NASA
Apollo didn’t die; it was killed. The Apollo Program might have continued for many years, evolving constantly to achieve new goals at relatively low cost. Instead, programs designed to give Apollo a future beyond the first lunar landing began to feel the brunt of cuts even before Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon. By the time Apollo drew to its premature conclusion – the final mission to use Apollo hardware was the joint U.S,-Soviet Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP) mission of July 1975 – NASA was busy building a wholly new space program based on the Space Shuttle. Throwing out the Apollo investment and starting over with Shuttle was incredibly wasteful both in terms of learned capabilities and money.
Apollo as we knew it included over its seven-year series of flights a total of six basic major hardware elements. They were: the Saturn V rocket, available in three-stage and two-stage varieties; the two-stage Saturn IB rocket; the Apollo Command and Service Module (CSM) workhorse spacecraft; the Apollo Lunar Module (LM) moon lander; the Skylab orbital workshop; and the ASTP Docking Module (DM).
Apollo missions 1, 2, and 3 either did not fly (in the case of Apollo 1, which killed astronauts Gus Grissom, Edward White, and Roger Chaffee on 27 January 1967) or were cancelled (in the case of Apollo 2 and Apollo 3). Flown missions began with Apollo 4, the first unmanned test of the Saturn V rocket (9 November 1967). Apollo 5 was a Saturn IB-launched unmanned Lunar Module (LM) test. Apollo 6 was a second unmanned Saturn V rocket test.
All subsequent Apollo and Apollo follow-on missions save one were launched bearing three-man crews. Apollo 7 (11-22 October 1968), the first piloted Apollo flight, was a Saturn IB-launched Earth-orbital CSM-only mission. In large measure, it accomplished the mission originally planned for Apollo 1. Apollo 8 (21-27 December 1968) was a Saturn V-launched lunar-orbital CSM-only mission; Apollo 9, a Saturn V-launched, Earth-orbital CSM/LM test. Apollo 10 was a lunar-orbital dress rehearsal for Apollo 11 (16-24 July 1969), the first piloted lunar landing.
NASA
NASA gave alphanumeric designations to the Apollo missions; Apollo 8 was, for example, designated C-prime. Apollo 11 was the first and only G-class mission. The Apollo 11 moonwalk lasted a little over two hours and the crew remained on the moon for only 22 hours. Though momentous (and the signal to most people that Apollo could end), Apollo 11 was mainly a full-up engineering test of the Apollo lunar mission system from Earth launch to Earth splashdown and post-mission quarantineh. It paved the way for the H-class missions: Apollo 12 (H-1) which, after a pinpoint landing near the unmanned Surveyor III lander, included a 32-hour surface stay and two moonwalks; Apollo 13 (H-2), the “successful failure” (as NASA called it) which through adversity hinted at Apollo’s untapped potential; and Apollo 14 (H-3), which included the longest lunar surface traverse on foot of the Apollo Program.
NASA originally planned for Apollo 15 to be H-4, but upgraded it to J-1 after NASA Administrator Thomas Paine, in an ill-advised attempt at horse-trading with the Nixon White House, cancelled one H mission and one J mission. J missions included LMs with longer landing hover times, lunar surface stays of about three days, improved space suits supporting up to four moonwalks, and a lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV). Individual moonwalk duration was stretched to almost eight hours, in part because of suit improvements, but also because riding the LRV reduced astronaut metabolic rates; seated, they used less oxygen and cooling water than when on foot. Apollo 16 was called J-2 and Apollo 17 (7-19 December 1972), the last piloted lunar mission of the 20th century, was J-3.
Apollo 17 saw the final flight of the LM and the three-stage Saturn V. Six months after it abandoned the moon, NASA launched Skylab 1, the first and only Skylab Orbital Workshop, on the first and only two-stage Saturn V to fly. Three Saturn IB rockets each launched a CSM bearing three men to Skylab 1 for stays of up to 84 days. They lifted off from a makeshift raised platform (“the milkstool”) on Saturn V Pad 39B.
Eighteen months after the Skylab 4 CSM returned to Earth, the last Saturn IB launched the last CSM, designated only “Apollo,” into low-Earth orbit for a meet-up with a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft. The first and only Docking Module, an airlock that enabled crews to move safely between the incompatible atmospheres of the Apollo and the Soyuz spacecraft, rode inside the tapered shroud that linked the bottom of the CSM to the top of the Saturn IB’s S-IVB second stage. The Apollo turned end for end, docked with the DM, withdrew it from the shroud, and began maneuvers that would lead to the first international docking in space.
On 24 July 1975, six years to the day after Apollo 11 returned from the moon, the ASTP Apollo parachuted to a splashdown in the Pacific, ending all use of Apollo rockets and spacecraft. A second Skylab workshop was placed on display in the National Air & Space Museum in Washington, DC. Two Saturn Vs, one of which might have launched the second Skylab, and an assortment of Saturn IB rockets, CSMs, and LMs were parceled out to museums or scrapped.
President Lyndon Baines Johnson, a NASA supporter (in 1958, as Senate Majority Leader, he had been instrumental in its creation), had predicted Apollo’s premature end. In 1967, Congress slashed the $450 million he requested to start the Apollo Applications Program (AAP) to just $122 million. AAP – which would rapidly shrink to become the Skylab Program – was intended to exploit Apollo hardware and operational experience to accomplish new lunar and Earth-orbital missions. As news of the deep cuts in his AAP request reached the White House, Johnson mused that, “the way the American people are, now that they have all this capability, instead of taking advantage of it, they’ll probably just piss it all away.”
What if Johnson had got it wrong? What if, somehow, Americans had cared more about space exploration and so had sought to wring from their $24-billion Apollo investment for everything they could?
The Soviet Union for many years numbered its Soyuz missions consecutively regardless of changes in spacecraft purpose and design. If Apollo had been allowed to survive and thrive, perhaps the United States would have adopted a similar numbering policy, ultimately yielding impressively high alphanumeric mission designation numbers.
What follows is an unabashed exercise in alternate history speculation (and, above all, shameless wishful thinking). It is based on actual NASA and contractor plans described elsewhere in Beyond Apollo (see the links at the bottom of this post) and is written as though the events it recounts actually occurred.
One word of caution: in order to simplify an already complex timeline, I have ignored the possibility of accidents. Spaceflight is risky, yet in this alternate history timeline all missions occur exactly as planned. The likelihood that every mission described below would come off as planned, with no mishaps or outright disasters, would in fact be small.
1971-1972
Because no one sought to kill Apollo, Paine felt no urge to trade away two Apollo missions in the vain hope that the Nixon White House would support his plans for a large Earth-orbital space station. This meant that Apollo 15 remained H-4. The first J mission (J-1) was Apollo 16 and Apollo 17 was J-2.
Apollo Earth-orbital space station flights began in late 1971. Apollo 18 was the unmanned launch of the first two-stage Saturn V bearing a temporary Earth-orbiting space station. In keeping with NASA’s old penchant for program names from Greek and Roman mythology, the station was dubbed Olympus 1. The Olympus name had a heritage in the world of space station planning going back to the early 1960s. The Apollo-derived Olympus station resembled Skylab, but with more internal decks and without its side-mounted Apollo Telescope Mount and “windwill” solar arrays.
Apollo 19, the first K-class Earth-orbital CSM, lifted off on a Saturn IB from Launch Complex 34 with three astronauts on board. Apollo 19 remained docked to Olympus 1′s axial (“front”) docking port while its crew worked on board the station for 28 days – twice as long as any previous U.S. crew. The Apollo 20 (K-2) crew then demolished Apollo 19′s newly set record by living on board Olympus 1 for 56 days.
Apollo 21 (I-1), a Saturn V-launched mission to lunar polar orbit, marked the start of a new phase of Apollo lunar exploration. Two astronauts orbited the moon for 28 days in a CSM with an attached Lunar Observation Module (LOM) in place of an LM. The astronauts charted the moon’s surface in great detail to enable scientists and engineers to select future Apollo landing sites and traverse routes.
Apollo 22 (K-3) delivered another three-man crew to Olympus 1 for a 112-day stay, doubling Apollo 20′s stay-time. Ninety days into their mission, the two-man Apollo 23 (K-4) CSM docked at Olympus 1′s single radial (“side”) docking port for 10 days. One of the Apollo 23 astronauts was a medical doctor; he conducted health evaluations of the Apollo 22 crew. If any member of the Apollo 22 crew had been found to be unhealthy, then all would have returned to Earth in either their own Apollo 22 CSM or with the Apollo 23 crew in its CSM, which included three extra couches. As it turned out, the Apollo 22 astronauts were in good shape and high spirits, so NASA authorized continuation of their mission to its full planned duration. Before returning to Earth, the Apollo 22 crew used their CSM’s main engine to boost Olympus 1 to a higher orbit, postponing its reentry by up to 10 years.
NASA referred to the Apollo 22 crew as the third Olympus 1 resident crew and the Apollo 23 crew as the first Olympus 1 visitor crew. The full alphanumeric designations for Apollos 22 and 23 were O-1/K-3/R-3 and O-1/K-4/V-1, respectively. Most people did not pay attention to those designations, however, being satisfied to call the missions by their Apollo numbers.
1973
NASA ordered 15 Saturn V rockets for the Apollo Program. In 1968, NASA Deputy Administrator for Manned Space Flight George Mueller asked NASA Administrator James Webb for permission to order more Saturn V rockets. With budgets for post-Apollo space programs already under fierce attack, Webb rejected Mueller’s request. In our alternate timeline, Webb’s answer was different. Apollo 24 (J-3) used the last Saturn V of the original Apollo buy. This fact aroused only passing interest, however, since in our alternate timeline no one considered halting the Saturn V assembly lines. Apollo 25 (J-4) launched atop the first new-buy Saturn V, the 16th Saturn V to be built.
Apollos 24 and 25 together explored a single scientifically interesting landing site. Apollo 25 also carried out technology experiments. Two months after the Apollo 24 ascent stage departed the site, the Apollo 25 LM landed about a kilometer away from the derelict Apollo 24 descent stage. The Apollo LM descent engine kicked up potentially damaging dust during landing, so the Apollo 25 astronauts inspected Apollo 24′s descent stage, LRV, and ALSEP experiments to determine whether a one-kilometer landing separation distance was adequate. Apollo 25 also deployed an experimental solar array and a small battery-driven remote-controlled rover. Controllers on Earth drove the rover several hundred meters over the next two months.
NASA named the Saturn V launch of the Olympus 2 space station Apollo 26. It lifted off from Pad 39C, a new Complex 39 launch pad north of the existing 39A and 39B pads at Kennedy Space Center (KSC). 39C was designed for both Saturn V and Saturn IB launches, putting NASA on track to retiring the Complex 34 Saturn IB pad located south of Kennedy Space Center within Cape Canaveral Air Force Station boundaries. Soon after Olympus 2 reached orbit, the last Saturn IB to use Complex 34 launched the three-man Apollo 27 crew. Their mission: to live and work on board Olympus 2 for up to 224 days.
Over the course of the Apollo 27 mission, NASA launched four Saturn IB rockets with Centaur upper stages. Two lifted off from Pad 39C and two from newly upgraded Pad 39A. Each boosted into geostationary orbit one Radio/TV Relay Satellite (RTRS); three operational satellites and a spare. Olympus 2 thus became the first space station capable of uninterrupted voice, data, and TV contact with Mission Control at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, and Payload Control at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
The Saturn IB-launched Apollo 28 CSM lifted off from Pad 39C 45 days into the Apollo 27 crew’s stint on board Olympus 2. The six-day, three-person mission included the first female U.S. astronaut.
Apollo 29, another 6-day, three-person mission, reached Olympus 2 110 days into the Apollo 27 mission. It included the first non-American to fly on a U.S. spacecraft.
1974
Apollo 30, a two-person mission similar to Apollo 23, reached Olympus 2 about 180 days into the Apollo 27 mission. The Apollo 27 astronauts proved to be in good health, so NASA authorized that their mission continue to its full planned duration. The Apollo 30 crew returned to Earth in Apollo 27′s CSM, leaving behind their fresh CSM for the long-duration astronauts.
Just before the Apollo 27 crew ended their record-setting stay in space – a record that would hold for more than a decade – the unmanned Apollo 31 Saturn V launched a pair of modified RTRS satellites (one operational and one spare) into a loose orbit around the quasi-stable Earth-moon L2 point, 33,000 miles beyond the moon. When NASA launched Apollo 34 (J-5) to the moon’s Farside hemisphere, out of sight of Earth, the satellites provided continuous radio, data, and TV communication with both the orbiting CSM while it orbited over the Farside hemisphere and the LM parked on the Farside surface.
The Apollo 32 Saturn V launched Olympus 3 – intended to be a “long-life” space station – from Pad 39A. It included three equally spaced radial docking ports, expanded solar arrays, and guest living quarters. The next day, the three-man Apollo 33 crew lifted off from Pad 39C to begin a 180-stay on board the station. One hundred and eighty days became the standard duration for later Olympus station missions. The Apollo 27 crew had remained on board Olympus 2 for 224 days so that NASA could have in place a “cushion” of biomedical knowledge in the event that a 180-day mission had to be extended; for example, if a resident crew’s CSM proved faulty when time came to return to Earth and a rescue had to be mounted.
Apollo 34 (J-5) was the first piloted mission to the moon’s hidden Farside. The last of the J-class lunar landing missions, its crew included the first woman on the moon.
Apollo 35, a 10-day, three-person mission, delivered the first Cargo Carrier (CC-1) to Olympus 3 60 days into the Apollo 33 mission. CC-1 rode to orbit inside the segmented shroud between the top of the Saturn IB’s S-IVB second stage and the bottom of the Apollo CSM. After S-IVB shutdown, the Apollo 35 crew separated their CSM from the shroud, which peeled back in four parts and separated from the stage. They then turned their CSM end-for-end to dock with CC-1′s “outboard” docking port and detached CC-1 from the S-IVB.
The Apollo 35 CSM docked with one of Olympus 3′s three radial ports using CC-1′s “inboard” docking port. Its crew then entered the station through the cargo module’s meter-wide central tunnel. When their visit with the Apollo 33 crew drew to an end 10 days after it began, they undocked their CSM from CC-1, leaving it attached to Olympus 3 so that it could serve as a “pantry” or “walk-in closet.”
The crew of Apollo 36, another 10-day visitor mission to Olympus 3, included a black Commander. When they arrived at the station 120 days into the Apollo 33 mission, they docked with CC-1′s outboard port. When time came to return to Earth, they undocked CC-1 from Olympus 3. Following their deorbit burn, they undocked their CSM from CC-1 and performed a small separation maneuver. CC-1, packed with trash, burned up in Earth’s atmosphere, and the Apollo 36 Command Module (CM) splashed down in the Pacific.
1975
The Apollo 32 resident crew undocked from Olympus 3 and returned to Earth, and two days later the Apollo 37 CSM arrived with Olympus 3′s second resident crew and, on its nose, a hefty telescope module. The crew docked the telescope module to the radial port on the side of Olympus 3 opposite the port used for Cargo Carriers, then undocked from the telescope module’s outboard port and redocked with Olympus 3′s axial port. Olympus 3 thus became the world’s first multi-modular space station.
Attention then shifted back to the lunar track of the on-going Apollo Program. Apollo 38 (L-1A) saw an unmanned, uprated Saturn V rocket launch directly to the lunar surface an LM-derived Lunar Cargo Carrier (LCC-1) bearing a Dual-Mode Lunar Rover (DMLR). Apollo 40 (L-1B) launched an Augmented CSM (ACSM) and the first Augmented Lunar Module (ALM). The ACSM remained in continuous contact with Earth over the moon’s Farside hemisphere through the RTRS satellites at Earth-moon L2. The ALM descended to a landing within about a kilometer of the Apollo 38 LCC-1. The astronauts deployed the DMLR and drove it on five traverses during their one-week stay on the moon. They then reconfigured it for Earth-guided operation. After the DMLR retreated to a safe distance, the Apollo 40 ALM ascent stage ignited to return the crew to the orbiting ACSM and, subsequently, to Earth.
The DMRV then began a 500-kilometer overland trek to the next planned Apollo landing site. As it moved slowly over the rugged surface, it imaged its surroundings at high resolution and occasionally stopped to collect an intriguing rock or a scoop of dirt. The next ALM crew, set to land next to a pre-landed LCC in 1976, would retrieve the DMLR’s samples for return to Earth, reconfigure the DMLR for driver use, explore their landing site, then reconfigure the DMLR again for Earth-guided operation.
Sandwiched between Apollo 38 and Apollo 40 was Saturn IB-launched Apollo 39, a routine 10-day visitor mission to Olympus 3 bearing Cargo Carrier-2. Apollo 39 docked CC-2′s inboard port with one of the two unoccupied radial Olympus 3 docking ports.
The Apollo 41 CSM docked with the third Olympus 3 radial port bearing the station’s third resident crew. The start of their mission overlapped the end of the Apollo 37 resident crew’s 180-day stay in space. The handover marked the start of Olympus 3′s continuous occupation, which lasted until shortly before the station was deorbited in 1979.
Apollo 42, another 10-day visitor mission to Olympus 3, docked at the Cargo Carrier-2 outboard port and, when they returned to Earth, deorbited it over the Pacific Ocean. Apollo 43, the second 10-day mission to visit the Apollo 41 resident crew, rounded out NASA’s 1975 piloted spaceflight schedule.
In our alternate timeline, NASA’s Apollo-based piloted space program is hitting its stride. Earth-orbital operations are becoming routine; lunar-surface operations, for their part, will continue to evolve. In our timeline, Apollo has already drawn to its ill-considered close. For us, Apollo would surface again twice before the first Space Shuttle flight in April 1981: in September 1977, when NASA was compelled by funding cuts to shut off the science instruments the six Apollo lunar landing crews had left behind on the moon; and in July 1979, when Skylab reentered Earth’s atmosphere, pelting Australia with debris.
References
A Forgotten Rocket: The Saturn IB
Project Olympus (1962)
Before the Fire: Saturn-Apollo Applications (1966)
Assuming Everything Goes Perfectly Well: NASA’s 26 January 1967 AAP Press Conference (1967)
Ending Apollo (1968)
Cancelled: Apollo 15 and Apollo 19 (1970)
McDonnell Douglas Phase B 12-Man Space Station (1970)
Five Options for NASA’s (Lunar) Future (1970)
Apollo Returns to Its Earth-Orbital Roots (1971)
A 1971 Plan for an Evolutionary Interim Space Station Program
Skylab Rescue Plan (1972)
NASA Marshall’s Skylab Reuse Study (1977)
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