Space 1959 - They Really did It!

Space 1959 - They Really Did it!

1961 was a big thing for those of us fascinated by space missions. In short order, we had shifted focus from the X-15 to the Mercury Space flights. The X-15 looked like a space ship. The Mercury capsule was bland. No fins, no spiraling antennae, no blast of rocket fire out the back.

In 1962, some of the older boys up the block had a new toy. It was an outer space base with lots of rockets, space tanks, astronauts and weird aliens. They would not let us touch it. They were stingy. We younger boys thought it was fascinating. That was my first glimpse at the Marx "Operation Moonbase" playset.

A very popular book at the time was "You Will Go To the Moon." Written in 1959, it was based on articles about space travel by Werner von Braun. There was a lot of speculative fiction about space travel, especially in those years.

I have recently done some of my own speculation on what would have happened had there been a means to go into space in 1955. I was surprised to learn that both the Army and Air Force had been planning for it in the 1950s. They were also planning to build a facility on the Moon. In 1959, the Army presented its program entitled Project Horizon.. The Air Force plan was called Lunex. Both had ambitious plans to put a man on the Moon. Further, both wanted to build a facility on the moon that could house men for at least a year. The amazing thing is that most of it could have been accomplished with the technology of the time.

The Army wanted to have its base built by 1966. The Air Force thought it would be 1967 or later.

Both reports claimed that a major obstacle was lack of knowledge of the conditions on the Moon. Both were optimistic that they could be discovered in time.

The Army plan included sending supplies in cylinders. These would be used to build an underground facility that could house up to 12 men on a regular basis, and 16 temporarily. Moonbase Alpha, indeed!

The Army had plans for a lightweight vehicle to do the digging and place the cylinders. Power was to be supplied by small nuclear plants. The space vehicles were lunar landers and a vehicle to lift off from the moon.

The concept driving the plans was to beat the Soviet Union to the Moon and to use the Moon for military as well as scientific activities.

As usual, the Army plan was more comprehensive and better thought out than the Air Force plan.

Here are links to all three:

Project Horizon, V1 http://www.history.army.mil/faq/horizon/Horizon_V1.pdf

Project Horizon, V2 http://www.history.army.mil/faq/horizon/Horizon_V2.pdf

Lunex, USAF http://www.astronautix.com/data/lunex.pdf

Link to web page with Lunex file, better text and drawings http://astronautix.com/articles/lunex.htm

This ought to be no surprise., The military is constantly drawing up plans for almost any conceivable scenario. That they went into moon landings is understandable. Project Horizon is itself impressive because of the scope of it and its practicality. Knowing what we do now, we can see that this plan was feasible. Granted, it might not fit into the Army timetable to get it done by 1966. Nonetheless, it could be done.

Why id they not build a base on the Moon? Other technology came along to go do the surveillance and other tasks that were proposed for the Moon base. It was not cost effective. At the same time, our military’s funds were focused on the Vietnam War; the Moon became a purely civilian project. Or was it?

Conspiracy theorists might claim that a secret base was built, and that NASA’s work was just a cover for it. There are so many conspiracy theories about the Moon and space exploration. At best, they might be a good basis for a game scenario, such as the US versus USSR on the moon in....1970?

(maybe 1980...after all, it is the Russians and they are backward.)

 

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I am impressed at the efficiency of the Army’s plans for making a Moonbase. I assume it could also be built on Mars. With the improved technology of today, a variant could be developed into a quickly-made outpost. The shape of future space bases to come? Who knows? According to NASA, plans are in the works for an above-ground habitat and facilities. These are modular in nature. The NASA plan includes a place for astronauts to live, laboratories and science buildings, plus facilities for landings and launches. Their plan looks to be heavily dependent on solar power,

Moon or Mars, we are still at a stage of technology that would require us to bring everything needed for survival. That means habitat, air, food, and water as well as the means to land and to leave. The Moon is airless and would require a supply of breathable air. The atmosphere of Mars is thin and cannot support Earthly life. While there have been improvements in systems to recycle air and water, they have their limits. Like all other closed systems, they will have a degree of entropy and need to be replenished from time to time.

There will be a time when we can make further use of resources on a faraway planet. An immediate resource is water, which is believed to be frozen under the surface of both the Moon and Mars. There ir probably very little on the Moon. Perhaps science will develop a technology which can be small enough to send in a space ship that would make use of a planet’s minerals for life support. We cannot predict what the future might bring. As things stand now, we have to bring everything for life support with us.

That is a tremendous supply mission! Difficult as it might be to the Moon, which will likely be reachable in two days, the six-month journey to Mars will require extreme logistics.

And so we conclude the Space 1955 talks for now. What with the Army and Air Force doing their own work in 1959, we have a lot of genuine material for our own scenarios, be they miniatures, dioramas or games.

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Thanks to Mike Creek for informing us about Project Horizon and the files.

Retro Space part 1 - For Sci Fi Readers and Gamers

Radio Punk

I grew up with the kind of spacemen that inspired the old Archer and Ajax figures. Prior to the Mercury flights, we thought spacemen would look like the toys. Reality trumps fiction. Toy spacemen made ever since have usually been in the mold of the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo type astronauts. That is, except for a few fictional types such as Star Trek and Star Wars. Even then, modern characters in space suits were more like conventional astronauts.

Along with toy spacemen were old movie posters featuring futuristic astronauts in various adventures. The Buck Rogers serials and others like them gave us an idea of space that would be very cool with a touch of Art Deco and Streamline artistic flair. Thinking of them made me wonder where such spacemen might represent real astronauts. Just as they were suited for space operas in the 1950s, might they be appropriate if we had gotten into space by the middle of that decade?

What with Steampunk trying to create an alternate history with the technology of the late 1800s, I wondered. Could we not do the same with technology developed in the decade after World War II?  Perhaps...perhaps, if we can come up with a means to go into space without overstepping the limits of plausible deniability.

The following is based on some random speculation I did about ten or twelve years ago.

I call it “radio-punk”.

A thought experiment from a few years ago based itself on an unusual premise. What if some kind of unfinished secret Nazi technology was found at the War’s end that could make space travel possible? I have heard old conspiracy theories about everything from flying saucers to levitating occult devices. For sake of science fiction, let us suppose that one of them was viable. Though it would not have been ready by the end of the War, it could be developed further afterward. Remember Space 1999? How about Space 1955? It would be an alternate history kind of thing.

Getting to space would be one thing. What about dealing with the vacuum and the intense cold of Space? How about shielding from solar radiation and cosmic rays?  How about the Van Allen Radiation Belt?  Our astronauts did not have to deal with the Van Allen Belt until the Apollo Missions to the Moon. The Belt was only discovered in 1958. That I think of it, in Space 1955, dealing with the Van Allen Belt could be an episode all in itself.

In real time, a lot of advances in technology were accomplished between 1955 and 1969. Several of them were crucial to making the Moon landing a success. I do not know all of them. One necessity was a pressurized suit that shielded the wearer from extreme temperatures and radiation. Look at the evolution of Space Suits from the Mercury crew, whose gear was not very different from a high-altitude military pilot, to the Moon suits worn by the Apollo crew. Not being expert, I do not know how many of the materials used were even a thought in 1955.

If these things could be handled with the secret Nazi technology and 1950s ingenuity, what might they be? The first Laser was made in 1960. That pretty much precludes laser communications, laser navigation, laser rangefinders and energy weapons for our 1955 space crew. I do not know how advanced we were with transistors in 1955, or how much of a radio or video would still require vacuum tubes. Video cameras were large and awkward at the time. Broadcasting television signals was a much bigger operation. It took years to miniaturize many of these things. Communication would require more equipment and space in 1955.

As for armaments, things would be quite different without ray guns and other energy weapons. I imagine for close range, spring-loaded weapons might be useful for no or low gravity. A spear gun or even small crossbow type gadget may be the thing, especially since there is no atmosphere to slow the projectile. Rockets would be ideal, from larger missiles fired from a space ship to man-carried rockets like those fired from a bazooka. Rockets would have to carry their own oxygen if used in a vacuum or an atmosphere lacking it. Weapons used inside a spacecraft would have to be low-velocity projectile weapons with ammo that does not penetrate the hull. They would rely on the air in the craft for ignition. For ground combat with gravity, but low or no atmosphere, or an atmosphere lacking oxygen, there could be projectile weapons. A powerful air gun, working along the lines of CO2 pellet guns, might work. It would have to carry its own propellent. Firearms would have to be adapted for the purpose. First, they would need to have an oxygen supply to provide ignition. Second, the projectile’s powder would have to be formulated to give plenty of power with less oxygen. Firearms would likely have their own small oxygen tank, either external, internal, or both. A soldier would be in trouble if he ran out of ammo or air.

Of course. there is always a chance of getting alien technology. One might discover it left behind  on a moon or planet in our solar system. We may capture some in a skirmish with aliens. Suppose an alien culture developed energy weapons, but never had the transistor or solid-state electronics? Even on Earth, all cultures did not develop evenly. That would allow for the ray guns carried by old style toy spacemen.

Speaking of space, a lot of things might trickle down from the secret technology into the everyday world. It may affect air travel and the future development of aircraft, for instance. In the series inspired by Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle, the Nazis developed a supersonic passenger jet akin to the Concorde SST called “the Rocket.” Might a different technology lead to different aircraft with capabilities superior to those in real time?

Would the new technology affect ground vehicles? How might that work?

Suppose the new technology only applied to air and space travel. What kind of vehicles could be made to explore other planets? The Lunar Rover used batteries, but its technology was far in advance of what was available in 1955. Back then, batteries did not last as long and needed to be handled with more care. Leaking was a big problem for dry cell batteries in the 1950s. The electric motors of the day tended to be large and needed a large power source. Battery operation would have been ponderous because of all the batteries that were needed. Steam and internal combustion engines would be impractical because they need oxygen for the fuel that provides heat. As with powering electric motors, a lot of batteries would have to be used to provide enough heat for just a little steam. There is also the problem of water. Transporting water for a steam-powered vehicle would use up valuable space. A space rover powered like a bicycle might work on smooth terrain. It would have to be small and light, and could not carry much more than the passengers pushing the pedals.

Solar panels and similar technology were nowhere in sight in the 1950s. Energy sources would have to be brought.

As you can see, Space 1955 is more difficult, requires more time, more space, heavier and bigger objects that what could be made in 1969. Just as modern technology is well advanced of that used for the Apollo missions, so the Apollo technology was a quantum leap ahead of 1955. Look at what we had in our everyday lives back then. Radios, televisions, appliances and the like were bigger and heavier. Very few had electronics. Tube technology was at its height. Most things were heavier because most were made of metal and wood. The plastics were heavier and thicker.

How would we reconcile that with the idea of space travel and interplanetary adventurers?  How might the technology be explained?  To devise technology from that era taking the place of its modern counterpart, you would have to go back to 1950s tech and then bring it forward by another route. This route would be limited to the materials and know-how of the time. For instance, there would be a lot of wires and tubes. Transistors and solid state were relatively new and rather primitive as compared to what was available a decade later.

Keep in mind that this is all wildly speculative. I do not have the background in science history to know enough 1950s “state of the art”. Likewise, I do not have the kind of specialized knowledge about space travel and astronomy to know all of the  conditions to be overcome for the safety of astronauts. With Space 1955, I was having fun stretching a few ideas. Frankly, I do not know if it would have been remotely possible, even by stretching the limits of plausible deniability. Still and all, it was fun to consider.

Besides, the old fictional space suits and the old style rocket ships with fins look a darn sight better than the real things that emerged since 1960. NASA does amazing things, but compared to the Buck Rogers serials, it looks bland. And while Buzz Aldrin could probably out-think, out-shoot, out-fight and out-smart Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon and the rest of them, their stuff still looked better.

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Aliens 1955

During the original Star Trek series, Aliens began to change. Most of Star Trek’s alien encounters involved humans or creatures very close to human. Things were not so in the 1950s. A look at the covers of science fiction novels and magazines shows a very weird variety of creatures. While green was the most popular color for aliens, the shape of them was truly bizarre. There were tall ones, short ones, thick ones and skinny ones. Most had pointy ears and big buggy eyes., A nickname for standard sci-fi aliens was “Bemmies”, a take on the acronym for Bug Eyed Monster. One thing that is notable is that many looked like mythical beings as described in old folktales from around the world. Sci-fi had given a scientific update to the general run of trolls, ogres, demons, imps, gnomes and hobgoblins. There were also assorted clunky robots, from sinister cylinders to boxy metal men to “Robbie” of forbidden planet. One funny example was a robot who opened the door to the underground world in Gene Autry’s “The Phantom Empire”. The top of the robot’s head was shaped like a cowboy hat.

Keeping a 1950s sci-fi flavor to Space 1955 would be enhanced by aliens like those of the 1950s. For toy soldier buffs, plastic makers Lido and Marx both produced their own ranges of alien spacemen.  They are a bit hard to find these days. Lido’s aliens and robots were quite bizarre. Marx’s “Moonbase Alpha” aliens were just a little less so. If you cannot find the ones you like, sculpt your own or look at fantasy figures. Many of them can be converted to 1950s-style alien spacemen.

One of the more bizarre alien space things was a series of cards from the early 1960s called “Mars Attacks.” They were about an alien invasion of Earth and the depravity of the invaders. Some of the cards were quite gruesome, too. A movie of the same name was made in 1996, including some retro elements. One could get some ideas about aliens of the 1950s from the movie and cards. If anything the movie was a lot of fun.

Alien space ships, vehicles and other equipment was often illustrated on the covers of science fiction.  They can be used to devise your own alien airdromes and motor pools.

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Game Adjustments

There would not need to be many game adjustments made to incorporate Space 1955 / Radiopunk. Most alterations would be to work at a level of lower technology. Many things accepted in current futuristic sci-fi would not even be on the drawing boards in the 1950s. A problem might be in finding suitably large alien figures if you use the old Ajax and Archer type figures.

Part II will be posted tomorrow