SARSA's William Baxter first to space-walk

On Christmas Eve, William Baxter of SARSA became the first human to float (almost) freely in outer space as he space-walked on a brief excursion to the outside of his three person craft. The South African vessel also carried two other new South African astronauts. SARSA also becomes the third agency to achieve manned space flight and to orbit the earth; achieving this feat in a three person craft. The resulting publicity has driven SARSA's budget to new heights (although some in the South African government have campaigned to reduce the high levels of expenditure and have succeeded in a definite drop in the proposed future spending on the agency¹).

Did he fall? Or was he pushed?

The official report into the death of Steve Zodiac has left many unsatisfied. The reports says that Steve's body was found at the bottom of a flight of stairs that led from the ground floor entrance to his second floor apartment. Several empty cans of the Amber Nectar were discovered in the apartment and while the official report has no theories, apparently the Police are convinced that Steve must have, under influence of the Amber Nectar, assumed that he was still in space and could simply float down to the front door. As a result of the report the police investigation has been wound down and the Australian astronaut corps have all been cleared to fly. Fortunately for the Australian planners their only mission this year was an attempt at a Lunar Probe Landing.

One side effect of the inquiry has been the hiring of Zak Zodiac to the Australian Astronaut Corps. Zak was welcomed onto the team by some of the other members of the corps while rumours in Harold's bar suggest that the hiring is just to keep Zak quiet.

SHADO continues Inner Planet exploration

In the middle of November SHADO launched another probe to examine the inner planets. This one has flown past the moon and is continuing on its way to Venus. The two missions launched last year flying past Mars have met with mixed success. The first mission, which had flown past the moon on its way to Mars successfully, failed to enter orbit around Mars when contact was lost early this year. The probe is presumed to overshot Mars and could be heading for the asteroid belt. The second mission has successfully flown past Mars, returned valuable scientific data and is now on its way to Venus. SHADO should be able to gather considerable data from that planet too, assuming that both its probes are successful in their mission.

The Moon is a risky target

Three agencies attempted to land probes on the Lunar surface during 1966. The probes belonging to SHADO and ASA both failed to reach lunar orbit (with the Australian probe managing to outdistance SHADO's probe by leaving Earth Orbit (SHADO's probe failed to respond when ground control attempted to instruct the probe to leave Earth Orbit despite the probe successfully making the initial orbits. ASA's probe did not respond when commanded to fire its manoeuvring jets to enter Lunar Orbit). The third probe, belonging to Smaug Inc. has successfully landed on the Lunar Surface and returned excellent pictures to Smaug Inc.'s base during its descent.

General Motors' new mission

In a major advertising push, the American Car Manufacturer, General Motors, has donated $2,000,000 to both SARSA and GOSsiP to acquire the rights to use their astronauts in advertising campaign in South Africa and Scandinavia. The deal includes a small fleet of Cadillac Eldorado convertibles, though the Scandinavian model has been criticised for only being practical for a few days in the year!

Dr. Von Graun moves again

The peripatetic veteran space researcher, Dr. Von Graun, is apparently moving on yet again. It appears that the good doctor had moved last year from SHADO to Smaug Inc without affecting the research of either organisation at that time. However it appears that, having tried just about every possible location, Dr. Von Graun, is now returning to South Africa. The worry for Smaug Inc. is what effect this will have on its research efforts in 1967³.

New Australian Premier pledges to maintain manned space flight

In the recent Australian General Election the premier Harold Holt pledged that the Australian Space Agency will maintain a manned presence in space. Following his re-election he has ordered the Australian Space Agency to ensure that their next planned mission will be a successful manned mission. To support this he has increased ASA budget by a further $20,000,000⁴. The increased budget comes despite a recent audit revealing that many aerospace companies have been trying to take advantage of the hectic pace at ASA, with several lines of expenditure being denied⁵.

Peace activists condemn money hoarding at SHADO

As a result of a massive letter writing and boycott campaign, the parent company of SHADO has been forced to reduce SHADO's budget by $19,000,000. Apparently the protestors, while worried about the potential for large explosions, were concerned that SHADO seemed to be hoarding its cash and not spending it like confetti. One writer says: We want to see the pretty fireworks; not look at a big pile of cash. SHADO has offered citizenship to anyone with relevant space experience who wishes to join its team.

Outbreak of philanthropy

It appears that several of the space agencies are anticipating a major disaster in space, with several of the agencies being ready to mount rescue missions should that be required. Sadly for the agencies, most of the missions this year were of robot satellites.

GOSsiP pays up; scrubs mission

As a footnote to last year's problems in GOSsiP's two stage rocket program. GOSsiP's head of research has praised the prompt delivery of information from SARSA that has allowed GOSsiP to recover its two stage rocket safety factors. As a result of the information the two stage rocket program has reached a safety factor of 92%, while SARSA's cash in hand has improved by $10,000,000. The transfer of cash has apparently led to the partial scrubbing of the planned mission by GOSsiP in order to save the money that would have been spent on the equipment for the mission. The launch of a two stage rocket (with liquid fuel strap-ons) proceeded successfully, but it was obvious to ground based observers that no payload was carried by the launch⁶.

SHADO starts three stage rocket program

SHADO has started to spend some of its long saved cash pile by starting a three stage rocket program. The program starts with an initial safety factor of 35% and promises to continue a long line of rocket launch spectaculars... As a result of the new program SHADO has no plans for new launches in 1967.

Launch Calendar

The provisional calendar for launches planned in 1967 (assuming none of the missions are rushed or scrubbed) is as follows:

5^th Dec

GOSsiP

10^th Dec

Smaug Inc.

11^th Dec

Smaug Inc.

12^th Dec

Smaug Inc.

15^th Dec

SARSA

17^th Dec

SARSA

21^th Dec

ASA

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Last updated: December 21, 2021 at 19:38 pm

26 September 2017

Corrected typo

28 September 2017

Tweak CSS style (presentation change only)

31 October 2017

Launch Schedule is for 1967

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Disastrous year for manned space flight

Not a single mission that left the ground with astronauts on board has seen those astronauts return safely back to their home bases. The resulting chaos has left the space race wide open with agencies previously to be at a disadvantage not launching people this year and hence not suffering from the general carnage.

The first manned mission to launch was from Smaug Inc., whose crew of Anna Rivetti, Ben Mezera and Gunther Koska left Earth on the 11^th of December on a mission to orbit the earth and attempt a spacewalk. While the launch itself was perfect, the main engine on the three person capsule failed to fire correctly and sent the craft into a spin while not providing enough thrust to allow the craft to achieve Earth orbit. The craft was still tumbling as it re-entered the Earth's atmosphere and the craft broke up at a height of ten miles above the ocean. As a result of the failure, Smaug Inc.'s three person capsule program will need to be researched again.

Next up was a launch from SARSA on the 15^th of December. SARSA's William Baxter, Thomas Wills and Deborah Ferrari were sent on a mission to make a lunar pass (presumably on a proving mission for a later lunar landing timed to beat the South African's government deadline of the 31^st December 1968). Again lift off went smoothly, but the first signs of trouble again occurred as the craft attempted to make the major mission burn that gets the craft on its way to the moon. Initial attempts to get the craft to fire its main engine has no results until mission control on the ground reminded the crew that the controls had been designed to be fail-safe and that the main engine safeties need to be switch to Ready to Burn before the pilot's controls are unlocked to permit the pilot to fire the main engine¹. The craft then passed by the moon and returned to the vicinity of Planet Earth. However as the craft attempt to adjust its trajectory to safely return its flight path to a standard earth orbit, the main engine burn control stayed in the Burn position even as pilot Baxter attempted to control the burn. As a result of the misfire the capsule re-entered Earth's atmosphere rather than achieving its desired orbit. The resulting high speed entry caused the heat shield of the craft to fail and the loss of another set of brave astronauts. SARSA's three person capsule thus joined the list of programs needing to be re-researched.

ASA launched a four capsule on a mega-stage rocket on the 21^st of December. Captain Ken Ross, Dr. Venus, Jock Campbell and Co-Pilot Chuck were sent on another proving mission to pass by the moon in preparation (one assumes) for a later lunar landing. As with the Smaug Inc. and SARSA missions, the lift-off proceeded smoothly and in ASA case, the capsule also smoothly entered the extended orbit that increases the apogee of the earth orbit so that it passes by the moon. However problems then arose while the crew checked out the capsule systems. Despite the crew's experience they were unable, initially, to solve the problems (which the crew were reluctant to fully explain to ground control). However a quick consultation with the manufacturers of the capsule allowed the crew to bypass the faulty system². The rest of the flight proceeded smoothly until the recovery of the capsule off of the coast of Queensland. Initial investigations suggest that the design of the floatation collar that is supposed to keep the capsule upright and afloat while the recovery ships arrived on scene have a major design flaw. It seems that the collar deployed on touchdown as designed but caused a major breach in the hull integrity of the capsule. The capsule sank almost instantly, taking the brave crew with it to the bottom of the sea.

Missions scrubbed following the disasters

Both Smaug Inc. and SARSA both scrubbed the mission that was to follow the doomed flights from those agencies. One wonders how many of the ten flights (across all the agencies) for next year will also be scrubbed.

Smaug Inc lands on the moon

A lunar probe launched by Smaug Inc landed on the lunar surface on the 10^th of December reprising Smaug Inc.'s successful lunar probe landing of last year.

GOSsiP successful

Although only an unmanned sub-orbital mission to test out its Liquid Fuel Strap-On rocket engine (strapped onto a two-stage rocket) and its three person capsule, GOSsiP's only mission of the year was complete success. The success of the unmanned missions this year may go a long way to prove the benefits of robot technology for the future of space flight.

SHADO awarded profits

After what seems to have been a major boardroom struggle, the parent organisation of SHADO has awarded SHADO the profits from the hit TV program Astronauts: Do you have what it takes?. It seems that many of the tasks that the contestants have been set derive directly from both SHADO's research facilities and from its astronaut training program. As a result the $5,000,000 profits from the TV program have been awarded to SHADO³

Fuel Shortage reappears

Although supplies of rocket fuel improved during 1966, it seems that the suppliers have still not been able to expand supplies. In the resulting scramble for contracts GOSsiP was unable to secure sufficient supplies to allow it to launch more than one mission during 1968. Fortunately for the organisation it seems that GOSsiP is the only agency planning just one launch next year.

Integrated Circuits helps SARSA's satellites

In what is being billed a major advance, SARSA has announced that it has a method to space harden the recently developed Integrated circuit. The advance is expected to allow much increased reliability into SARSA's interplanetary probes and satellites⁴.

Smaug Inc.'s directors demand launch pause

The continuing investigation into the causes of the engine failure of Smaug Inc.'s has reached the accountants and directors of the corporation. As a result of the continued focus and analysis, the directors have demanded that Smaug Inc. refrain from any launches of any kind during 1968. The auditors have questioned the reliability of both the research results and of the accounts of the research division and have demanded that the division re-write the annual report in its entirety⁵.

Big science boost for ASA

Despite the final result, the big media circus surrounding ASA's recent missions has resulted in a big boost to science education in Australia. As a result the exam results from Australia's schools and universities has dramatically improved. However some claim that the improved R&D results will come more from a sighting of Dr. Von Graun in the Australian capital of Canberra⁶.

Auditors block over-expenditure

The auditors for several of agencies have noted attempts by the research divisions to spend money on program which were already at the maximum possible safety factor achievable by research and development work. As a result they block the additional expenditure and insisted that the funds remain as cash available for other uses⁷.

Launch Calendar

The provisional calendar for launches planned in 1968 (assuming none of the missions are rushed or scrubbed) is as follows:

5^th Dec

SHADO

7^th Dec

SHADO

11^th Dec

GOSsiP

15^th Dec

Smaug Inc.

17^th Dec

Smaug Inc.

20^th Dec

SARSA

23^rd Dec

SARSA

27^th Dec

ASA

29^th Dec

ASA

31^st Dec

ASA

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Last updated: December 21, 2021 at 19:38 pm

31 October 2017

Launch Schedule is for 1968

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