Here's an interesting report from 1971 entitled "Study of an Evolutionary Interim Earth Orbit Program". It's basically calling for four more Skylabs, each one built successively after the others, designed for 1 year missions, and launched every 2 1/2 years, so that lessons learned from each station can be incorporated into the design of the next. The stations were to be serviced and resupplied by Apollo CSMs, possibly uprated to the four-man variant. The launch vehicle for the stations would have been the INT-21 variants of the final four Saturn V's, which were to be freed up by cancelling the lunar missions after Apollo 15. The crews and resupply craft would have been launched by either (uprated) Saturn IB's, Titan III-M with a hammerhead adapter section for the CSM (though this vehicle had insufficient performance to carry additional supplies and thus was eliminated) or a new Saturn IB variant using a three-motor cluster of Titan III-M SRMs for it's first stage with an S-IVB from Saturn IB for the second stage. The stations themselves would have been constructed similar to Skylab, using the S-IVB stages in the 'dry workshop' configuration, launched atop the two-stage Saturn V (using the S-IC and S-II stages similar to Skylab). The SRM/S-IVB launcher was shown to be cheapest and have the greatest lift capacity of any of the logistics/crew launchers examined.

The whole purpose of this proposal was to keep NASA "occupied" during the long gap between the final Skylab flight and the first shuttle flights leading up to the space station (which at the time was supposed to go hand-in-hand with the space shuttle) though no mention was made of the ASTP flights at the time (probably before the idea was even floated... )

At any rate, it's an interesting "might have been"... the last of the missions would have overlapped shuttle (well, by the preliminary timelines anyway-- since shuttle was delayed probably not had this proposal actually been done). Also ramps up the reality of a 3 SRM clustered first stage replacement for Saturn IB... by this time the 156 and 260 inch SRMs must've been well and truly dead, for no mention of them whatsoever was made.

Enjoy! OL JR

Attached Files

NASA Study Summary- Study of an Evolutionary Interim Earth Orbit Program.txt (14.9 KB, 60 views)

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The first pic is the interim orbital workshop... the Mission A space station from this proposal.


Pic two is the Skylab showing its arrangement of solar arrays to provide sufficient power to the station.


Pic three is the second interim space station from the Mission B. It basically is showing how many solar arrays can be crammed onto an S-IVB with some careful packaging... (deploying them might be another matter... LOL


Pic four is the third and fourth space station from the C and D missions. These would use solar power augmented by a nuclear/Brayton cycle generator to provide the bulk of the electrical power. They would also use advanced "closed loop" life support systems as demonstrators for the future permanent space station design to go hand-in-hand with shuttle.


Pic five is the INT-21 launch vehicle as defined for this report.


More to come! OL JR

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Pic one is not actually from this study, but it's relevant to it... it's the INT-21 from the Saturn improvement studies relating to intermediate vehicles.


Pic two is not from this study, but again, it's relevant. It's the graphic of the various proposals for SRM Saturn IB first stages using the 120 inch Titan III UA-1205 or 1207 SRMs clustered for a first stage with the S-IVB on top of it, lofting the CSM and whatever cargo module would have been used. This version was capable of 55,000 lbs to LEO and was recommended over the Saturn IB which could only deliver about 33,000 lbs to the same orbit, or Titan III-M which could only deliver 25,000 lbs.


Pic three is from the 1961 Grand Central Rocket Co. Very Large Solid Rocket study, again of a three-120 inch SRM first stage topped by liquid propellant stages, in this case, the 4 J-2 engined early C-3 S-II stage which was also to be 260 inches in diameter like the single J-2 powered S-IVB, and this particular iteration also uses the S-IV upper stage powered by what was to become six RL-10's (the 220 inch stage). The first stage is very similar to what would have likely been built for such a vehicle.


Pic four is showing the head end of the three 120 inch SRM cluster, where it would join to the S-IVB. As you can see, three 120 inch SRMs fit nicely within the 260 inch OML of the S-IVB stage, making for a streamlined rocket and easier engineering of the fwd skirt of the SRM first stage to mate to the S-IVB upper stage.


Pic five is the side view of the 3 SRM first stage.


More to come! OL JR

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Pic one is the mid section of the three motor cluster foldout from the previous pic in the last post, showing the relevant dimensions.


Pic two is the nozzle end of the three motor cluster foldout, with dimensions. This version would have been heavy but probably could have been handled in the VAB and crawlers, with any luck.


Pic three is the complete foldout showing all three views. This is the early GCR proposal, but the final product would have been quite similar, most likely, only differing in the length of the UA-1207 SRMs used on Titan III-M instead of the three-segment GCR 120 inch proposed SRMs here. The final stage would have undoubtedly had some kind of forward skirt structure to link the spider beams connecting the three head ends of the SRMs together and transfer the thrust through a ring-frame and hat-section skin-stiffened skirt into the cylindrical skin of the S-IVB interstage, as well as providing a joint plane for connection of the S-IVB interstage with the upper end of the SRM first stage to bolt them together. There may well have been an aft skirt as well, to cover and protect and support control and monitoring equipment in the aft end of the first stage, and possibly support additional aerodynamic fins to augment the vehicle stability early in flight, as with Saturn IB and Saturn V. Six Saturn IB fins would look good on this vehicle! Another likely difference from the proposal shown here would be the addition of steering fluid tanks nearly identical to those used on Titan III... the "steering vanes" of this early GCR proposal were outdated nearly before the ink was dry on the proposal! Titan III had successfully used and proven the steering fluid injection system many times by the time this vehicle would have flown, and there would be no reason whatsoever to use a different kind of system. It would have required the installation of three small cylindrical steering tanks nestled in between the SRM's in the first stage cluster, mounted probably near the middle to minimize CG changes to the stage during flight (since the SRMs burn from the center outward and had much smaller CG changes than a comparable liquid propelled stage. Any model would be incomplete without them...


That's it for this one! Later! OL JR

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Any drawings of this proposal? I think it would make for a wickedly cool concept scale model.


Bill

And it might look sort of like a Centuri/Semroc Defender.


Bill

Nope, no drawings that I know of... I have a pic of a scale model someone did over on the NASA model thread on nasaspaceflight.com/forums... Think it's the same guy that did all the Saturn I/IB's and stuff...

Here's all I could find right now... I'll have to find it later... gotta run errands...

OL JR

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The second picture would seem more like it, though the "hammerhead" is longer than I was expecting; the first one implies a 10 foot diameter capsule.


Bill

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If memory serves, the 1970s-vintage novel "Lucifer's Hammer" (about a comet striking the Earth) featured a quickly cobbled-together Titan IIIC/Apollo CSM combination very similar to the Titan IIIM/Apollo CSM, which was orbited along with a separately-launched Soyuz to form the international "Hammerlab" observatory to observe what was originally thought to be a very close flyby of Earth by the comet's nucleus.

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No, I think the first one was for a four-engine core proposal called "Barbarian" or something to that effect... It would have had the core enlarged from the Titan II's standard ten foot diameter to about 13 feet, which would have made the 154 inch diameter Apollo SM a direct mate-up to the upper stage. Note the core of that vehicle has four nozzles... I think they just doubled up on the LR-87's IIRC... I know I read about that proposal a year or two ago on astronautix.com...

Lemme see if I can find that model pic... I'm not having much luck finding it on my hard drive...

More later! OL JR

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