Last time, we looked at some alternate post-Apollo scenarios, with an eye towards leveraging technology that the American taxpayer had already bought and paid for. After discarding more and longer Moon missions as expensive and impractical, we settled on basing the 1970s manned space program around two long-duration space habitats: the S-IVB based Dry Workshop, and the S-IVB based Wet Workshop.
Which begs the question: why are we doing this, anyway?
Mainly, if you want to tackle manned interplanetary spaceflight at some point, you have to address the question of whether or not a human being can stay alive, healthy, and sane after spending between 400 and 600 days in free-fall. There are a lot of ways to simulate the effects of free-fall on a human body. But there's only one way to find out for sure what free-fall does to you. And the key unanswered question pretty much to this day is still this -- can we deliver a crew to Mars that's fit to work once they get there? This series of missions is intended to answer that question.
Now that we've decided that we can afford to do this, and that this is something we actually want to do ... what does the schedule look like? More to the point, what kind of operational tempo can be kept up? As it turns out, the industrial plant at Kennedy Space Center was sized for a pretty heavy workload. There were two Saturn launch pads that were in the original plans, Pad 39C and Pad 39D, that were never actually built. The VAB could have kept all four busy. To get an idea of what kind of tempo KSC would have been capable of, let's look at the schedule that was maintained from December 1972 to December 1973:
December 6, 1972: Apollo 17 (Saturn V)
May 14, 1973: Skylab 1 (Saturn V)
May 25, 1973: Skylab 2 (Saturn IB)
July 28, 1973: Skylab 3 (Saturn IB)
November 16, 1973: Skylab 4 (Saturn IB)
So, in any one calendar year, KSC could support two Saturn V flights, and three Saturn IB flights. Which means that a single Saturn V flight plus three Saturn IB flights are easily within reach. That will form the basis of our alternative schedule.
Little would have been different in the flight schedule, at least up until February 1974, when Skylab 4 returned to Earth. The Wet Workshop R&D cycle would have been running in parallel with Skylab's, and would probably have had flight-ready hardware by early- to mid-1974. The Wet Workshop concept would require a few development test flights before it could be trusted with a long-duration mission. There were no such worries with Skylab, since it could be launched all in one lump. But with the Wet Workshop, first you had to prove that you could actually vent the liquid hydrogen tank and fill it with breathable air. Then, you had to prove that you could erect living quarters inside it, and use it. After that, it's a matter of qualifying the habitat for stays of three months, six months, then a year or longer. Possibly by the fifth flight, you could be ready for your most ambitious missions. With that in mind, let's take a look at what could happen by 1981.
1974:
* WWD-1 (Saturn IB): First development flight for the Wet Workshop. After orbital insertion, the crew performs a transposition and docking maneuver, and vents the LH2 tank. In principle, this should work, and then the crew pressurizes the tank with breathing air, and spends about a day fitting out the interior of the tank as living and working space. This first development mission lasts about 30 days. As a small bonus, after undocking from the workshop, the crew chases down and docks with Skylab, boosting it up into a higher orbit. After a 10-day stay at the old station, they return to Earth.
* Skylab B (Saturn V): Bet you didn't know that the Smithsonian exhibit was actually a flight-ready backup. Under this revised plan, the Air and Space museum loses one of its more interesting conversation pieces.
* Skylab B-1 (Saturn IB): First crew to occupy Skylab B. Three-month mission.
* Skylab B-2 (Saturn IB): Second crew to occupy Skylab B. Three-month mission. The intent, more or less, is to try to have Skylab B occupied continuously for as long as its consumables hold out. My guess is that Skylab B will have a design lifetime of two years, from mid-1974 to mid-1976.
1975:
* WWD-2 (Saturn V): This is the second development flight for the Wet Workshop. It involves both a more energetic trajectory, and a slightly more ambitious goal. This three-month mission inserts a S-IVB lab module into lunar orbit. Yes, it's actually possible to use a more-or-less stock Saturn V to put an empty S-IVB stage in orbit around the Moon. There was a McDonnell-Douglas design study in 1970 that worked out some of the details. Plus, I've flown this profile in Orbiter, so I know it's doable.
* Skylab B-3 (Saturn IB): Third crew to occupy Skylab B.
* Skylab B-4 (Saturn IB): Fourth crew to occupy Skylab B. It's more or less at this point that a Soyuz crew pulls alongside, docks, and spends about a week on board conducting joint experiments.
* Skylab B-5 (Saturn IB): Fifth crew to occupy Skylab B.
1976:
* WWD-3 (Saturn V): This is the third Wet Workshop development mission. It will be launched on a trajectory that will place the S-IVB lab module into an orbit 23,500 miles above the Earth, at an inclination of 28 degrees. This is almost, but not quite, like a geostationary satellite orbit. Instead of remaining stationary over the same point on Earth's surface, it will trace out a figure-8 between 28 degrees North and 28 degrees South. There was a proposal to fly the mission such that the figure-8 is anchored over Europe and Africa. Over the course of six months, seasonal change can be observed in both the Northern and Southern hemispheres. This is a tricky mark to hit from a piloting standpoint, but it's well within the Saturn V's capability.
* Skylab B-5 (Saturn IB): Sixth and last crew to occupy Skylab B.
* Skylab C (Saturn V): Third Dry Workshop station. This one is built with some resupply capability in mind. I expect this model will last for about three, maybe four years.
* Skylab C-1 (Saturn IB): First crew to occupy Skylab C.
* Skylab C-2 (Saturn IB): Second crew to occupy Skylab C.
1977:
* WWD-4 (Saturn V): Fourth Wet Workshop development flight. The mission profile is similar to WWD-3, but with a duration of at least one year. One possible wrinkle is that, instead of a fixed figure-8, the station is placed either slightly above or slightly below synchronous altitude. Then, instead of a perfectly-fixed figure-8, the figure-8 wanders eastward or westward with time. I found this out by accident, when I tried to nail a perfectly-fixed figure-8 and failed. There's some possible value in this: you get long loiter times over a region, but over the course of the whole mission you could cover the entire Earth, at least between 28 North and 28 South. With the successful conclusion of this mission, the Wet Workshop is considered proven for longer-duration missions.
* Skylab C-3 (Saturn IB): Third crew to occupy Skylab C.
* Skylab C-4 (Saturn IB): Fourth crew to occupy Skylab C.
* Skylab C-5 (Saturn IB): Fifth crew to occupy Skylab C.
1978:
* Skylab C-6 (Saturn IB): Sixth crew to occupy Skylab C.
* Skylab C-7 (Saturn IB): Seventh crew to occupy Skylab C.
* Skylab C-8 (Saturn IB): Eighth crew to occupy Skylab C.
* Manned Venus Flyby: And here's the payoff for having developed the Wet Workshop capability. As mentioned previously, you don't need to stay in Earth orbit exclusively. Once you've proven the technology, you can go strut your funky stuff across the Solar System ... within reason.
The dates are wildly optimistic, though ... starting from 1968, there's no way, no way at all, that this mission would be ready for launch by October 1973.
1977 and beyond:
* Skylab C-9, C-10, C-11, C-12: These are the last missions to Skylab C. Skylab D will probably fly in 1978, and will be used into the 1980s.
* Manned Mars Flyby: The other obvious target, accessible within a reasonable time frame.
* Manned Asteroid Flyby: This is contingent on finding a suitable target. Eros would be a good candidate. Or Icarus. It's just a matter of finding one or two that come close enough to make a flyby worthwhile.
And, The Downside...
Every option taken carries with it an opportunity cost. For example, having decided to build the Space Shuttle, we closed the door on getting the most out of our investment in the technology built for Project Apollo. This program is no exception. Having decided on a more ambitious manned program in the 1970s, the development work that would have led to the Shuttle is never accomplished. Which means that some of the Shuttle's unique advantages are not available in the 1980s. Such as:
No Hubble Space Telescope. Honestly, I could stop here. If you had to pick one single instrument that has revolutionized our knowledge of the Universe more than any other in the last 25 years, you'd have to pick Hubble, hands down. No Shuttle means no Hubble. That means no Hubble Deep Field. And none of the stunning images we've become accustomed to. Hubble was a key instrument in the observations of Supernova 1987A, and of the Shoemaker-Levy 9 impacts on Jupiter. And if that weren't enough all by itself...
Fewer Scientists In Space. The Shuttle can carry seven people at a time, only two of whom have to be pilots. Apollo could only carry three, two of whom were pilots. This, the fact that the Shuttle can carry up to five scientists at a time, made things like the Spacelab module possible. Now, after thirty years of Shuttle flights, I think it's probably safe to say that most of the people who've flown in space have been scientists or engineers; this would not have been the case otherwise.
So, as glorious as this alternate program would have been, I have to say that it's just as well that we didn't. Maybe this really is the best of all possible worlds.
Next in this series: Once upon a time, it was thought that Space Shuttles would fly fairly often, as many as fifty flights a year for the whole fleet. What would have to have happened to make that possible?
Monday, May 23, 2011
Saturday, May 14, 2011
What Might Have Been, Part I
We are currently counting down to the last flight of the Space Shuttle program. Just over thirty years ago, Columbia roared into the Florida sky for the first time; late this year or early next year, Atlantis will be the last to touch down on Runway 33.
Others will write about what the end of this program means. I may be one of them. But not today. Instead, I want to spend some time imagining what else might have been. Today, we're setting the Way-Back Machine to 1968, and take a quick peek at NASA's post-Apollo plans.
By 1968, it was fairly clear that they would probably take a swing at the first Moon landing sometime in 1969. Having hit the mark that President Kennedy set for them in 1961, they needed another goal to keep as many of their staff gainfully employed as possible. They had already been working on a set of post-Apollo options under the label Apollo Applications Program, but were also working on much more ambitious plans. What they presented to the Nixon Administration in 1969 was an ambitious, integrated program that included a reusable space shuttle, nuclear space tugs, a space station, and a manned mission to Mars by 1986.
That's not the might-have-been I want to look at. Going down that road requires you to imagine that Congress would be willing to fund NASA at its peak levels for another ten or fifteen years. That was never going to happen. But what might have happened is that a more modest program could have been proposed: one that built on technology that the American taxpayer had already bought and paid for. The question before us is, what could be done with a second production run of Saturn boosters and Apollo spacecraft? Further, what can be done with a fairly modest investment in additional spacecraft research and development?
Some of this ground had already been covered by the Apollo Applications Program design studies. For our purposes, though, only two pieces of AAP will be of interest to us: the Wet Workshop space station, and the Dry Workshop space station. While a lot of AAP's focus was on extending Apollo lunar technology towards building a semi-permanent or permanent base, the additional R&D funding to make that happen probably wouldn't be forthcoming. But there are practical considerations to contend with as well. As it turns out, three days is about as long as the A7L space suit could last in the lunar environment. By the end of the Apollo 17 moonwalks, the joints in Cernan's and Schmitt's suits were beginning to seize up from the moon dust. It just wasn't realistic to expect this suit to stand up to a full week of daily use, much less a month or more. This is a problem that could be cracked, given enough research focus; but the funding required to solve that problem just isn't forthcoming in the time frame we're talking about. So, as a practical consideration, we're going to restrict our consideration to things we can do without having to contend with dust.
This is the problem that AAP was faced with. With landings taken off the table, what's left? The only thing left is long-duration space flight. Which is why this alternative program centers on two different space station platforms: the Wet Workshop, and the Dry Workshop. Each one has its own strong points, and its own drawbacks.
The key advantage of the Dry Workshop is the reason why it's the one we actually built and flew in the Skylab program: it's a far better, and far more well-equipped research platform. More than one crew can use it. And you don't have to worry about packaging anything to withstand exposure to cryogenic propellants during launch. But the drawback to a Dry Workshop is that you can only put it in one place: in low orbit around Earth.
When you're talking about a Wet Workshop, the term "space station" may be a bit of a misnomer. You're using the liquid hydrogen tank of the spent S-IVB stage as living space for your crew, but the spent S-IVB stage isn't necessarily in low Earth orbit. There are any number of mission profiles. It's possible to put an empty S-IVB stage in orbit around the Moon, for example, giving the crew a place to stay while they spend a month or two doing detailed observations from lunar orbit. Or, it's possible to put an empty S-IVB stage in an inclined 24-hour period orbit, where it will trace out a figure-8 on a globe, giving you the opportunity to make observations of the same region of Earth over an extended period of time. The most ambitious mission profiles involve interplanetary fly-by trajectories to Mars or Venus. You can't carry as much equipment as you could with a Dry Workshop. But, the equipment can be more closely tailored to the specific mission at hand. It's a marvelously flexible concept.
We know that such a thing would have been possible. But would it have been affordable? Probably so: between 1968 and 1981, about $30 billion was spent on STS research and development. The marginal costs for a Saturn V launch were $185 million in 1969, and $55 million for a Saturn IB in 1972. A second production run of Saturn V boosters, 15 units, would run $2.775 billion; and a second production run of 30 Saturn IB boosters would run $1.650 billion. Skylab cost $2.2 billion, so we can guess that the wet workshop would cost at least as much. Call it $5 billion, for R&D for the first unit of each, and $500 million per unit thereafter. Fiscally, it looks doable.
Next time, we'll attempt to unpack the schedule, to see how much might have been done in the 1970s. And we'll also take a look at the downside: what we'd have given up on by going down this road.
Others will write about what the end of this program means. I may be one of them. But not today. Instead, I want to spend some time imagining what else might have been. Today, we're setting the Way-Back Machine to 1968, and take a quick peek at NASA's post-Apollo plans.
By 1968, it was fairly clear that they would probably take a swing at the first Moon landing sometime in 1969. Having hit the mark that President Kennedy set for them in 1961, they needed another goal to keep as many of their staff gainfully employed as possible. They had already been working on a set of post-Apollo options under the label Apollo Applications Program, but were also working on much more ambitious plans. What they presented to the Nixon Administration in 1969 was an ambitious, integrated program that included a reusable space shuttle, nuclear space tugs, a space station, and a manned mission to Mars by 1986.
That's not the might-have-been I want to look at. Going down that road requires you to imagine that Congress would be willing to fund NASA at its peak levels for another ten or fifteen years. That was never going to happen. But what might have happened is that a more modest program could have been proposed: one that built on technology that the American taxpayer had already bought and paid for. The question before us is, what could be done with a second production run of Saturn boosters and Apollo spacecraft? Further, what can be done with a fairly modest investment in additional spacecraft research and development?
Some of this ground had already been covered by the Apollo Applications Program design studies. For our purposes, though, only two pieces of AAP will be of interest to us: the Wet Workshop space station, and the Dry Workshop space station. While a lot of AAP's focus was on extending Apollo lunar technology towards building a semi-permanent or permanent base, the additional R&D funding to make that happen probably wouldn't be forthcoming. But there are practical considerations to contend with as well. As it turns out, three days is about as long as the A7L space suit could last in the lunar environment. By the end of the Apollo 17 moonwalks, the joints in Cernan's and Schmitt's suits were beginning to seize up from the moon dust. It just wasn't realistic to expect this suit to stand up to a full week of daily use, much less a month or more. This is a problem that could be cracked, given enough research focus; but the funding required to solve that problem just isn't forthcoming in the time frame we're talking about. So, as a practical consideration, we're going to restrict our consideration to things we can do without having to contend with dust.
This is the problem that AAP was faced with. With landings taken off the table, what's left? The only thing left is long-duration space flight. Which is why this alternative program centers on two different space station platforms: the Wet Workshop, and the Dry Workshop. Each one has its own strong points, and its own drawbacks.
The key advantage of the Dry Workshop is the reason why it's the one we actually built and flew in the Skylab program: it's a far better, and far more well-equipped research platform. More than one crew can use it. And you don't have to worry about packaging anything to withstand exposure to cryogenic propellants during launch. But the drawback to a Dry Workshop is that you can only put it in one place: in low orbit around Earth.
When you're talking about a Wet Workshop, the term "space station" may be a bit of a misnomer. You're using the liquid hydrogen tank of the spent S-IVB stage as living space for your crew, but the spent S-IVB stage isn't necessarily in low Earth orbit. There are any number of mission profiles. It's possible to put an empty S-IVB stage in orbit around the Moon, for example, giving the crew a place to stay while they spend a month or two doing detailed observations from lunar orbit. Or, it's possible to put an empty S-IVB stage in an inclined 24-hour period orbit, where it will trace out a figure-8 on a globe, giving you the opportunity to make observations of the same region of Earth over an extended period of time. The most ambitious mission profiles involve interplanetary fly-by trajectories to Mars or Venus. You can't carry as much equipment as you could with a Dry Workshop. But, the equipment can be more closely tailored to the specific mission at hand. It's a marvelously flexible concept.
We know that such a thing would have been possible. But would it have been affordable? Probably so: between 1968 and 1981, about $30 billion was spent on STS research and development. The marginal costs for a Saturn V launch were $185 million in 1969, and $55 million for a Saturn IB in 1972. A second production run of Saturn V boosters, 15 units, would run $2.775 billion; and a second production run of 30 Saturn IB boosters would run $1.650 billion. Skylab cost $2.2 billion, so we can guess that the wet workshop would cost at least as much. Call it $5 billion, for R&D for the first unit of each, and $500 million per unit thereafter. Fiscally, it looks doable.
Next time, we'll attempt to unpack the schedule, to see how much might have been done in the 1970s. And we'll also take a look at the downside: what we'd have given up on by going down this road.
Friday, May 13, 2011
Video Del Fuego, Part XLIV
or, Blogger Ate My Homework
Some sort of techniwockle confoogality at Blogger seems to have eaten the draft I was working on. So, until I figure out what to do about that, enjoy this track from They Might Be Giants.
Some sort of techniwockle confoogality at Blogger seems to have eaten the draft I was working on. So, until I figure out what to do about that, enjoy this track from They Might Be Giants.
Monday, May 02, 2011
Better Late Than Never
Well, I had intended to go on hiatus for a few weeks, but for obvious reasons, this won't wait.
Six years ago, give or take a few months, I wrote:
"To paraphrase Hunter S. Thompson, you can stand on a hill in eastern Afghanistan and look west, and with just the right kind of eyes, you can see the high-water mark where Islamofascism's wave crested, and fell back. In a weird way, I'm glad we didn't put paid to him at Tora Bora. I'm glad he's survived to witness these moments. He will die, eventually, with the searing knowledge of his utter DEFEAT burned indelibly into his synapses. Yes, this, too, is justice."
This was in the optimistic blush of a brief wave of elections and promises of elections that swept the Middle East in late 2004 and early 2005. I was, to say the least, overly optimistic. But I still agree with the broad outlines of what I had written.
Osama bin Laden is dead. He was killed not by an anonymous missile strike, but by a SEAL team that had been infiltrated into his compound. And while I'm happy he's no longer breathing our air, I'm just as happy that he saw Tahrir Square before he checked out. He died not in glory, but in defeat. Now, some quick observations.
One: As I often say when these things happen, there's an extent to which this changes nothing. Bin Laden was in direct operational control of Jack and Squat, and Jack left town a few years ago. He kept in touch by courier, which proved to be his downfall, but how much detailed planning can you really do that way? We still have the Taliban to deal with in Afghanistan, and Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula to deal with, led by Anwar al-Amriki in Yemen. Or so it's thought. So, the plate's still pretty full.
Two: On the other hand, this does change a lot. Bin Laden was an important symbol of the movement. He was the one man that everyone in the movement looked up to and respected. He was, unquestionably, The Big Cheese. And don't forget the detritus that was taken from his compound upon his demise. Al-Qaeda in Iraq pretty much folded up like a cheap tent once Abu Musab al-Zarqawi got his ticket punched. Everyone bin Laden was in direct contact with has to be sweating bullets right about now. If they go to ground now they might be able to break contact and stay a step ahead of pursuit. Or, they might not. They won't know until a SEAL team shows up at the door yelling "CANDYGRAM!"
Three: And that's also an important point, all by itself. Ten years ago, the CIA didn't speak to the special-ops community well, if they even spoke at all. Now, they work together fairly seamlessly. It's taken a decade to do it, but the CIA has returned to its OSS roots, and rediscovered the old-school arts of human intelligence. And they've also added a few new wrinkles, such as teaching commandos police forensics techniques. These things take time to work, when they can work at all. It may take years to finally get that last piece of the puzzle. But a sufficiently patient and dedicated investigator can crack the coldest of cold cases, if they get the right resources to do so.
Four: Pakistan has some 'splainin' to do. Like, just how was he able to hide in plain sight like this, just outside of their capital city? Mind you, the Pakistani ambassador had a good point. Two words: Whitey Bulger. That said, the point still stands that Pakistan's intelligence agency basically set up the Taliban, back in the day. There's been a long-standing suspicion that the ISI had been tipping off Taliban and Al-Qaeda targets when raids had been planned. They weren't trusted with the information on this raid until it had already happened. There's a serious conversation that has to happen between our governments, and it ought to happen soon.
Five: While this doesn't destroy Al-Qaeda, or even come close to it, Al-Qaeda is essentially irrelevant. The sweeping changes seen this spring in the Arab world have basically left them behind. You see, for all his faults, George Bush got one thing right: they key problem in the Arab world could be traced to a lack of self-determination. Al-Qaeda's answer to that was to re-institute the Caliphate, under a strict system of Islamic law. But this spring's demonstrators want no part of that program. They want democratic government, laws that mean something, and protection for their civil rights. The upcoming Arab generation is grabbing hold of self-determination with both hands, and are winning for themselves the honor and the self-respect that come with it. They have no need of Al-Qaeda. It probably won't die, but it'll persist more as a criminal syndicate than as a political movement.
Six: This ought to put paid to the ridiculous notion that President Barack Obama is some sort of pacifist, who won't even use military action as a last resort. It also ought to put paid to the equally ridiculous notion that President Obama is a closet Muslim that will shy from spilling a fellow-traveler's blood. And while Trump was having a fit about Obama's birth certificate, Obama was busily planning a surprise bullet fiesta for Osama bin Laden. This man will take care of business when it's necessary. You doubt this at your peril.
Seven: It's far too early to tell where this all ends up. I do believe that a wave of change is sweeping that part of the world, and that there's not a single government over there that will escape unscathed. Not all of the movements will succeed. Some will fail to fulfill their early promise. Some of them, maybe even most, will succeed at least partially. And a few will succeed brilliantly. And the world will be a better, safer place for it. There's still some excitement to come, but at least there's more hope in the air than there's been in many, many years.
Eight: And lastly, what effect will this have on next year's elections? Probably not much. A year and a half is an eternity in politics, and besides, the economic conditions next summer will have a far more profound effect. What this unquestionably does is give Obama one more positive point to hit regarding his record in office. And possibly most telling, it's a foreign policy point. It's ludicrous now to campaign against him as being soft on terrorism. Not that it'll stop them from trying. I'm just saying, it won't work. If next year is as incumbent-friendly as I'm beginning to suspect, it'll just make them look pitiful.
OK, now back to my regularly-scheduled vacation. See y'all in two weeks, give or take.
Six years ago, give or take a few months, I wrote:
"To paraphrase Hunter S. Thompson, you can stand on a hill in eastern Afghanistan and look west, and with just the right kind of eyes, you can see the high-water mark where Islamofascism's wave crested, and fell back. In a weird way, I'm glad we didn't put paid to him at Tora Bora. I'm glad he's survived to witness these moments. He will die, eventually, with the searing knowledge of his utter DEFEAT burned indelibly into his synapses. Yes, this, too, is justice."
This was in the optimistic blush of a brief wave of elections and promises of elections that swept the Middle East in late 2004 and early 2005. I was, to say the least, overly optimistic. But I still agree with the broad outlines of what I had written.
Osama bin Laden is dead. He was killed not by an anonymous missile strike, but by a SEAL team that had been infiltrated into his compound. And while I'm happy he's no longer breathing our air, I'm just as happy that he saw Tahrir Square before he checked out. He died not in glory, but in defeat. Now, some quick observations.
One: As I often say when these things happen, there's an extent to which this changes nothing. Bin Laden was in direct operational control of Jack and Squat, and Jack left town a few years ago. He kept in touch by courier, which proved to be his downfall, but how much detailed planning can you really do that way? We still have the Taliban to deal with in Afghanistan, and Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula to deal with, led by Anwar al-Amriki in Yemen. Or so it's thought. So, the plate's still pretty full.
Two: On the other hand, this does change a lot. Bin Laden was an important symbol of the movement. He was the one man that everyone in the movement looked up to and respected. He was, unquestionably, The Big Cheese. And don't forget the detritus that was taken from his compound upon his demise. Al-Qaeda in Iraq pretty much folded up like a cheap tent once Abu Musab al-Zarqawi got his ticket punched. Everyone bin Laden was in direct contact with has to be sweating bullets right about now. If they go to ground now they might be able to break contact and stay a step ahead of pursuit. Or, they might not. They won't know until a SEAL team shows up at the door yelling "CANDYGRAM!"
Three: And that's also an important point, all by itself. Ten years ago, the CIA didn't speak to the special-ops community well, if they even spoke at all. Now, they work together fairly seamlessly. It's taken a decade to do it, but the CIA has returned to its OSS roots, and rediscovered the old-school arts of human intelligence. And they've also added a few new wrinkles, such as teaching commandos police forensics techniques. These things take time to work, when they can work at all. It may take years to finally get that last piece of the puzzle. But a sufficiently patient and dedicated investigator can crack the coldest of cold cases, if they get the right resources to do so.
Four: Pakistan has some 'splainin' to do. Like, just how was he able to hide in plain sight like this, just outside of their capital city? Mind you, the Pakistani ambassador had a good point. Two words: Whitey Bulger. That said, the point still stands that Pakistan's intelligence agency basically set up the Taliban, back in the day. There's been a long-standing suspicion that the ISI had been tipping off Taliban and Al-Qaeda targets when raids had been planned. They weren't trusted with the information on this raid until it had already happened. There's a serious conversation that has to happen between our governments, and it ought to happen soon.
Five: While this doesn't destroy Al-Qaeda, or even come close to it, Al-Qaeda is essentially irrelevant. The sweeping changes seen this spring in the Arab world have basically left them behind. You see, for all his faults, George Bush got one thing right: they key problem in the Arab world could be traced to a lack of self-determination. Al-Qaeda's answer to that was to re-institute the Caliphate, under a strict system of Islamic law. But this spring's demonstrators want no part of that program. They want democratic government, laws that mean something, and protection for their civil rights. The upcoming Arab generation is grabbing hold of self-determination with both hands, and are winning for themselves the honor and the self-respect that come with it. They have no need of Al-Qaeda. It probably won't die, but it'll persist more as a criminal syndicate than as a political movement.
Six: This ought to put paid to the ridiculous notion that President Barack Obama is some sort of pacifist, who won't even use military action as a last resort. It also ought to put paid to the equally ridiculous notion that President Obama is a closet Muslim that will shy from spilling a fellow-traveler's blood. And while Trump was having a fit about Obama's birth certificate, Obama was busily planning a surprise bullet fiesta for Osama bin Laden. This man will take care of business when it's necessary. You doubt this at your peril.
Seven: It's far too early to tell where this all ends up. I do believe that a wave of change is sweeping that part of the world, and that there's not a single government over there that will escape unscathed. Not all of the movements will succeed. Some will fail to fulfill their early promise. Some of them, maybe even most, will succeed at least partially. And a few will succeed brilliantly. And the world will be a better, safer place for it. There's still some excitement to come, but at least there's more hope in the air than there's been in many, many years.
Eight: And lastly, what effect will this have on next year's elections? Probably not much. A year and a half is an eternity in politics, and besides, the economic conditions next summer will have a far more profound effect. What this unquestionably does is give Obama one more positive point to hit regarding his record in office. And possibly most telling, it's a foreign policy point. It's ludicrous now to campaign against him as being soft on terrorism. Not that it'll stop them from trying. I'm just saying, it won't work. If next year is as incumbent-friendly as I'm beginning to suspect, it'll just make them look pitiful.
OK, now back to my regularly-scheduled vacation. See y'all in two weeks, give or take.
Friday, April 29, 2011
Video Del Fuego, Part XLIII
I will be on a short hiatus for a couple of weeks, as my wife and I celebrate our tenth anniversary. I'll be back sometime in the middle of May. Until then, a "late hit" on Easter, in the form of a conversation between the Pope and Michelangelo. Now, it's well-known that da Vinci painted "The Last Supper". Some speculate that this is because His Holiness had some ... artistic conflicts with Michelangelo.
Friday, April 22, 2011
Sesquicentennial, Part XIV: Grand Strategy
--FIRST -PREV NEXT-
With the secession of the border states, the battle lines were ... not quite drawn. The first few months of fighting were very, very confused. For one, especially in places like Kentucky and Missouri, it wasn't immediately clear which territory belonged to whom. And for another, both sides were not entirely sure how they were going to go about this. Everyone hoped that some kind of compromise could be reached, that some kind of deal could be struck, so very little actual planning had taken place if the worst came to pass.
Well, the worst had come to pass. Now what?
The Confederacy
Jefferson Davis was an 1828 graduate of West Point. He had served with distinction as a colonel of volunteers during the Mexican War, and had been Secretary of War under President Pierce. During the war that began with the bombardment of Fort Sumter, Jefferson Davis was, for all intents and purposes, his own Secretary of War. I say this mainly to draw your attention to one salient fact: Davis knew, Davis had to have known, that the Confederacy was punching out of its weight class. In every category that was measurable or quantifiable, the Confederacy lagged behind the Union. They had fewer men, they had fewer industries, they had fewer miles of railroad track. If it became a war of attrition, there was no possible result but defeat. President Davis was a man well-versed in military affairs, so none of this would have come as any sort of surprise or shock. So, from the very beginning, the Confederacy looked for salvation across the Atlantic.
The "King Cotton" strategy rested upon the reliance of European, and particularly British industries on Southern-produced cotton. Just as Southern plantations supplied the industrial mills in the North, they also supplied similar mills in England's industrial towns. Let the Union blockade as it will, if the might of the Royal Navy could be enlisted to keep the South's ports open, well, they'd be kept open. The might of the Royal Navy on the open seas was beyond question. From the very beginning, the Confederates had sent commissioners to London to seek recognition from the British crown. On the one hand, many Englishmen would find it quite pleasant to poke the Yanks in the eye with a sharp stick. But, there were two major strokes against such action. One, without question it'd mean war with the United States, carrying with it the loss of American grain exports, the probable loss of a great deal of English merchant shipping, and the possible loss of Canada to invasion. And for another ... England had abolished slavery in 1833. Much of the English public would find it disquieting at best to ally openly with an avowedly pro-slavery power. That all said, English merchants would have no qualms at all about doing business with Southern gentlemen. The South would receive small amounts of arms, and a few specially-built commerce raiders, from such contacts with the British.
No one else in Europe cared all that much. France was interested in propping up the government of Emperor Maximilian of Mexico, and Emperor Maximilian was somewhat friendly to the Confederacy. The most important port for the Confederacy, then, would not be Norfolk or Charleston, it would be Vera Cruz, which the Union wouldn't blockade.
The Union
Lieutenant General Winfield Scott had been in uniform longer than anyone in American history, before or since. While President Abraham Lincoln was General Scott's commander-in-chief, Lincoln yet had much to learn about military strategy. Lincoln was rectifying that situation as fast as he could, by reading everything the Library of Congress had on the subject, but in the early months of the war he would lean heavily on General Scott's experience. And, in General Scott's opinion, one thing mattered above all else: supplies. Napoleon once said that an army marches on its stomach, and he was mostly correct. For most of history an army could pretty much live off the land. But a modern army, in addition to food, also needed powder and ammunition and rifles and cannon, all of which could only be made in a few specialized places. Then, all of that materiel had to be shipped from its point of manufacture, to where the army happened to be. General Scott saw the keys to victory as first ensuring that the Union army could stay well-supplied, and secondly denying the same to the rebels. Thus could the rebel army be starved out, rather than battered into submission. The Union would no doubt win a war of pure attrition, but the cost was horrifying to contemplate.
For the first, to ensure Union lines of supply, it was vital that the Union retain control of the Ohio river valley, and of the railroads that ran along its banks. This, among other reasons, was why it was so important for the Union to retain possession of Kentucky. With both banks of the Ohio river secure, the Union had a safe line of communication and supply between its western and eastern areas. This was essential, if the Union was to be able to use its advantages in men, manufacturing, and transportation to its fullest.
For the second, to disrupt the Confederacy's supply lines, the first element of General Scott's plan would be a Union naval blockade of Confederate ports. This would have two effects. First, the Confederacy would be unable to realize large shipments of military equipment from abroad, nor would they be able to engage in foreign trade. Second, the Confederacy would be forced to draw down its reserves of hard currency for those foreign transactions they could complete even in the face of a blockade. The next element of General Scott's plan would be to drive a Union army down the Mississippi river to cut the Confederacy in two. To an excellent approximation, the Mississippi river was the Confederacy's transportation infrastructure. Much of the rail network that the South had was focused on getting agricultural products to ports on the Mississippi. If the Union controlled the river, it would be very difficult for the Confederacy to keep its soldiers sufficiently supplied with food and ammunition. This would take a heavy toll on the Confederacy's ability to make war, and would facilitate the Union's victory, at a minimum cost in blood and treasure.
General Scott's plan was not immediately adopted. It was not popular with the political leadership, since it assumed a long war lasting years, not months. Virtually everyone, on both sides, assumed that the war would consist of a short campaign and a quick victory. And both sides were assembling the force that they were sure would win the coming battle. Spirits were high, and morale was excellent; visions of glorious deeds danced in young mens' heads.
Except for those that had read their history books.
With the secession of the border states, the battle lines were ... not quite drawn. The first few months of fighting were very, very confused. For one, especially in places like Kentucky and Missouri, it wasn't immediately clear which territory belonged to whom. And for another, both sides were not entirely sure how they were going to go about this. Everyone hoped that some kind of compromise could be reached, that some kind of deal could be struck, so very little actual planning had taken place if the worst came to pass.
Well, the worst had come to pass. Now what?
The Confederacy
Jefferson Davis was an 1828 graduate of West Point. He had served with distinction as a colonel of volunteers during the Mexican War, and had been Secretary of War under President Pierce. During the war that began with the bombardment of Fort Sumter, Jefferson Davis was, for all intents and purposes, his own Secretary of War. I say this mainly to draw your attention to one salient fact: Davis knew, Davis had to have known, that the Confederacy was punching out of its weight class. In every category that was measurable or quantifiable, the Confederacy lagged behind the Union. They had fewer men, they had fewer industries, they had fewer miles of railroad track. If it became a war of attrition, there was no possible result but defeat. President Davis was a man well-versed in military affairs, so none of this would have come as any sort of surprise or shock. So, from the very beginning, the Confederacy looked for salvation across the Atlantic.
The "King Cotton" strategy rested upon the reliance of European, and particularly British industries on Southern-produced cotton. Just as Southern plantations supplied the industrial mills in the North, they also supplied similar mills in England's industrial towns. Let the Union blockade as it will, if the might of the Royal Navy could be enlisted to keep the South's ports open, well, they'd be kept open. The might of the Royal Navy on the open seas was beyond question. From the very beginning, the Confederates had sent commissioners to London to seek recognition from the British crown. On the one hand, many Englishmen would find it quite pleasant to poke the Yanks in the eye with a sharp stick. But, there were two major strokes against such action. One, without question it'd mean war with the United States, carrying with it the loss of American grain exports, the probable loss of a great deal of English merchant shipping, and the possible loss of Canada to invasion. And for another ... England had abolished slavery in 1833. Much of the English public would find it disquieting at best to ally openly with an avowedly pro-slavery power. That all said, English merchants would have no qualms at all about doing business with Southern gentlemen. The South would receive small amounts of arms, and a few specially-built commerce raiders, from such contacts with the British.
No one else in Europe cared all that much. France was interested in propping up the government of Emperor Maximilian of Mexico, and Emperor Maximilian was somewhat friendly to the Confederacy. The most important port for the Confederacy, then, would not be Norfolk or Charleston, it would be Vera Cruz, which the Union wouldn't blockade.
The Union
Lieutenant General Winfield Scott had been in uniform longer than anyone in American history, before or since. While President Abraham Lincoln was General Scott's commander-in-chief, Lincoln yet had much to learn about military strategy. Lincoln was rectifying that situation as fast as he could, by reading everything the Library of Congress had on the subject, but in the early months of the war he would lean heavily on General Scott's experience. And, in General Scott's opinion, one thing mattered above all else: supplies. Napoleon once said that an army marches on its stomach, and he was mostly correct. For most of history an army could pretty much live off the land. But a modern army, in addition to food, also needed powder and ammunition and rifles and cannon, all of which could only be made in a few specialized places. Then, all of that materiel had to be shipped from its point of manufacture, to where the army happened to be. General Scott saw the keys to victory as first ensuring that the Union army could stay well-supplied, and secondly denying the same to the rebels. Thus could the rebel army be starved out, rather than battered into submission. The Union would no doubt win a war of pure attrition, but the cost was horrifying to contemplate.
For the first, to ensure Union lines of supply, it was vital that the Union retain control of the Ohio river valley, and of the railroads that ran along its banks. This, among other reasons, was why it was so important for the Union to retain possession of Kentucky. With both banks of the Ohio river secure, the Union had a safe line of communication and supply between its western and eastern areas. This was essential, if the Union was to be able to use its advantages in men, manufacturing, and transportation to its fullest.
For the second, to disrupt the Confederacy's supply lines, the first element of General Scott's plan would be a Union naval blockade of Confederate ports. This would have two effects. First, the Confederacy would be unable to realize large shipments of military equipment from abroad, nor would they be able to engage in foreign trade. Second, the Confederacy would be forced to draw down its reserves of hard currency for those foreign transactions they could complete even in the face of a blockade. The next element of General Scott's plan would be to drive a Union army down the Mississippi river to cut the Confederacy in two. To an excellent approximation, the Mississippi river was the Confederacy's transportation infrastructure. Much of the rail network that the South had was focused on getting agricultural products to ports on the Mississippi. If the Union controlled the river, it would be very difficult for the Confederacy to keep its soldiers sufficiently supplied with food and ammunition. This would take a heavy toll on the Confederacy's ability to make war, and would facilitate the Union's victory, at a minimum cost in blood and treasure.
General Scott's plan was not immediately adopted. It was not popular with the political leadership, since it assumed a long war lasting years, not months. Virtually everyone, on both sides, assumed that the war would consist of a short campaign and a quick victory. And both sides were assembling the force that they were sure would win the coming battle. Spirits were high, and morale was excellent; visions of glorious deeds danced in young mens' heads.
Except for those that had read their history books.
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Sesquicentennial, Part XIII: Second Secession
--FIRST -PREV NEXT-
[Ed. Note: For another anniversary in 1961, look here. And for another anniversary in 1981, look here.]
On the 9th of April, 1861, a small flotilla stood to sea from New York harbor, bound for Fort Sumter. They should get there in two or three days, with several days to spare before Major Anderson's supplies run out. There was even a rumor that the reinforcements were bound for Fort Pickens in Florida. This would have been an admirable deception operation except ...
Except that President Lincoln had sent a message to Governor Pickens of South Carolina informing him of his intent to resupply Fort Sumter. I guess operational security had not been invented yet.
On the other hand, there was a good reason why Lincoln would have done this. In his inaugural address, he had sworn to hold all Federal properties and territories. He was publicly stating his legal right -- indeed, his legal duty -- to feed his men. And, he was thrusting a choice on the Secessionist Governor: Will it be peace, or will it be war? The choice is yours.
Also, this time Major Anderson would not be caught by surprise. This time, the Secretary of War sent Major Anderson a message to expect relief. This time, they would be ready and waiting. So, unfortunately, would General Beauregard.
Upon receiving Lincoln's message, Governor Pickens contacted General Beauregard. Their mutual decision was to kick that matter upstairs to the Confederate government. Jefferson Davis instructed General Beauregard to demand the immediate surrender of the fort, and if that was refused, to reduce the fort before reinforcements could arrive. Davis knew -- Davis had to have known -- that he was choosing war.
Meanwhile, Fox's flotilla arrived at their rendezvous point off of Charleston Harbor. Well, most of it, anyway. As it turned out, some orders had gotten mixed up, and one of the troop ships really did head out to Fort Pickens. Ah well, adopt, adapt, and evolve: Fox still had plenty of time to load some small boats to sneak some supplies into the fort. Except, that is, for the fact that heavy seas made the operation of transferring supplies from his ships to the smaller boats between difficult and impossible.
It is more or less at this point that Beauregard's ultimatum was delivered to Major Anderson. Major Anderson replied that, unless he received supplies by the fifteenth, he would have been starved out in any case. But he hedged: if he did get some resupply, he would contnue to resist. The Confederates would not accept this reply. They told Major Anderson that in one hour, they would open fire. This was at 3:20 AM, on the 12th of April. At 4:30 AM, the bombardment began.
Almost immediately, Fort Sumter's hidden flaw was revealed. The fort's walls were very thick, and built of strong brick. The Confederate artillery might take years to batter them down. But they were built to withstand naval artillery, firing on a flat trajectory; Fort Sumter was never intended to face high-angle plunging fire. Of all the guns bearing on Fort Sumter, the most deadly were the mortars and the heavy Columbiads. And the most dangerous ammunition they used weren't explosive shells, but heated shot.
While the exterior of the fort was brick, the interior buildings were all wood. When hit by heated shot, they tended to catch fire. And, as the day wore on, the fires got closer and closer to the powder magazine. The weather, the same weather that was hampering Fox's attempts to load his boats, bought Major Anderson some time; a rain shower late in the day on the 12th extinguished the fires burning within the fort. But this was, at best, a temporary reprieve. The beleagured Union garrison fought on for another day. At 2PM on the 13th, low on ammunition and with fires burning out of control, and with his men hungry and exhausted, Major Anderson was satisfied that they had defended their post with honor. They had fought a day and a half, and had endured over three thousand Confederate rounds without losing a man. And in the end, the specific terms offered to Anderson were that he evacuate the fort, not surrender. The distinction was an important one in Anderson's eyes. Fox's flotilla, originally intended to reinforce the garrison, instead facilitated its withdrawal.
Now, there could be no doubt that the seceded States were in open rebellion against the Federal Government. When he heard of the fall of Fort Sumter, President Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers from the still-loyal States to recapture lost Federal properties in the South.
Reaction was, as they say, mixed. Lincoln got his 75,000 volunteers, and then some. But the border states, who had been content to sit on the fence, now had to jump. Virginia was the first, passing an ordinance of secession on April 17th. Then, Arkansas and Tennessee followed suit, seceding on May 6th and May 7th, respectively. Which put North Carolina in a bit of a bind. North Carolina didn't particularly want to secede. But, with Tennessee's secession, they were surrounded by seceded States. If they declined to secede, they would probably be promptly invaded by the Confederacy. If they seceded, they'd eventually be invaded by the Union, but it would take the Union a while to get there. North Carolina seceded on May 20th.
Now, Confederate apologists will tell you that this second secession was about States' Rights, and this defense is actually marginally better than when used the first time around. Each of these four States elected not to secede in the first flush of passion. They only acted now, upon Lincoln promising military action against the Southern States. But this is essentially rubbish. The second secession would not be necessary without the first, and we've already established beyond any possible doubt that the first secession was entirely about slavery. That was their first, last, and only reason. With that, I think the point is made, and I shall not belabor it any longer.
The other three border States, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri, stayed in the Union. Once Virginia tipped, Lincoln knew that he absolutely, positively must retain these three, by any means necessary. Maryland, obviously, since if Maryland seceded it'd be over. The District of Columbia, and the Government with it, would be surrounded. Kentucky and Missouri were important, because of the access to the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers that they granted. The reasons why this is so important will be discussed later. Lieutenant General Scott was old, and sick, and looking for a successor; but he had a plan.
The next few months would be a very confused time. But two things were clear. What had been one nation was now two. And there would be a war to determine whether or not that state of affairs would persist. Further, some were afraid that this war would be long, and bloody.
They would be right.
[Ed. Note: For another anniversary in 1961, look here. And for another anniversary in 1981, look here.]
On the 9th of April, 1861, a small flotilla stood to sea from New York harbor, bound for Fort Sumter. They should get there in two or three days, with several days to spare before Major Anderson's supplies run out. There was even a rumor that the reinforcements were bound for Fort Pickens in Florida. This would have been an admirable deception operation except ...
Except that President Lincoln had sent a message to Governor Pickens of South Carolina informing him of his intent to resupply Fort Sumter. I guess operational security had not been invented yet.
On the other hand, there was a good reason why Lincoln would have done this. In his inaugural address, he had sworn to hold all Federal properties and territories. He was publicly stating his legal right -- indeed, his legal duty -- to feed his men. And, he was thrusting a choice on the Secessionist Governor: Will it be peace, or will it be war? The choice is yours.
Also, this time Major Anderson would not be caught by surprise. This time, the Secretary of War sent Major Anderson a message to expect relief. This time, they would be ready and waiting. So, unfortunately, would General Beauregard.
Upon receiving Lincoln's message, Governor Pickens contacted General Beauregard. Their mutual decision was to kick that matter upstairs to the Confederate government. Jefferson Davis instructed General Beauregard to demand the immediate surrender of the fort, and if that was refused, to reduce the fort before reinforcements could arrive. Davis knew -- Davis had to have known -- that he was choosing war.
Meanwhile, Fox's flotilla arrived at their rendezvous point off of Charleston Harbor. Well, most of it, anyway. As it turned out, some orders had gotten mixed up, and one of the troop ships really did head out to Fort Pickens. Ah well, adopt, adapt, and evolve: Fox still had plenty of time to load some small boats to sneak some supplies into the fort. Except, that is, for the fact that heavy seas made the operation of transferring supplies from his ships to the smaller boats between difficult and impossible.
It is more or less at this point that Beauregard's ultimatum was delivered to Major Anderson. Major Anderson replied that, unless he received supplies by the fifteenth, he would have been starved out in any case. But he hedged: if he did get some resupply, he would contnue to resist. The Confederates would not accept this reply. They told Major Anderson that in one hour, they would open fire. This was at 3:20 AM, on the 12th of April. At 4:30 AM, the bombardment began.
Almost immediately, Fort Sumter's hidden flaw was revealed. The fort's walls were very thick, and built of strong brick. The Confederate artillery might take years to batter them down. But they were built to withstand naval artillery, firing on a flat trajectory; Fort Sumter was never intended to face high-angle plunging fire. Of all the guns bearing on Fort Sumter, the most deadly were the mortars and the heavy Columbiads. And the most dangerous ammunition they used weren't explosive shells, but heated shot.
While the exterior of the fort was brick, the interior buildings were all wood. When hit by heated shot, they tended to catch fire. And, as the day wore on, the fires got closer and closer to the powder magazine. The weather, the same weather that was hampering Fox's attempts to load his boats, bought Major Anderson some time; a rain shower late in the day on the 12th extinguished the fires burning within the fort. But this was, at best, a temporary reprieve. The beleagured Union garrison fought on for another day. At 2PM on the 13th, low on ammunition and with fires burning out of control, and with his men hungry and exhausted, Major Anderson was satisfied that they had defended their post with honor. They had fought a day and a half, and had endured over three thousand Confederate rounds without losing a man. And in the end, the specific terms offered to Anderson were that he evacuate the fort, not surrender. The distinction was an important one in Anderson's eyes. Fox's flotilla, originally intended to reinforce the garrison, instead facilitated its withdrawal.
Now, there could be no doubt that the seceded States were in open rebellion against the Federal Government. When he heard of the fall of Fort Sumter, President Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers from the still-loyal States to recapture lost Federal properties in the South.
Reaction was, as they say, mixed. Lincoln got his 75,000 volunteers, and then some. But the border states, who had been content to sit on the fence, now had to jump. Virginia was the first, passing an ordinance of secession on April 17th. Then, Arkansas and Tennessee followed suit, seceding on May 6th and May 7th, respectively. Which put North Carolina in a bit of a bind. North Carolina didn't particularly want to secede. But, with Tennessee's secession, they were surrounded by seceded States. If they declined to secede, they would probably be promptly invaded by the Confederacy. If they seceded, they'd eventually be invaded by the Union, but it would take the Union a while to get there. North Carolina seceded on May 20th.
Now, Confederate apologists will tell you that this second secession was about States' Rights, and this defense is actually marginally better than when used the first time around. Each of these four States elected not to secede in the first flush of passion. They only acted now, upon Lincoln promising military action against the Southern States. But this is essentially rubbish. The second secession would not be necessary without the first, and we've already established beyond any possible doubt that the first secession was entirely about slavery. That was their first, last, and only reason. With that, I think the point is made, and I shall not belabor it any longer.
The other three border States, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri, stayed in the Union. Once Virginia tipped, Lincoln knew that he absolutely, positively must retain these three, by any means necessary. Maryland, obviously, since if Maryland seceded it'd be over. The District of Columbia, and the Government with it, would be surrounded. Kentucky and Missouri were important, because of the access to the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers that they granted. The reasons why this is so important will be discussed later. Lieutenant General Scott was old, and sick, and looking for a successor; but he had a plan.
The next few months would be a very confused time. But two things were clear. What had been one nation was now two. And there would be a war to determine whether or not that state of affairs would persist. Further, some were afraid that this war would be long, and bloody.
They would be right.
T+50: Poyekhali!
[Ed. Note: Another anniversary from 1861 is here. And another anniversary from 1981 is here.]
Fifty years ago...
By April 12, 1961, only fifteen successful launches into orbit had been made. Today, the Soviet Union would attempt to make that total sixteen. They would also up the ante by putting a human being on top of the rocket. The Americans were planning to do much the same thing, of course. But, for reasons I've discussed earlier, they would be too late to claim the honor of being first.
(Actually, it's a slightly different problem. The orbital phase of Mercury was paced by the availability of the Atlas booster, which wasn't quite ready for prime time yet.)
It is interesting to compare and contrast the Mercury and Vostok capsules. Each vehicle shows basic design traits that would carry down into their descendents. The Mercury capsule was designed to sit snugly on top of a Redstone or Atlas missile. It was a streamlined, conical shape, and served as its own fairing for getting through the atmosphere. Space and mass were at an absolute premium, so the capsule barely had enough room for its pilot. It was sometimes said that you didn't climb into a Mercury capsule, so much as you wore it.
The Russians weren't quite so tight on mass constraints, since they had more powerful rockets at their disposal. But, they didn't bother to streamline their capsule at all. It might have never occurred to them to do so. "It's a spaceship," they'd probably say. "It operates in vacuum. Why in the world would you bother to streamline it? Just put a fairing over it for the first few minutes, and it's all good." This design trend would continue with the Soyuz capsule, still in use.
It's also interesting to compare and contrast astronaut selection and training techniques. Many of the training methods were similar, insofar as no one knew precisely what to expect. They wanted to select men who would cope well with the unexpected. The similarity ended there, though. The Americans decided to start with experienced test pilots, since they were already in excellent physical condition, and had proven their ability to cope with ... unusual working environments. You knew the men you picked could handle themselves in a crisis. The ones who couldn't, didn't last long as test pilots.
The Russians went another route entirely. They started with young, physically robust military pilots; then they trained them to be cosmonauts. Their main concern was whether or not a man could endure space flight at all. Famously, the manual controls on Vostok were behind a locked panel. This wasn't because the Russians didn't trust their pilots to land where they were told to. It was because the engineers weren't sure that, after hours in free-fall, a man would still have the faculties necessary to control the spacecraft. It was a safety feature. As it happens, the locks would only be used for the first flight, after which they were decided unnecessary. The original plan called for the codes to be radioed up to the cosmonaut if they were needed. "But, what if the radio goes out?" Well, they put the codes in an envelope that the cosmonaut could open when directed. The cosmonaut detachment commander, Nikolai Kamanin, thought that was a stupid idea. He decided that he'd give his man the code before launch, and trust him not to use it unless it was an emergency.
Two men were training for that first flight. One was Gherman Titov, an Air Force pilot who excelled at gymnastics. The other was Yuri Gagarin, another Air Force pilot, slightly older and slightly more experienced than Titov. The decision on who would fly was not made until the morning of the mission. Gagarin was chosen, partly because he was older and seen as more stable, a steady man who would not panic.
At about 7AM local time, Gagarin was bolted into the Vostok capsule. This brings up another difference between Vostok and Mercury: Vostok had no escape tower. It was not believed to be necessary, since the pilot was already equipped with an ejection seat. They couldn't make a parachute big enough to slow down the capsule enough for a survivable landing, so they decided that the pilot would punch out and land on his own parachute. This would serve double-duty as the pilot's emergency escape if anything should go wrong with the launch.
Gagarin was calm as they worked their way through the pre-launch checklist. Then, at seven past nine local time, the final count began.
Less than ten minutes later, Vostok 1 was in orbit. It would be another 25 minutes before ground control had gathered enough data to be certain that it was a stable orbit. Not that it mattered much at this point. Stable or not, Vostok 1 was committed. The only large engine left was the one intended to de-orbit the spacecraft before re-entry.
Vostok had a beautifully-ingenious device for orienting the spacecraft prior to deorbit. Orientation is crucial. You have to have the spacecraft's engine pointing in exactly the right direction, else you waste thrust. Assuming a circular orbit, all you need to do is make sure you're level, and pointed backwards. The Vzor device did this, with a window and some mirrors. The mirrors reflected the horizon such that it was visible all around the window's edge. So, if you were oriented level, you saw the horizon all around the edge of the window. Then, you look at the clouds rolling past the window. If they're going from the bottom straight to the top, bingo! Otherwise, you slew around in yaw until they line up.
Gagarin didn't have to do any of this by hand, though. The automatic systems worked quite well, and were perfectly able to line up and execute the de-orbit burn without direct intervention. But, there was one small problem. One of the pyro bolts had failed, and the re-entry capsule was still connected to the service module by a bundle of cables. The two halves began re-entry above Egypt, and Gagarin began to experience wild gyrations. He didn't mention this to ground control, for two reasons. One, he didn't think he was in serious trouble. And two, what could they do about it anyway? It's not like they could send up bolt-cutters.
As it happens, Gagarin's instincts were spot-on. The cable burned in two, and re-entry proceeded normally. At seven kilometers altitude, the hatch was released, and Gagarin punched out. He landed under his own parachute, and greeted the two startled farmers who met him with a request for a telephone to call Moscow.
Only an hour and a half had passed, but the world would be forever different. Man had taken his first halting steps into the Universe.
(You can recreate this for yourself, with Orbiter 2010, as demonstrated in the clip above. It's a fascinating experience.)
Fifty years ago...
By April 12, 1961, only fifteen successful launches into orbit had been made. Today, the Soviet Union would attempt to make that total sixteen. They would also up the ante by putting a human being on top of the rocket. The Americans were planning to do much the same thing, of course. But, for reasons I've discussed earlier, they would be too late to claim the honor of being first.
(Actually, it's a slightly different problem. The orbital phase of Mercury was paced by the availability of the Atlas booster, which wasn't quite ready for prime time yet.)
It is interesting to compare and contrast the Mercury and Vostok capsules. Each vehicle shows basic design traits that would carry down into their descendents. The Mercury capsule was designed to sit snugly on top of a Redstone or Atlas missile. It was a streamlined, conical shape, and served as its own fairing for getting through the atmosphere. Space and mass were at an absolute premium, so the capsule barely had enough room for its pilot. It was sometimes said that you didn't climb into a Mercury capsule, so much as you wore it.
The Russians weren't quite so tight on mass constraints, since they had more powerful rockets at their disposal. But, they didn't bother to streamline their capsule at all. It might have never occurred to them to do so. "It's a spaceship," they'd probably say. "It operates in vacuum. Why in the world would you bother to streamline it? Just put a fairing over it for the first few minutes, and it's all good." This design trend would continue with the Soyuz capsule, still in use.
It's also interesting to compare and contrast astronaut selection and training techniques. Many of the training methods were similar, insofar as no one knew precisely what to expect. They wanted to select men who would cope well with the unexpected. The similarity ended there, though. The Americans decided to start with experienced test pilots, since they were already in excellent physical condition, and had proven their ability to cope with ... unusual working environments. You knew the men you picked could handle themselves in a crisis. The ones who couldn't, didn't last long as test pilots.
The Russians went another route entirely. They started with young, physically robust military pilots; then they trained them to be cosmonauts. Their main concern was whether or not a man could endure space flight at all. Famously, the manual controls on Vostok were behind a locked panel. This wasn't because the Russians didn't trust their pilots to land where they were told to. It was because the engineers weren't sure that, after hours in free-fall, a man would still have the faculties necessary to control the spacecraft. It was a safety feature. As it happens, the locks would only be used for the first flight, after which they were decided unnecessary. The original plan called for the codes to be radioed up to the cosmonaut if they were needed. "But, what if the radio goes out?" Well, they put the codes in an envelope that the cosmonaut could open when directed. The cosmonaut detachment commander, Nikolai Kamanin, thought that was a stupid idea. He decided that he'd give his man the code before launch, and trust him not to use it unless it was an emergency.
Two men were training for that first flight. One was Gherman Titov, an Air Force pilot who excelled at gymnastics. The other was Yuri Gagarin, another Air Force pilot, slightly older and slightly more experienced than Titov. The decision on who would fly was not made until the morning of the mission. Gagarin was chosen, partly because he was older and seen as more stable, a steady man who would not panic.
At about 7AM local time, Gagarin was bolted into the Vostok capsule. This brings up another difference between Vostok and Mercury: Vostok had no escape tower. It was not believed to be necessary, since the pilot was already equipped with an ejection seat. They couldn't make a parachute big enough to slow down the capsule enough for a survivable landing, so they decided that the pilot would punch out and land on his own parachute. This would serve double-duty as the pilot's emergency escape if anything should go wrong with the launch.
Gagarin was calm as they worked their way through the pre-launch checklist. Then, at seven past nine local time, the final count began.
Less than ten minutes later, Vostok 1 was in orbit. It would be another 25 minutes before ground control had gathered enough data to be certain that it was a stable orbit. Not that it mattered much at this point. Stable or not, Vostok 1 was committed. The only large engine left was the one intended to de-orbit the spacecraft before re-entry.
Vostok had a beautifully-ingenious device for orienting the spacecraft prior to deorbit. Orientation is crucial. You have to have the spacecraft's engine pointing in exactly the right direction, else you waste thrust. Assuming a circular orbit, all you need to do is make sure you're level, and pointed backwards. The Vzor device did this, with a window and some mirrors. The mirrors reflected the horizon such that it was visible all around the window's edge. So, if you were oriented level, you saw the horizon all around the edge of the window. Then, you look at the clouds rolling past the window. If they're going from the bottom straight to the top, bingo! Otherwise, you slew around in yaw until they line up.
Gagarin didn't have to do any of this by hand, though. The automatic systems worked quite well, and were perfectly able to line up and execute the de-orbit burn without direct intervention. But, there was one small problem. One of the pyro bolts had failed, and the re-entry capsule was still connected to the service module by a bundle of cables. The two halves began re-entry above Egypt, and Gagarin began to experience wild gyrations. He didn't mention this to ground control, for two reasons. One, he didn't think he was in serious trouble. And two, what could they do about it anyway? It's not like they could send up bolt-cutters.
As it happens, Gagarin's instincts were spot-on. The cable burned in two, and re-entry proceeded normally. At seven kilometers altitude, the hatch was released, and Gagarin punched out. He landed under his own parachute, and greeted the two startled farmers who met him with a request for a telephone to call Moscow.
Only an hour and a half had passed, but the world would be forever different. Man had taken his first halting steps into the Universe.
(You can recreate this for yourself, with Orbiter 2010, as demonstrated in the clip above. It's a fascinating experience.)
T+30: Hail, Columbia
[Ed. Note: Another anniversary from 1861 is here. And another anniversary from 1961 is here.]
Thirty years ago...
There's high-stakes testing, and then there's high-stakes testing.
In principle, there's nothing particularly wrong with all-up tests. It had worked pretty well in the Apollo program. In a traditional test program, you would have tested each stage individually, before trying to stack them all together. The problem was, if NASA had done that, they would never have met the goal of landing a man on the Moon by the end of the 1960s. So, to save time, they tested all three stages of the Saturn V rocket together. Twice the rocket flew unmanned, and it performed well enough that managers felt confident that they could put men on top of it for Apollo 8.
This philosophy was carried forward into the Space Shuttle program, with one additional twist. When the Space Shuttle flew into orbit on April 12, 1981, that would be the first time it flew into space. Its first flight would also be its first manned flight. For reasons known only to its designers, the Shuttle simply could not be flown automated. Oh, it could do just about everything by itself, with only one key exception.
The landing gear handle? It had to be pulled by hand.
So, on that April day in 1981, two men rode up the elevator to participate in one of the highest-risk test flights ever attempted.
Fittingly, the commander was the most experienced astronaut then on NASA's payroll. John Young had been selected as part of Group 2 in 1962. Prior to that, he had set time-to-climb records as a Navy test pilot as part of the F-4 Phantom II test program. He flew with Gus Grissom on the first flight of the Gemini spacecraft, and flew again as commander of Gemini 10. He would also fly twice in Apollo, first as Command Module Pilot on Apollo 10, then as Commander of Apollo 16. He had flown three different kinds of spacecraft, and had experienced five liftoffs and five landings (having had two of each on Apollo 16, obviously).
Young's co-pilot for this mission was a rookie astronaut, Robert Crippen. A rookie, maybe, but not a youngster, nor an inexperienced pilot. He had initially been selected as an astronaut in 1966, for the Department of Defense Manned Orbital Laboratory program. MOL was, to all intents and purposes, a manned reconnaissance satellite. Many of the details are still secret, but it's generally agreed that the cameras for the MOL were recycled into the unmanned KH-11 satellite. When the MOL program was cancelled in 1969, six of the MOL astronauts were recruited by NASA. So, why was a rookie flying the right-hand seat on the first flight? Simple: NASA needed experienced astronauts, and there was only one way to make them. The first four flights would be commanded by Apollo-era veterans: Young, Engle, Lousma, and Mattingly. Of the four, Engle had not flown in Earth orbit, but had flown the X-15 high and fast enough to make him the most experienced hypersonic glider pilot they had. Each of the four would be paired up with a "new guy", to give them experience so that they could enter the rotation as fully qualified commanders. The first four of these would be Crippen, Truly, Fullerton, and Hartsfield.
So, on that day, NASA's most experienced astronaut and its most promising rookie strapped into the cockpit of Columbia, and waited. Young's heart rate wasn't exceptionally high. He'd done this before, he knew the drill, this wasn't anything that worried him too much. Besides, if anything went wrong, that's what the black-and-yellow candy-striped handle was there for, right? Crippen's heart rate was somewhat higher. This was all new for him, something he'd eagerly anticipated for fifteen years now. (The large number of astronauts selected in the late 1960s, combined with the collapse of post-Apollo programs, led to some very lengthy waits.)
Finally, at almost exactly 6AM local time, the final count commenced.
Once they were shed of those oversized Roman candles, the rest was easy. Columbia made it into orbit for a two-day shakedown flight. There were a few unsettling things they found as they inspected the exterior of the ship: during launch, some of the protective tiles had come loose of the OMS pods. The really scary thing was ... did any come loose underneath? Because that was the only thing between Columbia and the searing heat of re-entry. Well, on the 14th of April, they'd find out. Now that they were in orbit, there was only one way home. They would have to fire the OMS rockets long enough to bring their orbital path down into the atmosphere. Then, John Young would have to fly the ship through re-entry, and land it on the dry lake bed at Edwards Air Force Base in California.
Now, the biometrical data was reversed. Crippen was excited, but not terribly so. Young, on the other hand, was concerned. This was something he'd never done before. This was something no one had ever done before.
There were no guarantees they'd make it. A large crowd waited, hoping to greet them.
Of course, Columbia made it back, and made a perfect landing on April 14th. John Young would go on to command one more Space Shuttle flight, and since then, only eight people have equaled his record of six launches from Earth, and only two have surpassed it. Robert Crippen went on to command three more Space Shuttle missions, but none on Columbia.
Columbia herself would go on to fly into orbit 27 more times. Sadly, on her 28th and last mission, she would not land.
Thirty years ago...
There's high-stakes testing, and then there's high-stakes testing.
In principle, there's nothing particularly wrong with all-up tests. It had worked pretty well in the Apollo program. In a traditional test program, you would have tested each stage individually, before trying to stack them all together. The problem was, if NASA had done that, they would never have met the goal of landing a man on the Moon by the end of the 1960s. So, to save time, they tested all three stages of the Saturn V rocket together. Twice the rocket flew unmanned, and it performed well enough that managers felt confident that they could put men on top of it for Apollo 8.
This philosophy was carried forward into the Space Shuttle program, with one additional twist. When the Space Shuttle flew into orbit on April 12, 1981, that would be the first time it flew into space. Its first flight would also be its first manned flight. For reasons known only to its designers, the Shuttle simply could not be flown automated. Oh, it could do just about everything by itself, with only one key exception.
The landing gear handle? It had to be pulled by hand.
So, on that April day in 1981, two men rode up the elevator to participate in one of the highest-risk test flights ever attempted.
Fittingly, the commander was the most experienced astronaut then on NASA's payroll. John Young had been selected as part of Group 2 in 1962. Prior to that, he had set time-to-climb records as a Navy test pilot as part of the F-4 Phantom II test program. He flew with Gus Grissom on the first flight of the Gemini spacecraft, and flew again as commander of Gemini 10. He would also fly twice in Apollo, first as Command Module Pilot on Apollo 10, then as Commander of Apollo 16. He had flown three different kinds of spacecraft, and had experienced five liftoffs and five landings (having had two of each on Apollo 16, obviously).
Young's co-pilot for this mission was a rookie astronaut, Robert Crippen. A rookie, maybe, but not a youngster, nor an inexperienced pilot. He had initially been selected as an astronaut in 1966, for the Department of Defense Manned Orbital Laboratory program. MOL was, to all intents and purposes, a manned reconnaissance satellite. Many of the details are still secret, but it's generally agreed that the cameras for the MOL were recycled into the unmanned KH-11 satellite. When the MOL program was cancelled in 1969, six of the MOL astronauts were recruited by NASA. So, why was a rookie flying the right-hand seat on the first flight? Simple: NASA needed experienced astronauts, and there was only one way to make them. The first four flights would be commanded by Apollo-era veterans: Young, Engle, Lousma, and Mattingly. Of the four, Engle had not flown in Earth orbit, but had flown the X-15 high and fast enough to make him the most experienced hypersonic glider pilot they had. Each of the four would be paired up with a "new guy", to give them experience so that they could enter the rotation as fully qualified commanders. The first four of these would be Crippen, Truly, Fullerton, and Hartsfield.
So, on that day, NASA's most experienced astronaut and its most promising rookie strapped into the cockpit of Columbia, and waited. Young's heart rate wasn't exceptionally high. He'd done this before, he knew the drill, this wasn't anything that worried him too much. Besides, if anything went wrong, that's what the black-and-yellow candy-striped handle was there for, right? Crippen's heart rate was somewhat higher. This was all new for him, something he'd eagerly anticipated for fifteen years now. (The large number of astronauts selected in the late 1960s, combined with the collapse of post-Apollo programs, led to some very lengthy waits.)
Finally, at almost exactly 6AM local time, the final count commenced.
Once they were shed of those oversized Roman candles, the rest was easy. Columbia made it into orbit for a two-day shakedown flight. There were a few unsettling things they found as they inspected the exterior of the ship: during launch, some of the protective tiles had come loose of the OMS pods. The really scary thing was ... did any come loose underneath? Because that was the only thing between Columbia and the searing heat of re-entry. Well, on the 14th of April, they'd find out. Now that they were in orbit, there was only one way home. They would have to fire the OMS rockets long enough to bring their orbital path down into the atmosphere. Then, John Young would have to fly the ship through re-entry, and land it on the dry lake bed at Edwards Air Force Base in California.
Now, the biometrical data was reversed. Crippen was excited, but not terribly so. Young, on the other hand, was concerned. This was something he'd never done before. This was something no one had ever done before.
There were no guarantees they'd make it. A large crowd waited, hoping to greet them.
Of course, Columbia made it back, and made a perfect landing on April 14th. John Young would go on to command one more Space Shuttle flight, and since then, only eight people have equaled his record of six launches from Earth, and only two have surpassed it. Robert Crippen went on to command three more Space Shuttle missions, but none on Columbia.
Columbia herself would go on to fly into orbit 27 more times. Sadly, on her 28th and last mission, she would not land.
Friday, April 08, 2011
It Could Be Worse
[Editor's Note: I realized a couple of weeks ago that April 12th would be a trifecta of anniversaries, and I didn't want to give any one of them short shrift. But in the meantime, I've come across a fragment of a possibly apocryphal transcript of a conversation between Houston and the Space Station.]
"Mission Control to ISS ... Cathy? Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but you and Ron have been furloughed. And, since you're not authorized to use Federal property while on furlough ... um ... well, could you and Ron step outside for a bit while Congress sorts this mess out? What was that? AND the horse I rode in on?"
"Mission Control to ISS ... Cathy? Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but you and Ron have been furloughed. And, since you're not authorized to use Federal property while on furlough ... um ... well, could you and Ron step outside for a bit while Congress sorts this mess out? What was that? AND the horse I rode in on?"
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