover used for L3-complex mission.

Special thanks to Nick Stevens, who gave me permission to publish. ( source Twitter)

 

[Michel Van]

Part 15 - Khrushchev’s Death and Kosygin take Power

On September 11, 1971 came sad news that Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev had died do hearth failure in Moscow Hospital.
The First Secretary of Communist Party had be hospitalise since 1968 do to a hearth condition.
He was given a State funeral and interment in the Kremlin Wall.
The eulogy praised him as man who brought the Soviet Union out darkness of Stalin terror
into modern Socialism and started the conquest of Space.

His Successor was already decided by Khrushchev as he went to the hospital,
Alexei Kosygin who was his representative in Politburo during this time.
Also starting the succession in Politburo, one of the newbies was Yuri Andropov, head of the KGB.
He was a "hardliner reformist", Andropov used the KGB to hunt down corruption inside the Communist Party and Industry,
Supporting indirect Kosygin in process.
But Andropov proposal to intervene military in in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic,
Was refused by Alexei Kosygin, Anastas Mikoyan and Nikolai Podgorny. They waited to see how that Prague Spring evolve before intervene.
They let reformist Alexander Dubček continue as experiment in socialism.

The third economic reform finally showed the success hope for, thanks to growing export to China.
The people grumbled for more nylon and Washing machine were satisfied.
The waiting list for cars, homes and also the waiting line in shops started to slowly decline.
Except the waiting lines in front of postal and telephone stations for a Videophone call,
The new hype in Soviet Union, began to grow. Very favorable for those seeing relatives living on other site of the Union.
The first offspring of cybernetic Revolution in USSR, the "electronic computing machines“.
Found their way into the bureaucracy, Military and Space programs, if this benefits the USSR will the future prove.

First generation soviet Videophone

But there were people who were deeply unhappy with the situation: the Hardliner communist and Stalinists in Communist Party.
They consider Khrushchev legacy as revisionism and a wrong step for a now doomed USSR.
But they had to kept a low profile, Yuri Andropov was watching over them, in case they made one fatal mistake, remove them from power.

The Collaboration between Yuri Andropov and Alexei Kosygin went well until end of 1979.
As the Afghan communist Government demand Soviet military help for there Civil war
General secretary Kosygin refused the use of Red Army there, not wanting a "Soviet Vietnam“
On other side Yuri Andropov wanted full scale intrusion to secure the southern border of the USSR,
Against radical islam in Afghanistan and Iran.
This let to Dispute between the two and to a schism under the Reformers giving the hardliners again momentum.

 

[Michel Van]

Part 16 - 1972
The good part of year...

In USA the production starts on the new Saturn Rockets
McDonnell/Douglas complete the First S-IVC for Saturn IC and Saturn VB
It’s a S-IVB stage modified for new J-2S engine (S for Simplified) which led to a reduction of Stage mass,
A higher ISP and options for restarting the Stage several time.
Scheduled to be launched first on the Saturn IB first stage left over from the first production run.
The second Saturn IC launch will feature a Centaur as third stage and Burner II as four stage,
It will bring German Helios A probe near the sun in December 1974
The Saturn VB, consisting of an standard S-IC and S-IIB (with five J-2S) and S-IVC is scheduled to be launch unmanned in spring 1974
follow by first manned flight with Apollo 20 in winter 1974.
Now NASA was readying for the next four Apollo J-class and Skylab A three missions.

Apollo 16

The legendary John Young, Charles Duke and John Swigert blasted off on Saturn V on 16 April 1972.
A bad surprise happened after day two as the guidance system needed a realigning after some errors.
On 21 April the LM Orion landed in Descartes Highlands, Young first words on surface:

There you are: Mysterious and Unknown Descartes Highland plains, Apollo 16 is gonna change your Image,
I'm sure glad they got ol' Brer Rabbit, here, back in the Briar patch where he belongs

They deployed the Rover and installed the Far Ultraviolets Camera/Spectrograph. On a short test drive the rover show some problem.
After installing the ALSEP, the heat flow experiment was damaged as Young's foot caught a cable snapping it off,
For the Geologist the Mission was a disappointment, The Descartes Highlands was not volcanic site, but instead formed by huge impact on lunar surface.
Young and Duke managed to get a core sample from 3 meter depth.
On the way back to Earth the CSM pilot made EVAs to recover the Film canister from scientific equipment bay.
After 265 hours and 37 minute mission, the capsule Casper landed near the USS Ticonderoga.
The second J-class mission was triumphal for Apollo program,
Record breaking: 72 hour stay, in EVA for 20 hours, longest distant travel on moon 26.7 km and 95.71 kg of Lunar samples
In contrast the Soviet L3-Mission looked really puny.

Back in USSR
OKB-1 started the year with an unmanned 60 days orbital Test of new version of Soyuz spacecraft adapted for Salyut program.
The 7K-7 version featured a Docking tunnel so three men crew could enter the Space station, without spacewalk in Spacesuits.
still practiced on Soyuz missions in Lunar orbit.
During landing, on the 29 April ended in disaster, after the orbital section was separated from Return module,
a seal was ripp open, opening a valve let escaping Cabin air at an altitude of 168 km.
This was bad for already a delay program, the Crew from Three was reduced to Two in pressure suits.
At OKB-52 there also problems with the construction of Salyut
Their engineers start to modified the construction to leave out unnecessary parts and systems like a second docking port,
also now installing four Soyuz solar panels for power supply.
The originally planned features would be installed in later version of Salut, during the second half of the ninth five-Year Plan (1971-1976)

For Lunar Mission they Soviets start to maximise the Mission architecture,
The Lunokhod rovers were modified to collect samples in preliminary part of Mission.
Also controls were installed so cosmonaut drive the rover themselves if needed.
Orbital Module was modified to carry more scientific experiments and Cameras to scann the Moon surface.

Soyuz 16
On May 13, 1972 launched the Luna rocket with Boris Volynov and Vitaly Zholobov.
Their target was Mare Fecunditatis where Lunokhod 7 was waiting for LK
This time the moon rover was busy in last two month, for the first time it collected samples during its travels providing data over longer distance over Mare Fecunditatis.
On May 19 the LK touched down on target.
After landing Zholobov installed DALS, he collected samples containers from Lunokhod 8 and took the core samples drill and return to orbit.

But during Spacewalk from LK to LOK happen this:
Volynov: WATCH OUT, VITALY !
Zholobov: OH, No, no, no !
Mission control: What’s going on ?
Zholobov: [EXPLETIVE DELETED], [EXPLETIVE DELETED] !
Mission control: What is going on ?!
Volynov: eeeh
Zholobov: I lost the Sample container
Mission control: WHAT ?!
Zholobov: I lost [EXPLETIVE DELETED] Sample container.
Volynov: confirm that !
Mission Control: How'd that happen?!
Zholobov: I have no idea how this [EXPLETIVE DELETED] happened ! [EXPLETIVE DELETED] the Photos were also in there!
Mission Control: [EXPLETIVE DELETED]

Zholobov exhausted from his Lunar trip, had not properly secured the Sample container on his spacesuit.
Do to movements towards LOK the container detached and moved into its own lunar orbit.
So "The Empty handed Mission“ returned 72 hours later on earth

We had achieve so much and in end we failed. A embarrassed Vitaly Zholobov.

For MoM it was clear that L3 was a minimal program, that was not practical for Lunar exploration.
While the Americans set record after record on the Moon, L3M was not ready to Launch until in 4 years…
Despite this, "The Empty handed Moon Mission“ provided a fit of laughter for the Soviets.

Rest of World
China increased their Space Activity by launching in rapid succession satellite in space and recover them, what are they up to ?
ELDO still investigate why 1971 launch of a Europa rocket failed again, the 11th failure in a row...

The terrible part of year 1972...
Intrigue and Failure
It’s a public secret in the USSR, that their Spaceflight program was dominated by intrigues of Shakespearian proportions
(See the International successfully 1990s Soviet TV soap opera "Intrigues of Starcity“ about Soviet Space program and Moon Race)
Like how Valentin Gluchko and Vladimir Chelomei refused to co-operate on the Nositjel rocket Family and the L3-complex.
Thankfully Mikhall Yangel, was a stabilising factor in the mess, He managed to get others OKBs in the collaborative effort into Lunar program.
Not only did his OKB-586 build the successful R-16 ICBM, but also the LK moon lander
The Military had following saying:

[sergei] Khrushchev works for TASS, Chelomei works on crap, Yangel work for us !

Sadly Mikhall Kuzmich Yangel died during his 60th Birthday on October 25 1971.
Since his death the cracks in loyalty towards Ministry of Space now showed clearly.
On one side was Sergei Khrushchev OKB-1 and Kuznetsov OKB-276 with Vladimir Barmin of KBOM and Georgy Babakin of OKB-301.
Opposed by Valentin Gluchko of OKB-456 and Vladimir Chelomei of OKB-52.
Next to them was Vladimir Fedorovich Utkin, successor of Yangel at OKB-586 and their allies in the Military under Chairman Ustinov.

Gluchko's fame was falling, he lost the lucrative OKB-1 engines contract, do to its replacement by the Kuznetsov engines.
He built only main engines for OKB-586, RCS trusters and small engines for rockets and spacecrafts of OKB-1.
Next to that he had high R&D costs on rocket engines working with storable fuel combinations or extreme toxic ones,
One is the RD-270 engine in the size of American F-1, Ministry of Space showed interest in this engine, if it worked on Kerosine/Oxygen.
But Gluchko stubbornly refused demanding that Luna Block A had to be change to UMDH/NTO propellant !

And for Chelomei it was worst, his UR-500 rocket was canceled in favor of the N2 Proton in the beginning of the 1960s
His ICBM proposals were victim of the VSALT agreement under Nikita Khrushchev and Johnson.
(Volunteer Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty between USA and USSR in 1963, do to the French and Berlin Crisis' of 1961.)
Since then his OKB-52 made only hardware, satellite and guidance systems for other OKB’s, while his proposals were ignored !
That was not a surprise because of his arrogant behaviour with officials and talking shit about his colleagues.
Also his bold demands, instead of trying to cooperate with OKB-1 to launch his hardware,
Chelomei demand from Ministry of Space or Military the complete package: the spacecraft on a rocket built by him with the launch infrastructure.

Do to the failure of Soyuz 16 and the delay in Salut program,
Minister Georgiy A. Tyulin called for Meeting of OKB Directors for solutions.
The Meeting started bad, Chelomei declare that the Luna rocket was piece of shit, that was not able to bring more mass to Moon.
Chelomei claimed it was because Khrushchev had put his junior as Head of OKB-1 !
He had the solution: a new modular Rocket of his design: the UR-700, launching a LK-700 Lunar lander direct to Moon !

Tyulin ask Chelomei if he had become completely mad,
To scrap the working Nositjel rocket Family and waste billions of Rubles on this "toxic bandwagon" ?
Valentin Gluchko supported Chelomei's proposal, because it needed his RD-270 and other yet to be developed engines.
His explication about the unnecessary for Hydrogen oxygen rocket engine were criticise by Mishin.

Kuznetsov presented Gluchko a bad surprise, OKB-276 had successful modified a NK-15 to burn Liquid Hydrogen.
Sergei Khrushchev's angrily noticed that the successor of L3 complex, the L3M will ready to fly in 1976,
So there is no need to waste money to put Chelomei's LK-700 on N1 rocket.
This led to Vladimir Chelomei outbursting with obscene words about OKB-1's works and about Khrushchev family favoritism.
Khrushchev replied:

We have put soviet men first on the Moon, what have you achieved during that time? NOTHING !

Chelomei reaction was to grab a ashtray and try trow it toward Khrushchev, but was hinder by Yefermov and Gluchko.
For minister Afanasysev this was enough and in the Russian tradition to blame some unpopular one for the mess,
Chelomei was now the perfect victim.
He was dismissed as head of OKB-52 and sent to the Ukrainian Academy of Science as a teacher for rocket engineers.
Gerbert Aleksandrovich Yefermov became the new head of OKB-52 that become a subdivision of OKB-1.

Gluchko was lucky because the Military needed him for new generation of ICBMs that had to replace the Old R-16.
His expertise in engines with storable fuel was needed, also for another Military program called Spiral 50/50.
But the Military did not want the RD-270 engine, so the R&D on that was terminated immediately,
And Ministry of Space cut down funding drastic on OKB-456's very expensive R&D engines program.
OKB-52 scheduled the first Salyut to be launch on April 1973.

Soyuz 17
Was a repeat of the Soyuz 16 "The Empty handed Mission“, the malicious-joy of the World Press.
Vladislav Volkov was the Pilot of LK lander, while Georgy Dobrovolsky operate LOK.
Original planed to be launch in end July the mission go delay because Technical issue to August.
in mean time Lunokhod 9 collect samples and got into position.

On 1 August 1972 the Luna Rocket blasted off to bring the crew to the Moon
Then on 4 august happen the disaster, a Solar Flare erupted, 14.6 hours later the shockwave hit Soyuz 18 full
most of radiation was absorb by L3-complex hardware, but both cosmonauts got radiation sickness
The mission got cancelled, Soyuz 17 made lunar fly by 72 hours later the capsule landed in the Soviet Union.
Sadly the crew had not survive

The Soviet state media attempted to downplay the tragic end of the mission but failed,
They were also each posthumously awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union medal.
Dobrovolsky and Volkov were given a large state funeral and buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis in Moscow,
The pallbearer were Vladimir Komarov, Yuri Gagarin, Alexey Leonov, also US astronaut Tom Stafford.
United States president Richard Nixon issued an official statement following the tragedy:

The American people join in expressing to you and the Soviet people our deepest sympathy on the tragic deaths of the two Soviet cosmonauts.
The whole world followed the exploits of these courageous explorers of the unknown and shares the anguish of their tragedy.
But the achievements of cosmonauts Dobrovolsky and Volkov remain.
It will, I am sure, prove to have contributed greatly to the further achievements of the Soviet program for the exploration of space and thus to the widening of man's horizons.

NASA and Soviet Ministry of Space came to agreement, were both exchange their data on Solar activity to predict better Solar Flares.
There was short Political dispute in USA about ending the Moon Race, but change abrupt as China launch a Chinese into Orbit !

Lunokhod 9 was never visit by Cosmonaut or Astronaut, it became a Memorial for Vladislav Volkov and Georgy Dobrovolsky

 

[Kloka]

Part 16 - 1972
The good part of year...

In USA the production starts on the new Saturn Rockets
McDonnell/Douglas complete the First S-IVC for Saturn IC and Saturn VB
It’s a S-IVB stage modified for new J-2S engine (S for Simplified) which led to a reduction of Stage mass,
A higher ISP and options for restarting the Stage several time.
Scheduled to be launched first on the Saturn IB first stage left over from the first production run.
The second Saturn IC launch will feature a Centaur as third stage and Burner II as four stage,
It will bring German Helios A probe near the sun in December 1974
The Saturn VB, consisting of an standard S-IC and S-IIB (with five J-2S) and S-IVC is scheduled to be launch unmanned in spring 1974
follow by first manned flight with Apollo 20 in winter 1974.
Now NASA was readying for the next four Apollo J-class and Skylab A three missions.

Apollo 16

The legendary John Young, Charles Duke and John Swigert blasted off on Saturn V on 16 April 1972.
A bad surprise happened after day two as the guidance system needed a realigning after some errors.
On 21 April the LM Orion landed in Descartes Highlands, Young first words on surface:

There you are: Mysterious and Unknown Descartes Highland plains, Apollo 16 is gonna change your Image,
I'm sure glad they got ol' Brer Rabbit, here, back in the Briar patch where he belongs

They deployed the Rover and installed the Far Ultraviolets Camera/Spectrograph. On a short test drive the rover show some problem.
After installing the ALSEP, the heat flow experiment was damaged as Young's foot caught a cable snapping it off,
For the Geologist the Mission was a disappointment, The Descartes Highlands was not volcanic site, but instead formed by huge impact on lunar surface.
Young and Duke managed to get a core sample from 3 meter depth.
On the way back to Earth the CSM pilot made EVAs to recover the Film canister from scientific equipment bay.
After 265 hours and 37 minute mission, the capsule Casper landed near the USS Ticonderoga.
The second J-class mission was triumphal for Apollo program,
Record breaking: 72 hour stay, in EVA for 20 hours, longest distant travel on moon 26.7 km and 95.71 kg of Lunar samples
In contrast the Soviet L3-Mission looked really puny.

Back in USSR
OKB-1 started the year with an unmanned 60 days orbital Test of new version of Soyuz spacecraft adapted for Salyut program.
The 7K-7 version featured a Docking tunnel so three men crew could enter the Space station, without spacewalk in Spacesuits.
still practiced on Soyuz missions in Lunar orbit.
During landing, on the 29 April ended in disaster, after the orbital section was separated from Return module,
a seal was ripp open, opening a valve let escaping Cabin air at an altitude of 168 km.
This was bad for already a delay program, the Crew from Three was reduced to Two in pressure suits.
At OKB-52 there also problems with the construction of Salyut
Their engineers start to modified the construction to leave out unnecessary parts and systems like a second docking port,
also now installing four Soyuz solar panels for power supply.
The originally planned features would be installed in later version of Salut, during the second half of the ninth five-Year Plan (1971-1976)

For Lunar Mission they Soviets start to maximise the Mission architecture,
The Lunokhod rovers were modified to collect samples in preliminary part of Mission.
Also controls were installed so cosmonaut drive the rover themselves if needed.
Orbital Module was modified to carry more scientific experiments and Cameras to scann the Moon surface.

Soyuz 16
On May 13, 1972 launched the Luna rocket with Boris Volynov and Vitaly Zholobov.
Their target was Mare Fecunditatis where Lunokhod 7 was waiting for LK
This time the moon rover was busy in last two month, for the first time it collected samples during its travels providing data over longer distance over Mare Fecunditatis.
On May 19 the LK touched down on target.
After landing Zholobov installed DALS, he collected samples containers from Lunokhod 8 and took the core samples drill and return to orbit.

But during Spacewalk from LK to LOK happen this:
Volynov: WATCH OUT, VITALY !
Zholobov: OH, No, no, no !
Mission control: What’s going on ?
Zholobov: [EXPLETIVE DELETED], [EXPLETIVE DELETED] !
Mission control: What is going on ?!
Volynov: eeeh
Zholobov: I lost the Sample container
Mission control: WHAT ?!
Zholobov: I lost [EXPLETIVE DELETED] Sample container.
Volynov: confirm that !
Mission Control: How'd that happen?!
Zholobov: I have no idea how this [EXPLETIVE DELETED] happened ! [EXPLETIVE DELETED] the Photos were also in there!
Mission Control: [EXPLETIVE DELETED]

Zholobov exhausted from his Lunar trip, had not properly secured the Sample container on his spacesuit.
Do to movements towards LOK the container detached and moved into its own lunar orbit.
So "The Empty handed Mission“ returned 72 hours later on earth

We had achieve so much and in end we failed. A embarrassed Vitaly Zholobov.

For MoM it was clear that L3 was a minimal program, that was not practical for Lunar exploration.
While the Americans set record after record on the Moon, L3M was not ready to Launch until in 4 years…
Despite this, "The Empty handed Moon Mission“ provided a fit of laughter for the Soviets.

Rest of World
China increased their Space Activity by launching in rapid succession satellite in space and recover them, what are they up to ?
ELDO still investigate why 1971 launch of a Europa rocket failed again, the 11th failure in a row...

The terrible part of year 1972...
Intrigue and Failure
It’s a public secret in the USSR, that their Spaceflight program was dominated by intrigues of Shakespearian proportions
(See the International successfully 1990s Soviet TV soap opera "Intrigues of Starcity“ about Soviet Space program and Moon Race)
Like how Valentin Gluchko and Vladimir Chelomei refused to co-operate on the Nositjel rocket Family and the L3-complex.
Thankfully Mikhall Yangel, was a stabilising factor in the mess, He managed to get others OKBs in the collaborative effort into Lunar program.
Not only did his OKB-586 build the successful R-16 ICBM, but also the LK moon lander
The Military had following saying:

[sergei] Khrushchev works for TASS, Chelomei works on crap, Yangel work for us !

Sadly Mikhall Kuzmich Yangel died during his 60th Birthday on October 25 1971.
Since his death the cracks in loyalty towards Ministry of Space now showed clearly.
On one side was Sergei Khrushchev OKB-1 and Kuznetsov OKB-276 with Vladimir Barmin of KBOM and Georgy Babakin of OKB-301.
Opposed by Valentin Gluchko of OKB-456 and Vladimir Chelomei of OKB-52.
Next to them was Vladimir Fedorovich Utkin, successor of Yangel at OKB-586 and their allies in the Military under Chairman Ustinov.

Gluchko's fame was falling, he lost the lucrative OKB-1 engines contract, do to its replacement by the Kuznetsov engines.
He built only main engines for OKB-586, RCS trusters and small engines for rockets and spacecrafts of OKB-1.
Next to that he had high R&D costs on rocket engines working with storable fuel combinations or extreme toxic ones,
One is the RD-270 engine in the size of American F-1, Ministry of Space showed interest in this engine, if it worked on Kerosine/Oxygen.
But Gluchko stubbornly refused demanding that Luna Block A had to be change to UMDH/NTO propellant !

And for Chelomei it was worst, his UR-500 rocket was canceled in favor of the N2 Proton in the beginning of the 1960s
His ICBM proposals were victim of the VSALT agreement under Nikita Khrushchev and Johnson.
(Volunteer Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty between USA and USSR in 1963, do to the French and Berlin Crisis' of 1961.)
Since then his OKB-52 made only hardware, satellite and guidance systems for other OKB’s, while his proposals were ignored !
That was not a surprise because of his arrogant behaviour with officials and talking shit about his colleagues.
Also his bold demands, instead of trying to cooperate with OKB-1 to launch his hardware,
Chelomei demand from Ministry of Space or Military the complete package: the spacecraft on a rocket built by him with the launch infrastructure.

Do to the failure of Soyuz 16 and the delay in Salut program,
Minister Georgiy A. Tyulin called for Meeting of OKB Directors for solutions.
The Meeting started bad, Chelomei declare that the Luna rocket was piece of shit, that was not able to bring more mass to Moon.
Chelomei claimed it was because Khrushchev had put his junior as Head of OKB-1 !
He had the solution: a new modular Rocket of his design: the UR-700, launching a LK-700 Lunar lander direct to Moon !

Tyulin ask Chelomei if he had become completely mad,
To scrap the working Nositjel rocket Family and waste billions of Rubles on this "toxic bandwagon" ?
Valentin Gluchko supported Chelomei's proposal, because it needed his RD-270 and other yet to be developed engines.
His explication about the unnecessary for Hydrogen oxygen rocket engine were criticise by Mishin.

Kuznetsov presented Gluchko a bad surprise, OKB-276 had successful modified a NK-15 to burn Liquid Hydrogen.
Sergei Khrushchev's angrily noticed that the successor of L3 complex, the L3M will ready to fly in 1976,
So there is no need to waste money to put Chelomei's LK-700 on N1 rocket.
This led to Vladimir Chelomei outbursting with obscene words about OKB-1's works and about Khrushchev family favoritism.
Khrushchev replied:

We have put soviet men first on the Moon, what have you achieved during that time? NOTHING !

Chelomei reaction was to grab a ashtray and try trow it toward Khrushchev, but was hinder by Yefermov and Gluchko.
For minister Afanasysev this was enough and in the Russian tradition to blame some unpopular one for the mess,
Chelomei was now the perfect victim.
He was dismissed as head of OKB-52 and sent to the Ukrainian Academy of Science as a teacher for rocket engineers.
Gerbert Aleksandrovich Yefermov became the new head of OKB-52 that become a subdivision of OKB-1.

Gluchko was lucky because the Military needed him for new generation of ICBMs that had to replace the Old R-16.
His expertise in engines with storable fuel was needed, also for another Military program called Spiral 50/50.
But the Military did not want the RD-270 engine, so the R&D on that was terminated immediately,
And Ministry of Space cut down funding drastic on OKB-456's very expensive R&D engines program.
OKB-52 scheduled the first Salyut to be launch on April 1973.

Soyuz 17
Was a repeat of the Soyuz 16 "The Empty handed Mission“, the malicious-joy of the World Press.
Vladislav Volkov was the Pilot of LK lander, while Georgy Dobrovolsky operate LOK.
Original planed to be launch in end July the mission go delay because Technical issue to August.
in mean time Lunokhod 9 collect samples and got into position.

On 1 August 1972 the Luna Rocket blasted off to bring the crew to the Moon
Then on 4 august happen the disaster, a Solar Flare erupted, 14.6 hours later the shockwave hit Soyuz 18 full
most of radiation was absorb by L3-complex hardware, but both cosmonauts got radiation sickness
The mission got cancelled, Soyuz 17 made lunar fly by 72 hours later the capsule landed in the Soviet Union.
Sadly the crew had not survive

The Soviet state media attempted to downplay the tragic end of the mission but failed,
They were also each posthumously awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union medal.
Dobrovolsky and Volkov were given a large state funeral and buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis in Moscow,
The pallbearer were Vladimir Komarov, Yuri Gagarin, Alexey Leonov, also US astronaut Tom Stafford.
United States president Richard Nixon issued an official statement following the tragedy:

The American people join in expressing to you and the Soviet people our deepest sympathy on the tragic deaths of the two Soviet cosmonauts.
The whole world followed the exploits of these courageous explorers of the unknown and shares the anguish of their tragedy.
But the achievements of cosmonauts Dobrovolsky and Volkov remain.
It will, I am sure, prove to have contributed greatly to the further achievements of the Soviet program for the exploration of space and thus to the widening of man's horizons.

NASA and Soviet Ministry of Space came to agreement, were both exchange their data on Solar activity to predict better Solar Flares.
There was short Political dispute in USA about ending the Moon Race, but change abrupt as China launch a Chinese into Orbit !

Lunokhod 9 was never visit by Cosmonaut or Astronaut, it became a Memorial for Vladislav Volkov and Georgy Dobrovolsky

So Swigert gets the mission he should have had. That’s a good thing. Maybe he stays around to fly more missions?

Soviets aren’t having a good year. First they lose samples,then they lose crew. I foresee a short break from lunar exploration.

Chelomei bashing for the win!

 

[Michel Van]

then they lose crew

Space Flight is never easy, there will be accidents in Space and during Launch.
also in this TL because more Astronauts in Space !

the TL start here to deviate form old version ,
i hope you enjoy it

 

[grdja83]

Ouch, I don't remember if that was in original version.

Event like that, where nothing is wrong with the spacecraft, crew makes no mistakes... and yet entire crew dies due to space itself deciding to kill you...

It will make both space agencies take a pause to think and reflect. Ideally both current programs would wind down and be replaced by next generation architecture. For example the famed never built Orbital Transfer Vehicles. Maybe with a tiny storm shelter for the crew hidden between the fuel tanks. Understanding that any Moon bases will need serious radiation protection and also solar storm shelters covered by regolith.

 

[Major Major]

Soyuz 17

Dobrovolsky and Volkov were given a large state funeral and buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis in Moscow,
The pallbearer were Vladimir Komarov, Yuri Gagarin, Alexey Leonov, also US astronaut Tom Stafford.
United States president Richard Nixon issued an official statement following the tragedy:

A tragic end, but "The conquest of space is worth the risk of life."

And look who survived!

 

[Michel Van]

And look who survived!

some notes

Yuri Gagarin had never his deadly aircraft accident, he is in 1970s head of one Aerospace Research Center in USSR
Vladimir Komarov as first men on moon, has his flight status removed, is now head of Soviet Cosmonaut force.

Spoiler: Some event in TL future

Since the Space Shuttle in this TL is complete different design, there will be no Challenger or Columbia disaster !
but that not mean NASA is lucky...

 

[Michel Van]

Part 17 - Highlights of 1972

China
One of the biggest surprises was their first manned space flight, only 3 years after first Satellite Dong Fang Hong 1 (Red East One).
But looking in detail it was not so surprising at all, The spacecraft was merely a modified Warhead Reentry Vehicle,
with the nuclear warhead replaced by Man with Live support and a landing system !
That explained the short time that Directive 690 Hòng Xing (Red Star) needed until its success.
On October 18 1972 a Dong Feng 5 ICBM brought Hóng Xing 1 with Dong Xiao Hai on board,
The first "Hang tian yuan" (space navigating personnel)
After one orbit he landed safe in south China, becoming a national hero of the People Republic of China.

USA
In October, the Washington Post published an article by Bob Woodward and Carl Berstein,
revealing that Vice President Spiro Agnew was accepting bribes as Gouverneur of Maryland !
On October 10, Spiro Agnew resigned from office, despite his claims to be not guilty and that it was merely "unreported Income“.
Do to the 25th Amendment the House Minority Leader had the option to become new Vice President,
President Nixon sought advice from senior Congressional leaders about a replacement,
The advice was unanimous: the House Minority Leader, the republican Gerald Ford.
Ford was confirmed as Vice President by Capitol hill ( Senate 92 vs 3 and Congress 387 vs 35 votes)
Gerald Ford took over the Legacy of Agnew, the Odyssey Program and keep it running,
This remained the only scandal in Nixon administration.

Do the successful manned Chinese space flight push Capitol Hill to full support NASA Odyssey program.
That another communist nation launch men into space was clear signal for US, the Space Race is now three-sided.

In December Richard Nixon made his historic visit to China.
A diplomatic success for Nixon, defusing the "Chinese Nightmare“ situation between the two Nations.
The Chinese Forces redrew from position at North Vietnam border.
Which led to Pro Nationalist forces dealing with the Pro China Fraction in the North Vietnamese Communist party.
In 1973 the North Vietnamese power struggle was finally won by the Pro Nationalists,
60 day later after the Peace Agreement is signed in Paris. The last US soldier left South Vietnam
Henry Kissinger estimated how long South Vietnam would survive his answer: Around two, three years, not more…

Cambodia
The biggest loser of this conflict was the Maoist Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.
After they lost their allied China in 1967, then North Vietnam in 1968, there were attacks by those Pro Nationalist forces,
Then by Vietnam Pro China Fractions, the South Vietnamese Army, Laos Military and United States Forces.
As their leader "Brother number 1“ was killed during attacks in 1972, the remaining Khmer Rouge fled to Thailand,
We're the Organisation was no more than group of Bandits hunted down over the years by Thailand's military.

The 1972 Summer Olympic in Munich
Was overshadow by the Black September terroristic act.
Lucky the German special forces ambushed the terrorists as they tried to escape on Fürstenfeldbruck Air force base with Boeing 727.
Killing seven terrorists, two were captured alive, wounding several of the nine hostage in process,
The Munich Miracle was possible by the groundwork the German police had with their leftist terrorist in last 4 years.
the Left scene in west Germany underwent dangerous radicalisation with dead of Mao Zedong in 1966,
instead follow Mao Red books and discuss from morning to evening the Cultural Revolution in 1968 !
the Students went for Vietnamese Ho Ching Min and the Armed combat of Vietcong,
This with dead of political activist Rudi Dutschke in April 1968 what let to very explosive situation in West Germany 1970s.

Skylab 1

In October 1972 Kennedy Space Center gave a spectacular show: Two Saturn Vs rolled out VAB toward Launch Pad 39
One was Apollo 17, scheduled to launch on December 7th.
The Other was Skylab, America's (and the world's) first space station scheduled for Launch on November 23rd.
Skylab began in 1965 as the Apollo Application Program in MSFC under George E. Mueller.
The first goal was launch a 3 man Space Station build from S-IVB stage called "The Orbital Workshop“ or OWS.
In 1968 with the termination of MOL program at the USAF, part of their Astronauts were transferred to NASA,
Several of them were assigned to the Skylab program, also the name was changed from "the Orbital Workshop“ into Skylab.
In 1970 McDonnell Douglas started to build in California, two space stations, Skylab A and B (B for backup).
Finally, in 1972 Skylab A arrived in late August at KSC for preparation to Launch.
While in Johnson Space center the second Mission Control Center was activated for Skylab, so the Apollo 17 Mission could go synchronous.

On November 23 the Skylab-1 took off from Pad 39-B, but 63 seconds later the Micrometeoroid shield detach and was ripped off the station
Skylab arrived in orbit and deployed the Apollo Telescope Mount and its Solar arrays, but not it main solar arrays !
While the rise of temperature in Station released toxic fumes from material in the station.
This was a new Disaster for NASA, what to do ?
George E. Mueller was clear that the future of NASA was at stake, so he made a decision: The first Skylab crew must repair the station!
This delayed the launch for 10 days to prepare the Repair procedure.
In the mean time ground control had vented the Atmosphere of the station, purging it with pure Nitrogen four time, before restore the Nitrogen/Oxygen atmosphere.

Skylab 2
So on December 2, Skylab-2 was launch from Pad 34 on Board: Charles "Pete“ Conrad, Jr., Joseph P. Kerwin and Paul J. Weitz.
As they arrived 6 hours later at Skylab they saw the full scale of the problem,
The Micrometeoroid shield had also ripped off a solar cell of the station, the other was jammed by the debris of the shield.
The first EVA attempted to unblock the Solar Cells ending in failure as Skylab lost of most RCS fuel.
After docking the crew enter the station in spacesuits despite the high temperatures and being underpowered, Skylab was fine.
They used the Science Airlock to unfold a parasol, working as sunshade, with temperatures successfully dropping to an acceptable level.
On December 7th, Apollo 17 was launched and for the first time there were 6 American astronauts were in space .
with the second EVA Conrad and Kerwin, on December 17th, managed to Open the solar wing on Skylab, providing electrical power for next two missions.
On December 24th, The Crew celebrated Christmas in Orbit, the first time since Apollo 8's historic mission that an Astronaut had spent Christmas in Space.
Then on December 30th, the Crew left Skylab and returned safely to Earth after a mission of 28 days.
Meanwhile Skylab was put into Hibernation for next Crew arriving in February.

Apollo 17

On December 7, a Saturn V manned with Eugene Cerman, Ronald Evans and Joe Engle, blasted off from pad 39-A.
500,000 people watching the spectacle of a Saturn V night launch, from over 200 km you could see the light of the five F-1 engine gleaming in the Sky.

During the transfer to moon the crew experienced light flashes in the spacecraft, cosmic radiation from Sun hitting the eyes of the astronauts.
Also reported by Cerman was a blinking object that follow the CSM/LM on large distance, later it was revealed to by radar,
one of adapter panels was drifting parallel to CSM/LM.
The LM Challenger touched down in Taurus-Littrow right on target on December 11.
During the first EVA Cerman took panorama pictures of the landing side from the top of the LM hatch.
After a good night of rest the Crew started the Second EVA , Cerman's first words on moon were:

Joe [Engle] I'm out here oh my Golly! Unbelievable! Unbelievable; but is it bright in the Sun.

They offloading the rover and they deployed the ALSEP package and put US flags on the lunar surface.
A problem Cerman and Engle had on all EVAs was the moon dust, it stuck on suit, on the rover,
Even got inside there LM which Cerman and Engle described as the smell of spent gunpowder.
But they had their fun, during the EVA Engle and Cerman even start singing during this EVA.

On the third EVA Cerman and Engle collected 66 kilograms of Lunar samples.

The fourth EVA Engle made a big discovery near a bolder, a small unusual rock "The Genesis rock““
it came from lower crust of moon, being one of the oldest stones found on moon and showed traces of original lunar magnetic field !
On end of the EVA they parked the Lunar rover at a safe distance to film the accent of LM .
With the surface stay of 3 days and 3 hours it was a new record not to mention the EVA of seven hours 15 minute and the 110.4 kg of lunar samples.
During the time in lunar orbit, the CSM America scanned the Surface with spectrographs for the geological Lunar Map.
After undocking the LM, the Crew released the PFS-2 subsatellite, this time the PFS-2 remain stable in it's orbit.
On return to earth, Ronald Evans made an EVA to collect the films from the SIM bay.
Apollo 17's crew manage to take a picture of the whole earth, "The Blue Marble" that become the most iconic picture of the 20 century.
Then the CM America splashed down save near USS Ticondergoa in pacific ocean on December 19th.

Aftermath:
Skylab 2 and Apollo 17 were successes for NASA, not only did they beat the Soviets in the space race with,
dual mission of 6 astronauts, the biggest space station with 70 tons, it’s repair and a record 28 day stay of astronaut in space,
Apollo 17 again broke records on the Moon while Skylab-2 brought home 392 hours of experimental data on medicine, solar and Earth science.
While the Soviets had "The Empty handed Mission“ of Soyuz 17, Tragedy of Soyuz 18 and delays in their Salyut projects.
This impress Capitol Hill, finally NASA had done it's job and had secured America's in the lead in Space Race for the moment...

 

[Kloka]

Part 17 - Highlights of 1972

China
One of the biggest surprises was their first manned space flight, only 3 years after first Satellite Dong Fang Hong 1 (Red East One).
But looking in detail it was not so surprising at all, The spacecraft was merely a modified Warhead Reentry Vehicle,
with the nuclear warhead replaced by Man with Live support and a landing system !
That explained the short time that Directive 690 Hòng Xing (Red Star) needed until its success.
On October 18 1972 a Dong Feng 5 ICBM brought Hóng Xing 1 with Dong Xiao Hai on board,
The first "Hang tian yuan" (space navigating personnel)
After one orbit he landed safe in south China, becoming a national hero of the People Republic of China.

USA
In October, the Washington Post published an article by Bob Woodward and Carl Berstein,
revealing that Vice President Spiro Agnew was accepting bribes as Gouverneur of Maryland !
On October 10, Spiro Agnew resigned from office, despite his claims to be not guilty and that it was merely "unreported Income“.
Do to the 25th Amendment the House Minority Leader had the option to become new Vice President,
President Nixon sought advice from senior Congressional leaders about a replacement,
The advice was unanimous: the House Minority Leader, the republican Gerald Ford.
Ford was confirmed as Vice President by Capitol hill ( Senate 92 vs 3 and Congress 387 vs 35 votes)
Gerald Ford took over the Legacy of Agnew, the Odyssey Program and keep it running,
This remained the only scandal in Nixon administration.

Do the successful manned Chinese space flight push Capitol Hill to full support NASA Odyssey program.
That another communist nation launch men into space was clear signal for US, the Space Race is now three-sided.

In December Richard Nixon made his historic visit to China.
A diplomatic success for Nixon, defusing the "Chinese Nightmare“ situation between the two Nations.
The Chinese Forces redrew from position at North Vietnam border.
Which led to Pro Nationalist forces dealing with the Pro China Fraction in the North Vietnamese Communist party.
In 1973 the North Vietnamese power struggle was finally won by the Pro Nationalists,
60 day later after the Peace Agreement is signed in Paris. The last US soldier left South Vietnam
Henry Kissinger estimated how long South Vietnam would survive his answer: Around two, three years, not more…

Cambodia
The biggest loser of this conflict was the Maoist Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.
After they lost their allied China in 1967, then North Vietnam in 1968, there were attacks by those Pro Nationalist forces,
Then by Vietnam Pro China Fractions, the South Vietnamese Army, Laos Military and United States Forces.
As their leader "Brother number 1“ was killed during attacks in 1972, the remaining Khmer Rouge fled to Thailand,
We're the Organisation was no more than group of Bandits hunted down over the years by Thailand's military.

The 1972 Summer Olympic in Munich
Was overshadow by the Black September terroristic act.
Lucky the German special forces ambushed the terrorists as they tried to escape on Fürstenfeldbruck Air force base with Boeing 727.
Killing seven terrorists, two were captured alive, wounding several of the nine hostage in process,
The Munich Miracle was possible by the groundwork the German police had with their leftist terrorist in last 4 years.
the Left scene in west Germany underwent dangerous radicalisation with dead of Mao Zedong in 1966,
instead follow Mao Red books and discuss from morning to evening the Cultural Revolution in 1968 !
the Students went for Vietnamese Ho Ching Min and the Armed combat of Vietcong,
This with dead of political activist Rudi Dutschke in April 1968 what let to very explosive situation in West Germany 1970s.

Skylab 1

In October 1972 Kennedy Space Center gave a spectacular show: Two Saturn Vs rolled out VAB toward Launch Pad 39
One was Apollo 17, scheduled to launch on December 7th.
The Other was Skylab, America's (and the world's) first space station scheduled for Launch on November 23rd.
Skylab began in 1965 as the Apollo Application Program in MSFC under George E. Mueller.
The first goal was launch a 3 man Space Station build from S-IVB stage called "The Orbital Workshop“ or OWS.
In 1968 with the termination of MOL program at the USAF, part of their Astronauts were transferred to NASA,
Several of them were assigned to the Skylab program, also the name was changed from "the Orbital Workshop“ into Skylab.
In 1970 McDonnell Douglas started to build in California, two space stations, Skylab A and B (B for backup).
Finally, in 1972 Skylab A arrived in late August at KSC for preparation to Launch.
While in Johnson Space center the second Mission Control Center was activated for Skylab, so the Apollo 17 Mission could go synchronous.

On November 23 the Skylab-1 took off from Pad 39-B, but 63 seconds later the Micrometeoroid shield detach and was ripped off the station
Skylab arrived in orbit and deployed the Apollo Telescope Mount and its Solar arrays, but not it main solar arrays !
While the rise of temperature in Station released toxic fumes from material in the station.
This was a new Disaster for NASA, what to do ?
George E. Mueller was clear that the future of NASA was at stake, so he made a decision: The first Skylab crew must repair the station!
This delayed the launch for 10 days to prepare the Repair procedure.
In the mean time ground control had vented the Atmosphere of the station, purging it with pure Nitrogen four time, before restore the Nitrogen/Oxygen atmosphere.

Skylab 2
So on December 2, Skylab-2 was launch from Pad 34 on Board: Charles "Pete“ Conrad, Jr., Joseph P. Kerwin and Paul J. Weitz.
As they arrived 6 hours later at Skylab they saw the full scale of the problem,
The Micrometeoroid shield had also ripped off a solar cell of the station, the other was jammed by the debris of the shield.
The first EVA attempted to unblock the Solar Cells ending in failure as Skylab lost of most RCS fuel.
After docking the crew enter the station in spacesuits despite the high temperatures and being underpowered, Skylab was fine.
They used the Science Airlock to unfold a parasol, working as sunshade, with temperatures successfully dropping to an acceptable level.
On December 7th, Apollo 17 was launched and for the first time there were 6 American astronauts were in space .
with the second EVA Conrad and Kerwin, on December 17th, managed to Open the solar wing on Skylab, providing electrical power for next two missions.
On December 24th, The Crew celebrated Christmas in Orbit, the first time since Apollo 8's historic mission that an Astronaut had spent Christmas in Space.
Then on December 30th, the Crew left Skylab and returned safely to Earth after a mission of 28 days.
Meanwhile Skylab was put into Hibernation for next Crew arriving in February.

Apollo 17

On December 7, a Saturn V manned with Eugene Cerman, Ronald Evans and Joe Engle, blasted off from pad 39-A.
500,000 people watching the spectacle of a Saturn V night launch, from over 200 km you could see the light of the five F-1 engine gleaming in the Sky.

During the transfer to moon the crew experienced light flashes in the spacecraft, cosmic radiation from Sun hitting the eyes of the astronauts.
Also reported by Cerman was a blinking object that follow the CSM/LM on large distance, later it was revealed to by radar,
one of adapter panels was drifting parallel to CSM/LM.
The LM Challenger touched down in Taurus-Littrow right on target on December 11.
During the first EVA Cerman took panorama pictures of the landing side from the top of the LM hatch.
After a good night of rest the Crew started the Second EVA , Cerman's first words on moon were:

Joe [Engle] I'm out here oh my Golly! Unbelievable! Unbelievable; but is it bright in the Sun.

They offloading the rover and they deployed the ALSEP package and put US flags on the lunar surface.
A problem Cerman and Engle had on all EVAs was the moon dust, it stuck on suit, on the rover,
Even got inside there LM which Cerman and Engle described as the smell of spent gunpowder.
But they had their fun, during the EVA Engle and Cerman even start singing during this EVA.

On the third EVA Cerman and Engle collected 66 kilograms of Lunar samples.

The fourth EVA Engle made a big discovery near a bolder, a small unusual rock "The Genesis rock““
it came from lower crust of moon, being one of the oldest stones found on moon and showed traces of original lunar magnetic field !
On end of the EVA they parked the Lunar rover at a safe distance to film the accent of LM .
With the surface stay of 3 days and 3 hours it was a new record not to mention the EVA of seven hours 15 minute and the 110.4 kg of lunar samples.
During the time in lunar orbit, the CSM America scanned the Surface with spectrographs for the geological Lunar Map.
After undocking the LM, the Crew released the PFS-2 subsatellite, this time the PFS-2 remain stable in it's orbit.
On return to earth, Ronald Evans made an EVA to collect the films from the SIM bay.
Apollo 17's crew manage to take a picture of the whole earth, "The Blue Marble" that become the most iconic picture of the 20 century.
Then the CM America splashed down save near USS Ticondergoa in pacific ocean on December 19th.

Aftermath:
Skylab 2 and Apollo 17 were successes for NASA, not only did they beat the Soviets in the space race with,
dual mission of 6 astronauts, the biggest space station with 70 tons, it’s repair and a record 28 day stay of astronaut in space,
Apollo 17 again broke records on the Moon while Skylab-2 brought home 392 hours of experimental data on medicine, solar and Earth science.
While the Soviets had "The Empty handed Mission“ of Soyuz 17, Tragedy of Soyuz 18 and delays in their Salyut projects.
This impress Capitol Hill, finally NASA had done it's job and had secured America's in the lead in Space Race for the moment...

Personally I would’ve had Fang Guojun be the first taikonaut but okay.

NASA’s reputation can only increase now....

 

[Michel Van]

Personally I would’ve had Fang Guojun be the first taikonaut but okay.

let see China will develop advance space craft in TL, i think Fang Guojun will fly those

 

[Michel Van]

Part 18 - Apollo 18 and Skylab 3 & 4 Missions

NASA won several battles at the end of 1972.
Finally Capitol Hill voted for the Odyssey program's full funding after 2 years of political battle.
Essential to securing NASA the lead in Space Race it's included Apollo J-class and Skylab missions,
a necessity for competing with both the USSR and China (however modest their entry into the space race was).
Also international collaboration Treaty, the United States had signed a with Canada, Great Britain, Germany, France and Italy.
for cooperation with NASA over the Odyssey program.

The other battle won was the Internal rivalry between Johnson Space Center and Marshall Space Flight Center,
over who controls the US Manned Spaceflight program? George Bush and Low finally managed to end this with a decree:
MSFC would develop and build the flight hardware, while JSC will run the Mission on that Hardware.
Also ended was the conflict between Jet Propulsion Lab, Langley and Ames over who runs Planetary program?
JPL would do Planetary Orbiter and Flybys, Langley would do Landers,
While Ames Research Center would focus on Interplanetary missions from now on.
So Pioneer 10 & 11 would be last Planetary Probe of Ames, but they fight for one ambition mission: Pioneer 12

It would use the Backup of Pioneer 10 & 11 for a Jupiter fly-by which would bring it into a high polar orbit around the Sun,
where it would study the Sun's magnetic field
Off course the needed Fly by at Jupiter would bring also research data about the Giant Planet,
This "out of the Ecliptic“ Mission would end in an orbit of 1.2 AU by 5 AU with each 3.5 year passing one of Sun poles at 1.85 AU.
The radio isotopic generator would give the mission a duration of decades
But there was a problem, it needed more expensive Saturn IC, instead of the cheaper Atlas Centaur used on Pioneer 10&11
They found risky option: Pioneer 12 become test Payload for first Saturn IC launch with a centaur as Third stage.

The Skylab failure investigation board show that the program had rushed too fast into completion,
failures were made like on Micrometeoroid Shield design.
The Board recommended to modify the Skylab Backup, to prevent Skylab A's problems and improve its mission capacity.

Skylab-3
On February 28th 1973 the next mission went to Skylab
Alan L. Bean, Karol j. Bobko and Owen K. Garriott.
Bobko a former USAF astronaut, was a veteran for Skylab, he spent 56 days in Skylab Medical experiment altitude Test in 1971.
The Apollo CSM had been loaded with 546 kg of food, new Sun shield and spare parts like tape recorder and video cameras who failed on Skylab-2 mission.
On Day 9 the new Sun shield was installed, replacing the provisional one installed by Skylab-2's crew.

Also, the first successful EVA of a new spacesuit was conducted, the Garrett AiResearch EX-1A .
It featured higher operational Air pressure of 5 psi compared to 3.7 psi of the A7LB.
EX-A1 was far more mobile for the Human body than the Apollo A7LB suits were capable off.
It feature also new entry system, abandoned the back Zipper by a two pieces suit with mid entry, so one astronaut can put it on.
The E-1A would replace the A7LB suits from Apollo 19 on.
Also tested by the crew was the Astronaut Manoeuvre Unit inside the station, allowing a zero-G simulation of a tether-less spacewalk.
In the mean time the Station had problems, like the waste disposal system malfunctioning several time.
The Apollo spacecraft also had problem like losing cooling fluid, and had lost two RCS cluster.
After a record breaking 56 days the crew returned back to Earth on 27 April.
They returned with 500 hours of experimental data on medical, solar and Earth science

Skylab-4
The third and Last Mission to first US space station was launched 12 May.
Robert F. Overmeyer, Edward G. Gibson and Donald Holmquest.
Overmeyer, a former USAF astronaut was the development Engineer of the Skylab Station, he was valued help for the station problems.
Holmquest is Bachelor degree in physician, electrical engineer and Law !
Gibson a scientist for Solar physics and an electrical engineer.

Entering the Station they found a surprise by the previous Crew, three dummies in flight suits.
The first day the crew suffered from space sickness.
After a week tensions began between Ground control and the all-rookie Crew, about the hard work schedule,
But Holmquest manage to reason with ground crew to do a modified the work schedule.
During mission two of the three main Gyroscopes failed, including other systems.
Gibson managed the first film recording of a Solar Flare on Sun.
The crew made in total 22 hours of EVA,
The last task before un-docking was the Apollo CSM deorbit burn for the station.
After a record mission of 83 days Skylab-4 returned to Earth, on 4 August.
Also the Skylab Station itself several weeks later, with help of the remaining RCS fuels reserve,
The station was plunged into Indian ocean near Australia.

Despite it’s problems Skylab-1 was a huge Success for NASA,
It showed they could handle several manned mission simultaneous in space and gain new scientific knowledge do to research in space
Edward G. Gibson wrote a textbook "The Quiet Sun“ which become a revered handbook for solar astrophysics.


Apollo 18
The first lunar mission with a geologist on board
Richard F. Gordon, Vance D. Brand and Harrison Schmitt were launched on 17 June 1973
it's target is spectacular: the Copernicus Crater
With the Skylab-4 mission, again there were 6 American astronauts simultaneous in Space.
On 19 June LM-13 Polaris descended to it's target
Richard Gordon's first words on moon:

Harrison [Schmitt] let’s go unpack the equipment

During the offloading of the Rover they broke its right rear fender off, they deployed the ALSEP package and put the US flag on the lunar surface.
The first ride with the Lunar rover was dirty, Gordon and Schmitt were covered with dust do to the lack of the right rear fender.
A problem the two had on all EVAs was moon dust, it stuck onto their suits, the rover, even got inside their LM,
which Gordon and Schmitt described as the smell of gunpowder.
But they had there fun during their EVA, Geologist Schmitt made his best study of surface.
During the second EVA Schmitt and Gordon repaired the right rear fender with duck tape and a geological map.
The second rover trip went one km west of the LM to a hill believed to be volcanically after carter was formed,
But at arrival it was huge disappointment, after a difficult clime in their spacesuits to the top, Schmitt just found a meteor crater.
One of a freakish coincidence the US astronauts found during their missions on Moon.
On the third EVA they drilled deep core samples down to 4 meter deep.
Thee fourth EVA start with again deep drill core sample , sadly do going overtime the rover trip was cut short to a roundtrip of 10 km south of LM.
Schmitt enter last the LM saying famous words "I’ll be Back“ (He returned to the moon, becoming the first human visiting the Moon's surface multiple times)
They started into lunar orbit with a total of 120 kg of lunar samples.
The CSM-115 Windjammer was busy in lunar orbit scanning the surface with radar and spectrographs completing the Geological Map of Apollo 15, 16 and 17.
On the return trip to earth, Vance Brand made a EVA to the SIm Bay to recover the films
The landing on 26 June was rough for the crew, The capsule rolled upside down because of a ballon deployment system malfunction.
The recovery crew from the aircraft carrier USS New Orleans had work hart to get capsule & Crew on board.
Apollo 18 mission showed that the crater floor was mostly made out olivine stone and the crater is 823 million years old.
The biggest surprise was the discovery of Diamonds in samples,
which implied that the Copernicus asteroid that hit moon contained carbon and hydrogen.
The Apollo CSM problems revealed some issues with quality control, what led to intensification of inspections on CSM and LM.

Saturn IC test launch.
On November 16, the first Saturn IC was launch, as AS-301 using a old S-IB stage with the new S-IVC stage.
The goal was to test the S-IVC stage with Centaur stage.
The flight was a full success the S-IVC stage made several adjustments to it’s orbit by restart the J-2S with the remaining fuel.
while the Centaur stage brought Pioneer 12 on his way to Jupiter

Soviet space activity in 1973
Finally after technical problems and delays the first Salyut OS-7K station and Soyuz 7K-7 arrived at Baikonur in 1973
Salyut program start in November 1967 scheduled for launch in spring 1971
OKB-1 leading the project reused old study for manned Heavy interplanetary Spacecraft (Russian abb. TMK) by G U Maksimov in 1959.
1965 the study underwent a revision, finally to redesign in 1968 to Orbital Station launch by Proton rocket.
But in 1970 Salyut ran into problems, OKB-1 was running at full capacity, with building rockets and the Lunar program.
The Space Station program suffering from lack of personnel and material.
Soviet ministry of Space order of OKB-52 to help build the Station on OKB-1 plans, this had a certain irony that they had to build the space station.
Their boss Vladimir Chelomei had proposed his Almaz, a military space station to ministry of Space , what had refused the proposal.
Because Chelomei demand on development of the UR-500 rocket and TKS spacecraft.
Although the Boss of OKB-52 could have be happy to do something for the space race,
Then He went to Military complaining about the status of Salyut program and promoted Almaz.
Military-industrial Commission Chairman Ustinov was not amused at all, about Chelomei arrogant behaviour,
Ministry of Space had enough of Chelomei's escapades and fired Him, with this OKB-52 became subdivison of OKB-1 in 1972!

As Mishin and Maksimov finally could overlook OKB-52 operation, they discovered Chelomei had been neglecting the Salyut project.
OKB-52 engineers in the mean time modified the construction to leave out unnecessary parts and systems,
Like a second docking port or installing four Soyuz solar panel for power supply on first two station.

Finally on 11 May 1973, Salyut 1 was launched successful into a 200 x 222 km orbit. as the second Space Station in space.
Three day later Soyuz 18 launched with Vladimir Shatalov and Nikolai Rulavihnikov on board,
During first days the crew checked the station's functions and it's onboard system and equipment.
After that they tested the station automatic and manual controls for orientation & navigation and manoeuvre the Station.
The mission ended after 30 days.

on 15th of May Soyuz 19 docked with station and the crew enter it.
Upon entering the station they found bad surprise a smoky atmosphere do fault in ventilation system.
They had to replace burn blower and spent the next day in Soyuz until the air was clean again.
Despite this their mission was productive on experiments and observations.

In July Soyuz 20 launched with Oleg Makarov and Victor Patsayev on board and manage to dock with Station
But on day 11 a fire broke out on station (first case in space) which almost lead to them abandoning the station,
After putting out the fire they stayed for total 30 days on board, then return to Earth.
Finally an unmanned Soyuz (as Cosmos 557) dockt with Salyut and remained 3 months for long-duration test of spacecraft storage.
It carry several experiments in return capsule, after 175 days Salyut 1 reenter the Earth atmosphere and burned up.

The three mission show that Salyut station was operational and its Crew could manage its problems like fires on board.
Now it was the turn for the military and their OSP-7k version of Salyut, featuring reconnaissance cameras, scheduled to be launch in April 1974.

Soyuz 21
After the Disaster of Soyuz 18 modifications were made, like re-orientation of Spacecraft during Solar Flare.
So Block D propellants tanks and the LK Lander would shield the crew, also Protective blankets with metal fibres.
additional medication in case of Radiation sickness. this could protect the crew toward the moon, on return trip quite less.

This time the Soviets tried to land at higher latitude than the Americans had for moment,
thanks to performing translunar injection at 51° orbital inclination.
The target lied in between Sinus iridum and Mare Imbrium.
The goal of the Mission was to collect sample container from Lunokhod 10 and to take core drill samples at landing site.
On July 14 Pyotr Klimuk and Valentin Lebedev were launch to Moon.
Klimuk landed near Lunokhod 10 on July 20 after a flawless mission he returned 6 hours later to LOK,
72 hours later and Soyuz 21 landed in the USSR.

The results were interesting to say the least:
Sinus iridum was part of Mare Imbrium, disproving the theses of professor Harold C. Urey.
Lunokhod 10 took samples showing new type of Basaltic rock rich on titanium-iron oxide mineral from mare Imbrium.
Also showing it had a high concentrations of potassium. but very low on thorium.

Soyuz 22
Near end of year follow next lunar mission again to land on higher Latitude.
This time Sinus Roris south east of Lunar crater Markov, named after the famous Soviet Astrophysicist.
Lunokhod 11 travel around 39 km and collected samples.
Lev Vorobiyov and Valeri Yazdovsky launched with Soyuz 21 on December 12th.
Vorobiyov landed the LK near the Rover on the 17th December.
Sadly the drill got stuck, so Vorobiyov had no drill sample and so he only return with surface sample back to Earth,
Were they land on December 21.
The samples show that Sinus Roris was extension of Oceanuns Procellarum

A proposal of the Soviet Academy of Science was taking shape
In 1970 they proposed to train Geologists as cosmonauts and LK pilots
Head of the Cosmonaut team Vladimir Komarov expected that next mission could be first Geologists Mission.

Inter Continental Ballistic Missile
At same time the USSR Military had accelerated work on new ICBM to replace the R-16.
Because the USA had conducted in last three years a series of test that troubles the KGB and Military.
First were Test of multiple independently reentry vehicle with Minuteman carry three warhead dummies over the Pacific.
Second was the drop test of Minutemen from C-5 Galaxy to test Air-launch ICBM.
Third was a project called Missile eXperimental (MX in short).
For new generation of Land-based ICBM with 10 to 20 warheads and total new deployment system.

This led Soviets to overthink there ICBM concept and to create new opportunities,
Like modified the already in work R-36 to adapt for multiple independently reentry vehicle
Other option was to D&R new ICBM with Solid motor on a Mobile launcher like Train, Aircraft or ground vehicle,
This would be ready only in 1980s.
But there was a faster way, the Fractional Orbital Bombardment System (FOBS)
This would in case of War launch a nuclear warhead into low orbit
Were it can attack the target from any side, like USA from south were NORAD early waring system was most vulnerable.
and only with waring of under three minutes, FOBS would go perfect with new R-36 ICBM.
Despite the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 that forbid Nuclear weapons in Earth orbit, it did not ban launch system.
Tests of FOBS without a warhead would not violate the treaty.

Rest of World
In Albania happen coup d'état against Enver Hoxha, by Mehmet Shehu and general Bequir Balluku.
They remove the Stalinist who became increasing Paranoid and irrational despotic.
The new government manage to open Albania to East block...
In 2023 the CIA publish declassify files about there role in this coup d'état,
A special Force Team deceiving Shehu and Balluku to believe that Hoxha wanted to liquidated them.

 

[Kloka]

Part 18 - Apollo 18 and Skylab 3 & 4 Missions

NASA won several battles at the end of 1972.
Finally Capitol Hill voted for the Odyssey program's full funding after 2 years of political battle.
Essential to securing NASA the lead in Space Race it's included Apollo J-class and Skylab missions,
a necessity for competing with both the USSR and China (however modest their entry into the space race was).
Also international collaboration Treaty, the United States had signed a with Canada, Great Britain, Germany, France and Italy.
for cooperation with NASA over the Odyssey program.

The other battle won was the Internal rivalry between Johnson Space Center and Marshall Space Flight Center,
over who controls the US Manned Spaceflight program? George Bush and Low finally managed to end this with a decree:
MSFC would develop and build the flight hardware, while JSC will run the Mission on that Hardware.
Also ended was the conflict between Jet Propulsion Lab, Langley and Ames over who runs Planetary program?
JPL would do Planetary Orbiter and Flybys, Langley would do Landers,
While Ames Research Center would focus on Interplanetary missions from now on.
So Pioneer 10 & 11 would be last Planetary Probe of Ames, but they fight for one ambition mission: Pioneer 12

It would use the Backup of Pioneer 10 & 11 for a Jupiter fly-by which would bring it into a high polar orbit around the Sun,
where it would study the Sun's magnetic field
Off course the needed Fly by at Jupiter would bring also research data about the Giant Planet,
This "out of the Ecliptic“ Mission would end in an orbit of 1.2 AU by 5 AU with each 3.5 year passing one of Sun poles at 1.85 AU.
The radio isotopic generator would give the mission a duration of decades
But there was a problem, it needed more expensive Saturn IC, instead of the cheaper Atlas Centaur used on Pioneer 10&11
They found risky option: Pioneer 12 become test Payload for first Saturn IC launch with a centaur as Third stage.

The Skylab failure investigation board show that the program had rushed too fast into completion,
failures were made like on Micrometeoroid Shield design.
The Board recommended to modify the Skylab Backup, to prevent Skylab A's problems and improve its mission capacity.

Skylab-3
On February 28th 1973 the next mission went to Skylab
Alan L. Bean, Karol j. Bobko and Owen K. Garriott.
Bobko a former USAF astronaut, was a veteran for Skylab, he spent 56 days in Skylab Medical experiment altitude Test in 1971.
The Apollo CSM had been loaded with 546 kg of food, new Sun shield and spare parts like tape recorder and video cameras who failed on Skylab-2 mission.
On Day 9 the new Sun shield was installed, replacing the provisional one installed by Skylab-2's crew.

Also, the first successful EVA of a new spacesuit was conducted, the Garrett AiResearch EX-1A .
It featured higher operational Air pressure of 5 psi compared to 3.7 psi of the A7LB.
EX-A1 was far more mobile for the Human body than the Apollo A7LB suits were capable off.
It feature also new entry system, abandoned the back Zipper by a two pieces suit with mid entry, so one astronaut can put it on.
The E-1A would replace the A7LB suits from Apollo 19 on.
Also tested by the crew was the Astronaut Manoeuvre Unit inside the station, allowing a zero-G simulation of a tether-less spacewalk.
In the mean time the Station had problems, like the waste disposal system malfunctioning several time.
The Apollo spacecraft also had problem like losing cooling fluid, and had lost two RCS cluster.
After a record breaking 56 days the crew returned back to Earth on 27 April.
They returned with 500 hours of experimental data on medical, solar and Earth science

Skylab-4
The third and Last Mission to first US space station was launched 12 May.
Robert F. Overmeyer, Edward G. Gibson and Donald Holmquest.
Overmeyer, a former USAF astronaut was the development Engineer of the Skylab Station, he was valued help for the station problems.
Holmquest is Bachelor degree in physician, electrical engineer and Law !
Gibson a scientist for Solar physics and an electrical engineer.

Entering the Station they found a surprise by the previous Crew, three dummies in flight suits.
The first day the crew suffered from space sickness.
After a week tensions began between Ground control and the all-rookie Crew, about the hard work schedule,
But Holmquest manage to reason with ground crew to do a modified the work schedule.
During mission two of the three main Gyroscopes failed, including other systems.
Gibson managed the first film recording of a Solar Flare on Sun.
The crew made in total 22 hours of EVA,
The last task before un-docking was the Apollo CSM deorbit burn for the station.
After a record mission of 83 days Skylab-4 returned to Earth, on 4 August.
Also the Skylab Station itself several weeks later, with help of the remaining RCS fuels reserve,
The station was plunged into Indian ocean near Australia.

Despite it’s problems Skylab-1 was a huge Success for NASA,
It showed they could handle several manned mission simultaneous in space and gain new scientific knowledge do to research in space
Edward G. Gibson wrote a textbook "The Quiet Sun“ which become a revered handbook for solar astrophysics.


Apollo 18
The first lunar mission with a geologist on board
Richard F. Gordon, Vance D. Brand and Harrison Schmitt were launched on 17 June 1973
it's target is spectacular: the Copernicus Crater
With the Skylab-4 mission, again there were 6 American astronauts simultaneous in Space.
On 19 June LM-13 Polaris descended to it's target
Richard Gordon's first words on moon:

Harrison [Schmitt] let’s go unpack the equipment

During the offloading of the Rover they broke its right rear fender off, they deployed the ALSEP package and put the US flag on the lunar surface.
The first ride with the Lunar rover was dirty, Gordon and Schmitt were covered with dust do to the lack of the right rear fender.
A problem the two had on all EVAs was moon dust, it stuck onto their suits, the rover, even got inside their LM,
which Gordon and Schmitt described as the smell of gunpowder.
But they had there fun during their EVA, Geologist Schmitt made his best study of surface.
During the second EVA Schmitt and Gordon repaired the right rear fender with duck tape and a geological map.
The second rover trip went one km west of the LM to a hill believed to be volcanically after carter was formed,
But at arrival it was huge disappointment, after a difficult clime in their spacesuits to the top, Schmitt just found a meteor crater.
One of a freakish coincidence the US astronauts found during their missions on Moon.
On the third EVA they drilled deep core samples down to 4 meter deep.
Thee fourth EVA start with again deep drill core sample , sadly do going overtime the rover trip was cut short to a roundtrip of 10 km south of LM.
Schmitt enter last the LM saying famous words "I’ll be Back“ (He returned to the moon, becoming the first human visiting the Moon's surface multiple times)
They started into lunar orbit with a total of 120 kg of lunar samples.
The CSM-115 Windjammer was busy in lunar orbit scanning the surface with radar and spectrographs completing the Geological Map of Apollo 15, 16 and 17.
On the return trip to earth, Vance Brand made a EVA to the SIm Bay to recover the films
The landing on 26 June was rough for the crew, The capsule rolled upside down because of a ballon deployment system malfunction.
The recovery crew from the aircraft carrier USS New Orleans had work hart to get capsule & Crew on board.
Apollo 18 mission showed that the crater floor was mostly made out olivine stone and the crater is 823 million years old.
The biggest surprise was the discovery of Diamonds in samples,
which implied that the Copernicus asteroid that hit moon contained carbon and hydrogen.
The Apollo CSM problems revealed some issues with quality control, what led to intensification of inspections on CSM and LM.

Saturn IC test launch.
On November 16, the first Saturn IC was launch, as AS-301 using a old S-IB stage with the new S-IVC stage.
The goal was to test the S-IVC stage with Centaur stage.
The flight was a full success the S-IVC stage made several adjustments to it’s orbit by restart the J-2S with the remaining fuel.
while the Centaur stage brought Pioneer 12 on his way to Jupiter

Soviet space activity in 1973
Finally after technical problems and delays the first Salyut OS-7K station and Soyuz 7K-7 arrived at Baikonur in 1973
Salyut program start in November 1967 scheduled for launch in spring 1971
OKB-1 leading the project reused old study for manned Heavy interplanetary Spacecraft (Russian abb. TMK) by G U Maksimov in 1959.
1965 the study underwent a revision, finally to redesign in 1968 to Orbital Station launch by Proton rocket.
But in 1970 Salyut ran into problems, OKB-1 was running at full capacity, with building rockets and the Lunar program.
The Space Station program suffering from lack of personnel and material.
Soviet ministry of Space order of OKB-52 to help build the Station on OKB-1 plans, this had a certain irony that they had to build the space station.
Their boss Vladimir Chelomei had proposed his Almaz, a military space station to ministry of Space , what had refused the proposal.
Because Chelomei demand on development of the UR-500 rocket and TKS spacecraft.
Although the Boss of OKB-52 could have be happy to do something for the space race,
Then He went to Military complaining about the status of Salyut program and promoted Almaz.
Military-industrial Commission Chairman Ustinov was not amused at all, about Chelomei arrogant behaviour,
Ministry of Space had enough of Chelomei's escapades and fired Him, with this OKB-52 became subdivison of OKB-1 in 1972!

As Mishin and Maksimov finally could overlook OKB-52 operation, they discovered Chelomei had been neglecting the Salyut project.
OKB-52 engineers in the mean time modified the construction to leave out unnecessary parts and systems,
Like a second docking port or installing four Soyuz solar panel for power supply on first two station.

Finally on 11 May 1973, Salyut 1 was launched successful into a 200 x 222 km orbit. as the second Space Station in space.
Three day later Soyuz 18 launched with Vladimir Shatalov and Nikolai Rulavihnikov on board,
During first days the crew checked the station's functions and it's onboard system and equipment.
After that they tested the station automatic and manual controls for orientation & navigation and manoeuvre the Station.
The mission ended after 30 days.

on 15th of May Soyuz 19 docked with station and the crew enter it.
Upon entering the station they found bad surprise a smoky atmosphere do fault in ventilation system.
They had to replace burn blower and spent the next day in Soyuz until the air was clean again.
Despite this their mission was productive on experiments and observations.

In July Soyuz 20 launched with Oleg Makarov and Victor Patsayev on board and manage to dock with Station
But on day 11 a fire broke out on station (first case in space) which almost lead to them abandoning the station,
After putting out the fire they stayed for total 30 days on board, then return to Earth.
Finally an unmanned Soyuz (as Cosmos 557) dockt with Salyut and remained 3 months for long-duration test of spacecraft storage.
It carry several experiments in return capsule, after 175 days Salyut 1 reenter the Earth atmosphere and burned up.

The three mission show that Salyut station was operational and its Crew could manage its problems like fires on board.
Now it was the turn for the military and their OSP-7k version of Salyut, featuring reconnaissance cameras, scheduled to be launch in April 1974.

Soyuz 21
After the Disaster of Soyuz 18 modifications were made, like re-orientation of Spacecraft during Solar Flare.
So Block D propellants tanks and the LK Lander would shield the crew, also Protective blankets with metal fibres.
additional medication in case of Radiation sickness. this could protect the crew toward the moon, on return trip quite less.

This time the Soviets tried to land at higher latitude than the Americans had for moment,
thanks to performing translunar injection at 51° orbital inclination.
The target lied in between Sinus iridum and Mare Imbrium.
The goal of the Mission was to collect sample container from Lunokhod 10 and to take core drill samples at landing site.
On July 14 Pyotr Klimuk and Valentin Lebedev were launch to Moon.
Klimuk landed near Lunokhod 10 on July 20 after a flawless mission he returned 6 hours later to LOK,
72 hours later and Soyuz 21 landed in the USSR.

The results were interesting to say the least:
Sinus iridum was part of Mare Imbrium, disproving the theses of professor Harold C. Urey.
Lunokhod 10 took samples showing new type of Basaltic rock rich on titanium-iron oxide mineral from mare Imbrium.
Also showing it had a high concentrations of potassium. but very low on thorium.

Soyuz 22
Near end of year follow next lunar mission again to land on higher Latitude.
This time Sinus Roris south east of Lunar crater Markov, named after the famous Soviet Astrophysicist.
Lunokhod 11 travel around 39 km and collected samples.
Lev Vorobiyov and Valeri Yazdovsky launched with Soyuz 21 on December 12th.
Vorobiyov landed the LK near the Rover on the 17th December.
Sadly the drill got stuck, so Vorobiyov had no drill sample and so he only return with surface sample back to Earth,
Were they land on December 21.
The samples show that Sinus Roris was extension of Oceanuns Procellarum

A proposal of the Soviet Academy of Science was taking shape
In 1970 they proposed to train Geologists as cosmonauts and LK pilots
Head of the Cosmonaut team Vladimir Komarov expected that next mission could be first Geologists Mission.

Inter Continental Ballistic Missile
At same time the USSR Military had accelerated work on new ICBM to replace the R-16.
Because the USA had conducted in last three years a series of test that troubles the KGB and Military.
First were Test of multiple independently reentry vehicle with Minuteman carry three warhead dummies over the Pacific.
Second was the drop test of Minutemen from C-5 Galaxy to test Air-launch ICBM.
Third was a project called Missile eXperimental (MX in short).
For new generation of Land-based ICBM with 10 to 20 warheads and total new deployment system.

This led Soviets to overthink there ICBM concept and to create new opportunities,
Like modified the already in work R-36 to adapt for multiple independently reentry vehicle
Other option was to D&R new ICBM with Solid motor on a Mobile launcher like Train, Aircraft or ground vehicle,
This would be ready only in 1980s.
But there was a faster way, the Fractional Orbital Bombardment System (FOBS)
This would in case of War launch a nuclear warhead into low orbit
Were it can attack the target from any side, like USA from south were NORAD early waring system was most vulnerable.
and only with waring of under three minutes, FOBS would go perfect with new R-36 ICBM.
Despite the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 that forbid Nuclear weapons in Earth orbit, it did not ban launch system.
Tests of FOBS without a warhead would not violate the treaty.

Rest of World
In Albania happen coup d'état against Enver Hoxha, by Mehmet Shehu and general Bequir Balluku.
They remove the Stalinist who became increasing Paranoid and irrational despotic.
The new government manage to open Albania to East block...
In 2023 the CIA publish declassify files about there role in this coup d'état,
A special Force Team deceiving Shehu and Balluku to believe that Hoxha wanted to liquidated them.

stares pointedly in Jack Lousma