“… In ancient times, people peered into the sky in order to see the images of their heroes among the constellations. Much has changed since then: people of flesh and blood have become our heroes. Others will follow and will certainly find their way home. Their searches will not be in vain. However, these people were the first, and they will remain the first in our hearts. From now on, everyone who would not fix their eyes on Venus will remember that a tiny corner of this alien world forever belongs to humanity."
- President Barack Obama's speech dedicated to the 40th anniversary of the dispatch of a manned mission to Venus, M. Canaveral, October 31, 2013
At this point, you can only shrug your shoulders and honestly admit that there has never been any manned flight to Venus. And the "speech of President Obama" itself is just an excerpt from the prepared speech of R. Nixon in case of the death of astronauts sent to conquer the moon (1969). However, the clumsy staging has very specific justifications. This is how NASA saw its further plans for space exploration in the 1960s:
- 1973, October 31 - the launch of the Saturn-V launch vehicle with a manned mission to Venus;
- 1974, March 3 - the passage of the ship near the Morning Star;
- 1974, December 1 - the return of the descent module with the crew to Earth.
Now it seems like science fiction, but then, half a century ago, scientists and engineers were filled with the most daring plans and expectations. They have in their hands the most powerful and perfect technology for conquering space, created in the framework of the Apollo lunar program and automatic missions to study the solar system.
The Saturn V launch vehicle is the most powerful human-made launch vehicle ever built, with a launch mass exceeding 2,900 tons. And the mass of the payload launched into low-earth orbit could reach 141 tons!
Estimate the height of the rocket. 110 meters - from a 35-storey building!
Heavy 3-seater spacecraft "Apollo" (command compartment weight - 5500 … 5800 kg; service module weight - up to 25 tons, of which 17 tons were fuel). It was this ship that was supposed to be used to go beyond low-earth orbit and fly to the nearest celestial body - the Moon.
Upper stage S-IVB (the third stage of the Saturn-V LV) with a reusable engine, used to launch the Apollo spacecraft into a reference orbit around the Earth, and then into a flight path to the Moon. The upper stage weighing 119.9 tons contained 83 tons of liquid oxygen and 229,000 liters (16 tons) of liquid hydrogen - 475 seconds of solid fire. The thrust is a million newtons!
Long-range space communication systems that ensure reliable reception and transmission of data from spacecraft at distances of hundreds of millions of kilometers. The development of docking technology in space is the key to the creation of orbital stations and the assembly of heavy manned spacecraft for flights to the inner and outer planets of the solar system. The emergence of new technologies in microelectronics, materials science, chemistry, medicine, robotics, instrumentation and other related fields meant an inevitable imminent breakthrough in space exploration.
The landing of a man on the moon was not far off, but why not use the available technology to carry out more daring expeditions? For example - a manned flyby of Venus!
If successful, we - for the first time in the entire era of our civilization - would be lucky to see that distant, mysterious world in the vicinity of the Morning Star. Walk 4000 km above the cloud cover of Venus and dissolve in the blinding sunlight on the other side of the planet.
Apollo - S-IVB spacecraft in the vicinity of Venus
Already on the way back, the astronauts will get acquainted with Mercury - they will see the planet from a distance of 0.3 astronomical units: 2 times closer than observers from Earth.
1 year and 1 month in open space. The path is half a billion kilometers long.
The implementation of the first interplanetary expedition in history was planned using exclusively existing technologies and samples of rocket and space technology created under the Apollo program. Of course, such a complex and lengthy mission would require a number of non-standard decisions when choosing a ship's layout.
For example, the S-IVB stage, after fuel burnout, had to be ventilated, and then used as an inhabited compartment (wet workshop). The idea of converting fuel tanks into living quarters for astronauts looked very attractive, especially considering that "fuel" meant hydrogen, oxygen, and their "toxic" mixture of H2O.
The main engine of the Apollo spacecraft was supposed to be replaced with two liquid-propellant engines from the landing stage of the lunar module. With the same thrust, this had two important advantages. First, the duplication of engines increased the reliability of the entire system. Second, the shorter nozzles facilitated the design of an adapter tunnel that would later be used by astronauts to navigate between the Apollo command module and the living quarters inside the S-IVB.
The third important difference between the "Venusian spacecraft" and the usual S-IVB - Apollo bundle is associated with a small "window" for canceling the launch and returning the command-service module to Earth. In the event of malfunctions in the upper stage, the ship's crew had a few minutes to turn on the braking engine (propulsion rocket engine of the Apollo spacecraft) and go on a return course.
Layouts of the Apollo spacecraft in conjunction with the S-IVB upper stage. On the left is the basic departure stage with a packed "lunar module". Right - a view of the "Venusian ship" at various stages of flight
As a result, even BEFORE the start of the acceleration to Venus, the separation and re-docking of the system had to be carried out: the Apollo separated from the S-IVB, “tumbled” over its head, and after that it was docked with the upper stage from the side of the command module. At the same time, the Apollo's main engine was oriented outward, in the direction of flight. An unpleasant feature of this scheme was the non-standard effect of overload on the astronauts' bodies. When the engine of the upper stage S-IVB was turned on, the astronauts flew literally with "eyes on their foreheads" - the overload, instead of pressing, on the contrary, "pulled" them out of their seats.
Realizing how difficult and dangerous such an expedition is, it was proposed to prepare for the flight to Venus in several stages:
- test flight around the Earth of the Apollo spacecraft with a docked S-IVB mass and size mock-up;
- a one-year manned flight of the Apollo - S-IVB cluster in geostationary orbit (at an altitude of 35 786 km above the Earth's surface).
And only then - the start to Venus.
Orbital station "Skylab"
Time passed, the number of technical problems grew, as did the time required to solve them. The "lunar program" drastically devastated NASA's budget. Six landings on the surface of the nearest celestial body: priority achieved - the US economy could not pull more. The cosmic euphoria of the 1960s has come to its logical conclusion. Congress increasingly cut the budget for the study of the National Aerospace Agency, and no one even wanted to hear about any grandiose manned flights to Venus and Mars: automatic interplanetary stations did an excellent job of studying space.
As a result, in 1973, the Skylab station was launched into a near-earth orbit instead of the Apollo - S-IVB cluster. A fantastic design, many years ahead of its time - suffice it to say that its mass (77 tons) and the volume of habitable compartments (352 cubic meters) were 4 times higher than those of its peers - Soviet orbital stations of the Salyut / Almaz series …
The main secret of the "SkyLab": it was created on the basis of the very third stage S-IVB of the Saturn-V launch vehicle. However, unlike the Venus ship, Skylab's insides were never used as a fuel tank. Skylab was immediately launched into orbit with a full set of scientific equipment and life support systems. On board were 2,000 pounds of food and 6,000 pounds of water. The table is set, it's time to receive guests!
And then it began … The Americans faced such a stream of technical problems that the operation of the station turned out to be practically impossible. The power supply system was out of order, the heat balance was disturbed: the temperature inside the station rose to + 50 ° Celsius. To remedy the situation, an expedition of three astronauts was urgently sent to Skylab. During the 28 days spent on board the emergency station, they opened the jammed solar panel panel, mounted a heat-shielding "shield" on the outer surface, and then, using the Apollo spacecraft engines, oriented the Skylab in such an angle that the surface of the hull illuminated by the Sun had the minimum area.
Skylab. The heat shield installed on the braces is clearly visible
The station was somehow brought into working order, the on-board observatory in the X-ray and ultraviolet ranges began to work. With the help of the Skylb equipment, “holes” in the sun's corona were discovered, and dozens of biological, technical and astrophysical experiments were carried out. In addition to the "repair and restoration brigade", the station was visited by two more expeditions - lasting 59 and 84 days. Later, the capricious station was mothballed.
In July 1979, 5 years after the last human visit, Skylab entered the dense atmosphere and collapsed over the Indian Ocean. Part of the debris fell on the territory of Australia. So the story of the last representative of the "Saturn-V" era ended.
Soviet TMK
It is curious that a similar project was worked on in our country: since the early 1960s, OKB-1 has two working groups under the leadership of G. Yu. Maximov and K. P. Feoktistov developed a project for a heavy interplanetary spacecraft (TMK) to send a manned expedition to Venus and Mars (study of celestial bodies from a flight path without landing on their surface). Unlike the Yankees, who initially sought to completely unify the Appolo Application Program systems, the Soviet Union was developing a completely new ship with a complex structure, a nuclear power plant and electric jet (plasma) engines. The estimated mass of the departure stage of the spacecraft in Earth orbit was supposed to be 75 tons. The only thing that connected the TMK project with the domestic "lunar program" was the N-1 super-heavy launch vehicle. A key element of all programs, on which our further successes in space depended.
The launch of TMK-1 to Mars was scheduled for July 8, 1971 - during the days of the Great Confrontation, when the Red Planet approaches the Earth as close as possible. The return of the expedition was planned for July 10, 1974.
Both versions of the Soviet TMK had a complex injection algorithm into orbit - the "lighter" version of the spacecraft proposed by Maximov's working group provided for the launch of the TMK unmanned module into low-earth orbit followed by the landing of a crew of three cosmonauts delivered into space in a simple and reliable " Union ". Feokistov's version provided for an even more sophisticated scheme with several N-1 launches, followed by assembly of the spacecraft in space.
In the course of work on the TMK, a colossal complex of studies was carried out to create life support systems for a closed cycle and oxygen regeneration, issues of radiation protection of the crew from solar flares and galactic radiation were discussed. Much attention was paid to the psychological problems of a person's stay in a confined space. Super-heavy launch vehicle, the use of nuclear power plants in space, the latest (at that time) plasma engines, interplanetary communications, algorithms for docking and undocking of multi-ton ship parts in near-earth orbit - TMK appeared before its creators in the form of an extremely complex technical system, practically unrealizable with the help of technology 1960s.
The concept design of the heavy interplanetary spacecraft was frozen after a series of unsuccessful launches of the "lunar" N-1. In the future, it was decided to abandon the development of TMK in favor of orbital stations and other more realistic projects.
And happiness was so close …
Despite the presence of all the necessary technologies and all the seeming simplicity of flights to the nearest celestial bodies, a manned flyby of Venus and Mars was beyond the power of the glorious conquerors of space during the 1960s.
In theory, everything was relatively good: our science and industry could recreate almost any element of a heavy interplanetary ship and even launch them separately into space. However, in practice, Soviet specialists in the rocket and space industry, like their American counterparts, faced such a monstrous number of insoluble problems that the TMK project was buried "under the heading" for many years.
The main issue in the creation of interplanetary spacecraft, as now, was the RELIABILITY of such a system. And there were problems with that …
Even today, with the current level of development of microelectronics, electric jet engines and other hi-tech, sending a manned expedition to the Red Planet looks at least risky, difficult to fulfill, and most importantly, excessively expensive mission for such a project to be carried out in the reality. Even if the attempt to land on the surface of the Red Planet is abandoned, the long-term stay of a person in the cramped compartments of a spacecraft, coupled with the need to revive super-heavy launch vehicles, forces modern specialists to draw an unambiguous conclusion: with the existing level of technology, manned missions to the nearest "terrestrial" planets are practically impossible.
Distance! It's all about the colossal distances and the time it takes to overcome them.
A real breakthrough will occur only when engines with high thrust and no less high specific impulse are invented, which will ensure the acceleration of the ship to a speed of hundreds of km / s in a short period of time. The high flight speed will automatically remove all problems with complex life support systems and the long-term stay of the expedition in the vastness of space.
Apollo command and service module
