"Roman Figaj" wrote in message
news:1jcldlr.138zmca2xih2hN%roman21@figaj.de...
> Allen W. McDonnell wrote:
>
>>
>> The escape hatch on Liberty Bell Seven operates correctly and remains
>> attached, the capsule is not sunk and recovered decades later. As a
>> direct
>> consequence the hatch on the Apollo CSM is kept in the traditional
>> explosive
>> emergency removal configuration. When the Apollo fire starts on the pad
>> in
>> January 1967 the crew blow the hatch off, the fire is quickly doused.
>> The
>> crew are given some 2nd degree burns but fully recover. The USA does not
>> have a tragedy, just a serious accident. The Apollo Program continues
>> with
>> better wiring and smarter ground test procedures and the Earth Orbit
>> missions go ahead much sooner with less re-design. This keeps enough
>> money
>> in the budget that the Apollo 15, 19 and 20 missions are not cancelled
>> and
>> the remainder are not renamed 15-17.
>
> Does a non-lethal Apollo 1-incident lead to a less thorough
> investigation and partial redesign of the spaceship? If so, you might
> easily have "fire in the capsule" en route to the moon, forfeiting the
> "before this decade is out" deadline and spawning serious psychological
> implications...
>
Changing the capsual air system would be a given if there had been a fire
even if it were completly non-leathal and the crew only recieved minor
injuries. North American had been requestion changes for months and was
ignored because of the GO fever pervading NASA at the time. By switching to
normal air while on the ground and then going to the in space mix and
pressure when they got launched would almost eliminate the fire risk,
normally while in orbit spacecraft are kept pressurized to a much lower than
sea level pressure.
> Much as I like your scenario, I don't see it happen short of
> butterflying away the Vietnam War - which your POD won't accomplish. The
> budget cuts on Apollo (Application Program) started as early as '67,
> well before the cancellation of lunar missions, and NASA has still only
> the first batch of Saturn V boosters, with no second batch or suitable
> replacement on the financial horizon, better Apollo hardware
> notwithstanding.
>
The Apollo fire was 43 years ago today, January 27, 1967. One could argue
that the fire was the start of the budget cutting cycle that lasted for a
decade at NASA.
With the fire being handled quickly and competently and new proceedures in
place inside of three months the launch of the first manned Apollo could
still take place in mid 1967. With several launches that were OTL cacelled
left in because the schedual is much better without the long delay their
would be much more comfort with the whole Apollo CSM, Saturn IB and V
combinations.
Besides all of that the Vietnam budget was just an excuse, after the fire
several Congress members soured on the whole program and when Nixon came
into office he OTL was not a big fan either.
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