A: I'd love to do Flapjack Fuji, maybe in another timeline. The only issue here is that it wouldn't fit in the Shuttle payload bay for ACRV use.
B:
Small Steps, Giant Leaps: An Alternate History of the Space Age
- Thread starter ThatCallisto
- Start date
B:
The emoji of someone who knows exactly how they intend to torment their audience and exactly how much fun will be had with their suffering.B:
Speaking of stations, possibly a minor spoiler, but, well, I'm the author so I get to decide
You know how the Soviets are still building Energia even though Buran is canceled in this TL?
Yeah, let's just say they have some plans.
... considering the relative "flatness" of the design, I'm almost wondering if this is going to wind up a bit like Eyes Turned Skywards, with a larger module potentially intended to connect to one side of the central node (and potentially supporting another grouping of modules on the other end).
Chapter 2, Interlude 5: Cold Warriors
Small Steps, Giant Leaps - Chapter 2, Interlude 5: Cold Warriors
With peace in Vietnam and a general relaxation of tensions, the 1970s are usually considered to be the decade of detente in the history of the Cold War. Relations between the two global superpowers, although certainly not cordial, were not as strained as they had been. The USA and USSR had collaborated on successful joint projects such as the Apollo-Soyuz and Adventure-Grand Tour space missions and the eradication of smallpox, arguably the greatest humanitarian triumph in history.
By the 1980s, however, relations had soured considerably. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan coupled with instability in Soviet leadership with the deaths of Brezhnev and his successor Andropov, as well as more hawkish Dole and Glenn administrations in America, to produce heightened tensions and a return of the looming threat of nuclear war.
Although John Glenn fulfilled his campaign promise and initiated a series of nuclear disarmament talks with the USSR, leading eventually to the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT) agreement and lowering the chances of civilization being destroyed, he also initiated a large conventional military buildup in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, with many in the West fearing that Europe was next. The USSR quickly responded in kind, leading to both sides fielding the largest military forces since World War II.
It was against this backdrop of heightened fear and escalation that Cold War tensions would nearly come to a head over a few tiny islands in the South Atlantic in 1982.
Although the Falkland Islands had long been held as a British territory, Argentina had maintained a claim on the islands ever since the country's independence from Spain. With a flagging economy and growing public discontent with its dictatorial rule, the military junta that governed Argentina needed a boost in popularity to avoid revolution. Retaking what most Argentinians saw as their rightful territory could provide that, and with their own economic problems and a deteriorating situation in Northern Ireland at the height of the Troubles, Britain would surely be unwilling to expend the resources necessary to maintain their claim. In this, the junta miscalculated badly.
With the USA and USSR supplying clandestine support to Britain and Argentina respectively, the Falklands War would drag on for the better part of a year, resulting in over a thousand dead on both sides, the flagships of both nations' navies lying at the bottom of the sea, and the ousting of both governments from power; in Britain's case, the Conservative party was defeated electorally over perceived mismanagement of the war, and in Argentina's, the revolution that the war had been started to prevent was only hastened following the country's defeat.
Surprisingly, the war would end up slightly easing Cold War tensions in the long run, especially in the East. The amount of resources spent on covert support to a war that proved to be ultimately pointless caused many higher-ups in the Soviet Union to reconsider belligerent policies, with some questioning why exactly the USSR even had an interest in supporting a country that wasn't even nominally socialist for seemingly little reason other than spiting the West. Along with the ongoing quagmire in Afghanistan, the stage had been set for more reformist elements of the Communist Party to gain power, which would prove to have dramatic consequences later in the decade.
British Harrier jets on HMS Invincible during the Falklands War. Image credit: NavyWings
From the conception of the Shuttle program, launches from more than just KSC had been planned. Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, in particular, offered a natural second site, being the primary launch facility for US missions to polar orbits unreachable from Cape Canaveral. The Air Force in particular was interested in using Vandenberg to launch military Shuttle flights, which could greatly reduce the costs of launching and maintaining their network of reconnaissance satellites. As Shuttle development progressed, Vandenberg became even more attractive due to the extensive changes to pad infrastructure from Apollo-Saturn underway at 39A. With 39B needing to be kept in Saturn configuration for Starlab and a rebuild likely taking several years, initial Shuttle flight rates could have been limited by the availability of 39A. Accelerating development on the Vandenberg launch site and flying the initially planned polar missions sooner than anticipated could fill the slack and keep flight rates high in the early years, better amortizing Shuttle costs.
Despite these plans, Vandenberg’s Space Launch Complex 6 (SLC-6 or “Slick Six”), originally built for the canceled MOL program, would always be a secondary site for the Shuttle. As opposed to the cavernous VAB, which could accommodate several Shuttle stacks at once, the integration facility at SLC-6 could only handle a single stack, and the complex contained only one OPF hangar. Instead of using a crawler-transporter, the Shuttle stack would be assembled on its launch mount and the entire assembly building lifted up and rolled back on tracks like a colossal but short railway.
Despite difficulties encountered in duplicating the Shuttle’s extensive ground infrastructure in a smaller footprint than KSC, and unexpected problems like excess waste water from the site necessitating the construction of an on-base water treatment plant, the Air Force’s deep pockets ensured that Vandenberg’s debut only slipped a year from the planned 1981 to 1982. With Freedom not yet operational, Kitty Hawk back at KSC preparing for her first post-OMDP mission and Challenger being loaded with crew-tended free flyer experiments and a copious amount of mold cleaner in preparation for STS-13 / Skylab 7, the Vandenberg debut would fall to the oldest and youngest of the orbiters so far. After completing her orbital debut on STS-10 / Starlab 5, a crew rotation and resupply run that was quickly becoming routine, OV-101 Constitution returned to her home state, destined for Vandenberg rather than Palmdale or Edwards.
While the crew of STS-12 prepared for the first polar launch of the Shuttle and Constitution completing stacking and testing at SLC-6, the flight computer of Landsat 3, one of NASA’s Earth observation satellites, chose early 1982 as an inopportune moment to break down. STS-12, which had originally planned to just launch Landsat 4 as a low-risk first flight from Vandenberg, would now suddenly have the on-orbit repair of its predecessor added to the mission objectives. Thankfully, the launch itself went smoothly enough, with the massive exhaust plume from the SRBs reportedly visible from as far as Hollywood. The Shuttle’s satellite deployment systems were tried and tested by this point, and Landsat 4 left the payload bay on Flight Day 2 without incident. Rendezvous with Landsat 3 also went smoothly enough, but by the beginning of Flight Day 4, with Constitution stationkeeping a few hundred meters from Landsat, the crew would face the toughest part of the mission.
Unlike Landsat 4 and future satellites in the series, designed for Shuttle servicing if needed, Landsat 3’s older design meant that it had been never intended to be serviced on orbit. The most glaring problem from this was the lack of a Canadarm grapple fixture, which would require an improvised solution. Mission specialists Anna Fisher and Dale Gardner would exit the airlock in the early afternoon after a briefing and planning session in the middeck lasting for most of the morning. The two spacewalkers then secured themselves to the MMU jetpacks in the payload bay, detached their tethers, and carefully flew over to the stricken satellite. With Fisher providing backup and support as needed, Gardner jammed an improvised grappling hook into an open truss structure on the satellite, and the two secured it to various points on the truss with cables and carabiners, pulling them taught until the hook refused to budge.
With a Canadarm grapple fixture now in place, attached to the side of the device opposite the “business end”, the two then guided Constitution in as the orbiter closed the distance and grabbed Landsat 3. The last task of the EVA would be to secure the satellite to the payload bay via more cables, and with Landsat safely in the payload bay and not liable to drift off overnight, the spacewalkers returned inside to conclude what had been the longest on-orbit spacewalk to date, beaten out only by an all-day rover traverse on Apollo 19.
Following the excitement of the initial capture of the satellite, Flight Day 5 proved relatively uneventful. Rather than risking a delicate repair on a flight computer not designed for servicing on orbit, STS-12 had simply launched with the flight spare computer, sitting unused in storage since Landsat 3's launch. Although challenges were posed by the satellite not being intended for servicing, removing the entire broken unit and installing the spare went relatively smoothly. Landsat 3 was released back into its original orbit on Flight Day 6, and Constitution returned to Edwards the following day to complete a highly successful week-long first mission from Vandenberg.
Constitution is prepared for the first launch from Vandenberg in early 1982. Image credit: Spaceflight Now
Dale Gardner secures cables between Landsat 3 and Constitution's payload bay. Image credit: NASA History Office
Constitution would not travel far from Edwards following STS-12- instead of being flown back to the Cape, the Orbiter was moved back to Vandenberg, where preparations began for STS-15, the second Vandenberg flight. This mission, the first of the Shuttle program flown for the Air Force, proved equally successful, although many details remain classified to this day. What is known for certain, thanks to partial declassification in the 2010s, is that Constitution visited a KH-9 spy satellite launched the previous year on a Titan III. The Shuttle's crew grabbed the satellite with the Canadarm, modified before launch to enable easy Shuttle servicing, replaced its film return canisters, and refueled it. Although this proved a successful test of military satellite servicing, STS-15 would end up being the only Shuttle mission to visit a KH-9 due to its imminent replacement by the digital KH-11.
A KH-9 being prepared for launch. In-flight photos from STS-15 have not yet been declassified by the Air Force or the modern agency for space-related US military activities, the US Space Force. Image credit: USSF History Office
The Soviets had not been idle while the US first launched and then expanded Starlab. Near the end of 1981, only a few months after Starlab’s first crew rotation flight, an N11 Gorizont lifted off from Baikonur with Zarya 6’s Core Module, DOS-6. Although the launch of the station’s core itself went well, Zarya 6 would not see its first crew for a full year.
Apollo-Soyuz had unintentionally demonstrated the benefits of an international rescue capability, and Cold War tensions aside, the USSR was taking new measures on Zarya 6 to keep its space crews safe. Instead of the SSVP probe-and-drogue docking ports used on earlier stations, Zarya 6 would use APAS ports of the same design as those on the Space Shuttle and Starlab. This posed a problem for its support vehicles; the R-7 variant used for Soyuz and Progress was already nearing the limit of its payload capacity with the existing vehicles, and the new APAS port, heavier than that used on Apollo-Soyuz in order to support long-duration station operations, would significantly cut into overall payload capacity, requiring Progresses to launch half-empty and Soyuzes to only carry two crew. As such, a new, more powerful variant of the R-7 had been developed for the Zarya 6 program, able to carry a fully laden or fully crewed vehicle into the station’s target orbit.
Named Soyuz-N, in reference to its new commonality with the N1-series rockets and its updated main engines, the new R-7 would replace the 50s-era RD-107 and RD-108 engines on its core stage and boosters with more powerful and more efficient NK-33s, significantly increasing payload capacity. Due to the engine only having one nozzle, the core stage would retain its vernier thrusters for roll control after booster separation, now as a separate unit instead of being built into an RD-107. As a bonus, the economies of scale afforded by high-volume production of the engine for both Gorizont and R-7 meant that Soyuz-N would not be significantly more expensive than earlier variants, despite the more complex engines. Although it would initially be used only for Soyuz and Progress flights, it was hoped that once production ramped up enough, the entire R-7 fleet could transition to the NK-33.
Soyuz-N’s first flight went flawlessly, launching an APAS-equipped Progress with an initial load of supplies to Zarya 6’s Core Module and certifying the vehicle for crewed flights. The second flight, carrying an APAS Soyuz with the crew of Zarya 6 EO-1 on board, would be much less successful. Shortly before the planned shutdown and separation of the side boosters, one of the NK-33s simply exploded, causing the Launch Escape System to fire and blast the crew to safety while the rapidly-disintegrating rocket was destroyed a few seconds later by range safety. Soyuz-N was grounded immediately, and an investigation began almost as soon as helicopters retrieved the battered capsule from the Kazakh steppe, with the crew inside shaken but thankfully none the worse for wear.
Analysis of both telemetry and recovered debris indicated that the fault was not with the NK-33 itself, which, in contrast to the early NK-15s, had become a very reliable engine over several design iterations. Instead, the new flight profile of the vehicle, with the stack accelerating harder than the older Soyuz rockets but not as hard as the Progress flight, was to blame. As the NK-33s throttled down close to booster separation to minimize crew G-forces, a maneuver not done on the Progress flight, the stack had entered an untested aerodynamic regime, which coincided with a previously-unknown resonance mode of the vehicle’s structure. As the atmosphere buffeted the stack, the resonance escalated minor jolts into massive pogo oscillations, ultimately severing the main fuel line to an NK-33, resulting in a hard shutdown and explosion. The fixes were simple, consisting of an alteration to the flight profile and minor structural modifications to eliminate the resonance, but Soyuz-N would not fly again with crew until late 1982, ultimately delivering EO-1A to Zarya 6 just before the New Year.
With neither of the lab modules installed, EO-1A would not include much science. Instead, their time would mostly be spent unloading both the original Progress and a second one launched to test the fixed Soyuz-N, performing EVAs to install external components, and generally making sure that Zarya 6 was in good shape. The highlight of the mission would be the delayed launch and docking of DOS-7, the Habitation and Support Module. The second DOS lacked the Core Module’s docking hub and command and control systems, but its additional crew facilities and life support would enable a permanent crew of 6, enough to keep both lab modules running 24/7 with crew shifts.
An artist's impression of the Soyuz-TA variant of the Soyuz capsule, fitted with an upgraded APAS docking system. Image credit: beanhowitzer
The would-be Zarya 6 EO-1 crew make a hasty abort. Image credit: beanhowiter
The completed Zarya 6 on-orbit, with both DOS modules and the Spektr and Kristall TKS lab modules. Image credit: beanhowiter
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And so, we have the Cold War heating up in the 80s, with the Soviets continuing on invade Afghanistan and the Soviets possibly having stepped up support for the Argentinians during the Falklands War, leading to it becoming more bloodier and lengthier than OTL, and a Labour government entering Number 10.Small Steps, Giant Leaps - Chapter 2, Interlude 5: Cold Warriors
With peace in Vietnam and a general relaxation of tensions, the 1970s are usually considered to be the decade of detente in the history of the Cold War. Relations between the two global superpowers, although certainly not cordial, were not as strained as they had been. The USA and USSR had collaborated on successful joint projects such as the Apollo-Soyuz and Adventure-Grand Tour space missions and the eradication of smallpox, arguably the greatest humanitarian triumph in history.
By the 1980s, however, relations had soured considerably. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan coupled with instability in Soviet leadership with the deaths of Brezhnev and his successor Andropov, as well as more hawkish Dole and Glenn administrations in America, to produce heightened tensions and a return of the looming threat of nuclear war.
Although John Glenn fulfilled his campaign promise and initiated a series of nuclear disarmament talks with the USSR, leading eventually to the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT) agreement and lowering the chances of civilization being destroyed, he also initiated a large conventional military buildup in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, with many in the West fearing that Europe was next. The USSR quickly responded in kind, leading to both sides fielding the largest military forces since World War II.
It was against this backdrop of heightened fear and escalation that Cold War tensions would nearly come to a head over a few tiny islands in the South Atlantic in 1982.
Although the Falkland Islands had long been held as a British territory, Argentina had maintained a claim on the islands ever since the country's independence from Spain. With a flagging economy and growing public discontent with its dictatorial rule, the military junta that governed Argentina needed a boost in popularity to avoid revolution. Retaking what most Argentinians saw as their rightful territory could provide that, and with their own economic problems and a deteriorating situation in Northern Ireland at the height of the Troubles, Britain would surely be unwilling to expend the resources necessary to maintain their claim. In this, the junta miscalculated badly.
With the USA and USSR supplying clandestine support to Britain and Argentina respectively, the Falklands War would drag on for the better part of a year, resulting in over a thousand dead on both sides, the flagships of both nations' navies lying at the bottom of the sea, and the ousting of both governments from power; in Britain's case, the Conservative party was defeated electorally over perceived mismanagement of the war, and in Argentina's, the revolution that the war had been started to prevent was only hastened following the country's defeat.
Surprisingly, the war would end up slightly easing Cold War tensions in the long run, especially in the East. The amount of resources spent on covert support to a war that proved to be ultimately pointless caused many higher-ups in the Soviet Union to reconsider belligerent policies, with some questioning why exactly the USSR even had an interest in supporting a country that wasn't even nominally socialist for seemingly little reason other than spiting the West. Along with the ongoing quagmire in Afghanistan, the stage had been set for more reformist elements of the Communist Party to gain power, which would prove to have dramatic consequences later in the decade.
British Harrier jets on HMS Invincible during the Falklands War. Image credit: NavyWings
From the conception of the Shuttle program, launches from more than just KSC had been planned. Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, in particular, offered a natural second site, being the primary launch facility for US missions to polar orbits unreachable from Cape Canaveral. The Air Force in particular was interested in using Vandenberg to launch military Shuttle flights, which could greatly reduce the costs of launching and maintaining their network of reconnaissance satellites. As Shuttle development progressed, Vandenberg became even more attractive due to the extensive changes to pad infrastructure from Apollo-Saturn underway at 39A. With 39B needing to be kept in Saturn configuration for Starlab and a rebuild likely taking several years, initial Shuttle flight rates could have been limited by the availability of 39A. Accelerating development on the Vandenberg launch site and flying the initially planned polar missions sooner than anticipated could fill the slack and keep flight rates high in the early years, better amortizing Shuttle costs.
Despite these plans, Vandenberg’s Space Launch Complex 6 (SLC-6 or “Slick Six”), originally built for the canceled MOL program, would always be a secondary site for the Shuttle. As opposed to the cavernous VAB, which could accommodate several Shuttle stacks at once, the integration facility at SLC-6 could only handle a single stack, and the complex contained only one OPF hangar. Instead of using a crawler-transporter, the Shuttle stack would be assembled on its launch mount and the entire assembly building lifted up and rolled back on tracks like a colossal but short railway.
Despite difficulties encountered in duplicating the Shuttle’s extensive ground infrastructure in a smaller footprint than KSC, and unexpected problems like excess waste water from the site necessitating the construction of an on-base water treatment plant, the Air Force’s deep pockets ensured that Vandenberg’s debut only slipped a year from the planned 1981 to 1982. With Freedom not yet operational, Kitty Hawk back at KSC preparing for her first post-OMDP mission and Challenger being loaded with crew-tended free flyer experiments and a copious amount of mold cleaner in preparation for STS-13 / Skylab 7, the Vandenberg debut would fall to the oldest and youngest of the orbiters so far. After completing her orbital debut on STS-10 / Starlab 5, a crew rotation and resupply run that was quickly becoming routine, OV-101 Constitution returned to her home state, destined for Vandenberg rather than Palmdale or Edwards.
While the crew of STS-12 prepared for the first polar launch of the Shuttle and Constitution completing stacking and testing at SLC-6, the flight computer of Landsat 3, one of NASA’s Earth observation satellites, chose early 1982 as an inopportune moment to break down. STS-12, which had originally planned to just launch Landsat 4 as a low-risk first flight from Vandenberg, would now suddenly have the on-orbit repair of its predecessor added to the mission objectives. Thankfully, the launch itself went smoothly enough, with the massive exhaust plume from the SRBs reportedly visible from as far as Hollywood. The Shuttle’s satellite deployment systems were tried and tested by this point, and Landsat 4 left the payload bay on Flight Day 2 without incident. Rendezvous with Landsat 3 also went smoothly enough, but by the beginning of Flight Day 4, with Constitution stationkeeping a few hundred meters from Landsat, the crew would face the toughest part of the mission.
Unlike Landsat 4 and future satellites in the series, designed for Shuttle servicing if needed, Landsat 3’s older design meant that it had been never intended to be serviced on orbit. The most glaring problem from this was the lack of a Canadarm grapple fixture, which would require an improvised solution. Mission specialists Anna Fisher and Dale Gardner would exit the airlock in the early afternoon after a briefing and planning session in the middeck lasting for most of the morning. The two spacewalkers then secured themselves to the MMU jetpacks in the payload bay, detached their tethers, and carefully flew over to the stricken satellite. With Fisher providing backup and support as needed, Gardner jammed an improvised grappling hook into an open truss structure on the satellite, and the two secured it to various points on the truss with cables and carabiners, pulling them taught until the hook refused to budge.
With a Canadarm grapple fixture now in place, attached to the side of the device opposite the “business end”, the two then guided Constitution in as the orbiter closed the distance and grabbed Landsat 3. The last task of the EVA would be to secure the satellite to the payload bay via more cables, and with Landsat safely in the payload bay and not liable to drift off overnight, the spacewalkers returned inside to conclude what had been the longest on-orbit spacewalk to date, beaten out only by an all-day rover traverse on Apollo 19.
Following the excitement of the initial capture of the satellite, Flight Day 5 proved relatively uneventful. Rather than risking a delicate repair on a flight computer not designed for servicing on orbit, STS-12 had simply launched with the flight spare computer, sitting unused in storage since Landsat 3's launch. Although challenges were posed by the satellite not being intended for servicing, removing the entire broken unit and installing the spare went relatively smoothly. Landsat 3 was released back into its original orbit on Flight Day 6, and Constitution returned to Edwards the following day to complete a highly successful week-long first mission from Vandenberg.
Constitution is prepared for the first launch from Vandenberg in early 1982. Image credit: Spaceflight Now
Dale Gardner secures cables between Landsat 3 and Constitution's payload bay. Image credit: NASA History Office
Constitution would not travel far from Edwards following STS-12- instead of being flown back to the Cape, the Orbiter was moved back to Vandenberg, where preparations began for STS-15, the second Vandenberg flight. This mission, the first of the Shuttle program flown for the Air Force, proved equally successful, although many details remain classified to this day. What is known for certain, thanks to partial declassification in the 2010s, is that Constitution visited a KH-9 spy satellite launched the previous year on a Titan III. The Shuttle's crew grabbed the satellite with the Canadarm, modified before launch to enable easy Shuttle servicing, replaced its film return canisters, and refueled it. Although this proved a successful test of military satellite servicing, STS-15 would end up being the only Shuttle mission to visit a KH-9 due to its imminent replacement by the digital KH-11.
A KH-9 being prepared for launch. In-flight photos from STS-15 have not yet been declassified by the Air Force or the modern agency for space-related US military activities, the US Space Force. Image credit: USSF History Office
The Soviets had not been idle while the US first launched and then expanded Starlab. Near the end of 1981, only a few months after Starlab’s first crew rotation flight, an N11 Gorizont lifted off from Baikonur with Zarya 6’s Core Module, DOS-6. Although the launch of the station’s core itself went well, Zarya 6 would not see its first crew for a full year.
Apollo-Soyuz had unintentionally demonstrated the benefits of an international rescue capability, and Cold War tensions aside, the USSR was taking new measures on Zarya 6 to keep its space crews safe. Instead of the SSVP probe-and-drogue docking ports used on earlier stations, Zarya 6 would use APAS ports of the same design as those on the Space Shuttle and Starlab. This posed a problem for its support vehicles; the R-7 variant used for Soyuz and Progress was already nearing the limit of its payload capacity with the existing vehicles, and the new APAS port, heavier than that used on Apollo-Soyuz in order to support long-duration station operations, would significantly cut into overall payload capacity, requiring Progresses to launch half-empty and Soyuzes to only carry two crew. As such, a new, more powerful variant of the R-7 had been developed for the Zarya 6 program, able to carry a fully laden or fully crewed vehicle into the station’s target orbit.
Named Soyuz-N, in reference to its new commonality with the N1-series rockets and its updated main engines, the new R-7 would replace the 50s-era RD-107 and RD-108 engines on its core stage and boosters with more powerful and more efficient NK-33s, significantly increasing payload capacity. Due to the engine only having one nozzle, the core stage would retain its vernier thrusters for roll control after booster separation, now as a separate unit instead of being built into an RD-107. As a bonus, the economies of scale afforded by high-volume production of the engine for both Gorizont and R-7 meant that Soyuz-N would not be significantly more expensive than earlier variants, despite the more complex engines. Although it would initially be used only for Soyuz and Progress flights, it was hoped that once production ramped up enough, the entire R-7 fleet could transition to the NK-33.
Soyuz-N’s first flight went flawlessly, launching an APAS-equipped Progress with an initial load of supplies to Zarya 6’s Core Module and certifying the vehicle for crewed flights. The second flight, carrying an APAS Soyuz with the crew of Zarya 6 EO-1 on board, would be much less successful. Shortly before the planned shutdown and separation of the side boosters, one of the NK-33s simply exploded, causing the Launch Escape System to fire and blast the crew to safety while the rapidly-disintegrating rocket was destroyed a few seconds later by range safety. Soyuz-N was grounded immediately, and an investigation began almost as soon as helicopters retrieved the battered capsule from the Kazakh steppe, with the crew inside shaken but thankfully none the worse for wear.
Analysis of both telemetry and recovered debris indicated that the fault was not with the NK-33 itself, which, in contrast to the early NK-15s, had become a very reliable engine over several design iterations. Instead, the new flight profile of the vehicle, with the stack accelerating harder than the older Soyuz rockets but not as hard as the Progress flight, was to blame. As the NK-33s throttled down close to booster separation to minimize crew G-forces, a maneuver not done on the Progress flight, the stack had entered an untested aerodynamic regime, which coincided with a previously-unknown resonance mode of the vehicle’s structure. As the atmosphere buffeted the stack, the resonance escalated minor jolts into massive pogo oscillations, ultimately severing the main fuel line to an NK-33, resulting in a hard shutdown and explosion. The fixes were simple, consisting of an alteration to the flight profile and minor structural modifications to eliminate the resonance, but Soyuz-N would not fly again with crew until late 1982, ultimately delivering EO-1A to Zarya 6 just before the New Year.
With neither of the lab modules installed, EO-1A would not include much science. Instead, their time would mostly be spent unloading both the original Progress and a second one launched to test the fixed Soyuz-N, performing EVAs to install external components, and generally making sure that Zarya 6 was in good shape. The highlight of the mission would be the delayed launch and docking of DOS-7, the Habitation and Support Module. The second DOS lacked the Core Module’s docking hub and command and control systems, but its additional crew facilities and life support would enable a permanent crew of 6, enough to keep both lab modules running 24/7 with crew shifts.
An artist's impression of the Soyuz-TA variant of the Soyuz capsule, fitted with an upgraded APAS docking system. Image credit: beanhowitzer
The would-be Zarya 6 EO-1 crew make a hasty abort. Image credit: beanhowiter
The completed Zarya 6 on-orbit, with both DOS modules and the Spektr and Kristall TKS lab modules. Image credit: beanhowiter
So, with extensive work at Vandenburg, does this mean that Vandenburg will host more Shuttle launches for much longer than in OTL? And awesome STS-12 by the way! Must have been nerve-wracking for Anna Fisher and Dale Gardner to have to rely solely on the MMU rather than tethers for this mission.
Anyways, too bad we won't get the iconic photo of Bruce McCandless in the MMU in TTL.
And thus, the Soviets launch a new variant of the R-7, as well as add more to Zarya 6 (after initially suffering an accident on one of their rockets about to come up to the station).
Hmmmm, will be intrigued to see what comes next for the space race here (in one of my all time favourite Space Race timelines), and maybe the possibility of a chapter of popular culture in TTL, namely with movies about the space race (Presumably The Right Stuff will be in cinemas in 83 still. And by the way, will be looking forward to seeing TTL's equivalent to From the Earth to the Moon).
One movie that could be created could be a movie exclusive to TTL, based on a autobiography made by Gus Grissom (with maybe contributions from John Young, Michael Collins and Betty Grissom), as I just learned that before Grissom died, he was in the midst of writing a book about Gemini. Anyway, the title of this autobiography could be titled From Mitchell to Liberty and Tranquility: The Autobiography of Gus Grissom or something among those lines.
Either way, looking forward to the next chapter!
Thanks for the support, it means a lot! We'll get back to pop culture again at some point, I promise, probably in the 90s. I've got some ideas.
Anyway, I did promise notes and elaboration, mainly on the Falklands, so...
KAL's notes for Interlude 5:
-The PoD for the Falklands War is, believe it or not, weather. OTL, on May 1st, 1982, Argentina's aircraft carrier Veinticinco de Mayo was ready to launch a surprise attack on the British fleet with Skyhawk jets, but the mission was aborted because their scouting aircraft lost track of the British due to bad weather. Slightly better weather in SSGL leads to the Argentinians going through with it, catching the British by surprise and managing to sink one of their carriers. With the British losing such a major part of their fleet, the naval battle around the Falklands is significantly longer and bloodier, and the eventual land invasion is delayed enough for covert Soviet support to reach the islands, resulting in the Argentinian troops having somehow mysteriously come into possession of advanced equipment and weapons that similarly pushes back the recapture of the Falklands. As pointed out in the part, the high casualties of the war end up with the Tories voted out due to the public's perception that their sons are dying en masse for some insignificant South Atlantic islands.
-We're not too sure about the effects on Britain, having not mapped out their politics as in-depth as the superpowers', but a Labour government being elected in the early 80s is certainly going to cause some significant changes. I'll probably get back to the UK once I do some more research into the politics of the era. The embarrassment of Argentina still losing despite their support, along with the ongoing disaster in Afghanistan, is emboldening reformist elements in the Soviet military and Communist Party, which will have dramatic effects later when a certain Mikhail Gorbachev becomes important, but of course, more on that later.
-The iconic MMU picture probably still happens, even if it's not Bruce in the suit. I didn't touch on it in the part, but the MMU first got tested on STS-8 / Starlab 4, with it being flown around Challenger and Starlab. One of Constitution's jobs on her first flight on STS-10 / Starlab 5 is to bring up a pair of MMUs to the station in case they're needed there, in fact.
-A lot of the rescue of Landsat 3 is based on the OTL STS-51A mission, which had both Gardner and Fisher on board and where essentially the same thing happened, down to needing the MMUs to fly away from the Shuttle. OTL, that mission was flown by Discovery and retrieved the communications satellites Westar 6 and Palapa B2, which had been intended to fly to geostationary orbit but had gotten stranded in low Earth orbit due to their upper stages failing. Discovery brought both satellites back to Earth, where they were eventually repaired and reflown.
-As Callisto mentioned, Zarya 6 is effectively the Mir of this timeline, down to the bad cable management and the mold. Between Skylab and Zarya 6, moldy stations are certainly something of an unintentional theme in this timeline.
-Speaking of stations, next part we're looking deep into the development of SOC and finally revealing the permanent name of NASA's big modular space station! (I will say it's not Space Station Freedom, since they already named OV-103 that ITTL.)
Ooooo.
And I'm probably going to be wrong but I'm guessing possible names for this station:
- Enterprise
- Columbia
- Atlantis
- Jamestown
- Discovery
- Daedalus
- Liberty
- Tranquility
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As discussed in past posts, Skylab doesn't have a permanent crew any more. It's being maintained by occasional Shuttle visits as a free-flying platform to support sensitive experiments that might be disrupted by all the activity on Starlab, since it's cheaper to fly those experiments to an already existing station that can provide power and control rather than launching a new satellite for each of those. These include things like studying how materials behave after long exposures in orbit, samples of which could be disrupted on Starlab by EVAs, or extremely sensitive microgravity crystal growth experiments.
The station's certainly showing its age, though, and NASA is looking into replacing it with an updated free-flyer for the next-generation modular station program.
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