A ton of posts exist over the web about alternate history for the Shuttle, had Skylab been docked with at the beginning of the shuttle program. With the STS program almost over, here's my take on an alternate history. I've kept the flight numbers and crews as close to the original sequence as possible...
STS-1: June 29th 1979. Columbia. Astronauts Thomas K. Mattingly and Henry W. Hartsfield man the first launch of Space Shuttle Columbia. The launch is covered in controversy after the very public critic by primary flight crew veteran astronaut John W. Young over the fact that NASA insisted on conducting a yet-unproven and risky Return-To-Launch-Site suborbital flight. For “administrative reasons”, Young and Crippen are bumped to the 2nd flight. Instead of actually performing the RTLS abort maneuver, STS-1 is forced to undertake a daring rescue attempt of the orbiting Skylab space station, which is predicted to reenter the Earth's atmosphere around early July of the same year. With mere days left before the orbiting station plummets to the Earth, astronauts Mattingly and Hartsfield manage to conduct the ad-hoc docking with a docking adapter developed hastily over the previous months.
The shuttle proves itself as a valuable and versatile platform, saving Skylab from certain doom. The shuttle Columbia however sustains important structural damage to it's tiles and near it's external tank and landing gear doors as a result of excessive reentry heat exposure, which require it to be put out of service for the remainder of 1979 and early 1980. It turns out that the replacement of heat shield tiles lost during transport to the Kennedy Space Center had not been properly conducted.
Also of serious note, the Solid Rocket Boosters experienced catastrophic blow-by of an O-ring joint, which resulted in actual structural failure of the right-hand SRB just after SRB Separation. In the words of commander Mattingly “We've been damned lucky! That's the second time in my space experience that I've had the distinct feeling of having cheated death”. Mattingly was the astronaut pushed aside from the Apollo 13 flight for medical preoccupations over possible infection with the measles, and as a result was not on-board for the near-tragic mission. STS-1's failed SRB came very close to recontact the External Tank and Columbia's right wing, but thankfully the angle of the blow-by combined with the lateral forces of the slip stream pushed it aside to clear by mere feet. Mattingly and Hartsfield did not notice anything unusual, but combined with the body flap overpressure issue which could have resulted in dooming damage to the hydraulics but thankfully did not, would have “aborted, performed the RTLS as we were originally supposed to, and the hell with Skylab!” had they known then about the SRB failure and the damaging overpressure at launch.
After extensive review, it turns out that if the shuttle had performed the RTLS as originally planned, damage to the tiles would have resulted in much less severe structural damage to exposed airframe elements. Also, NASA was instructed, after scathing behind-closed-doors comments by vice-president Walter Mondale, already noted for it's critical comments of NASA during the Apollo 1 public inquiries, to replace the SRBs as soon as possible with liquid-fueled boosters, as originally planned. Astronauts Mattingly and Hartsfield are credited with saving both the dying Skylab outpost and the Space Shuttle Program's future in the same stroke, and will serve has backup flight crews for the next two flights, STS-2 and STS-3, before returning to space together on STS-4.
STS-1A: April 20th 1981. With Skylab safely boosted by STS-1 up to an altitude safe enough up to 1983, the original crew of STS-1 is performing a “remake” of the originally planned RTLS flight, and ironically with one of it's most vocal critic in the astronaut corp at the helm, astronaut John Young commanding along with Crippen as the pilot. The flight is using another pair of newly redesigned SRBs to enable continued development of the STS while NASA works to replace the SRBs with liquid boosters. Insistence by the previous Carter administration that NASA uses “green” hydrogen has caused substantial design issues, the low density fuel being hard to adapt to a booster role. Design is in the process of switching to a denser fuel, such as RP-1.
Early in the afternoon, Columbia's engines roar to life one after another in quick succession, this time without the damaging overpressure it sustained on it's original flight. The redesigned SRBs light up at T+0 and the shuttle quickly ascends on it's RTLS profile. The test is to simulate loss of an engine during the “thrust bucked” period of the flight, while the shuttle stack is experiencing maximum aerodynamic loads after breaking the sound barrier. A spurious signal resulting from the shorting of two engines controllers actually transforms the practice run in the real deal right at lift off, knocking the center engine out at T+2 seconds. Maintaining calm and confidence in his experience and training, veteran astronaut Young successfully maneuvers Columbia to a safe landing at KSC's SLF, less than 30 minutes after liftoff. Asked about the irony of the situation, regarding his previous comments on the RTLS test, Young said “I still believe we did not need to practice bleeding. But this time we did cut ourselves deep, so at least we won't have to perform this stunt unless absolutely necessary in the future. It works, now let's move on.” Despite harsh comments from members of Congress about the troubles sustained with STS's first two flights, the program moves on.
STS-2: 12 November 1981. Columbia. Rookies Joseph Engle and Richard Truly conduct the same mission as happened in real life. The shortened flight, due to a fuel cell failure, result in yet more critical comments of the Shuttle program.
STS-3: 22 March 1982. Columbia. More testing of the shuttle continues. Happens exactly as performed historically.
STS-4: 27 June 1982. Columbia. Happens exactly as performed historically.
STS-5: 11 November 1982. Columbia. Happens exactly as performed historically.
STS-6: 4 April 1983. Enterprise. A new shuttle joins the fleet. Converted from it's atmospheric testing configuration, OV-101 becomes a real spaceship. The launch is attended by thousands of Trekkers, and a huge Star Trek convention is held nearby at Orlando. Most of the cast from the original series is in the launch stands. Actor William Shatner is a guest star as CAPCOM for a few minutes on flight day 5, after Enterprise docks with Skylab, following the troublesome launch of TDRS-1, which nearly was lost after it's inertial upper stage tumbled and placed the relay sat in a low elliptical orbit from which a shuttle retrieval was impossible. Reboost puts back Skylab up to a safe altitude, compensating for the atmospheric drag experienced by the station since it's 1979 reboost.
STS-7. 18 June 1983. Challenger. Happens exactly as performed historically, except it is Challenger's maiden flight.
STS-8. 30 August 1983. Challenger. Happens exactly as performed historically.
STS-9/41-A. 28 November 1983. Columbia. Equipped with Spacelab, Columbia docks to Skylab which becomes the most massive orbital assembly up to that time. Transfer of experiments from Spacelab to Skylab for extended microgravity research is conducted. Upgrades are also performed on various internal systems.
STS-41-B. 3 February 1984. Enterprise. Happens exactly as performed historically, except it is conducted with Enterprise instead of Challenger.
STS-41-C. 6 April 1984. Challenger. Happens exactly as performed historically.
STS-41-E. 7 May 1984. Enterprise. Docking with Skylab. Astronauts conduct an EVA to install a Skylab-to-Shutle-Tranfer System (SKYSHUTS), and a new power platform (Power Expansion Package), enabling Enterprise to use electrical power and sharing consumables from Skylab to extend it's stay to 15 days, as well as upgrades to Skylab's electronics. Using the newly installed SKYSHUTS, Enterprise remains aloft for nearly three weeks, docked with Skylab for two weeks. Transfer of Apollo-derived Command Module, renamed Perseus, latched inside Enterprise's Payload bay. The SRMS proves useful in moving the Perseus capsule to it's docking port on the Multiple Docking Adapter. The Perseus capsule is left behind to evaluate it's capacity to provide extended duration crews on Skylab with an emergency return vehicle while no shuttles are docked.
STS-41-D. 30 August 1984. Discovery. Happens exactly as performed historically.
STS-41-H. 17 september 1984. Enterprise. First transfer of crew to Skylab from the Shuttle. The 7-person crew of Enterprise leaves behind it 3 astronauts on the orbiting outpost. Shuttle remains docked while also transporting a Spacelab module for 16 days, for a total mission duration of 20 days, due to weather delays It marks the first time an American spacecraft lands with fewer hands on-board at landing than at launch. It also marks the first time two space shuttles are orbiting the Earth at the same time, the other being Challenger launched the day before landing.
STS-41-G. 5 october 1984. Challenger. Happens exactly as performed historically, except Enterprise was orbiting at the time of launch.
STS-51-A. 8 November 1984. Discovery. Happens exactly as performed historically.
STS-41-I. 4 January 1985. Enterprise. Originally planned for early December, Enterprise was to pick up the 3 astronauts left on-board Skylab in mid-September. However, delays in processing the orbiter resulted in the launch date slipping late in December. Limitations of the GPCs regarding roll-over of dates during flight spanning on different years led to the early January launch. Undocking conducted on January 17, Skylab astronauts having spent a full 4-months in space. Perseus capsule rotation is performed, a fresh one replacing the one docked for 8 months. The capsule is brought back inside the payload bay to evaluate the effect of long space exposure on elements such as the heat shield.
STS-51-C. 24 January 1985. Discovery. Happens exactly as performed historically.
STS-51-D. 12 April 1985. Discovery. Happens exactly as performed historically.
STS-51-B. 29 April 1985. Challenger. Combined Skylab/Spacelab mission. Crew rotation, fresh supplies and experiment rotations performed.
STS-51-G. 17 June 1985. Discovery. Happens exactly as performed historically.
STS-51-F. 29 July 1985. Challenger. Combined Skylab/Spacelab mission. Crew rotation, fresh supplies and experiment rotations performed.
STS-51-I. 27 August 1985. Discovery. Happens exactly as performed historically.
STS-51-K. 12 september 1985. Enterprise. Crew rotation of Skylab along with major expansion by addition of SkyHab (a new habitation module, developed along SpaceHab) to the Skylab station, enabling accommodations of up to 6 astronauts for 120 days between resupplies.
STS-51-J. 3 october 1985. Atlantis. Happens exactly as performed historically.
STS-61-A. 30 october 1985. Challenger. Combined Skylab/Spacelab mission, paid by Germany. Fresh supplies and experiment rotations performed. One crew is rotated in a favor of a German astronaut.
STS-61-B. 26 november 1985. Atlantis. Happens exactly as performed historically.
STS-61-D. 12 december 1985. Enterprise. Skylab crew and Perseus capsule rotation. A second Perseus capsule is docked with Skylab, with two of the crew boarding the Skylab-docked Perseus capsule, undocking, station keeping from the Shuttle-Skylab complex from a short distance for a few hours, and redocking after undocking of Enterprise from Skylab, freeing the required docking ports so that two Perseus capsules are docked at the same time. For the first time in space, double-digit number of persons are orbiting together.
STS-61-C. 12 January 1986. Columbia. Happens exactly as performed historically.
STS-51-L. 28 January 1986. Challenger. After nearly 7 years of development, caused mainly by delays caused by the initial design objective of using hydrogen for the boosters which were then switched to more conventional RP-1/LOX, the Liquid-Flyback Boosters make their debut. The flight is a partial success, with one of the LFBB crashing on landing, while the other made it down safely to the KSC SLF. Analysis indicated human error caused the LFBB to switch it's ILS frequency to one of a nearby airport, misleading the LFBB. With insufficient remaining fuel and altitude to safely execute the landing, a remote-controlling pilot guided the stray LFBB to a controlled crash in the Merritt Island Wildlife Refuge.
STS-61-E. 6 march 1986. Columbia. Happens exactly as planned.
...To be continued...
STS-1: June 29th 1979. Columbia. Astronauts Thomas K. Mattingly and Henry W. Hartsfield man the first launch of Space Shuttle Columbia. The launch is covered in controversy after the very public critic by primary flight crew veteran astronaut John W. Young over the fact that NASA insisted on conducting a yet-unproven and risky Return-To-Launch-Site suborbital flight. For “administrative reasons”, Young and Crippen are bumped to the 2nd flight. Instead of actually performing the RTLS abort maneuver, STS-1 is forced to undertake a daring rescue attempt of the orbiting Skylab space station, which is predicted to reenter the Earth's atmosphere around early July of the same year. With mere days left before the orbiting station plummets to the Earth, astronauts Mattingly and Hartsfield manage to conduct the ad-hoc docking with a docking adapter developed hastily over the previous months.
The shuttle proves itself as a valuable and versatile platform, saving Skylab from certain doom. The shuttle Columbia however sustains important structural damage to it's tiles and near it's external tank and landing gear doors as a result of excessive reentry heat exposure, which require it to be put out of service for the remainder of 1979 and early 1980. It turns out that the replacement of heat shield tiles lost during transport to the Kennedy Space Center had not been properly conducted.
Also of serious note, the Solid Rocket Boosters experienced catastrophic blow-by of an O-ring joint, which resulted in actual structural failure of the right-hand SRB just after SRB Separation. In the words of commander Mattingly “We've been damned lucky! That's the second time in my space experience that I've had the distinct feeling of having cheated death”. Mattingly was the astronaut pushed aside from the Apollo 13 flight for medical preoccupations over possible infection with the measles, and as a result was not on-board for the near-tragic mission. STS-1's failed SRB came very close to recontact the External Tank and Columbia's right wing, but thankfully the angle of the blow-by combined with the lateral forces of the slip stream pushed it aside to clear by mere feet. Mattingly and Hartsfield did not notice anything unusual, but combined with the body flap overpressure issue which could have resulted in dooming damage to the hydraulics but thankfully did not, would have “aborted, performed the RTLS as we were originally supposed to, and the hell with Skylab!” had they known then about the SRB failure and the damaging overpressure at launch.
After extensive review, it turns out that if the shuttle had performed the RTLS as originally planned, damage to the tiles would have resulted in much less severe structural damage to exposed airframe elements. Also, NASA was instructed, after scathing behind-closed-doors comments by vice-president Walter Mondale, already noted for it's critical comments of NASA during the Apollo 1 public inquiries, to replace the SRBs as soon as possible with liquid-fueled boosters, as originally planned. Astronauts Mattingly and Hartsfield are credited with saving both the dying Skylab outpost and the Space Shuttle Program's future in the same stroke, and will serve has backup flight crews for the next two flights, STS-2 and STS-3, before returning to space together on STS-4.
STS-1A: April 20th 1981. With Skylab safely boosted by STS-1 up to an altitude safe enough up to 1983, the original crew of STS-1 is performing a “remake” of the originally planned RTLS flight, and ironically with one of it's most vocal critic in the astronaut corp at the helm, astronaut John Young commanding along with Crippen as the pilot. The flight is using another pair of newly redesigned SRBs to enable continued development of the STS while NASA works to replace the SRBs with liquid boosters. Insistence by the previous Carter administration that NASA uses “green” hydrogen has caused substantial design issues, the low density fuel being hard to adapt to a booster role. Design is in the process of switching to a denser fuel, such as RP-1.
Early in the afternoon, Columbia's engines roar to life one after another in quick succession, this time without the damaging overpressure it sustained on it's original flight. The redesigned SRBs light up at T+0 and the shuttle quickly ascends on it's RTLS profile. The test is to simulate loss of an engine during the “thrust bucked” period of the flight, while the shuttle stack is experiencing maximum aerodynamic loads after breaking the sound barrier. A spurious signal resulting from the shorting of two engines controllers actually transforms the practice run in the real deal right at lift off, knocking the center engine out at T+2 seconds. Maintaining calm and confidence in his experience and training, veteran astronaut Young successfully maneuvers Columbia to a safe landing at KSC's SLF, less than 30 minutes after liftoff. Asked about the irony of the situation, regarding his previous comments on the RTLS test, Young said “I still believe we did not need to practice bleeding. But this time we did cut ourselves deep, so at least we won't have to perform this stunt unless absolutely necessary in the future. It works, now let's move on.” Despite harsh comments from members of Congress about the troubles sustained with STS's first two flights, the program moves on.
STS-2: 12 November 1981. Columbia. Rookies Joseph Engle and Richard Truly conduct the same mission as happened in real life. The shortened flight, due to a fuel cell failure, result in yet more critical comments of the Shuttle program.
STS-3: 22 March 1982. Columbia. More testing of the shuttle continues. Happens exactly as performed historically.
STS-4: 27 June 1982. Columbia. Happens exactly as performed historically.
STS-5: 11 November 1982. Columbia. Happens exactly as performed historically.
STS-6: 4 April 1983. Enterprise. A new shuttle joins the fleet. Converted from it's atmospheric testing configuration, OV-101 becomes a real spaceship. The launch is attended by thousands of Trekkers, and a huge Star Trek convention is held nearby at Orlando. Most of the cast from the original series is in the launch stands. Actor William Shatner is a guest star as CAPCOM for a few minutes on flight day 5, after Enterprise docks with Skylab, following the troublesome launch of TDRS-1, which nearly was lost after it's inertial upper stage tumbled and placed the relay sat in a low elliptical orbit from which a shuttle retrieval was impossible. Reboost puts back Skylab up to a safe altitude, compensating for the atmospheric drag experienced by the station since it's 1979 reboost.
STS-7. 18 June 1983. Challenger. Happens exactly as performed historically, except it is Challenger's maiden flight.
STS-8. 30 August 1983. Challenger. Happens exactly as performed historically.
STS-9/41-A. 28 November 1983. Columbia. Equipped with Spacelab, Columbia docks to Skylab which becomes the most massive orbital assembly up to that time. Transfer of experiments from Spacelab to Skylab for extended microgravity research is conducted. Upgrades are also performed on various internal systems.
STS-41-B. 3 February 1984. Enterprise. Happens exactly as performed historically, except it is conducted with Enterprise instead of Challenger.
STS-41-C. 6 April 1984. Challenger. Happens exactly as performed historically.
STS-41-E. 7 May 1984. Enterprise. Docking with Skylab. Astronauts conduct an EVA to install a Skylab-to-Shutle-Tranfer System (SKYSHUTS), and a new power platform (Power Expansion Package), enabling Enterprise to use electrical power and sharing consumables from Skylab to extend it's stay to 15 days, as well as upgrades to Skylab's electronics. Using the newly installed SKYSHUTS, Enterprise remains aloft for nearly three weeks, docked with Skylab for two weeks. Transfer of Apollo-derived Command Module, renamed Perseus, latched inside Enterprise's Payload bay. The SRMS proves useful in moving the Perseus capsule to it's docking port on the Multiple Docking Adapter. The Perseus capsule is left behind to evaluate it's capacity to provide extended duration crews on Skylab with an emergency return vehicle while no shuttles are docked.
STS-41-D. 30 August 1984. Discovery. Happens exactly as performed historically.
STS-41-H. 17 september 1984. Enterprise. First transfer of crew to Skylab from the Shuttle. The 7-person crew of Enterprise leaves behind it 3 astronauts on the orbiting outpost. Shuttle remains docked while also transporting a Spacelab module for 16 days, for a total mission duration of 20 days, due to weather delays It marks the first time an American spacecraft lands with fewer hands on-board at landing than at launch. It also marks the first time two space shuttles are orbiting the Earth at the same time, the other being Challenger launched the day before landing.
STS-41-G. 5 october 1984. Challenger. Happens exactly as performed historically, except Enterprise was orbiting at the time of launch.
STS-51-A. 8 November 1984. Discovery. Happens exactly as performed historically.
STS-41-I. 4 January 1985. Enterprise. Originally planned for early December, Enterprise was to pick up the 3 astronauts left on-board Skylab in mid-September. However, delays in processing the orbiter resulted in the launch date slipping late in December. Limitations of the GPCs regarding roll-over of dates during flight spanning on different years led to the early January launch. Undocking conducted on January 17, Skylab astronauts having spent a full 4-months in space. Perseus capsule rotation is performed, a fresh one replacing the one docked for 8 months. The capsule is brought back inside the payload bay to evaluate the effect of long space exposure on elements such as the heat shield.
STS-51-C. 24 January 1985. Discovery. Happens exactly as performed historically.
STS-51-D. 12 April 1985. Discovery. Happens exactly as performed historically.
STS-51-B. 29 April 1985. Challenger. Combined Skylab/Spacelab mission. Crew rotation, fresh supplies and experiment rotations performed.
STS-51-G. 17 June 1985. Discovery. Happens exactly as performed historically.
STS-51-F. 29 July 1985. Challenger. Combined Skylab/Spacelab mission. Crew rotation, fresh supplies and experiment rotations performed.
STS-51-I. 27 August 1985. Discovery. Happens exactly as performed historically.
STS-51-K. 12 september 1985. Enterprise. Crew rotation of Skylab along with major expansion by addition of SkyHab (a new habitation module, developed along SpaceHab) to the Skylab station, enabling accommodations of up to 6 astronauts for 120 days between resupplies.
STS-51-J. 3 october 1985. Atlantis. Happens exactly as performed historically.
STS-61-A. 30 october 1985. Challenger. Combined Skylab/Spacelab mission, paid by Germany. Fresh supplies and experiment rotations performed. One crew is rotated in a favor of a German astronaut.
STS-61-B. 26 november 1985. Atlantis. Happens exactly as performed historically.
STS-61-D. 12 december 1985. Enterprise. Skylab crew and Perseus capsule rotation. A second Perseus capsule is docked with Skylab, with two of the crew boarding the Skylab-docked Perseus capsule, undocking, station keeping from the Shuttle-Skylab complex from a short distance for a few hours, and redocking after undocking of Enterprise from Skylab, freeing the required docking ports so that two Perseus capsules are docked at the same time. For the first time in space, double-digit number of persons are orbiting together.
STS-61-C. 12 January 1986. Columbia. Happens exactly as performed historically.
STS-51-L. 28 January 1986. Challenger. After nearly 7 years of development, caused mainly by delays caused by the initial design objective of using hydrogen for the boosters which were then switched to more conventional RP-1/LOX, the Liquid-Flyback Boosters make their debut. The flight is a partial success, with one of the LFBB crashing on landing, while the other made it down safely to the KSC SLF. Analysis indicated human error caused the LFBB to switch it's ILS frequency to one of a nearby airport, misleading the LFBB. With insufficient remaining fuel and altitude to safely execute the landing, a remote-controlling pilot guided the stray LFBB to a controlled crash in the Merritt Island Wildlife Refuge.
STS-61-E. 6 march 1986. Columbia. Happens exactly as planned.
...To be continued...
Still wanted to keep early STS chronology close to what it really was. I'll probably use the "new" STS flight numbering for the remainder of the alternate chronology, since Challenger doesn't blow up in it it impacts all flights from STS-26 onward...
