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Space Forum / Space History / April 2004If Apollo 17 had aborted...
I just (finally!) managed to get a copy of Apogee Books' Apollo 17 Mission Report. I notice that there were contingency missions planned for Apollo 17 (just as there were for all the lunar landing missions) in cases of no TLI, SPS failure, landing abort, etc. As of December, 1972, there were still complete Saturn V stacks available to be launched, correct? I'm wondering if, had Apollo 17 needed to abort prior to landing, would NASA have put together the spare parts needed to fly an Apollo 18 with the 17 crew, to perform the landing at Taurus-Littrow and finish the Apollo program on a successful note? I know that the launch pads were subsequently modified -- to a degree -- to support the Skylab launches. But wouldn't the pad from which the workshop was launched be available for one more manned Saturn V launch? What else would have to have been done? You'd have to complete another LM, you'd have to reconfigure a CSM for a lunar mission, you'd have to build another LRV... what else? What do y'all think? Do you think the pressure to finally land a geologist on the Moon and to end the program with a success would have been enough to mount a replacement mission? Doug dvandorn@NOSPAM.mn.rr.com > What else would have to have been done? You'd have to complete another > LM, you'd have to reconfigure a CSM for a lunar mission, you'd have to > build another LRV... what else? I'm pretty sure all the 18 hardware was already built and paid for, but I dunno if Congress would have approved the money for the actual mission. They were such tightwads. After all, cancelling 18 and 19 only saved $47 million, or something like that. Not much at all. rgds Neil Perth > > What else would have to have been done? You'd have to complete another > > LM, you'd have to reconfigure a CSM for a lunar mission, you'd have to [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > were such tightwads. After all, cancelling 18 and 19 only saved $47 million, > or something like that. Not much at all. It is clear from Deke's book that the real reason of the cancellation was that everybody was scared by Apollo 13. Of course, they did not want to end the program just after the failure of 13. But they wanted to declare victory as soon as it was possible: 3 science mission, and it was over. Of course, citing costs was politically more correct, even if the actual saving was ridiculously low. > rgds > Neil > Perth > It is clear from Deke's book that the real reason of the cancellation was > that everybody was scared by Apollo 13. Of course, they did not want to end > the program just after the failure of 13. But they wanted to declare victory > as soon as it was possible: 3 science mission, and it was over. Of course, > citing costs was politically more correct, even if the actual saving was > ridiculously low. I think it's pretty overstated to say "everybody" was so scared by Apollo 13 that "everybody" wanted to red-light remaining landings ASAP. Deke's book makes it clear that *some* people at NASA felt that way -- but Deke's book (and other sources) makes it clear that *some* people thought that there was absolutely no point in continuing the Apollo program after Apollo 11. I think that, much moreso, what Deke's book and a vast number of other accounts proves is that Apollo 13, rather than scaring most NASA managers off of continuing moon flights, gave them an incredible amount of confidence that they could *continue* the lunar missions, that the spacecraft and the systems and the controllers were *so* good that they could pull it back from the edge of even that deep of an abyss. I think it might be more fair to say that Bob Gilruth was fundamentally scared by Apollo 13 -- but then again, Bob Gilruth was always, at a basic level, somewhat appalled by the hubris of a manned lunar program. He was instrumental in its success, but IIRC, he was the one who reacted to Kennedy's challenge with a profound sense of unease that he never completely lost. The funny thing is, no one at NASA seems to have been overly concerned about the one thing that *could* have guaranteed a failed mission and a dead crew -- a massive solar flare while the LM was on the surface. You hear about the various contingencies that were in place for such an event, but you never hear about NASA managers sweating over the solar forecasts, or getting updates on flare activity every five minutes during lunar missions, that kind of thing... even though there was a flare that would have killed a LM crew less than a month after Apollo 15 returned to Earth. Doug dvandorn@NOSPAM.mn.rr.com >The funny thing is, no one at NASA seems to have been overly concerned >about the one thing that *could* have guaranteed a failed mission and a >dead crew -- a massive solar flare while the LM was on the surface. It *guarantees* a failed mission and a dead crew only if the flare is both huge and extremely sudden. I'm not sure there has ever been one like that, although heaven knows our sample of them is limited. The giant flares usually start slowly, with a rise time of hours, giving adequate time for the LM crew to scoot back to the CSM and orient it for minimum dose (roughly, side hatch toward the lunar surface). In that case, the crew has a fairly good chance of survival.  SignatureMOST launched 30 June; science observations running | Henry Spencer since Oct; first surprises seen; papers pending. | henry@spsystems.net A little OT, but I recall a well-made if inaccurate drama with Beau Bridges. (Well let's call it poetic license.) He and his partner got slammed with a cosmic storm while on the lunar surface. Here it is.....James A. Michner's "Space" 1985 mini series. 13 hrs. Astronaut Randy Clagget. >Here it is.....James A. Michner's "Space" 1985 mini series. 13 hrs. ...Which is 14 hours too long. Very boring, droll morass. Even James Garner was lame in this one. Michener was to historical fiction what Stephen King is to horror - a worthless hack. OM Signature"No bastard ever won a war by dying for | http://www.io.com/~o_m his country. He won it by making the other | Sergeant-At-Arms poor dumb bastard die for his country." | Human O-Ring Society - General George S. Patton, Jr >>The funny thing is, no one at NASA seems to have been overly concerned >>about the one thing that *could* have guaranteed a failed mission and a [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] >dose (roughly, side hatch toward the lunar surface). In that case, the >crew has a fairly good chance of survival. ...Which means, as we've always known, that the overrated hack, Michener, didn't do any real research when he hacked together _Space_ and it's fatal Apollo 18 mission. OM Signature"No bastard ever won a war by dying for | http://www.io.com/~o_m his country. He won it by making the other | Sergeant-At-Arms poor dumb bastard die for his country." | Human O-Ring Society - General George S. Patton, Jr >...Which means, as we've always known, that the overrated hack, >Michener, didn't do any real research when he hacked together _Space_ >and it's fatal Apollo 18 mission. He botched the total number of engines on a Saturn V, IIRC. Pat >>...Which means, as we've always known, that the overrated hack, >>Michener, didn't do any real research when he hacked together _Space_ >>and it's fatal Apollo 18 mission. >> >He botched the total number of engines on a Saturn V, IIRC. As in not including 2 in the lunar module, or is there another error? I've always thought of "Space" as being excruciatingly badly written ("sort of skid through space") but at least fairly well researched. Seems it's not even that. SignatureSave the Hubble Space Telescope! Remove spam and invalid from address to reply. > As in not including 2 in the lunar module, or is there another error? I think it was in regards to the total number of motors in all three stages, but it's been a long time. Meanwhile, I'm contemplating the black NASA "F-14 Tomcat Split Tail" with the Lockheed 345 motors that can fly at Mach 2 all the way from Wallops island to north of Norway unrefueled- and land on ice using its thrust reversers- in Dan Brown's "Deception Point", and wondering if modern authors even have a clue what ten minutes on the internet might accomplish in regards to getting their story elements right. Pat >> As in not including 2 in the lunar module, or is there another error? > [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] >Wallops island to north of Norway unrefueled- and land on ice using its >thrust reversers- in Dan Brown's "Deception Point", Isn't the bit about landing on ice cribbed from "Firefox"? Can't remember the book, but I'm sure thrust reversers feature in the film. > Isn't the bit about landing on ice cribbed from "Firefox"? Can't > remember the book, but I'm sure thrust reversers feature in the film. Only if you can think in Russian. >>> As in not including 2 in the lunar module, or is there another error? >> [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > Isn't the bit about landing on ice cribbed from "Firefox"? Can't > remember the book, but I'm sure thrust reversers feature in the film. And, we might mention that an early Joe 90 episode feautred Joe swiping a Sov fighter, fighting off a pair of same model fighters, and taking it back to the UK... Of course, in that ep, it was all something that Joe might have done... <g> Andre -- " I'm a man... But, I can change... If I have to... I guess. " The Man Prayer, Red Green. >And, we might mention that an early Joe 90 episode feautred Joe >swiping a Sov fighter, fighting off a pair of same model fighters, >and taking it back to the UK... > >Of course, in that ep, it was all something that Joe might have >done... <g> "Okay, punk....you're asking yourself if I've fired five...or six....of my Aphid missiles, and to tell you the truth, I can't remember either...." Pat > Jonathan Silverlight (jsilverlight@spam.merseia.fsnet.co.uk.invalid) > writes: [quoted text clipped - 18 lines] > Of course, in that ep, it was all something that Joe might have > done... <g> That was the pilot (no pun intended) episode - the whole thing was a scenario pitched to Joe's dad as an example of how he could perform as a spy that nobody would suspect. Personally, if I'd been trying to persuade somebody to let his nine-year-old son do that kind of thing, I'd have left out all the aerial dogfight stuff... -- Gordon Davie Edinburgh, Scotland "Slipped the surly bonds of Earth...to touch the face of God" > Isn't the bit about landing on ice cribbed from "Firefox"? Can't > remember the book, but I'm sure thrust reversers feature in the film. Yeah, it lands next to the sub in the movie...on the other hand, do you remember how strange the Firefox looked? It was all made up of flat panels, and invisible to radar: http://www.jimbrooks.org/web/aviation/full/firefox.jpg I'll bet that the Pentagon and Lockheed just about crapped their pants the first time they saw the movie- the F-117 was declassified in 1988; the movie came out in 1982. And note the resemblance to MiG's latest fighter: http://www.jimbrooks.org/web/aviation/full/mig142_gg.jpg ...both twin vertical finned canard deltas. On the other hand, the F-14 relies on a arresting hook and brakes- not thrust reversers- to stop. Pat >I'm wondering if, had Apollo 17 needed to abort prior to landing, would >NASA have put together the spare parts needed to fly an Apollo 18 with >the 17 crew, to perform the landing at Taurus-Littrow and finish the >Apollo program on a successful note? There was some feeling within the upper reaches of NASA that 17 shouldn't have been flown in the first place, as with the exception of 13 there had been a solid string of successes and thus 17 represented as significant risk of ending the series on a down note. Given the costs of investigating and mitigating whatever failure precipitated the abort, and the need to call back folks who were getting pink slips even as the mission flew, and an apathetic Congress and Administration... >What else would have to have been done? You'd have to complete another >LM, you'd have to reconfigure a CSM for a lunar mission, you'd have to >build another LRV... what else? You forgot the biggest hurdle; Convincing Congress to cough up the cabbage. >What do y'all think? Do you think the pressure to finally land a >geologist on the Moon and to end the program with a success would have >been enough to mount a replacement mission? Pressure from whom? On whom? It's not like geologists were/are a major political constituency or that there was any significant public support. D. SignatureTouch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh. > As of December, 1972, there were still complete Saturn V stacks > available to be launched, correct? Correct. Well, there was one. SA-514 (parts of which are now on display at JSC and KSC) could have been pressed into service. SA-515 was also complete, however the S-IVB-515 stage had already been converted to the backup Skylab orbital workshop, so the booster had no S-IVB stage. > I'm wondering if, had Apollo 17 needed to abort prior to landing, would > NASA have put together the spare parts needed to fly an Apollo 18 with > the 17 crew, to perform the landing at Taurus-Littrow and finish the > Apollo program on a successful note? I have serious doubts that this could have happened. To begin with, an abort of any kind is going to generate a need for lengthy periods of analysis and diagnosis as to the cause of the abort. Arbitrary hardware modifications will probably have been mandated and would have needed to be applied prior to another flight. (It is not very politically acceptable for NASA to tell Congress after a mission failure "don't worry, we'll just send up another one and it'll be fine".) By the time this would have happened (think 12 months or so), any public pressure for a re-flight (if there was any to begin with) would have pretty much evaporated. > I know that the launch pads were subsequently modified -- to a degree -- > to support the Skylab launches. But wouldn't the pad from which the > workshop was launched be available for one more manned Saturn V launch? There were three mobile launchers (ML-1, ML-2 and ML-3) built for Apollo. By the time Apollo 17 was flown, ML-1 had already had the "milkstool" attached to support Skylab Saturn-IB launches and was therefore unavailable for Saturn-V missions. ML-2 was the launcher from which SA-513 (aka SL-1) was launched and I understand that it had had modifications made to it (removing the "white room" swing arm etc) for use with SA-513. Therefore that only leaves ML-3 for use by a theoretical Apollo 18. (ML-3 was the mobile launcher that was used by Apollo 17.) Work on converting ML-3 for Shuttle operations started some time after the Apollo 17 mission, for example the LUT from ML-3 mostly became the FSS at LC-39B, but not so soon that it wouldn't have been available for another Saturn-V flight. I'm not sure what other changes had already been made to the fixed support equipment at LC-39A/B. Presumably at least one of the complexes was still capable of supporting Apollo Saturn-V missions (as opposed to purely Skylab Saturn-Vs). Does anyone know if the Saturn-V fixed support equipment was significantly changed for the SA-513 launch? I believe that the S-IC and S-II support equipment for Apollo and Skylab was the same, but obviously the S-IVB is a different story. > What else would have to have been done? You'd have to complete another > LM, you'd have to reconfigure a CSM for a lunar mission, you'd have to > build another LRV... what else? LM-13 was not complete when Apollo 18 was cancelled. However, it must have been close enough to complete, as it has been fully restored (you've probably seen it as the LM used to depict all the H and J series LMs in the series "From The Earth To The Moon") and now sits in a near flight-ready state in the Cradle of Aviation Museum. It might have taken a while to get LM-13 completed, but probably within the post-mortem window affored by the mission failure analysis. As to which CSM would have been used, I'm unsure. CSM-115 would be the obvious choice, CSM-114 flew Apollo 17, but I'm not sure if it was completed or not. CSM-111 which eventually flew the ASTP mission was availble, but it was not capable of supporting a J-series mission. > What do y'all think? Do you think the pressure to finally land a > geologist on the Moon and to end the program with a success would have > been enough to mount a replacement mission? The technical requirements for a Apollo 17 reflight would have been pretty easy to meet, however in my opinion the political (read "public") pressure for such a mission would not have been sufficient to push the process through. SignatureSQL> select * from users | Justin Wigg - Perth, AUSTRALIA where clue > 0; | http://www.dws.com.au no rows selected | Reply: jwigg@dws.com.au >> As of December, 1972, there were still complete Saturn V stacks >> available to be launched, correct? [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] >converted to the backup Skylab orbital workshop, so the booster had no >S-IVB stage. However, when SA-513 launched Skylab, its S-IVB was not used, so it was sitting around somewhere. (Skylab itself was converted from a Saturn IB S-IVB, the selection of the primary hardware having already been made before the wet->dry change.) So there were enough parts on hand to put together two complete Saturn Vs, although only one was originally built as a single vehicle. >I'm not sure what other changes had already been made to the fixed >support equipment at LC-39A/B. Presumably at least one of the >complexes was still capable of supporting Apollo Saturn-V missions (as >opposed to purely Skylab Saturn-Vs). Does anyone know if the Saturn-V >fixed support equipment was significantly changed for the SA-513 >launch? Some of it but not all of it -- bearing in mind that much of it existed in two or more copies -- because NASA had not, then, given up hope of using those last two Saturn Vs for something. (Hopes of restarting production *had* finally died, but doing something useful with the remaining hardware was still on the table then.) >As to which CSM would have been used, I'm unsure. CSM-115 would be >the obvious choice ... but I'm not sure if it was completed or not. It wasn't. ASTP would have liked to use 115 and 115A (as prime and backup respectively), to put Earth-resources instruments in the SIM bay, but couldn't afford the extra costs of finishing them. ASTP had to manage with hardware on hand, which was 111 and the Skylab backup, 119. >The technical requirements for a Apollo 17 reflight would have been >pretty easy to meet, however in my opinion the political (read >"public") pressure for such a mission would not have been sufficient >to push the process through. I'm afraid Justin is right. Given that there was a mission to assign him to, NASA internal politics dictated flying Schmitt... but it wasn't a big enough deal to justify adding a mission, not when that would have meant difficult negotiations with Congress. Not when NASA had the perfect excuse not to bother: "gee, too bad we're not funded for another one". SignatureMOST launched 30 June; science observations running | Henry Spencer since Oct; first surprises seen; papers pending. | henry@spsystems.net |
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