One False Step (14 page)

 Plans for manned missions to Mars and Venus had not stopped after the EMPIRE studies. They were, however, becoming more focused on the use of hardware that might realistically be available. Gone were plans for huge 'Starship Enterprise' scale ships, at least for flyby missions. It was obvious by the mid-1960s that the Saturn V was going to be the largest launcher in NASA's arsenal for the foreseeable future, though it was hoped to enhance it with modifications such as the addition of solid fuel rockets.

 There remained strong resistance to such a program. Apollo costs continued to rise, and even NASA supporters called on the agency to rein in budgets and try and make their projections more realistic. A study from the Planetary Joint Action Group called for late-1970s flyby missions, these using three uprated Saturn V rockets to launch three modified S-IVB stages to serve as habitation. When funding was requested for an engineering study, usual NASA supporter Congressman Joseph Karth seemed to put the final stamp on a manned planetary mission by saying, “Bluntly, a manned mission to Mars or Venus in 1975 or 1977 is now and always has been out of the question, and anyone who persists in this kind of misallocation of resources is going to be stopped.”

 Manned missions to the planets did have some supporters, however. Dr. Charles Townes, a Nobel Prize winner, chair of the NASA Science and Technology Advisory Committee, and a member of President Nixon's Transition Team on Space, was a supporter of the planetary flyby concept, and backed the continuance of Apollo Applications projects in his report. It is not
totally
inconceivable that President Nixon might have wanted to surpass Kennedy with a space commitment of his own.

 Cost was still the big factor. NASA budgets peaked in 1967, and it was hoped that these budgets could continue to fall. The reality was that any planetary mission requiring major expenditure was going to be rejected in this environment. What was perhaps needed was something that was of more modest scale, a mission that could have been flown with as few modifications as possible, keeping costs to a minimum – and compatibility with ongoing Apollo Applications programs would certainly be a bonus. Such a program
did
in fact exist.

 Now at this stage it must be made totally clear that the political viability of such a scheme was at best marginal. Obtaining funding for a mission to the planets – even a low-cost alternative – would have been extremely difficult in the context of the post-Apollo environment. The technological hurdles to be leaped were also numerous. But there was a marginal prospect of such a mission taking place, and if funding could have been found by some means, then a mission could have been flown. Assuming that the funding could have been made available, what form might such a mission have taken?

 That mission would not necessarily have been a flight to Mars. Venus, as the early unmanned probe launches demonstrated, was an easier target for a mission. Flight times would be shorter, and the amount of thrust needed was not as great as that for a mission to Mars. An orbital or landing mission was almost certainly out of the question given any realistic funding and technological capacity. A flyby mission, on the other hand, remained at least a viable alternative. In February 1967, a pair of studies were produced, one simply entitled, “Manned Venus Flyby”, and the other, “Preliminary mission study of a
single-launch
manned Venus flyby with extended Apollo hardware” (emphasis added.)

 While previous mission plans had called for multiple launches of Saturn V launchers, often special uprated version, here was a mission plan that only required a single launch, and not one that required any special modifications to the launcher. One of the two Saturn V boosters that became expensive lawn ornaments could have been used for this mission.

 The study recognised that new hardware would be required for a orbital or landing mission; the manned flyby was suggested as an interim mission, one that would pave the way for later interplanetary spaceflights, as well as serving to 'fill the gap' of the 1970s that was already becoming apparent in the manned spaceflight program.

 It was also stressed that Apollo hardware would require only minimal modifications; the use of the Orbital Laboratory concept developed for Skylab was suggested to provide a habitation module for the astronauts, as well as housing the experiment packages required for the flight. One problem that would need to be overcome would be uprating the Apollo CM heat shield to withstand the increased speeds of interplanetary travel; some of the suggested modifications for a Block III CSM were also recognised as desirable.

 One concept of the plan was that it could provide what Apollo Applications was lacking as a program – a defined goal. Working towards a Venus flyby would have provided a concentrated goal to follow the landing on the moon.  The mission was profiled for a launch in 1973; whether this was realistic or not is another question entirely given the required development program, but waiting for launch windows in the second half of the decade would have meant launching in a less favourable period of solar radiation, increasing the weight requirement for crew protection.

 It might seem that a manned flyby – spending a year in flight to and from Venus in exchange for only a day at the planet for experiments, and no chance to touch the surface – would have only a limited scientific payback, but this was not simply a grand stunt; there were a large number of valuable experiments that could have been performed on this mission. Key goals listed in the planning documentation include the following:

• To obtain and
  analyze
  surface samples.
  
• To make measurements of the environment of Venus.
  
• Reconnaissance and mapping of Venus.
  
• To conduct a range of astronomical observations.
  
• To conduct solar observations.
  
• To make measurements of the interplanetary space environment.
  

 As planned, a small flotilla of probes would have been released from the flyby vehicle as it approached Venus, and these could have been monitored in almost real-time by the astronauts passing by, allowing a far greater degree of control and response to split-second situations than was - or is - possible for unmanned probes. Design studies exist for a wide range of such probes. (As for operating them from a flyby, the Soviet Union used this technique for many of its
Venera
landers with success.)

 One mission that would actually fly in the 1980s – as a Soviet unmanned probe – was releasing a series of balloons into the atmosphere of Venus. The primary goal would be analysis of the atmosphere and the weather pattens of the planet, preferably at a variety of atmospheric levels. (When balloons were flown in the
Vega
series in 1985, they were released at what turned out to be the most turbulent level of the atmosphere.)

 A Venus orbital probe would also have been likely; the projections at the time were for a photographic study of the planet, and that could well have proven somewhat disappointing, but by the time the mission would have flown, a radar mapper could have been substituted instead; such technologies were sufficiently far advanced. A secondary role for the probe could have been as a communications relay, allowing the remainder of the probe flotilla to communicate with the flyby vehicle, and potentially Earth, at much greater ranges.

 The hardest part of the mission would have been a sample return. In 1967 no spacecraft had been successfully soft-landed on Venus, but by 1973 the Soviet Union had attained great success with its
Venera
probes. This took several attempts, and the disheartening reality exists that the lander carried in the manned flyby could well have been unsuccessful, but it can be assumed that a precursor probe would have been landed as a test-flight.

 Ultimately, landing a probe on Venus was a solvable problem. Sample return techniques were never worked out in any detail for Venus, but there were several studies for a Mars sample return. A mission profile would have seen a probe land on Venus ahead of the flyby, then launch a sample of the Cytherean (Venusian) surface to rendezvous with the manned flyby. Obviously, this would be a very complicated mission, and the likelihood of success would be limited – but it would be far easier for samples to be returned to a craft at close range than to return them all the way to Earth.
Any
lander mission in that era would have provided a wide range of data whether the sample was successfully retained or not. (It should be noted that at one time, the Soviet Union planned a similar mission to the moon, with a
n
unmanned lander launching lunar soil samples to be retrieved by a craft on a lunar flyby.)

 An alternative could have been returning a sample of the Cytherean atmosphere, captured by a high-altitude probe conducting a flyby of its own after skimming the upper layers of the atmosphere; this could have provided a range of data on atmospheric content even if the rendezvous was not attained.

 It seems likely that several variations of these probes would have been deployed on the encounter with Venus; the sample return mission may have been a one-off, but a series of balloon probes and landers could have been dispatched to obtain readings from several points on the surface of the planet, and maximise data return in the event of probe failure. (Though again, an element of manned operation could have been used to help improve the chances of success, either in terms of rapid response to system failures or even the adoption of manual override techniques. I rate it as likely that
any
probe would have been controlled by the astronauts inside, to limit the obvious danger
of catastrophic collision – some manner of self-destruct system would have been a probability for the same reason.)

 Other mission objectives would have been accomplished with a fitted telescope. Obviously this would have been utilised for close-range observations of Venus as the flyby vehicle approached the planet, but a variety of other targets would be suitable as well. (Including Mercury; a manned flyby would have passed closer to the planet than any space probe planned in 1967.) A study into the potential uses of such a telescope included the observation of distant galaxies, taking spectra of various faint sources, and the long-term measurement of variable stars – something not possible from the surface of the Earth. There would likely have been other targets of opportunity during the mission as well – newly-discovered comets, or possibly asteroids.

 The telescope would also be used for solar observation, especially as the craft made its closest approaches to the sun, to observe coronal phenomena, solar flares, and sunspot activity – many of the experiments carried out by Skylab, though at vastly closer range. Another possibility would be the collection of solar wind particles from interplanetary space for later analysis back on Earth.

 The Earth would also be an intriguing target, and likely a popular one for the astronauts; there were suggestions that images should be taken at various ranges, and a 'family portrait' of the Earth-Moon system could have had the same popular appeal as the famous 'Earthrise' photograph taken by Apollo 8 in 1968.

 It should be remembered that this manned flyby vehicle would effectively be a space station, simply one with a destination. The medical experiments that were conducted in Skylab could have been conducted in the manned flyby, over a significantly longer-period; these experiments were mostly low-weight, and would have been valuable in assessing crew performance over the period.

 As for the craft itself, it would have greatly resembled Skylab in appearance; the Apollo CSM would have been used for mid-course manoeuvring, and the crew would have lived and worked in the S-IVB. Other studies suggest the design of an 'Environmental Support Module', which would have been placed in between the CSM and the S-IVB, which would have focused on life support systems and some experiments; in this configuration the S-IVB is simply used as living space.

 As for recreational equipment, in a vehicle that was to weigh tens of thousands of pounds,
thirty-three
pounds were allotted for the following:

• Exercise Device: 3 pounds
  
• Recorded Music: 3 pounds
  
• Movies: 5 pounds
  
• Reading Materials: 20 pounds
  
• Games: 2 pounds
  

 One can only imagine that by the end of the mission, these
movies
and music tapes would have been worn out from overuse.

 Assuming this mission had been approved, the next question is how it would have fitted into NASA's program in the 1970s. 1973 was an unrealistic target, and the next window was on June 4
th
, 1975; let us assume that this was the target date for the launch of the Venus flyby.

 It is hard to see that Apollo would not have been affected by the adoption of this mission in 1967. The lunar landing would have continued as planned, up to Apollo 11, but with a refocus on extended operations away from lunar work, there is a good chance the the 'J' class missions would not have happened, the program limited to Apollo 11 and the following 'H' class missions. The development funding that went to upgrading the LM would have instead been spent on a CSM upgrade, the Block III proposed by North American in this period.

 Apollo would have flown five landing missions; the program concludes with Apollo 15. (In our history, this was flown by Dave Scott, Al Worden, and James Irwin – given that the same scientific imperatives would have existed, the author speculates that Irwin would have been bumped from his landing slot in favour of his backup, geologist Harrison Schmitt.) By 1971, the program would have started to refocus towards the new Venus objective. This would have had the additional
benefit of freeing Saturn V boosters for Venus, as well as several Apollo CSM.