Technically possible orbital flight in late 30s?

[carp]

The question is:technically,with large funds and putting together the best scientists and technicians of the world,an orbital flight it would have been possible in late 30s-very early 40s? (1938-1941) http://img501.imageshack.us/img501/8532/30ssuit8qa.jpg http://img501.imageshack.us/img501/2546/pdvd0109ka.jpg http://img501.imageshack.us/img501/5940/pdvd0141zx.jpg

 

[spacefire]

featuring Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>http://asteroid-invasion.blogspot.com</p><p>http://www.solvengineer.com/asteroid-invasion.html </p><p> </p> </div>

 

[spacefire]

ok, to answer your question, no. <br />Von Braun spent years building smaller rockets before he managed to get a V2 up in the air. Even with unlimited funding, 'getting it right' would take the same amount of years it took from 1938-40 till the first successful manned orbital flight in 1961. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>http://asteroid-invasion.blogspot.com</p><p>http://www.solvengineer.com/asteroid-invasion.html </p><p> </p> </div>

 

[tomnackid]

The British Interplanetary Society designed a LUNAR flight in the late 30s using available technology. The "cellular" rocket was made of 2500 small solid fueled rocket motors stacked in layers. As each layer was used up it would drop off. Steam jets would provide reaction control. The command module was to be made from varnished cloth to save weight and the spacesuits from layers of leather! So little was known about the effects of space travel on humans that they planed to spin the command module/lander along its axis to provide some artificial gravity.<br /><br />Now the BIS had a lot of people with scientific and engineering backgrounds (Arthur C. Clark for example) so I assume the math worked out. Could it have really worked?<br /><br />I think we have had the potential to build an orbital rocket since WWI. There was just no demand for it. Almost all of the rocket research in the US (which pretty much meant Goddard and his team) was done with private money or tiny government grants and almost no military interest. (Planes and ships are just fine thank you!) The Germans were big on rockets, but in the 20s and 30s there was little money available in Germany for extensive rocket research. The Russians were also very interested in rocketry, but they were too busy becoming the USSR, and too strapped for cash to do much other than paper studies.<br /><br />If America had embraced the "rocket craze" of the 20s and 30s to the same extent that Germany and Russia had I think we could have had an orbital rocket before the end of the 30s. Goddard had seriously proposed firing an unmanned rocket at the moon as far back as the 20s (and was soundly ridiculed by the press for his troubles). <br /><br />Here is a link to info. about the BIS's 1937 moon mission and other pre-Sputnik plans.<br /><br />http://www.davidszondy.com/future/space/bis.htm

 

[spacefire]

going from a small rocket to a big rocket isn't just a matter of scaling up the parts. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>http://asteroid-invasion.blogspot.com</p><p>http://www.solvengineer.com/asteroid-invasion.html </p><p> </p> </div>

 

[grooble]

What about Sanger's suborbital rocketplane? Do you think it would have worked?

 

[grooble]

There were plans to go to the moon in the 17th century.

 

[mlorrey]

"going from a small rocket to a big rocket isn't just a matter of scaling up the parts. "<br /><br />Isn't that essentially what von Braun did with Goddard's patents?

 

[vogon13]

I recall a story of von Braun approaching a manufacturer about purchasing a liquid oxygen pump. When Von Braun showed the manufacturer the specifications he needed, the manufacturer laughed at him and told him in so many words that he was stupid for asking for such a device and that his not understanding the stupidity of it was proof thereof.<br /><br />Who else in the 1930s would have needed a lox pump that could transfer tons of material at enormous pressure in just a minute or two?<br /><br />Not realizing such a device would not be an 'off the shelf' item (then or now) probably did seem a little wacky to the manufacturer.<br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#ff0000"><strong>TPTB went to Dallas and all I got was Plucked !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#339966"><strong>So many people, so few recipes !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#0000ff"><strong>Let's clean up this stinkhole !!</strong></font> </p> </div>

 

[spacefire]

lol although the principle is the same, the complexity increases as the size of the rocket increases. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>http://asteroid-invasion.blogspot.com</p><p>http://www.solvengineer.com/asteroid-invasion.html </p><p> </p> </div>

 

[carp]

"First, orbital flight may have been possible if all the countries had worked together without conflict.<br />Also, as long as you were not too picky about your orbit (within 30 degrees inclination and within about + or - 150 miles altitude) and the fact that you probably wouldn't land safely (high probability of burning up and/or augering in) and your landing zone would be roughly a 4000 miles radius.<br /><br />My guess would be that you would probably loose a few of these Deco-nauts on the ride up due to critical system failures, then a higher number of fatalities on orbit. The lucky few to make it to re-entry would undoubtedly not survive due to system failures (too many credible failures to list), inaccuracies in re-entry angles (skipping off the atmosphere and sailing off into deep space), and inability to accurately choose a landing spot.<br /><br />I forgot to mention that there would probably be no radio communication with the ground, so they would just run off a time dependant sequence of steps. Unfortunate if something were to go wrong.<br /><br />Technically an orbital flight, but a wild ride".----------------Agree with this opinion?<br /><br />

 

[mikejz]

I would say that the answer is 'yes' but orbital in the sense of exactly that--orbit. Not manned or with a signifiant payload, just good old 18,000 mph with a radio becon and thats it. Remember that the redstone/Jupiter-C was only a single generation away from the V-2. In addition, the A-9/A-10 could surely of served as a orbital LV if modified. <br /><br />I would venture to say that three V2s could be clustered as a first stage along with a simple 2nd stage (solid and spin stabilized) could of gotten a small satellite into Leo. The main obsticule I could see would be 1) The shape of the V2 in making a 'Heavy' Configuration. and 2) Adapting the V2s guidence system to deal with such a complex control system.

 

[mlorrey]

Actually, with three V-2s clustered, each engine would only need one control vane and one gyro. With synchronized clocks, all three could run on their own flight tape with only one vectoring control output each.

 

[tomnackid]

Soviet rockets--from the Sputnik launcher to the Soyuz are basically clusters of V2s with the steering vanes replaced by verier rockets.

 

[dobbins]

The A-4 (V2) didn't make it's first test flight until March of 1942 and that flight was only 1.6 km. It didn't make a fully successful flight until October of 1942. The program cost 2 Billion 1945 dollars, or over 21 Billion 2005 dollars, so there was no lack of funding. The best rocket available in the late 1930s was the A-5, a scaled down test version of the A-4, and less capable.<br /><br />The A-4 pushed the technology of the time to it's limits, arrived later than a late 1930s time frame, and still wasn't capable of a manned or unmanned orbital mission. It simply wasn't possible.<br /><br />After Von Braun came to the USA he didn't get near the finical backing that he had gotten from Germany. If he had he might have been able to get an unmanned satellite into orbit in the early 1950s. Nothing earlier than this would have been possible.<br /><br />

 

[spacefire]

finally me and Dobbins agree on something. nice post sir. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>http://asteroid-invasion.blogspot.com</p><p>http://www.solvengineer.com/asteroid-invasion.html </p><p> </p> </div>

 

[mikejz]

Well if you extended early-40s to say 1943-44 and if the A-4/5 programs had been started by Germany a few years sooner, I think it would of still been viable.

 

[dobbins]

The German Rocket program started with the A-1 in 1933. The A-4 and A-5 programs would have been failures without the knowledge that was gained with the A-1, A-2, and A-3. They couldn't have been started any sooner.<br /><br />

 

[tomnackid]

The A-4 program didn't develop any new materials it "merely" (OK, that's a big merely!) refined mechanisms and techniques. The A-4 was made of aluminum alloy, steel, rubber, plywood--all materials available since the 20s. LOX was an easily available industrial material. Fire engines were already using turbines that could pump liquids at the speeds and volumes the A-4 needed. (von Braun approached a manufacturer of turbines with his "impossible" specs for the A-4's fuel pump and was told to go to the Berlin fire department--they had been using pumps with those flow rates for years.) The big breakthroughs were mainly conceptual--actively cooling the combustion chamber. Connecting a gyroscope to steering vanes in the exhaust flow to control the orientation, etc. Most all of which were patented by Goddard in the 20s. Also the a-4/V-2 was optimized as a weapon not a launch vehicle--von Braun was actually arrested by the SS because they thought he was more interested in space than war. <br /><br />I still say that all of the materials were in place by the end of WWI to build an unmanned rocket capable of reaching orbit, assuming a wealthy country like the US put as much effort into it as they did say building the Panama Canal. Even thought the A-4/V-2 was the state of the art in the 40s it was optimized as a weapon (a lot of effort went into making sure it came down more-or-less near its intended target rather than increasing its velocity or reducing its weight). And besides there were other technologies not pursued at the time that could have worked better for just putting a payload into orbit as opposed to winning a war. Hybrid rockets, the BIS's "cellular" solid rocket, a giant canon sunk in the ground in Florida <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /> but "Cavorite" completely out of the question!<br /><br />The German rocket program (or its equivalent) could easily have been started before 1933 if anyone with money really wanted to do it. It took the NAZIs and their desi

 

[spacefire]

since the Mongols and the Chinese were using solide rockets since the 1200s, how come they didn't build an SRB and gone in space in the Middle Ages? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>http://asteroid-invasion.blogspot.com</p><p>http://www.solvengineer.com/asteroid-invasion.html </p><p> </p> </div>

 

[mlorrey]

Well, Goddard didn't have much in the way of regulatory interference out there in New Mexico. What he had were money problems, living off the Guggenheim Grant to fund his real rocket work out there. $50,000 funding a team of 4-6 people can only last so many years, even in the 1930's. His tuberculosis didn't help any either.

 

[j05h]

>since the Mongols and the Chinese were using solide rockets since the 1200s, how come they didn't build an SRB and gone in space in the Middle Ages?<br /><br />You are probably thinking of Wan Hu:<br /><br />http://edition.cnn.com/2003/TECH/space/09/30/china.wanhu/<br /><br />Side note: the Ming navy (of Zheng He fame) had about 25% of it's staff as various types of rocketeers. The myth of China not having military rockets is put to bed in "When China Ruled the Seas" - they used them for certain wall attacks, delivering explosives, poisons and fire starters and as MLLS-type rocket launchers. Plus rocket-assisted arrows! China was on the verge of mercantalist industrial revolution in the 1400s, Confucian agrculturalism held the world back for several hundred years. <br /><br />Josh <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div align="center"><em>We need a first generation of pioneers.</em><br /></div> </div>

 

[lampblack]

<font color="yellow">since the Mongols and the Chinese were using solide rockets since the 1200s, how come they didn't build an SRB and gone in space in the Middle Ages?</font><br /><br />That sort of reminds me of a question I asked myself occasionally when I was a kid and my family would do fireworks: why the heck <i>couldn't</i> somebody just make a big enough ol' bottle rocket and fly it to the moon? Or at least into orbit?<br /><br />It seemed a reasonable question at the time. In retrospect, I'm kinda glad I didn't try it. <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font color="#0000ff"><strong>Just tell the truth and let the chips fall...</strong></font> </div>

 

[spacefire]

I was just trying to state that technological progress occurs in small steps. That's why there WAS NO orbital flight attempted in the 30s. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>http://asteroid-invasion.blogspot.com</p><p>http://www.solvengineer.com/asteroid-invasion.html </p><p> </p> </div>

 

[drwayne]

My father was telling me stuff about oxidizers before I was old enough to do fireworks - so I missed out on the skyrocket to the moon question <img src="/images/icons/frown.gif" /><br /><br />Wayne <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>"1) Give no quarter; 2) Take no prisoners; 3) Sink everything."  Admiral Jackie Fisher</p> </div>