If Nasa knew what we know now what....?

Hans

Philosopher
Hans
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May 10, 2007
Messages
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.....would they have change in their moon landing plan/preparation and execution starting in 1962?
 
Kill Osama Bin Laden.

Stop Justin Beiber's parents from meeting.

Fake the landing and invest the cash in Microsoft and Apple.
 
Keep Kennedy and Johnson from escalating US involvement in the Vietnam war.

Build a program that is more than just a race to the moon so that we can continue to use the hardware for other projects.

Ranb
 
Sorry, I'm a bit obtuse tonight. What is it that they know now that would have changed their plans?
That there was a design flaw in the Apollo Service Module that would cause Apollo 13 to "we've had a problem"? Probably.
That there was a design flaw that would cause the Apollo 1 fire? Probably.
That the Soviet moon rocket wasn't really a viable concept? Probably not.
That Richard "I am not a crook" Nixon was a crook? Probably not.
That hiring Stanley Kubrick to fake the landings would be called out by idiots who don't recognize JPEG artifacts? Is that where we're going?
 
1. That we didn't have to push for a 1968 manned landing to beat the USSR. Jump completely past the Block-I CSM. Gus Grissom becomes the first man on the moon in early 1969.

2. The Shuttle will take longer to develop than thought. Continue the Saturn I manned booster in service. Re-boost Skylab. Skylab becomes the core of a larger, more capable ISS.
 
Pope130 said:
1. That we didn't have to push for a 1968 manned landing to beat the USSR. Jump completely past the Block-I CSM. Gus Grissom becomes the first man on the moon in early 1969.

2. The Shuttle will take longer to develop than thought. Continue the Saturn I manned booster in service. Re-boost Skylab. Skylab becomes the core of a larger, more capable ISS.
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1. If you're not in a hurry because it isn't a race, why would it happen earlier? Safer, yes. Apollo 11 was July '69.

2. Shuttle was ever so much later, no change on it. But continuing the moon landings, Saturn, and Skylab development was entirely dependent on politics and economics. NASA would have wanted to, and did, but it was out of their control.
 
Trebuchet said:
1. If you're not in a hurry because it isn't a race, why would it happen earlier? Safer, yes. Apollo 11 was July '69.

2. Shuttle was ever so much later, no change on it. But continuing the moon landings, Saturn, and Skylab development was entirely dependent on politics and economics. NASA would have wanted to, and did, but it was out of their control.
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After the loss of Apollo I the whole program went through a review and rework that delayed the flights. The plan had been for a landing in 1968. With a more relaxed schedule, waiting on the Block II CSM, but without the year to eighteen month rework period, a landing in early '69 is reasonable. In engineering there is a saying: "Don't rush, it'll only slow you down."

Originally it was planned that Sky lab would be a destination for the Shuttle. The delay in that program, and a more rapid than anticipated degradation of Skylab's orbit, brought it down before the Shuttle was available. There were no other US manned vehicles available.

Edited to add NASA 1977 illustration.
 

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I agree with a couple of things here
1. NASA should have known about how dangerous pure oxygen is. So never have allowed anyone to be in a compressed pure oxygen atmosphere. Not to mention how dangerous the Apollo 1 craft was.
2. Vietnam war should never have had large scale American involvement. Without this NASA could have become bigger and better. So could America.

Of course you could look back and see how stupid some of the decisions people have made. There are a few active threads here on that subject.
 
NASA would have known not to exile Khan in a hibernation starship in 1996, to watch out for stowaways on the family colony saucers they launched in 1997, to be much better prepared for asteroid impacts in 1998, not to store all that fissionable radioactive waste on the moon in 1999, not to put HAL in charge of the cryo life support systems in 2001, and of course, to watch out for replicants escaping from the off-world colonies in 2019.
 
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Myriad said:
NASA would have known not to exile Khan in a hibernation starship in 1996, to watch out for stowaways on the family colony saucers they launched in 1997, to be much better prepared for asteroid impacts in 1998, not to store all that fissionable radioactive waste on the moon in 1999, not to put HAL in charge of the cryo life support systems in 2001, and of course, to watch out for replicants escaping from the off-world colonies in 2019.
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Stay indoors and watch a lot of TV did ya?

:thumbsup:

____________________________________________

Thanks for everyone's comments - any thoughts on not using some astronauts or using then some that were not hired until later? Different scientists or admin folks?

Any changes to the unmanned probe efforts?
 
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ahhell said:
They did that, we have ICBMs to show for it.
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As far as I know the Redstone, Atlas and Titan rockets were already developed as military weapons prior to NASA using them to put their own payloads in orbit. I'm not aware of any Saturn 1 or Saturn V uses for the military although the Saturn 1 may have started out with military payloads in mind.

Please correct me if I'm wrong.
 
rjh01 said:
1. NASA should have known about how dangerous pure oxygen is. So never have allowed anyone to be in a compressed pure oxygen atmosphere. Not to mention how dangerous the Apollo 1 craft was.
2. Vietnam war should never have had large scale American involvement. Without this NASA could have become bigger and better. So could America.
Click to expand...

This ignores the context of the times. BOTH the moon effort AND the Vietnam War were artifacts of the Cold War. If, for instance, the US had decided to leave Southeast Asia alone, the same political reasoning would have suggested that there was no need wasting money on space, either.
 
Myriad said:
NASA would have known not to exile Khan in a hibernation starship in 1996, to watch out for stowaways on the family colony saucers they launched in 1997, to be much better prepared for asteroid impacts in 1998, not to store all that fissionable radioactive waste on the moon in 1999, not to put HAL in charge of the cryo life support systems in 2001, and of course, to watch out for replicants escaping from the off-world colonies in 2019.
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:bigclap
 
Ranb said:
As far as I know the Redstone, Atlas and Titan rockets were already developed as military weapons prior to NASA using them to put their own payloads in orbit. I'm not aware of any Saturn 1 or Saturn V uses for the military although the Saturn 1 may have started out with military payloads in mind.

Please correct me if I'm wrong.
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My understanding is that you're not wrong.

NASA developed launch vehicles in a parallel program from the military ICBM efforts. Early on, NASA used man-rated versions of vehicles the military had already developed, in order to avoid delays to their own civilian programs. But the Saturn vehicle was a blank-slate civilian design that was never intended and never used as a military launch vehicle.

As far as I know, NASA never developed a launch vehicle for military use. The technology adoption went the other direction only, and was purely a matter of expedience rather than co-development.
 
rjh01 said:
1. NASA should have known about how dangerous pure oxygen is.
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They did know.
So never have allowed anyone to be in a compressed pure oxygen atmosphere.
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They knew the risks, and had taken responsible measures to mitigate the risks and justify the test plan.
Not to mention how dangerous the Apollo 1 craft was.
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The craft itself wasn't particularly dangerous. That particular test plan was dangerous because the otherwise-responsible mitigation measures failed to account for recent changes to some of the materials used, that were unsuitable for that test plan (with 100% oxygen).

NASA should have done a better job at keeping track of all the details, but I think it's unreasonable to expect that NASA should have gotten everything right every single time. It was an extremely complex project that carried a lot of risk. Some of those risks resulted in tragedy. I think the historical record clearly shows that NASA did a fantastic job overall, especially in terms of learning from its mistakes.

You're saying NASA shouldn't have made any mistakes in the first place, which is an impossible standard. NASA actually worked very hard to avoid mistakes.
 
theprestige said:
As far as I know, NASA never developed a launch vehicle for military use. The technology adoption went the other direction only, and was purely a matter of expedience rather than co-development.
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The Shuttle was designed for both NASA and DOD use. It was intended that it would replace all the heavy expendable boosters used for both civilian and military satellite launches. A Shuttle launch facility was built at Vandenberg AFB to put recon satellites into polar orbit.
 
Ranb said:
As far as I know the Redstone, Atlas and Titan rockets were already developed as military weapons prior to NASA using them to put their own payloads in orbit. I'm not aware of any Saturn 1 or Saturn V uses for the military although the Saturn 1 may have started out with military payloads in mind.

Please correct me if I'm wrong.
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The F-1 engines used in the first stage of Saturn rockets was originally military, but never put to use in a military capacity. The Air Force cancelled the project but then NASA took it over.

ETA: The Air Force didn't need an engine that large. But the Saturn then needed five of them.
 
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Pope130 said:
The Shuttle was designed for both NASA and DOD use. It was intended that it would replace all the heavy expendable boosters used for both civilian and military satellite launches. A Shuttle launch facility was built at Vandenberg AFB to put recon satellites into polar orbit.
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Yep. KH-9 HEXAGON if I'm not mistaken. The military requirement to launch this monster didn't just force a design change to enlarge the shuttle cargo bay, it caused a radical redesign that resulted in the delta wings rather that the original lifting body design. That led in a radical change to the flight planning and mission profiles, from the way it was launched to the way it was brought back to earth. Both of those major changes ultimately resulted in the Challenger and Columbia disasters.
 
Pope130 said:
The Shuttle was designed for both NASA and DOD use. It was intended that it would replace all the heavy expendable boosters used for both civilian and military satellite launches. A Shuttle launch facility was built at Vandenberg AFB to put recon satellites into polar orbit.
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Thanks, I'd completely forgotten about this major and important passage in NASA's history of vehicle development.

All I can say to salvage my argument is that prior to the Shuttle NASA wasn't co-developing military launch vehicles. The Saturn was never intended to be an ICBM platform.
 
theprestige said:
As far as I know, NASA never developed a launch vehicle for military use. The technology adoption went the other direction only, and was purely a matter of expedience rather than co-development.
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The USAF had influence on the shuttle, influencing the size of the cargo bay and insisting on a cross-range capability that made the sings much bigger than they really needed to be. A cross-range capability that was never used, I believe.


(EDIT: yeah, this has been covered. I should read to the end of the thread.)
 
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theprestige said:
You're saying NASA shouldn't have made any mistakes in the first place, which is an impossible standard. NASA actually worked very hard to avoid mistakes.
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Given the enormous number of working parts on the Saturn V and the difficulty in being perfect, it's a borderline miraculous feat that NASA launched the Saturn V as many times as they did (14? 15? Something like that) without a major failure.

12 got hit by lightning on the way up and just kept going.

The Saturn 5 was an utterly stunning piece of engineering.
 
3point14 said:
The USAF had influence on the shuttle, influencing the size of the cargo bay and insisting on a cross-range capability that made the sings much bigger than they really needed to be. A cross-range capability that was never used, I believe.
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Also never flew in to polar orbit and, related, never flew from the west coast. Also never flew a retrograde orbit, but I'm not clear where that actually stood as a military requirement.
 
3point14 said:
Given the enormous number of working parts on the Saturn V and the difficulty in being perfect, it's a borderline miraculous feat that NASA launched the Saturn V as many times as they did (14? 15? Something like that) without a major failure.

12 got hit by lightning on the way up and just kept going.

The Saturn 5 was an utterly stunning piece of engineering.
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I remember reading Alan Bean's account of the lightning strike. It sounded like the most insane thing ever. There's a reason NASA hired military test pilots for their rocket program.
 
theprestige said:
Well, that's one thing NASA would have done differently: Separate civilian and military orbiter programs.

The OTV seems to be doing great business, by the way.
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They actually did it the other way round. Several times they lobbied for the curtailment of military space projects, transfer of the funds and technology to NASA, and reassignment of the missions to NASA developed vehicles. They assured the government they could do both missions for lower overall cost.

This happened with MISS, Horizon (which would have used Saturn and Nova boosters), X-15B, X-20, Blue Gemini, MOL, and the Space Sortie Vehicle.
 
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3point14 said:
12 got hit by lightning on the way up and just kept going.
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[OFF TOPIC]
That reminds me of a funny story. I can't remember if I have posted it here before (definitely posted it at apollohoax.net back near the 45th anniversary of Apollo12). I can't even remember exactly where I found this story, but I kept it in my file of amusing science stories.

Apollo 12 was "The Most Amazing Thing We Ever Did: The Sequel, and inside a minute it was going straight to hell. When you're carrying thousands of tons of rocket fuel and liquid oxygen, that description can become literally accurate, especially the bit about screaming in lakes of burning fire. Every screen in Mission Control was suddenly scrambled, and the astronaut alarm panel lit up like a self-destructing Christmas tree.

It would have been faster for the astronauts to list what was still working. "Well, the seats are still screwed into the capsule, and we're also screwed in the capsule." NASA isn't keen on flying bombs over civilian populations (because having a space program is the good part of Big Government). If they couldn't fix it, they'd be forced to self-destruct the Apollo 12, and with it the future of the entire space program. Flight Controller John Aaron fixed it in 59 seconds. He saved space in less time than it takes to boil an egg.

Aaron instructed the crew, "Try SCE to AUX," and if that sounds like gibberish, now you have something in common with the flight director, capsule communicator, and astronaut commander of Apollo 12. This was a minor subsystem in no way designed to do what Aaron was now telling it to, and so obscure that in a building full of rocket scientists, he was the only one who knew about it. Astronaut Commander Pete Conrad radioed back from the screaming capsule with the highly technical query of "What the hell is that?"

Luckily, astronaut Alan Bean knew exactly what the hell it was, because at that moment it was the difference between "Rocket GO" and "Rocket GO BOOM."

The rest was awesome history.

Later analysis revealed that the Saturn V SA 507 had been struck by lightning. Twice. That's how badass astronauts are -- they do things so extreme that they don't even notice being multiply electrocuted from the sky. For most people, "continuing after being struck by lightning" isn't a decision they get to make. The strikes arced down through the spaceship, conducted by the ionized column of fire from the boosters and grounding through the launch tower. The entire launch process had created an immense lightning conductor. The astronauts were riding a massive middle finger made of metal and plasma straight at the gods, and when Zeus himself tried to fight back, it wasn't enough.

All thanks to one of the support staff, the people who defeat the sky by studying at it. John Aaron became a legend, nicknamed the "Steely-Eyed Missile Man" back when that was a compliment and not an adult film alias. And when a building full of moon-landing rocket scientists calls you the missile man, that's when God starts gathering his stuff so you can take his seat as Master of the Heavens.​

[ON TOPIC]
Some years ago I read a scifi book about a mission to Mars in an alternate timeline. The point the book's timeline diverged from ours was the assassination of JFK - in the book, it failed leaving JFK crippled and Jackie Kennedy dead (hence the KSFC was named after her and not John).

The upshot of the story was that with JFK still alive, the Shuttle program was never proceeded with and instead NASA pursued the development of the Saturn V, NERVA and leading to a manned Mars landing in 1986.

I can't remember the name of the book; I thought he author might be Greg Bear, but looking at his bibliography, nothing stands out that might be it.
 
Belz... said:
They did [know about the dangers of pure oxygen].
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WhatRoughBeast said:
This ignores the context of the times. BOTH the moon effort AND the Vietnam War were artifacts of the Cold War. If, for instance, the US had decided to leave Southeast Asia alone, the same political reasoning would have suggested that there was no need wasting money on space, either.
Click to expand...

theprestige said:
They did know [about the dangers of pure oxygen].

They knew the risks, and had taken responsible measures to mitigate the risks and justify the test plan.

The craft itself wasn't particularly dangerous. That particular test plan was dangerous because the otherwise-responsible mitigation measures failed to account for recent changes to some of the materials used, that were unsuitable for that test plan (with 100% oxygen).
<snip>
You're saying NASA shouldn't have made any mistakes in the first place, which is an impossible standard. NASA actually worked very hard to avoid mistakes.
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There is knowing something in the academic sense and then there is knowing in the practical sense. If they had known about the dangers in the practical sense they would not allow people to be in pure oxygen atmosphere with no hope of escape should anything go wrong. That was a major mistake that should never have been allowed. There were heaps of other things wrong with the craft, but I do not think they could have been detected easily.

I am not saying no mistakes should have been made. I do think after that disaster they went about things the right way. The result is that there were no more stupid disasters that should never have happened. Even the Apollo 13 accident was not much more than bad luck. That is until 1986 when they made another stupid mistake.

If you want to see something really stupid see the Russian space program. They lost heaps of ground staff in one accident in 1960 the Nedelin_catastropheWP
http://www.russianspaceweb.com/r16_disaster.html

The Russian space agency, citing Soviet scientist Boris Chertok, says 126 people died, but also notes that the exact number of casualties is hard to pin down and may range between 60 and 150.

Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2010-10-russia-years-space-disaster.html#jCp
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Ranb said:
Keep Kennedy and Johnson from escalating US involvement in the Vietnam war.

Build a program that is more than just a race to the moon so that we can continue to use the hardware for other projects.

Ranb
Click to expand...

Like intercontinental ballistic missiles?
 
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