Has ASA been faking its successes?

Questions have been raised about the reported successes of the Australian Space Agency following recent events in the agency. While the agency has admitted that all of its three launches failed, it claims that mission that used the four person capsule didn't kill anybody and has even had the crew attend a post mission press meeting on the 26^th of December.

The first Australian mission of 1969, a manned lunar pass using the agencies' three person capsule has been admitted by the agency to have a catastrophic failure when the capsule carrying Lieutenant 90, Zak Zodiac and Mel Bourne exploded as it attempted to leave Earth Orbit to commence its journey to the moon. It is conjectured that the fuel pipes of the main rocket engine must have suffered a breakage quite near the fuel tanks. In any event when the command to fire the main engine was sent to the craft, it burst into flames (fuelled by the capsules reserves of oxygen) and the cabin quickly became unsurvivable.

It was ASA's second mission that has caused all the controversy though. This mission, a manned lunar orbit using the four person capsule/module (and hence unaffected by the failure of the three person capsule) was going smoothly until the second orbit around the moon. The crew failed to respond to a scheduled communications call between mission control and the capsule and all attempts by ground control to re-establish communications failed and the atmosphere at Woomera became even grimmer as the prospect of the loss of the third manned mission in a row loomed. However the crew of the capsule (Croc Hogan, Dingo Dan, Bob Hoskins and Larry Hoskins) were able to continue the mission and there was jubilation when the australian radar picked up the capsule back in earth orbit and as the craft safely re-entered the earth's atmosphere and the crew of the capsule recovered from the Pacific ocean¹.

Doubts about the mission have been spread by the other agencies who point to the lack of direction at the top of ASA during the last year mean that the odds that the mission will be discovered to be a massive conspiracy and cover-up by Harold's Bar as a publicity stunt to drive up sales of the amber liquid have been rated as low as 8 to 1 in the betting shops of Sydney².

ASA's third launch of the year was a lunar probe lander. This crashes into the Montes Alpes area surrounding the Plato crater after the craft was unable to locate a safe landing site.

Spacewalk by GOSsiP's Maja Hansen

Maja Hansen has become only the second person to float freely in space following the successful Manned Orbital and Spacewalk mission launched by GOSsiP this year. This success continues a trend for GOSsiP making them back into challengers for the space race to the moon (and back of course!).

SHADO has men in orbit too!

SHADO appears to have finally decided that not everything can be done by robots and has launched a successful manned orbital mission. Walter Clark and Judith Harris now become experienced astronauts! SHADO is not finished with its robot explorers however as its mission launched during 1967 returned lots of useful data from Mars.

SARSA loses Lunar Probe

SARSA sent a lunar probe to attempt a landing on the lunar surface but the probe has steadfastly refused to head in the direction of the moon and is stuck in earth orbit after the rocket motor on the probe failed to fire to take the probe out of earth orbit.

Concern at lack of docking

A review of the agencies' strategies suggests that many of them may be overlooking the importance of docking during most of the mission profiles that will take a person to the moon and back safely. With the exception of ASA's four person combined capsule/module, the trip to the moon and back requires two docking manoeuvres, one in earth orbit where the capsule is docked with the module so that it can carry it to the moon (the module does not need to be launched by the same rocket as the capsule but in every case the module is not launched pre-docked with the capsule - that said if a docking module is required³ it can be either separately launched (which would require an additional docking manoeuvre to collect) or launched pre-docked with the lunar landing module.

A second docking manoeuvre is required once the lunar landing module leaves the lunar surface and to allow the brave astronaut to return to the capsule for the return to Earth.

As yet no space agency has successfully performed a docking manoeuvre. Simulations suggest that it's more complicated that just pointing your space vessel at the target and firing your rockets (by doing so, you go faster and hence into a higher orbit. As the higher orbit has a longer orbital period you end up just getting further away from your target!)

Another engineering advance for SHADO

SHADO's engineering division has again been able to significantly cut costs for the rest of the organisation and have offered, for the next year only, to half the charges made to acquire new hardware made to the rest of the SHADO organisation. Officials have refused to allow the division to be audited to see if this price cut (and that available for 1963) could be made permanent! The engineering division has also denied that this is an attempt to get their hands on the spare $500,000 that has been sitting SHADO's balance sheet for many years⁴.

More animals at SARSA?

SARSA is again considering the use of the animals to test some of its equipment in future missions. While it isn't clear which animals are under consideration (some wags have suggested that maybe certain government ministers who have interfered with SARSA's plans are the potential candidates for the missions)⁵.

Smaug Inc.'s Oscar Hudson killed

As a result of car crash as he was heading to New York City's JFK airport to catch a flight on the journey to Smaug Inc.'s launch site, Smaug Inc. is mourning the loss of Oscar Hudson, one of the agency's astronaut crew. No foul play is suspected in the crash despite the likelihood that his death will have an impact on the launches planned by Smaug Inc for next year⁶.

South African spies still at work?

GOSsiP has admitted that there is a minor problem with its lunar probe that means that its safety factor will be reduced by 10% on its next mission. The agency is apparently considering spending $10,000,000 to rectify the fault, but others in the agency point out that the error could be solved fairly simply if only they could determine the exact flaw and its effect by just launching the probe on its way. SARSA has denied that its agents (if it had any) had anything to do with the problems with the probe⁷.

Hold up at ASA

The Australian ground control has announced a new concept for the agency's management of launches. It now has the ability to announce a hold on one of its launches. This will increase the safety factor of the rocket used on that launch by 10%⁸. The hold will delay the launch by several days however and it is expected that the engineers will quickly learn how to take advantage of the possibility⁹.

Launch Calendar

The provisional calendar for launches planned in 1970 (assuming none of the missions are rushed or scrubbed) is as follows:

5^th Dec

SHADO

11^th Dec

Smaug Inc.

14^th Dec

Smaug Inc.

17^th Dec

Smaug Inc.

26^rd Dec

GOSsiP

29^th Dec

GOSsiP¹⁰

31^th Dec

GOSsiP¹¹

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

1^st Nov 2017

Make text into a footnote as intended

14^th Nov 2017

Fix wording of footnote 9 and fix typo

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First Orbital Satellite is South African

On the 12^th of December, SARSA launched the world's first man made satellite into orbit around the Earth and successfully turned it on. Deep space radio telescopes around the world have reported transmissions from the satellite but have yet to decode the transmissions. A Spokesman from Jodrell Bank is quoted as saying: "We know it's morse code - but the sequence makes no sense at all". South African officials refused to comment on the output of the satellite, but did express satisfaction with the progress of both the one stage rocket (a safety factor of 76%) and the orbital satellite (a safety factor of 96%) programs.

As a consequence of the successful satellite launch, and in line with SARSA's new motto of "Bigger, Faster, Louder", the South African Government has ordered SARSA to launch a second orbital satellite as a matter of urgency. Suggestions that the satellite will be managed by the South African Secret Police has been downplayed by government spokesmen¹.

Major Explosion detected near Honolulu

Shocked officials from the Hawaiian island of Oahu have explained that the large explosion on the 13^th of December from near the north of the island was from a launch facility owned by SHADO. It appears that an attempted launch encountered problems during the final countdown sequence. Although the initial problem was corrected by the ground base mission control and the countdown resumed, the problem re-occurred only three seconds later. Although the rocket was fully fuelled and ready to go, the rocket failed to ignite as planned and the countdown aborted. However it appears that the explosive bolts which would normally be used to release the rocket for the actual liftoff did not receive the abort command and exploded as planned. This then ignited the fully fuelled rocket without the normal hardware and software controls being in place and the rocket exploded on the pad. Fortunately there was no casualties, but the launch facility was badly damaged in the explosion².

Late change leaves GOSsiP with two stage rockets

For a while it looked like multiple agencies would be joining ASA in starting their rocket development directly with a two stage rocket. However a late change in plans meant that Smaug Inc. decided against storing their liquid oxygen supplies in the nearby dormant volcano after the volcano showed signs of not being quite so dormant. Smaug Inc has, instead, concentrated on a three person capsule program (raising its safety factor to higher than that of its orbital satellite program at 34%). GOSsiP's new two stage rocket is still at the prototype stage having been estimated at a safety factor of just 11%.

Indian Ocean tensions rise

The Australian government has announced a shift in priorities following on from the successful satellite launch. A bid by the Australian Navy, backed by the Army and Air Force to switch funding from the space agency to their own procurement programs was successful³.

ASA Press release

ASA’s continued commitment to its goals progress with further research into the XL rocket programme (Safety factor 37%) and a related investment in capsules (Safety factor 21%).

Rumours that the alleged spies were taken on a trekking holiday into the outback and abandoned without communications on a remote stretch of highway rumoured to be the hunting ground of the as yet uncaught crazed serial axe killer Dingo Dan are unfounded.

In the meantime, Dr Venus is now reported to have been admitted to the crew and professor Matt has accepted a ground support role. Steve Zodiac may have had an official reprimand after being overheard to say of the appointment “well, at least we will have decent coffee in orbit….”

Smaug Inc. claims location will promote reuse

Smaug Inc. is claiming that its novel use of local seawater supplies will enable its launch facility to provide such a fast turnaround that it may be able to make two launches from the same launch facility. Although Smaug Inc. is still reluctant to reveal the location of the base, sources suggest that it is close to a large body of water, which can be used to dissipate the heat of a launch. Some experts, though, are sceptical of the long term viability of the technique⁴.

SHADO looks to robots

It looks like, that for the time being at least, SHADO has spurned the use of humans in its space program and has concentrated on expanding the capabilities of its robots by starting both an Interplanetary Satellite (Safety factor 16%) and a Lunar Probe Lander (Safety factor 10%) programs. Both of these programs are still at an early stage of development. This focus on robots has encouraged robotic research across the globe and it is expected that SHADO will be reaping the respect of the many new graduates of courses in robotics⁵, though maybe not that of the economists in the rest of the Space Habitation Agency who are complaining of the profligacy of the direct operations division.

Norway, Sweden and Denmark pledge continued support

After intense lobbying by SAAB, the Swedish engineering group, the governments have pledged to improve their support of GOSsiP by providing a 50% subsidy to the space agency during 1958. It is expected that as a result of the anticipated hardware purchases, the SAAB will be able to preserve a substantial number of aerospace jobs until the new Saab 35 Draken fighter comes into operation at the end of the decade⁶.

Launch Calendar

Only one launch has been planned for 1958, no doubt reflecting the general cautiousness of the space agency or perhaps uncertainty on how to proceed following SARSA's successful orbital satellite mission.

The provisional calendar for launches planned in 1958 (assuming none of the missions are rushed or scrubbed) is as follows:

15^th Dec

GOSsiP

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

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