The History Guy: Forgotten Manned Mars Mission Plans [14:50]

--> YouTube-Generated Transcript <--
0:00 · Apollo 11 landed on the moon on July
0:02 · 20th 1969 it was a simal event in human
0:06 · history the first time that a human had
0:07 · stood on a Celestial body other than the
0:10 · earth but even before Neil Armstrong's
0:14 · small step for man Nessa was already
0:16 · planning its future based on the
0:18 · technology that had been developed for
0:19 · the Apollo program and among those was a
0:21 · series of studies to send a Mann Mission
0:24 · around Mars now more than 50 years later
0:28 · we are still far from our goal of
0:29 · sitting humans to our planetary
0:31 · neighbors but sometimes the most
0:33 · interesting history is the history of
0:34 · what might have been NASA's M Mars
0:39 · mission plans of the 1960s deserve to be
0:46 · remembered in the forward to a 2001 NASA
0:50 · monographed humans to Mars 50 years of
0:52 · mission planning NASA Chief historian
0:55 · Robert D lonus wrote the planet Mars has
0:58 · long held a special Fascination in even
1:00 · Mythic status for humans well not the
1:02 · closest planet to earth scientists have
1:04 · considered it to be the planet that most
1:05 · closely resembles Earth and thus is the
1:08 · other planet in our solar system most
1:09 · likely to contain life since before the
1:12 · Space Age began people have wondered
1:13 · about the red planet and dreamed of
1:16 · exploring it an early vision of the
1:19 · dream was written by verer Von Bron the
1:21 · Chief Architect of the German rocket
1:22 · program Von Bron had surrendered to the
1:24 · American Army in May of 1945 was brought
1:27 · to the United States as part of a US
1:28 · effort to bring German scient ists
1:30 · engineers and technicians to the United
1:32 · States called Operation Paperclip NASA
1:35 · historian David SF portre explains that
1:37 · from 1945 to 1950 Von Bron was interned
1:41 · at White Sands Proving Ground in New
1:43 · Mexico with about 60 other German rocket
1:45 · Engineers spirited out of Nazi Germany
1:47 · by the US Army at the end of the second
1:49 · world war in 1947 and 1948 to relieve
1:53 · boredom Von Brun wrote a novel about an
1:55 · expedition to Mars by all accounts the
1:58 · novel itself was awful and never saw
2:01 · publication but its appendix included
2:03 · details and mathematical proofs for the
2:05 · spacecraft and missions in the novel the
2:07 · appendix was published first in German
2:08 · in 1948 and then an English translation
2:11 · in 1950 in the forward to the English
2:14 · translation NASA administrator Thomas
2:15 · oay wrote the algorithm of space flight
2:18 · laid out step by step in the tur lines
2:20 · of vener Von Bron's Mars project display
2:23 · the logic that 17 years later carried
2:25 · astronauts to the Moon Von Bron's
2:28 · Mission description was a product of the
2:30 · technology available at the time he
2:32 · assumed that little automation would be
2:33 · available so spacecraft driven by pilots
2:35 · would require substantial Crews he
2:37 · assumed limits in communication that
2:39 · meant that teams of scientists and
2:40 · technicians would have to come along as
2:42 · such the mission was large 10 spacecraft
2:45 · and 70 crew the components would be
2:47 · fered to orbit first and assembled there
2:50 · but the pace of Technology moved faster
2:52 · than he expected as portre explains it
2:55 · is interesting to compare Von Bron's
2:57 · Vision with the Apollo lunar Expeditions
2:59 · when just two astronauts landed on
3:01 · Earth's Moon an army of personnel
3:03 · including scientists formed part of each
3:05 · Apollo Expedition but remained behind on
3:07 · Earth this separation was made possible
3:10 · by communication advances that Von Brown
3:12 · did not anticipate but Von Brown offered
3:14 · a vision saying only a miraculous
3:16 · Insight could have enabled the
3:18 · scientists of the 18th century to
3:19 · foresee the birth of electrical
3:20 · engineering in the 19th would have
3:22 · required a revelation of equal
3:24 · inspiration for a scientist of the 19th
3:26 · century to foresee the nuclear power
3:27 · plants of the 20th no doubt the 21st
3:30 · century will hold equal surprises and
3:32 · more of them but not everything will be
3:34 · a surprise it seems certain that the
3:36 · 21st century will be the century of
3:38 · scientific and Commercial activities in
3:40 · outer space of Mann interplanetary
3:42 · flight and the establishment of
3:44 · permanent human footh holes outside the
3:46 · planet Earth the vision was popularized
3:48 · in a series of articles by Von braa in
3:50 · Collier's magazine and NASA held on to
3:53 · that Vision Smithsonian Magazine notes
3:55 · that the first NASA proposal for a
3:57 · mission to Mars came in
3:58 · 1959 in April 1959 engineers at NASA's
4:02 · Lewis Research Center in Cleveland
4:04 · astonished the senate committee on
4:05 · aeronautical and space Sciences by
4:07 · appealing for a modest funds to study
4:09 · sending astronauts to Mars NASA was but
4:12 · 6 months old project Mercury the first
4:15 · US piloted Space Project was still two
4:17 · years from placing a human in Space the
4:19 · study was funded and Lewis produced a
4:21 · plan that would begin in orbit around
4:22 · the Earth and send an Orbiter to Mars
4:24 · the spacecraft would be carried to Earth
4:26 · orbit in multiple launches and assembled
4:28 · in orbit similar to Von Bron's plan a
4:30 · Lander would detach and after scientific
4:32 · study return to the Orbiter which would
4:34 · then return to Earth this was very like
4:36 · how Apollo launched on the moon but for
4:38 · a trip to Mars the fuel requirement
4:40 · would have been impractical the Lewis
4:42 · proposal was to use nuclear thermal
4:44 · propotion a nuclear reactor would be
4:46 · used to heat liquid hydrogen which would
4:48 · be expelled through a nozzle but
4:50 · politics intervened in April of 1961 the
4:54 · Soviets launched Bostock one carrying
4:56 · cosmina Yuri gagaran into orbit the US
4:59 · had been caught footed and was behind in
5:01 · the space race in response on May 25th
5:03 · 1961 President Kennedy said to a joint
5:06 · session of Congress that the US should
5:08 · commit itself to achieving the goal
5:10 · before the decade is out of Landing a
5:12 · man on the moon and returning him safely
5:13 · to Earth the choice of priority was not
5:16 · random NASA administrators had concluded
5:18 · that the man moon mission was America's
5:21 · most realistic opportunity to best the
5:23 · Soviet space program JFK was defining
5:25 · the Space Race into the race that the US
5:27 · might be able to win porry writes Mars
5:30 · planners were torn over Kennedy's new
5:32 · timetable on the one hand it put Mars
5:34 · work on the back burner by making the
5:35 · moon NASA's primary overriding goal on
5:38 · the other hand it promised to make
5:39 · launch vehicles and experience needed
5:40 · for Mars available all the sooner the
5:43 · Apollo program and its technology would
5:45 · then rewrite the NASA plans for
5:48 · Mars portre wrote in the 2014 edition of
5:51 · Wired Magazine in mid 1964 only 3 years
5:55 · after President johnf Kennedy put the US
5:57 · on course for the moon a team of
5:59 · Engineers at Marshall space flight
6:00 · center msfc in Huntsville Alabama became
6:04 · the first NASA group to study piloted
6:06 · Mars Venus flyby missions based on
6:08 · Apollo program Hardware they conducted
6:10 · their in-house study because they wanted
6:12 · to see humans Voyage to other planets
6:14 · and because president Lynden B Johnson
6:16 · had made it clear that to reduce space
6:17 · flight costs the US civilian space
6:20 · program after Apollo should be based on
6:21 · spacecraft and Rockets developed for the
6:23 · moon landing interestingly portre writes
6:26 · lbj's vision of NASA's Future made no
6:28 · mention of piloted Mars Venus flybys
6:30 · based on Apollo's technological Legacy
6:33 · on the other hand neither did it
6:34 · specifically forbid them the msfc study
6:38 · was called Empire or early manned
6:40 · planetary interplanetary roundtrip
6:42 · Expedition Smithsonian writes that
6:44 · Empire focused on Mars missions that
6:46 · could be made in the 1970s using modest
6:48 · extrapolation of Apollo technology there
6:51 · was a bit more however to the plan than
6:53 · just Mars calling as Smithsonian notes
6:56 · according to author ta heppenheimer
6:58 · writing a NASA's newly published book
6:59 · the space shuttle decision Bon bro
7:01 · realized that the Marshall Center's role
7:03 · in Apollo would end as soon as its large
7:05 · Saturn boosters were ready for moonlight
7:07 · unless NASA established some goal Beyond
7:09 · Apollo Von Bron's Center would face
7:11 · collapsing budgets and layoffs Mars some
7:14 · felt might be the key to Marshall's
7:16 · future Marshall's plan differed from the
7:19 · strategy that Lewis had proposed
7:20 · Smithsonian writes Mars Landing missions
7:23 · were considered too ambitious so the
7:25 · Empire contractor were ordered to study
7:27 · easier Mand Mars flyby and orbit
7:29 · missions portre writes on his blog
7:32 · piloted flyby spacecraft would swing
7:34 · past their targeted world or worlds on
7:35 · sun centered orbital paths that would
7:37 · intersect Earth enabling their Crews to
7:39 · return home a report by Aerospace
7:41 · contractor Aeron neutronic explained
7:44 · there is no doubt that orbiting and
7:45 · Landing missions require greater
7:47 · propulsion capabilities and larger
7:48 · weights at interplanetary injection than
7:50 · the flyby missions for this and other
7:52 · reasons the ultimate goal of Landing men
7:54 · on other planets should be held as a
7:56 · longrange objective however a logical
7:58 · First Step could be a low energy flyby
8:00 · if properly integrated into the overall
8:02 · space effort such a mission could be
8:04 · achieved early and could lead directly
8:06 · to development of those areas of
8:07 · Technology required for Landings this is
8:10 · without the more stringent requirements
8:12 · of the landing programs at relatively
8:13 · early dates in fact the proposals were
8:16 · not just for a Mars flyby but some
8:18 · included Venus as well the Earth Mars
8:21 · Venus Earth flyby was described by
8:23 · Italian space scientist Jano KOCO in
8:25 · 1956 at the 7eventh Congress of the
8:28 · international aeronautic Federation in
8:29 · Rome Koco's idea would leverage the
8:31 · planetary gravity in a gravity assist
8:33 · maneuver that would reduce the fuel
8:35 · needs for propulsion and braking the
8:37 · issue with a flyby of Mars using gravity
8:39 · assist would place the spacecraft more
8:41 · than a million miles from Mars limiting
8:43 · the scientific value however using
8:45 · Mars's gravity to slingshot towards
8:47 · Venus would allow a much closer path by
8:49 · Mars and then gravity assist from Venus
8:51 · would redirect the craft back to Earth a
8:54 · goal of the study astronautics decom
8:56 · explains had to do with the successor to
8:58 · the Saturn 5 the primary objective was
9:00 · to identify payload requirements for
9:02 · Nova the series of super heavy lift
9:04 · launch Vehicles planned after the Saturn
9:06 · series the Saturn 5 utilized five of the
9:09 · massive rockety F1 engines while Nova
9:12 · would use eight the Marshall space
9:14 · flight Center's future projects office
9:16 · selected three contractors to do studies
9:18 · Aeron neutronic General Dynamics and
9:20 · loed each produced different plans with
9:23 · different propulsion systems and
9:24 · spacecraft configurations the lucky
9:27 · proposal was for a 22-month mission
9:28 · launching in sep member of 1974 carrying
9:30 · a crew of three aeronautic proposed a
9:32 · 21-month mission leaving in July 1970
9:35 · with a crew of six General Dynamics
9:37 · proposed a 15-month mission launching in
9:39 · July of 1975 carrying a crew of eight
9:42 · Empire wouldn't be the only plan the
9:44 · msfc study would be just the beginning
9:46 · as portra notes even before the msfc
9:49 · engineers completed their study in
9:51 · February 1965 other NASA centers sense
9:54 · that they might be left behind and began
9:56 · their own piloted flyby studies based on
9:58 · Apollo technology Smithsonian writes if
10:01 · Mars was to be NASA's Target after the
10:02 · moon no NASA Center wanted to be
10:04 · excluded so in 1963 several centers
10:07 · launched their own Mars studies studies
10:09 · were conducted at Houston's man
10:11 · spacecraft Center known today as the
10:12 · Johnson Space Center while another study
10:14 · was done by North American Aviation the
10:16 · prime contractor for the Apollo Command
10:18 · Module Port notes that these proposals
10:20 · came during the giny program and yes
10:22 · NASA pronounced it gimy that fit the
10:25 · Mars flyby missions into a Clear Vision
10:28 · geminy served admirably as a bridge
10:30 · between Mercury and Apollo piloted
10:32 · flybys based on Apollo quid some belt
10:34 · serve as a bridge between Apollo DED
10:36 · Earth orbiting space stations in the
10:38 · late 1960s early 1970s and Mars Venus
10:41 · orbiters and Mars Landers in the late
10:43 · 1970s and
10:45 · 1980s but the studies also occurred in
10:47 · the time of the Mariner missions
10:49 · including Mariner 4 which did a fly by
10:51 · of bars and return pictures in July of
10:53 · 1965 Smithsonian notes Mariner 4's
10:56 · effects on NASA's 1960s Mars plans can
10:59 · not be overstated in addition to finding
11:01 · a painfully thin atmosphere it snapped
11:03 · 21 pictures of moonlight craters
11:05 · containing no signs of Life edible or
11:08 · otherwise what's more it showed that
11:10 · robots could do flybys no people were
11:13 · required but smithonian continues the
11:16 · concept persisted while the host of
11:18 · studies were being conducted NASA put
11:20 · together a joint Action Group to call us
11:22 · the best of the proposals the new
11:24 · proposal envisioned flybys as
11:26 · preparation for a man landing
11:28 · astronautics decom describes the study
11:30 · as the final NASA attempt to mount a
11:31 · Mann Mars flyby Mission by 1975 using
11:34 · Apollo Hardware but politics was
11:37 · intervening again msian writes that NASA
11:40 · administrator James Webb had been
11:42 · successful with Apollo by not offering
11:44 · any post-apollo plans which would have
11:46 · given ammunition to those who opposed
11:47 · the space program on financial grounds
11:50 · when Webb stepped down and was replaced
11:51 · by Tom Payne in 1969 Payne was not as
11:54 · politically Savvy and proposed High
11:56 · budget Mars missions was a bad time to
11:58 · do so Smithsonian notes that in 1967
12:01 · Congress had warned that Vietnam Wars
12:03 · cost dominated the federal budget and
12:05 · that it would tolerate No new
12:06 · undertakings while President Nixon
12:08 · maintained support for NASA he chose
12:10 · direct efforts to near Earth study and
12:12 · the space shuttle program instead of
12:13 · Mars Smithsonian rights in 1971 NASA
12:17 · ceased all man Mars flight planning
12:19 · according to some old hands mere mention
12:21 · of Mars within NASA became verboten the
12:24 · barely affordable shuttle was a target
12:26 · of frequent attacks so one can only
12:28 · imagine how people would react to Mars
12:31 · NASA was able to continue robotic
12:32 · missions including the Viking program
12:34 · which included an Orbiter and a Lander
12:37 · the man fly by missions never happened
12:39 · as portra notes Nessa had no shortage of
12:41 · Dreams his blog writes the story of
12:43 · space flight told through missions and
12:45 · programs that didn't happen that is the
12:47 · great majority of them the Mars flyby
12:50 · missions became nearly forgotten history
12:52 · Smithsonian writes in NASA's Dusty
12:54 · archives that the remnants of a hidden
12:56 · space age one whose ambition far
12:58 · exceeded that of the H Moon program in
13:00 · the 1960s NASA was eager to broaden its
13:03 · success and begin preparing on paper at
13:05 · least for what it felt certain would be
13:06 · the next big step a mission to Mars to
13:10 · us these plans filed and half forgotten
13:12 · seemed audacious enough to be the work
13:14 · of Science Fiction writers yet The Men
13:16 · Who conceived them were conservative
13:18 · Engineers the Soviets also proposed
13:21 · various man flyby missions but they met
13:22 · a similar budgetary fate as did plans
13:25 · that occurred in the 1980s and the 1990s
13:27 · and today more than 50 years on after
13:29 · those Empire missions would have been
13:32 · completed we're nowhere near putting a
13:34 · person on Mars right now there is no
13:37 · NASA man Mars mission in progress and
13:41 · the general assumption is it couldn't
13:42 · occur prior to the 2030s Smithsonian
13:45 · writes that most of these were just
13:47 · studies the detailed planning would have
13:49 · started as soon as a president backed
13:51 · amar's mission that of course never
13:56 · happened I hope you enjoyed watching
13:58 · this episode of the history guy and if
14:00 · you did please feel free to like And
14:01 · subscribe and share the history guy with
14:03 · your friends and if you also believe
14:05 · that history deserves to be remembered
14:07 · then you can support the history guy as
14:08 · a member on YouTube a supporter on our
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14:29 · oh
14:32 · [Music]
14:39 · [Applause]
14:45 · [Applause]
14:46 · [Music]

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--> YouTube-Generated Transcript <--
0:00	·	Apollo 11 landed on the moon on July
0:02	·	20th 1969 it was a simal event in human
0:06	·	history the first time that a human had
0:07	·	stood on a Celestial body other than the
0:10	·	earth but even before Neil Armstrong's
0:14	·	small step for man Nessa was already
0:16	·	planning its future based on the
0:18	·	technology that had been developed for
0:19	·	the Apollo program and among those was a
0:21	·	series of studies to send a Mann Mission
0:24	·	around Mars now more than 50 years later
0:28	·	we are still far from our goal of
0:29	·	sitting humans to our planetary
0:31	·	neighbors but sometimes the most
0:33	·	interesting history is the history of
0:34	·	what might have been NASA's M Mars
0:39	·	mission plans of the 1960s deserve to be
0:46	·	remembered in the forward to a 2001 NASA
0:50	·	monographed humans to Mars 50 years of
0:52	·	mission planning NASA Chief historian
0:55	·	Robert D lonus wrote the planet Mars has
0:58	·	long held a special Fascination in even
1:00	·	Mythic status for humans well not the
1:02	·	closest planet to earth scientists have
1:04	·	considered it to be the planet that most
1:05	·	closely resembles Earth and thus is the
1:08	·	other planet in our solar system most
1:09	·	likely to contain life since before the
1:12	·	Space Age began people have wondered
1:13	·	about the red planet and dreamed of
1:16	·	exploring it an early vision of the
1:19	·	dream was written by verer Von Bron the
1:21	·	Chief Architect of the German rocket
1:22	·	program Von Bron had surrendered to the
1:24	·	American Army in May of 1945 was brought
1:27	·	to the United States as part of a US
1:28	·	effort to bring German scient ists
1:30	·	engineers and technicians to the United
1:32	·	States called Operation Paperclip NASA
1:35	·	historian David SF portre explains that
1:37	·	from 1945 to 1950 Von Bron was interned
1:41	·	at White Sands Proving Ground in New
1:43	·	Mexico with about 60 other German rocket
1:45	·	Engineers spirited out of Nazi Germany
1:47	·	by the US Army at the end of the second
1:49	·	world war in 1947 and 1948 to relieve
1:53	·	boredom Von Brun wrote a novel about an
1:55	·	expedition to Mars by all accounts the
1:58	·	novel itself was awful and never saw
2:01	·	publication but its appendix included
2:03	·	details and mathematical proofs for the
2:05	·	spacecraft and missions in the novel the
2:07	·	appendix was published first in German
2:08	·	in 1948 and then an English translation
2:11	·	in 1950 in the forward to the English
2:14	·	translation NASA administrator Thomas
2:15	·	oay wrote the algorithm of space flight
2:18	·	laid out step by step in the tur lines
2:20	·	of vener Von Bron's Mars project display
2:23	·	the logic that 17 years later carried
2:25	·	astronauts to the Moon Von Bron's
2:28	·	Mission description was a product of the
2:30	·	technology available at the time he
2:32	·	assumed that little automation would be
2:33	·	available so spacecraft driven by pilots
2:35	·	would require substantial Crews he
2:37	·	assumed limits in communication that
2:39	·	meant that teams of scientists and
2:40	·	technicians would have to come along as
2:42	·	such the mission was large 10 spacecraft
2:45	·	and 70 crew the components would be
2:47	·	fered to orbit first and assembled there
2:50	·	but the pace of Technology moved faster
2:52	·	than he expected as portre explains it
2:55	·	is interesting to compare Von Bron's
2:57	·	Vision with the Apollo lunar Expeditions
2:59	·	when just two astronauts landed on
3:01	·	Earth's Moon an army of personnel
3:03	·	including scientists formed part of each
3:05	·	Apollo Expedition but remained behind on
3:07	·	Earth this separation was made possible
3:10	·	by communication advances that Von Brown
3:12	·	did not anticipate but Von Brown offered
3:14	·	a vision saying only a miraculous
3:16	·	Insight could have enabled the
3:18	·	scientists of the 18th century to
3:19	·	foresee the birth of electrical
3:20	·	engineering in the 19th would have
3:22	·	required a revelation of equal
3:24	·	inspiration for a scientist of the 19th
3:26	·	century to foresee the nuclear power
3:27	·	plants of the 20th no doubt the 21st
3:30	·	century will hold equal surprises and
3:32	·	more of them but not everything will be
3:34	·	a surprise it seems certain that the
3:36	·	21st century will be the century of
3:38	·	scientific and Commercial activities in
3:40	·	outer space of Mann interplanetary
3:42	·	flight and the establishment of
3:44	·	permanent human footh holes outside the
3:46	·	planet Earth the vision was popularized
3:48	·	in a series of articles by Von braa in
3:50	·	Collier's magazine and NASA held on to
3:53	·	that Vision Smithsonian Magazine notes
3:55	·	that the first NASA proposal for a
3:57	·	mission to Mars came in
3:58	·	1959 in April 1959 engineers at NASA's
4:02	·	Lewis Research Center in Cleveland
4:04	·	astonished the senate committee on
4:05	·	aeronautical and space Sciences by
4:07	·	appealing for a modest funds to study
4:09	·	sending astronauts to Mars NASA was but
4:12	·	6 months old project Mercury the first
4:15	·	US piloted Space Project was still two
4:17	·	years from placing a human in Space the
4:19	·	study was funded and Lewis produced a
4:21	·	plan that would begin in orbit around
4:22	·	the Earth and send an Orbiter to Mars
4:24	·	the spacecraft would be carried to Earth
4:26	·	orbit in multiple launches and assembled
4:28	·	in orbit similar to Von Bron's plan a
4:30	·	Lander would detach and after scientific
4:32	·	study return to the Orbiter which would
4:34	·	then return to Earth this was very like
4:36	·	how Apollo launched on the moon but for
4:38	·	a trip to Mars the fuel requirement
4:40	·	would have been impractical the Lewis
4:42	·	proposal was to use nuclear thermal
4:44	·	propotion a nuclear reactor would be
4:46	·	used to heat liquid hydrogen which would
4:48	·	be expelled through a nozzle but
4:50	·	politics intervened in April of 1961 the
4:54	·	Soviets launched Bostock one carrying
4:56	·	cosmina Yuri gagaran into orbit the US
4:59	·	had been caught footed and was behind in
5:01	·	the space race in response on May 25th
5:03	·	1961 President Kennedy said to a joint
5:06	·	session of Congress that the US should
5:08	·	commit itself to achieving the goal
5:10	·	before the decade is out of Landing a
5:12	·	man on the moon and returning him safely
5:13	·	to Earth the choice of priority was not
5:16	·	random NASA administrators had concluded
5:18	·	that the man moon mission was America's
5:21	·	most realistic opportunity to best the
5:23	·	Soviet space program JFK was defining
5:25	·	the Space Race into the race that the US
5:27	·	might be able to win porry writes Mars
5:30	·	planners were torn over Kennedy's new
5:32	·	timetable on the one hand it put Mars
5:34	·	work on the back burner by making the
5:35	·	moon NASA's primary overriding goal on
5:38	·	the other hand it promised to make
5:39	·	launch vehicles and experience needed
5:40	·	for Mars available all the sooner the
5:43	·	Apollo program and its technology would
5:45	·	then rewrite the NASA plans for
5:48	·	Mars portre wrote in the 2014 edition of
5:51	·	Wired Magazine in mid 1964 only 3 years
5:55	·	after President johnf Kennedy put the US
5:57	·	on course for the moon a team of
5:59	·	Engineers at Marshall space flight
6:00	·	center msfc in Huntsville Alabama became
6:04	·	the first NASA group to study piloted
6:06	·	Mars Venus flyby missions based on
6:08	·	Apollo program Hardware they conducted
6:10	·	their in-house study because they wanted
6:12	·	to see humans Voyage to other planets
6:14	·	and because president Lynden B Johnson
6:16	·	had made it clear that to reduce space
6:17	·	flight costs the US civilian space
6:20	·	program after Apollo should be based on
6:21	·	spacecraft and Rockets developed for the
6:23	·	moon landing interestingly portre writes
6:26	·	lbj's vision of NASA's Future made no
6:28	·	mention of piloted Mars Venus flybys
6:30	·	based on Apollo's technological Legacy
6:33	·	on the other hand neither did it
6:34	·	specifically forbid them the msfc study
6:38	·	was called Empire or early manned
6:40	·	planetary interplanetary roundtrip
6:42	·	Expedition Smithsonian writes that
6:44	·	Empire focused on Mars missions that
6:46	·	could be made in the 1970s using modest
6:48	·	extrapolation of Apollo technology there
6:51	·	was a bit more however to the plan than
6:53	·	just Mars calling as Smithsonian notes
6:56	·	according to author ta heppenheimer
6:58	·	writing a NASA's newly published book
6:59	·	the space shuttle decision Bon bro
7:01	·	realized that the Marshall Center's role
7:03	·	in Apollo would end as soon as its large
7:05	·	Saturn boosters were ready for moonlight
7:07	·	unless NASA established some goal Beyond
7:09	·	Apollo Von Bron's Center would face
7:11	·	collapsing budgets and layoffs Mars some
7:14	·	felt might be the key to Marshall's
7:16	·	future Marshall's plan differed from the
7:19	·	strategy that Lewis had proposed
7:20	·	Smithsonian writes Mars Landing missions
7:23	·	were considered too ambitious so the
7:25	·	Empire contractor were ordered to study
7:27	·	easier Mand Mars flyby and orbit
7:29	·	missions portre writes on his blog
7:32	·	piloted flyby spacecraft would swing
7:34	·	past their targeted world or worlds on
7:35	·	sun centered orbital paths that would
7:37	·	intersect Earth enabling their Crews to
7:39	·	return home a report by Aerospace
7:41	·	contractor Aeron neutronic explained
7:44	·	there is no doubt that orbiting and
7:45	·	Landing missions require greater
7:47	·	propulsion capabilities and larger
7:48	·	weights at interplanetary injection than
7:50	·	the flyby missions for this and other
7:52	·	reasons the ultimate goal of Landing men
7:54	·	on other planets should be held as a
7:56	·	longrange objective however a logical
7:58	·	First Step could be a low energy flyby
8:00	·	if properly integrated into the overall
8:02	·	space effort such a mission could be
8:04	·	achieved early and could lead directly
8:06	·	to development of those areas of
8:07	·	Technology required for Landings this is
8:10	·	without the more stringent requirements
8:12	·	of the landing programs at relatively
8:13	·	early dates in fact the proposals were
8:16	·	not just for a Mars flyby but some
8:18	·	included Venus as well the Earth Mars
8:21	·	Venus Earth flyby was described by
8:23	·	Italian space scientist Jano KOCO in
8:25	·	1956 at the 7eventh Congress of the
8:28	·	international aeronautic Federation in
8:29	·	Rome Koco's idea would leverage the
8:31	·	planetary gravity in a gravity assist
8:33	·	maneuver that would reduce the fuel
8:35	·	needs for propulsion and braking the
8:37	·	issue with a flyby of Mars using gravity
8:39	·	assist would place the spacecraft more
8:41	·	than a million miles from Mars limiting
8:43	·	the scientific value however using
8:45	·	Mars's gravity to slingshot towards
8:47	·	Venus would allow a much closer path by
8:49	·	Mars and then gravity assist from Venus
8:51	·	would redirect the craft back to Earth a
8:54	·	goal of the study astronautics decom
8:56	·	explains had to do with the successor to
8:58	·	the Saturn 5 the primary objective was
9:00	·	to identify payload requirements for
9:02	·	Nova the series of super heavy lift
9:04	·	launch Vehicles planned after the Saturn
9:06	·	series the Saturn 5 utilized five of the
9:09	·	massive rockety F1 engines while Nova
9:12	·	would use eight the Marshall space
9:14	·	flight Center's future projects office
9:16	·	selected three contractors to do studies
9:18	·	Aeron neutronic General Dynamics and
9:20	·	loed each produced different plans with
9:23	·	different propulsion systems and
9:24	·	spacecraft configurations the lucky
9:27	·	proposal was for a 22-month mission
9:28	·	launching in sep member of 1974 carrying
9:30	·	a crew of three aeronautic proposed a
9:32	·	21-month mission leaving in July 1970
9:35	·	with a crew of six General Dynamics
9:37	·	proposed a 15-month mission launching in
9:39	·	July of 1975 carrying a crew of eight
9:42	·	Empire wouldn't be the only plan the
9:44	·	msfc study would be just the beginning
9:46	·	as portra notes even before the msfc
9:49	·	engineers completed their study in
9:51	·	February 1965 other NASA centers sense
9:54	·	that they might be left behind and began
9:56	·	their own piloted flyby studies based on
9:58	·	Apollo technology Smithsonian writes if
10:01	·	Mars was to be NASA's Target after the
10:02	·	moon no NASA Center wanted to be
10:04	·	excluded so in 1963 several centers
10:07	·	launched their own Mars studies studies
10:09	·	were conducted at Houston's man
10:11	·	spacecraft Center known today as the
10:12	·	Johnson Space Center while another study
10:14	·	was done by North American Aviation the
10:16	·	prime contractor for the Apollo Command
10:18	·	Module Port notes that these proposals
10:20	·	came during the giny program and yes
10:22	·	NASA pronounced it gimy that fit the
10:25	·	Mars flyby missions into a Clear Vision
10:28	·	geminy served admirably as a bridge
10:30	·	between Mercury and Apollo piloted
10:32	·	flybys based on Apollo quid some belt
10:34	·	serve as a bridge between Apollo DED
10:36	·	Earth orbiting space stations in the
10:38	·	late 1960s early 1970s and Mars Venus
10:41	·	orbiters and Mars Landers in the late
10:43	·	1970s and
10:45	·	1980s but the studies also occurred in
10:47	·	the time of the Mariner missions
10:49	·	including Mariner 4 which did a fly by
10:51	·	of bars and return pictures in July of
10:53	·	1965 Smithsonian notes Mariner 4's
10:56	·	effects on NASA's 1960s Mars plans can
10:59	·	not be overstated in addition to finding
11:01	·	a painfully thin atmosphere it snapped
11:03	·	21 pictures of moonlight craters
11:05	·	containing no signs of Life edible or
11:08	·	otherwise what's more it showed that
11:10	·	robots could do flybys no people were
11:13	·	required but smithonian continues the
11:16	·	concept persisted while the host of
11:18	·	studies were being conducted NASA put
11:20	·	together a joint Action Group to call us
11:22	·	the best of the proposals the new
11:24	·	proposal envisioned flybys as
11:26	·	preparation for a man landing
11:28	·	astronautics decom describes the study
11:30	·	as the final NASA attempt to mount a
11:31	·	Mann Mars flyby Mission by 1975 using
11:34	·	Apollo Hardware but politics was
11:37	·	intervening again msian writes that NASA
11:40	·	administrator James Webb had been
11:42	·	successful with Apollo by not offering
11:44	·	any post-apollo plans which would have
11:46	·	given ammunition to those who opposed
11:47	·	the space program on financial grounds
11:50	·	when Webb stepped down and was replaced
11:51	·	by Tom Payne in 1969 Payne was not as
11:54	·	politically Savvy and proposed High
11:56	·	budget Mars missions was a bad time to
11:58	·	do so Smithsonian notes that in 1967
12:01	·	Congress had warned that Vietnam Wars
12:03	·	cost dominated the federal budget and
12:05	·	that it would tolerate No new
12:06	·	undertakings while President Nixon
12:08	·	maintained support for NASA he chose
12:10	·	direct efforts to near Earth study and
12:12	·	the space shuttle program instead of
12:13	·	Mars Smithsonian rights in 1971 NASA
12:17	·	ceased all man Mars flight planning
12:19	·	according to some old hands mere mention
12:21	·	of Mars within NASA became verboten the
12:24	·	barely affordable shuttle was a target
12:26	·	of frequent attacks so one can only
12:28	·	imagine how people would react to Mars
12:31	·	NASA was able to continue robotic
12:32	·	missions including the Viking program
12:34	·	which included an Orbiter and a Lander
12:37	·	the man fly by missions never happened
12:39	·	as portra notes Nessa had no shortage of
12:41	·	Dreams his blog writes the story of
12:43	·	space flight told through missions and
12:45	·	programs that didn't happen that is the
12:47	·	great majority of them the Mars flyby
12:50	·	missions became nearly forgotten history
12:52	·	Smithsonian writes in NASA's Dusty
12:54	·	archives that the remnants of a hidden
12:56	·	space age one whose ambition far
12:58	·	exceeded that of the H Moon program in
13:00	·	the 1960s NASA was eager to broaden its
13:03	·	success and begin preparing on paper at
13:05	·	least for what it felt certain would be
13:06	·	the next big step a mission to Mars to
13:10	·	us these plans filed and half forgotten
13:12	·	seemed audacious enough to be the work
13:14	·	of Science Fiction writers yet The Men
13:16	·	Who conceived them were conservative
13:18	·	Engineers the Soviets also proposed
13:21	·	various man flyby missions but they met
13:22	·	a similar budgetary fate as did plans
13:25	·	that occurred in the 1980s and the 1990s
13:27	·	and today more than 50 years on after
13:29	·	those Empire missions would have been
13:32	·	completed we're nowhere near putting a
13:34	·	person on Mars right now there is no
13:37	·	NASA man Mars mission in progress and
13:41	·	the general assumption is it couldn't
13:42	·	occur prior to the 2030s Smithsonian
13:45	·	writes that most of these were just
13:47	·	studies the detailed planning would have
13:49	·	started as soon as a president backed
13:51	·	amar's mission that of course never
13:56	·	happened I hope you enjoyed watching
13:58	·	this episode of the history guy and if
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