Apollo CSM-derived projects

[Triton]

CSM Experiments Pallet

Proposed modification of the Apollo Service Module to permit a variety of Earth/Lunar orbit experiments to be carried. One such experiment evolved into the Apollo Telescope Mount fitted to Skylab. In a more limited form, this modification saw light as the SIM bay on Apollo 15-17.

W.W. Hough, Study of the Apollo experiments Pallet as a support system for orbital experiments, May 20, 1966
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19770079359_1977079359.pdf

Apollo Telescope Mount Final Report
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19770081341_1977081341.pdf

 

[Triton]

Model of Apollo X spacecraft to be used in Earth orbit for extended duration biomedical and scientific flights as part of Apollo Extension System (AES).
http://www.astronautix.com/details/apo21909.htm
http://www.collectspace.com/ubb/Forum16/HTML/000361-2.html

After posting, found "Found on eBay: Apollo Extension System Nasa Contractor Model Set" on Orionblamblam's The Unwanted Blog.
http://up-ship.com/blog/?p=3309

 

[Archibald]

Model of Apollo X spacecraft to be used in Earth orbit for extended duration biomedical and scientific flights as part of Apollo Extension System (AES).
http://www.astronautix.com/details/apo21909.htm
http://www.collectspace.com/ubb/Forum16/HTML/000361-2.html

Great ! Is the module inflatable ? or is it a rigid can similar to a MPLM ? I like this concept. Kind of Bigelow inflatable... forty years ahead of our times.

 

[Michel Van]

Great ! Is the module inflatable ? or is it a rigid can similar to a MPLM ? I like this concept. Kind of Bigelow inflatable... forty years ahead of our times.

nope the Apollo X proposals were metal rigid can

i don't know of Goodyear made proposals for inflatable module for Apollo X AES or AAP

 

[airrocket]

I vaguely remember a proposal which used either Saturn Apollo or perhaps NOVA for a manned Mars expedition. This was back in the late sixties time frame. Seems like it utilized some parts from Apollo and Von Braun had his finger prints on it as well. Not the huge mother ship type design but a much scaled back small habitat module plus capsule design..

 

[Michel Van]

ASTP mission with Robot arms a CSM with a Shuttle Robot Arm prototype

Caldwell Johnson suggested that a pair of prototype arms
be mounted in a CSM Scientific Instrument Module (SIM) Bay
and that the CSM "pretend to be a Shuttle" in operations with the derelict Skylab space station.

In his June 1972 presentation to Aaron Cohen, Johnson declared that "[c]argo handling by manipulators is a key element of the Shuttle concept." He noted that CSM-111, the spacecraft tagged for the ASTP mission, would have no SIM Bay, and suggested that a single 28-foot-long Shuttle manipulator could be mounted near the Service Propulsion System (SPS) main engine. During ascent to orbit, the manipulator would ride folded beneath the CSM near the ASTP Docking Module (DM) within the Spacecraft Launch Adapter. During SPS burns, the astronauts in the CSM would stabilize the manipulator by commanding it to grip a handle near the base of the conical Command Module (CM). Johnson had apparently dropped the concept of an all-purpose hand-like "end effector" for the manipulator; he informed Cohen that the end effector design was "undetermined."

The Shuttle manipulator demonstration would take place after CSM-111 undocked from the Soviet Soyuz spacecraft. The astronauts in the CSM would first use a wrist-mounted TV camera to inspect the CSM and DM, then would use the end effector to manipulate "some device" on the DM. They would then command the end effector to grip a handle on the DM, undock the DM from the CSM, and use the manipulator to redock the DM to the CSM. Finally, they would undock the DM and repeatedly capture it with the manipulator.

source
Beyond Apollo Blog (offline)

 

[blackstar]

That's still online:

http://beyondapollo.blogspot.com/2009/02/apollo-soyuz-shuttle-manipulator-demo.html

 

[Archibald]

Did find some interesting things today. *

Does anybody remember this ? http://www.astronautix.com/craft/aponcept.htm

An Apollo CM in the shuttle payload bay as a crew escape vehicle. Big weight penalty of course - a good
4500 kg out of a payload of 23000 kg...

Now the astronautix thing is frustrating (as usual) too little information. Where's the original ?

Kane, Francis X, "A Thirty Year Perspective on Manned Space Safety and Rescue: Where We've Been; Where We Are; Where We Are Going", IAA, IAA 84-270, 1984.

At the time that Kane worked for Rockwell since 1981. He probably dug in the firm archive to write his paper (nothing surprising) and later the paper ended at Astronautix.

The neat thing is that the ORIGINAL paper (not Kane 1984 paper, or the truncated astronautix thing) is available on the NTRS. Find it today, and it is astounding.

The original paper was Safety in Earth orbit study - done by Rockwell in... 1972. A big thick study, all five volumes of it.
(darn, this is the old NTRS I thought it had disapeared. How about that ?)

http://naca.larc.nasa.gov/search.jsp?Ns=HarvestDate|1&N=222&Ntk=all&Ntx=mode%20matchall&Ntt=%22safety%20in%20earth%20orbit%20study%22
(cut and paste the whole thing, and there you are !)

Volume 3 is even more interesting.
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19720023156_1972023156.pdf

Page 94 shows a 8-man Apollo, page 96, a Titan III with an Apollo on top. Shazaaam !

 

[Michel Van]

Thx for the Link, Archibald

 

[Graham1973]

One of the more interesting Apollo Applications proposals was to send a wet-lab Skylab on a flyby mission to Venus and back:

1. Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manned_Venus_Flyby

2. NTRS: Manned Venus Flyby Study

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19790072165_1979072165.pdf

Last year someone used the Orbiter Space Flight simulator to run the mission using stock Apollo hardware. The resulting video can be seen at youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kA_tdIKu-HQ

 

[blackstar]

So they flew to Venus and back without any solar panels?

 

[Michel Van]

So they flew to Venus and back without any solar panels?

that Orbiter video has allot of errors
there use a Apollo/LM mission Senario to play the Video

the Fly-by Wet workshop has two Solar panes like skylab

that those black rectangles on two right S-IVB tanks
also on top a cone section of early Wet workshop proposal and not a LM like in Video

 

[Graham1973]

So they flew to Venus and back without any solar panels?

that Orbiter video has a lot of errors
there use a Apollo/LM mission scenario to play the Video

The reason the author of the video used a stock Apollo/LM stack to make the video is that at present there is no simulation of the Apollo-to-Venus hardware available for orbiter. It was made to show that the mission trajectory was viable.

 

[carmelo]

What is this?

 

[Michel Van]

What is this?

a Solar panes like skylab...

 

[blackstar]

So they flew to Venus and back without any solar panels?

that Orbiter video has a lot of errors
there use a Apollo/LM mission scenario to play the Video

The reason the author of the video used a stock Apollo/LM stack to make the video is that at present there is no simulation of the Apollo-to-Venus hardware available for orbiter. It was made to show that the mission trajectory was viable.

I suspected as much. My question was primarily rhetorical--it's easy to "design" a mission when you leave out most of the details. A few months back I saw somebody "prove" (in their view) that you could fly a SpaceX Dragon capsule on a six-month asteroid mission. But all they did was calculate propellant requirements and they completely ignored the little details. Like food.*


*(Solution? Send fat astronauts!)

 

[Archibald]

Have a look at this: the same guy did Stephen Baxter Voyage into Orbiter.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrbvM5HuQRE

 

[blackstar]

Pretty neat. My impression is that the software allows you to add propulsion elements like rocket stages, but not much in the way of subsystems, like solar panels.

 

[RanulfC]

Pretty neat. My impression is that the software allows you to add propulsion elements like rocket stages, but not much in the way of subsystems, like solar panels.

"It depends" really applies since everything depends on the various "add-ons" you piled on the basic "Orbiter" software

It's pretty much an "open-secret" that most aerospace companies around the world use SOME version of "Orbiter" for preliminary work on a project. (It helps that they then have all the "scenes" needed for putting up presentations and animations )

Part of the "official" NASA complaints about the DIRECT concept were based on the use of Orbiter for various modeling, but it was then pointed out that both LM and NASA themselves were using a version of Orbiter for basic work and animations for the ARIES-1

Orbiter has been used to simulate entire missions, Mars, Venus, the Asteroids there are even a couple of "Interstellar-Precursor" missons on the web somewhere IIRC, heck it is even the "basis" for a video-game Space FLight and Combat Simulator (55-Tancri or something I'll have to look it up again) so you can probably FIND any subsystems add-ons you want (So speaks the man who HAS the basic program and dozens of add-ons but has never bothered to actually set up and RUN the damn program )

Randy

 

[Archibald]

Restored links here

Future Expansion - ProjectApollo

web.archive.org

 

[Dew]

Restored links here

Future Expansion - ProjectApollo

web.archive.org

same as http://nassp.sourceforge.net/wiki/Future_Expansion ?

 

[Archibald]

Yes, except the Internet Archive has working links.