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| Repurposing Apollo: a modified Apollo Command and Service Module (CSM) (higher proper) spacecraft strikes by means of house docked with an Apollo Telescope Mount (ATM) derived from the Lunar Module (LM) lander. NASA’s Apollo Functions Program (AAP) would have seen ATMs working alone, with docked CSMs, and docked with AAP Orbital Workshops. Picture credit score: unsure, however most likely Grumman, makers of the LM. |
That is the most recent in a collection of chronology posts on this weblog. I normally write posts individually, with little regard for a way they match with others; these posts allow me to protect that strategy, which I discover productive, whereas additionally linking separate posts to inform a bigger story. This chronology submit focuses on the Apollo Functions Program (AAP).
Begun formally in 1965, AAP grew from the Apollo Extension System, Apollo X, Manned Orbital Analysis Laboratory, and associated proposals of the primary half of the Sixties. Although backed by President Lyndon Baines Johnson, who noticed it as a logical Apollo successor program, AAP suffered from repeated funding shortfalls and inner NASA squabbling.
The Apollo 1 fireplace (27 January 1967) passed off inside the primary Apollo Program, however it was the ultimate straw for AAP. This system was not formally ended, nevertheless, till the Skylab Program took over a few of its Earth-orbital goals in 1970.
AAP advanced into the three J-class Apollo missions (1971-1972) and 4 Skylab missions (1973-1974). Some have sought to painting the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz Check Undertaking (ASTP) flight as an AAP successor; it’s, nevertheless, higher seen as a by-product of Built-in Program Plan (IPP) house rescue planning. Nixon-era politics obscured ASTP’s hyperlink with the IPP.
Apollo Extension System Flight Mission Project Plan (1965)
Relighting the FIRE: A 1966 Proposal for Piloted Interplanetary Mission Reentry Checks
Saturn-Apollo Functions: Combining Missions to Save Rockets, Spacecraft, and Cash (1966)
“With out Hiatus”: The Apollo Functions Program In June 1966
Apollo Functions Program: Lunar Module Relay Experiment Laboratory (1966)
“Assuming That Every little thing Goes Completely Nicely within the Apollo Program. . .” (1967)
Apollo Ends at Venus: A 1967 Proposal for Single-Launch Piloted Venus Flybys in 1972, 1973, and 1975
To “G” Or Not To “G” (1968)
A Forgotten Rocket: The Saturn IB
Rocket Belts and Rocket Chairs: Lunar Flying Models
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| As initially conceived, AAP would have included many lunar-orbital and lunar-surface missions. Pictured right here is an LM-derived, robotically landed LM Shelter designed to assist two astronauts throughout a floor keep lasting 14 days (one lunar daylight interval). The astronauts would have arrived individually in an LM-derived “Taxi” spacecraft. Picture credit score: Grumman. |
