Does anybody know if Logsdon recent book (After Apollo) ever mention Big Gemini even in passing ? does anybody know where I could download a pdf variant ?
Quote from: Archibald on 04/20/2015 06:28 pmDoes anybody know if Logsdon recent book (After Apollo) ever mention Big Gemini even in passing ? does anybody know where I could download a pdf variant ? It does mention Big Gemini several times.Feel free to order it via Amazon.
Quote from: Blackstar on 04/20/2015 07:01 pmQuote from: Archibald on 04/20/2015 06:28 pmDoes anybody know if Logsdon recent book (After Apollo) ever mention Big Gemini even in passing ? does anybody know where I could download a pdf variant ? It does mention Big Gemini several times.Feel free to order it via Amazon.It's only available in hard back at the moment Randy
1969 August 21 - McDonnell Douglas Corporation, under contract to MSC, submitted an eight-volume final report on a "Big G" study. -
I meant, I was ready to pay for a pdf - a e-book. I've linked two documents related to Big Gemini. The main body of work remain the eight volume study currently not available on the web. According to astronautix http://web.archive.org/web/20070217102417/http://astronautix.com/craft/bigemini.htmQuote1969 August 21 - McDonnell Douglas Corporation, under contract to MSC, submitted an eight-volume final report on a "Big G" study. -
Although the Logsdon book mentions Big G a number of times, it does not focus on it in any way. By 1970 and particularly by 1972, Big G appears to have been an afterthought and most of the discussion was around some kind of winged vehicle, either the really big one that they got, or a much smaller one that was preferred by some people at OMB and the White House. I don't know what specific concepts they were considering, but it sounds like they were talking about a vehicle that would carry about six people and use an existing rocket.One of the issues I have with Big G--but it's really an issue I have with this 1969-1971 time period--is that we don't know how seriously it was considered. Keeping the Apollo CSM in production seems like it would have been the cheapest alternative, but it seems like NASA was so set on a shuttle that Big G and the Apollo mod may have been presented to NASA and NASA simply set them on a shelf and never seriously considered them at all.
...It was all straight forward and laid out how it SHOULD be done...
Quote from: RanulfC on 04/21/2015 05:54 pm...It was all straight forward and laid out how it SHOULD be done...Randy, I'd like to offer a note that applies to both your analysis of what NASA was thinking at the time (which I find relatively sound) and also, to an extent, what I've seen many people (myself included, I would imagine) state here, on a number of topics:The word "SHOULD" is the most dangerous word in the English language. It is almost always a device to try and impose your own opinion onto a situation, regardless of the merits of your opinion vs. the merits of any other opinion. It is never, ever a valid logical argument.Just sayin'...
RanulfC, you don't have to use quotation marks unless you're quoting somebody.
Quote from: Blackstar on 04/21/2015 06:51 pmRanulfC, you don't have to use quotation marks unless you're quoting somebody.Yes I've fallen back into that habit and will try and remedy it. Sorry.(Doesn't count if I'm quoting myself I suppose )Randy
Quote from: RanulfC on 04/21/2015 07:04 pmQuote from: Blackstar on 04/21/2015 06:51 pmRanulfC, you don't have to use quotation marks unless you're quoting somebody.Yes I've fallen back into that habit and will try and remedy it. Sorry.(Doesn't count if I'm quoting myself I suppose )RandyAlso, remember: 13-year-old girls are allowed an unlimited number of exclamation marks in whatever they write, but each adult is allocated only one per year.
As long as we're on the topic of Big Gemini, it's worth pointing out the "Advanced Gemini" concepts and the "Lunar Gemini" evolved concepts for NSF members who may not know of those paper programs. My opinion is that pre-Apollo Lunar Gemini was taken more seriously than post-Apollo Big Gemini by NASA.
Of all the Gemini variants and missions that MD was pushing, the circumlunar Gemini was the most likely to fly. It required very little modification to the Gemini spacecraft itself (mostly a beefed-up heatshield and a directional antenna to hang out of the equipment module), and could follow mission procedures that had been proven during the mainline Gemini program.Other variants, including Big G and Lunar Landing Gemini, were far less likely to be pursued in reality, as they would have required significant investments that would have had to come from Apollo funding
Gemini was definitely better than Mercury, but would not have been as capable overall as Apollo was supposed to be. It pretty much WAS an interim orbital spacecraft and, (no matter how cool I think it looked ) didn't have much general use beyond that but it DID do its job really well despite a lot of drawbacks inevitable with such an interim design.
>snipage<I would point out, however, that there is an important difference between these lunar Gemini concepts and Big G. Most of the lunar proposals were not solicited or paid for by NASA. This was McDonnell trying to horn in on other people's business. Big G was proposed as a new vehicle at a time when NASA was going to be looking for a new vehicle. It may have been unsolicited, but there was a reason for it. And I think it could have had a chance if NASA was forced to adopt a lower cost option than the shuttle.
Quote from: Blackstar on 04/21/2015 09:18 pm>snipage<I would point out, however, that there is an important difference between these lunar Gemini concepts and Big G. Most of the lunar proposals were not solicited or paid for by NASA. This was McDonnell trying to horn in on other people's business. Big G was proposed as a new vehicle at a time when NASA was going to be looking for a new vehicle. It may have been unsolicited, but there was a reason for it. And I think it could have had a chance if NASA was forced to adopt a lower cost option than the shuttle.I agree somewhat but disagree more so As noted in the next post the main issue was the Gemini WAS an interim vehicle and what NASA really wanted wasn't something "like" Apollo but different as it were. And the orbital ferry Big-G was pretty much going head-to-head with an Apollo ferry with very few inherent advantages (and more than a few flaws as noted) by sticking with the overall Gemini design. As a cockpit design I think Gemini had some points but you need the REST of the vehicle to make it click and I don't see Big-G as that vehicle...(Though I'm thinking around that same time was when someone came up with that whole Mars mission where the "lander" was a winged stage with a Gemini capsule on the front )Randy
I wouldn't say the advantages of Big-G over the Apollo ferry were few it would have been almost like a US version of the Soviet TKS but with more crew and own mass capacity.Since the docking hardware was on the back module it would be easier to change the docking system without messing with systems in the reentry vehicle.For LEO operations it would have be a much more capable vehicle.Apollo probably could not do half the things the Shuttle did in LEO but Big-G could have done maybe 80% of it's missions by changing the back module for different mission requirements.
North American Rockwell appears to be doing what McDonnell Aircraft did with Big Gemini proposals in this winged Apollo shuttle proposal thatwas even patented. It was trying to keep a program alive with kludge proposals.I see your Big Gemini and I raise you a Winged Apollo Shuttle, with swing-wings and X-15 like landing gear/skids. "Aerospace vehicle" from 1967 & 1971https://www.google.com/patents/US3576298?dq=apollo+rockwell&hl=en&sa=X&ei=kKc3VfStBM2RyATTo4DIBg&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAAhttps://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/pages/US3576298-1.pnghttps://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/pages/US3576298-2.pnghttps://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/pages/US3576298-3.pnghttps://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/pages/US3576298-4.pngI think I have a name for it.....Apollo-Soar.
...Well, it's true the basic Big-G would have enough room to ferry anywhere from 9 to 12 astronauts, the vehicle could no longer be lifted by the Titan-II rocket and would require the man-rating (and upgrading) of the Titan-III rocket to lift into orbit...
Quote from: RanulfC on 04/22/2015 02:53 pm...Well, it's true the basic Big-G would have enough room to ferry anywhere from 9 to 12 astronauts, the vehicle could no longer be lifted by the Titan-II rocket and would require the man-rating (and upgrading) of the Titan-III rocket to lift into orbit...Just a minor set of nits -- first the Titan IIIC was already in process to be man-rated at that time, for the MOL program. MD had every reason to believe, in 1967 (when these design studies were generated, I believe) that MOL was going to be flown; after all, they were in the process of building Blue Gemini. So their proposals for Big G could reasonably assume that the Titan IIIC would be available and man-rated for any of their Gemini variants.Second, Big G (at least in the proposals I've seen) was proposed with its primary variant to be launched by a Saturn IB. Only the secondary variant, with a smaller diameter orbital module to fit the diameter of the upper stage of the IIIC transstage, was designed for the Titan. And, of course, the Saturn was designed from the start to be man-rated.So, the issue of needing to spend extra funds to man-rate the potential Big G launch vehicles is rather a non-issue, I'm afraid. Either way they went, they were looking to use boosters that were already to be man-rated.
Quote from: mike robel on 05/13/2015 11:33 pmMy impression, from Jim Orburg's latest book, is that NASA was pretty much focused only on the space shuttle and even if a better idea had been handed to them on a golden platter and with no charge, they would have rejected it.You mean John Logsdon's book.I posted two relevant pages up-thread. What surprised me was that Big Gemini was still in discussion as late as August-October 1971, which is quite a few years after it was initially proposed.
My impression, from Jim Orburg's latest book, is that NASA was pretty much focused only on the space shuttle and even if a better idea had been handed to them on a golden platter and with no charge, they would have rejected it.
It's hard enough writing about stuff that did get built, let alone all the stuff that didn't.
this shuttle chronology document includes information about Big Gemini
SIX-MAN APOLLO SPACECRAFTFor those alternative space plans in which the shuttle operationwould be delayed or in which there would be no shuttle, a six-man modifiedApollo spacecraft would be used. This vehicle would have a grossweight of 20,000 ib, a development cost of $1 billion, a first-unit costof $300 million, and a launch-operations cost of $73 million.
The thing that I find decisive for me when comparing the Apollo CSM to Big G is the logistics capability. The Apollo CM had 218 Cubic feet of pressurized space and that was it for both crew and cargo. The CM just didn't have a lot of space inside of it. The Big G even with a crew of 6 has 261 cubic feet for just Cargo in the re-entry module and has a separate space for pressurized cargo space of 1571 cubic feet. That is a lot of space which to me really makes the Big G a superior vehicle for a LEO mission to a space station.
Quote from: Archibald on 05/20/2015 06:03 amthis shuttle chronology document includes information about Big Gemini So the last document in the set that you provided refers to the August 1969 final report on Big G. That's the document that I provided upstream here.The second document in your set refers to initiating that study. It says that it was initiated in mid-1968, although it took a few months to actually get approved. I'm still slightly surprised that modified Apollo CSM doesn't appear here.
Might not a "Big A" version of Apollo been possible? Shrink the SM -- is delta-V and consumables capabilities were far in excess of what was needed for LEO logistics -- and lengthen it to provide additional cargo and crew capability. There was, after all, a 1966 proposal from North American for a land-landing version of Apollo carrying six.
Apollo was already over-powered and too big for low Earth orbit. It had the SIM bay, and you could reduce the tanks and even the engine. So yes, shrink the SM functions and then open it up with cargo space. But that's all unpressurized. To get a pressurized volume, they would have had to go with the hatch through the heat shield route.
A fully LEO optimized Apollo probably would be very similar to the Soviet TKS spacecraft which Big G was similar to as well.
A interesting thought I had about "Big G" was what would have been the evolution with no Apollo program? Would Gemini have been built as a advanced Mercury and would have Big G then evolved from Gemini still. Basically instead of jumping to the Moon as a target during Mercury the target maybe becomes developing a Space Station. The Saturn-1B evolves into the main launch vehicle with a Big G becoming the logistics vehicle to transport astronauts back and forth from a Space Station(s) put into orbit by a Saturn-1B.
IIRC Apollo was "conceived" as a basic LEO vehicle with lunar applications and became lunar specific due to the requirement given NASA.
Quote from: brovane on 05/21/2015 08:57 pmA interesting thought I had about "Big G" was what would have been the evolution with no Apollo program? Would Gemini have been built as a advanced Mercury and would have Big G then evolved from Gemini still. Basically instead of jumping to the Moon as a target during Mercury the target maybe becomes developing a Space Station. The Saturn-1B evolves into the main launch vehicle with a Big G becoming the logistics vehicle to transport astronauts back and forth from a Space Station(s) put into orbit by a Saturn-1B. IIRC Apollo was "conceived" as a basic LEO vehicle with lunar applications and became lunar specific due to the requirement given NASA. Gemini was conceived as something quick-and-dirty to use between when Mercury ended and Apollo began to gain experience in the operations that were going to be required for those lunar operations. If JFK had decided to build a Space Station instead of going to the Moon I doubt very much that Gemini would have even been built and that Apollo would be a very different vehicle than it was.Randy
Sorry didn't mean to give the impression that the "circumlunar" was tacked on it was there from the beginning but that the Apollo spacecraft was (as noted) already the "follow-on" to Mercury. Currently reading the book "John F. Kennedy and the Race to the Moon" and it along with everything else I've seen pretty much shows that "Mercury Mark II" wasn't Gemini and Gemini was in support of, not competition with Apollo.
Circumlunar Gemini had some fans at then-MSC, as well as at headquarters. It was, in the final analysis, deemed too much of a stunt that would detract from (and steal funds from) Apollo, but had the Soviet Union shown signs in mid-1966 of launching a Zond manned circumlunar flight in the near future, I bet circumlunar Gemini would have been given a green light.It was actually pretty simple -- the Titan II was capable of launching a Gemini heavy enough for the mission (the biggest weight gain was a beefed-up heat shield), and a Centaur had enough kick to put that stack into a free-return trajectory. Put a Target Docking Adapter on the Centaur, rendezvous with it, and burn TLI.Pete Conrad pushed strenuously for this mission for Geminis 11 and 12, and was ultimately shot down. Some say he was given the 1,400-km-apogee maneuver with the Agena as a consolation prize.Now, the follow-on proposal by McDonnell, to develop a small lander and use a combination of a Saturn IB (to launch the Gemini and the lander to LEO) and a Titan IIIC/Transstage (launching the transstage as a rendezvous target for the Gemini/Lander in LEO and providing TLI, LOI and TEI propulsion) to accomplish a one-man lunar landing by the end of 1967, was perhaps technically possible, but stood no chance of being approved. It too directly tried to usurp Apollo's mission, and also would have required a super-fast one-man lander development program that there was simply no funding for.With both lunar applications out the window, I guess McDonnell felt that Big G was their last chance to propose a Gemini variant that would keep them in the manned spaceflight business for another decade or more.
Quote from: the_other_Doug on 05/27/2015 04:12 amCircumlunar Gemini had some fans at then-MSC, as well as at headquarters. It was, in the final analysis, deemed too much of a stunt that would detract from (and steal funds from) Apollo, but had the Soviet Union shown signs in mid-1966 of launching a Zond manned circumlunar flight in the near future, I bet circumlunar Gemini would have been given a green light.It was actually pretty simple -- the Titan II was capable of launching a Gemini heavy enough for the mission (the biggest weight gain was a beefed-up heat shield), and a Centaur had enough kick to put that stack into a free-return trajectory. Put a Target Docking Adapter on the Centaur, rendezvous with it, and burn TLI.Pete Conrad pushed strenuously for this mission for Geminis 11 and 12, and was ultimately shot down. Some say he was given the 1,400-km-apogee maneuver with the Agena as a consolation prize.Now, the follow-on proposal by McDonnell, to develop a small lander and use a combination of a Saturn IB (to launch the Gemini and the lander to LEO) and a Titan IIIC/Transstage (launching the transstage as a rendezvous target for the Gemini/Lander in LEO and providing TLI, LOI and TEI propulsion) to accomplish a one-man lunar landing by the end of 1967, was perhaps technically possible, but stood no chance of being approved. It too directly tried to usurp Apollo's mission, and also would have required a super-fast one-man lander development program that there was simply no funding for.With both lunar applications out the window, I guess McDonnell felt that Big G was their last chance to propose a Gemini variant that would keep them in the manned spaceflight business for another decade or more.The Apollo LEM ran into a fair amount of schedule slip. I'd wager that all lander designs suffered from an overly optimistic schedule in the mid 60s. Had the one person lander and Gemini been given the go ahead they might very well have been in the position of waiting for the lander like Apollo did. Even worse they might not have been able to build it light enough to fly. The LEM at around 14 or so tones was already stretched pretty thin.Many of the one person lander were also not enclosed and pressurized instead relying on the astronaut's space suit. As Allen Bean said once if you threw up in the suit while trying to land you would likely die. So that was a much more risky approach. Two people on the surface also allowed for a reasonable chance that if one should become incapacitated the other could get them back to safety in the LEM. The lander would also be a lot less capable than the LEM. Just being barely capable of getting one person to the surface the amount of science it could do on the surface would have been very limited. Even more so because there would have been only one person. Apollo did do the job of landing before 1970, so the Gemini lander scenario wouldn't have that over Apollo. I'm not sure it could have been done cheaply enough to have been sustainable. It was quite a bit more risky, had little room for growth, and had less capability. NASA would have been just as likely if not even more so to want to finish the program and move on to the shuttle.
Exactly. You very clearly described why lunar Gemini was, in the final analysis, dismissed as a stunt -- worse, a dangerous stunt that would have left us *barely* satisfying the end-of-decade goal, while allowing little to no ability to take advantage of the landing scientifically. (Also, note that lunar Gemini and its drawbacks, as you described it, also rather well describes the Soviet lunar landing system of the late '60s, too. You do the math... )
My Big Gemini article is now published in Spaceflight magazine. Go buy a copy. Lots of Big G goodness.
Quote from: Blackstar on 10/07/2015 06:43 pmMy Big Gemini article is now published in Spaceflight magazine. Go buy a copy. Lots of Big G goodness.I went ahead and purchased this issue online and read through your article today. Excellent work. Would you be willing to share your reference material that you used in L2 sometime in the future?
Relative to getting out of an Apollo couch in rough seas in the middle of the Pacific, that doesn't look hard.
Any hope for BGTTP in Explorers-verse?
Are the contents in the public domain?
Very interesting, thank you. Interesting tidbit about the pads for the titan III variant. Never realized that LC-40 / LC-41 couldn't handle 7-seg Titan III-M ?
Quote from: Archibald on 04/03/2017 07:02 amVery interesting, thank you. Interesting tidbit about the pads for the titan III variant. Never realized that LC-40 / LC-41 couldn't handle 7-seg Titan III-M ? Didn't the Titan III-M solids end up as Titan IV solids (originally Titan 34D-7?)
Quote from: Thorny on 04/03/2017 09:23 pmQuote from: Archibald on 04/03/2017 07:02 amVery interesting, thank you. Interesting tidbit about the pads for the titan III variant. Never realized that LC-40 / LC-41 couldn't handle 7-seg Titan III-M ? Didn't the Titan III-M solids end up as Titan IV solids (originally Titan 34D-7?)D'oh, forgot that. Indeed Titan IV-A had them. I wonder what modifications did they made to the pads.
I posted photos of the covers of the 8 volumes up thread. They are at the archives of the University of Texas Medical Center (which fortunately is NOT located at UTM and is therefore easy to reach). Some of the volumes run 200-300 pages, so the total is probably over 1500 pages. There are not a lot of illustrations all things considered (i.e. dozens, not hundreds), and they do not have an easily accessible copier machine. If I had access to a copier machine, I would have been willing to copy a lot of at least several volumes (although that also would have been expensive at 25 cents a page). Instead I took a bunch of digital photos, which is not the best way to capture the report. But the volumes are in excellent shape and they're preserved as part of a large (100+ boxes) collection of JSC life sciences records.The spacecraft systems and reusability volumes were both very interesting. For reusability they looked at what systems could be expected to have relatively long lifetimes and what systems had to be replaced (like the heat shield). I did not go through the stuff in detail, but I did not see a lot about the logistics module or the advanced Big G that you see in some of the illustrations. It seemed to me that they were primarily pitching the basic vehicle and holding out the option for a larger and more sophisticated vehicle.
Too bad you can't bring in a laptop and small scanner. But that would still take a long time.
Quote from: Ronpur50 on 04/04/2017 10:22 pmToo bad you can't bring in a laptop and small scanner. But that would still take a long time.I could. The problem is time. A good scan for each page is going to take awhile--probably 20-40 seconds. That's a lot of work. A photocopier works a lot faster. What I'd like to get is most (if not all) of a couple of the volumes.
Blackstar, your are Fantastic !
If i get the numbers right, the Modification for Titan III would cost around $132.7 million Today Valuethat cost of building launch complex 40
What volumes are most interesting than other ? hard to say. Volume I - Condensed summary is already available. But all seven other volumes might be of interest. Which one would you pick up ?
My cat doesn't think so.
Here is a better version of the Big Gemini proposal summary (Volume 1).My photocopy is quite good, this scan is less good, but it is still better than the earlier scan.
I suppose MDD could have taken a Gemini B out of storage and flown it unmanned to test Big Gemini subsystems, EFT-1 style.
We know that before cancellation in June 1969 MOL got four Gemini B build and in storagehttp://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,4024.msg217555.html#msg217555
ok, do you know when were they cancelled ? In June 1969 with the entire MOL or earlier ?
I wonder about MDD Gemini worforce to be retained for Gemini B - all the way from 1966 (last NASA Gemini) to 1970 ? wouldn't that be a problem ?
What would have made sense (IMHO) would be to build four or six Gemini B in 1967-68 before MDD wound down Gemini - and then put them into storage while the rest of MOL gets funded and build, up to 1970 or beyond. But military procurement doesn't always make sense, otherwise the F-35 would never exist in the first place
What would have made sense (IMHO) would be to build four or six Gemini B in 1967-68 before MDD wound down Gemini - and then put them into storage while the rest of MOL gets funded and build,
But this highlights one of the risks of archival collections--they can be destroyed. I was able to photocopy a few dozen pages of the ~1500 pages of the Big Gemini report. If the archives had been flooded, I might have ended up with the only remaining copy. And LOTS of other materials, including NASA materials and Texas medical history documents, would have been lost.
Quote from: Blackstar on 09/05/2017 12:04 amBut this highlights one of the risks of archival collections--they can be destroyed. I was able to photocopy a few dozen pages of the ~1500 pages of the Big Gemini report. If the archives had been flooded, I might have ended up with the only remaining copy. And LOTS of other materials, including NASA materials and Texas medical history documents, would have been lost.Somebody ought to set up a crowdfunding project for this. This stuff needs to be digitized, but institutions rarely have much interest in doing so, and its way too expensive (if nothing else, cost of renting scanner time on-site) for individuals to make much impact
Well, CDs have already been obsolete for over a decade, so probably not.For storage in general, its trivial to just keep copying to new hardware, and would be necessary for any preservation anyway (since most media degrades within a couple decades at best). And the formats the data itself are stored in are usually easily replicated, even in the unlikely event they aren't still the standard at the time (for images for example, theres really no gain to be had beyond current formats). I trust that a lot more than a couple paper copies in an unsecured library