Hello everyone--new here. I've read a bit about the USA manned spaceflight programs, but realize there's one subject I never thought to question. Project Mercury was begun in the late 50s, Alan Shepherd's first flight was in early May of '61, and JFKs speech to Congress announcing the moon shot came a few weeks after Shepherd's flight. Does anyone know what, if anything, NASA had in mind as the successor to Project Mercury before JFK pointed the agency to the moon? Was it already thinking moon? Was it thinking earth orbiting space station? Space plane? Or was it just struggling with Mercury and not thinking about anything post-Mercury? Seems as if the original seven astronauts would have expected there to be something to follow Mercury, during those first years it was in development.
Quote from: paulb on 02/07/2018 03:48 pmHello everyone--new here. I've read a bit about the USA manned spaceflight programs, but realize there's one subject I never thought to question. Project Mercury was begun in the late 50s, Alan Shepherd's first flight was in early May of '61, and JFKs speech to Congress announcing the moon shot came a few weeks after Shepherd's flight. Does anyone know what, if anything, NASA had in mind as the successor to Project Mercury before JFK pointed the agency to the moon? Was it already thinking moon? Was it thinking earth orbiting space station? Space plane? Or was it just struggling with Mercury and not thinking about anything post-Mercury? Seems as if the original seven astronauts would have expected there to be something to follow Mercury, during those first years it was in development.Apollo was started before Kennedy's speech
1965-1967 First launching in a program leading to manned circumlunar flight and to permanent near- earth space station. Beyond 1970 Manned flight to the moon. . . .
Gemini was only motivated by the need to have a bridging program between Mercury and Apollo, which would not likely have been needed without the time pressure of landing on the Moon within the decade.. But, to be honest, the were discussions of "Mercury Mark II" as early as 1960, as well. Which evolved into Gemini. So, depending on the outlook for the time to develop Apollo, you might still have seen Gemini in some form.
This pre-Moon Race version of Apollo had an unfortunate effect on the final lunar spacecraft. The planners, with no actual spaceflight experience, arbitrarily chose a 3-man crew on the basis of the 3-watch system on ships.
Quote from: Arch Admiral on 02/08/2018 05:26 amThis pre-Moon Race version of Apollo had an unfortunate effect on the final lunar spacecraft. The planners, with no actual spaceflight experience, arbitrarily chose a 3-man crew on the basis of the 3-watch system on ships. I've often wondered whether the consumables savings with crew of 2 was ever considered for Apollo. On at least one LM descent, the CDR asked the LMP to please stop reading the altitude numbers and be quiet, leaving the LMP to look out the window!There is no doubt an argument for a crew of 3 (2 guys on the lunar surface) accomplishing almost 2X what a lone man on the surface might.
Launched by what was then called a Saturn C-2 (with two F-1 engines in its first stage)...
... they (including the President's Science Advisor, Jerome Weisner) counter-proposed a two-man Apollo CSM that could be downsized and landed directly on the Moon with a single Saturn V launch. NASA had looked into that already....
... it was the C-3 that was to have 2 F-1s in the first stage. The C-2 had the the same first stage as the C-1 but with 8 uprated H-1s.
Source for uprated H-1's being used on the C-2?
Quote from: the_other_Doug on 03/22/2018 06:26 pm... they (including the President's Science Advisor, Jerome Weisner) counter-proposed a two-man Apollo CSM that could be downsized and landed directly on the Moon with a single Saturn V launch. NASA had looked into that already....The attached paper sheds some light on the two-man direct ("C-5 direct") -- see page 7.