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...Didn't make it by the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11, but I did by the 51st! (If only by the barest definition; that is, by the last time any location was in the last day of the mission, July 24) BTW, here's evidence I was working on it for the 50th anniversary, though I had further modified the document by Christmas.

This depicts the Verne spacecraft and its Launch Vehicle from my It's a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow alternate history in profile view, showing each of its 9 elements. Note that I will add to the drawing later on, as stated on the drawing itself—it was honestly rushed, work being intermittent due to well, read my most recent status update .

Verne, depending on count, was either the second or third crewed spaceflight program in IGBBT, after Adam/Eve and Enoch and conterminous with Silbervögel (a program to develop technologies for reusable spaceplanes, or in IGBBT parlance "Ultraplanes"). Verne (named after Jules Verne, writer of From the Earth to the Moon, the first scientific description of a crewed Lunar mission) was the culmination of the efforts of Adam/Eve and Enoch, with the primary goal of sending humans to the Lunar surface and return them alive. In this manner, it is very similar to the Apollo program undertaken by NASA and the failed N-1/L-3 program undertaken by the Soviet space programs, though with some differences in objective and large differences in mission mode. Importantly, while both of those programs were focused almost entirely on a flags-and-footprints Lunar landing—future applications like the Apollo Applications Program being somewhat of an afterthought—Verne was also focused on developing launch and landing infrastructure for Lunar colonization, hence it continued well after its primary objective was fulfilled. This primary objective was first accomplished by a young Chuck Yeager, Erich Warsitz, and Ola Mildred Rexroat after launching on 1945-05-07 from near Tampa, landing on the 10th and returning by the 14th, with Erich taking the first steps.

Note that unlike with the previous Enoch Phase-2 diagram (made *checks date* 1 3/4ths years ago), the elements are listed from bottom-to-top as I feel that it would be more effective in this situation. Also, unless otherwise stated, this will be describing the architecture as existed for the version at 1st lunar landing, as the Verne spacecraft was continuously improved and derived to the point where the last models share very little from the original, so much so that not even the Thor-Delta series is a fair comparison—the only thing I can think of as an analogy is the IBM PC-compatible series.

WARNING: Lots of information ahead:

Elements V, VI, VII, VIII, IV: Columbiad Launch Vehicle:

With a program name such as Verne, it only makes sense to name the launch vehicle after the space gun used in From the Earth to the Moon—the Columbiad.

Following the successful development of the Micheldeuse 3 iteration used in Enoch Phase-2 (officially called the Micheldeuse F.K.I.G.E. "Full gas-generator, Kerolox, re-Ignitable, Gimballing, Electric ignition", borrowing from BORE British WWII naming conventions), there was a desire to create higher-thrust engines burning higher-energy propellants, especially the LOx/LH2 stated by Tsiolkovsky 35 years earlier to be the optimum propellant combination for an orbital rocket. So, starting in 1941, two engine projects were stated in unison: Großmicheldeuse and Aquarius. After an often-troubled and explosive 3-year development history, Großmicheldeuse produced a kerolox engine that outputted 5.5× more thrust, or around 1776.3 kiloNewtons at sea level and 2067.5 kiloNewtons in vacuum. Aquarius succeeded in 2 years to adapt the Micheldeuse into a HydroLOx engine, following much the same development path as the LR87-LH2 project in BORE. The ultimate near-literal offspring of these projects resulted in the Big Aquarius, the main engine on both stages of the Columbiad, with a thrust comparable to the RS-68 and specific impulse comparable to the J-2*.

With a 9–1 engine arrangement performing well with the Enoch Phase-2, this was copied in the Columbiad. As the propulsive landing found in said launch vehicle would take too much delta-V and Silbervogel was lagging behind other projects, it was decided for the moment to have the stages (labelled VIII and VI, respectively, separated by an interstage labelled here as VII which is discarded from the 2nd stage a few seconds after ignition) be expendable. To further reduce weight, both stages had a common bulkhead between their LOx and LH2 tanks, initially developed for the Sparker-derived Hydra upper stage, and extensively used bleeding-edge aluminium-lithium alloys.

However, just this arrangement was still not sufficient to hurl the Verne on a Trans-Lunar trajectory*. For the first operational launches of the vehicle in Verne 3 and 4 (with the goals of sending crew into Lunar orbit and performing the first crewed Lunar landing, respectively), 6 Bertha Solid Rocket Boosters (analogous to our UA1207; labelled here as Element IV) were used, massive single-segment motors burning a 50/50-mixture of paraffin wax and aluminium fuel with ammonium perchlorate oxidizer to augment thrust—afterwards, they were replaced by 2 cropped 1st stage tanks cross-fed into the central core, building on technology for the Enoch Heavy (2-booster), Superheavy (4-booster), and Ultraheavy (6-booster) variants. This was overkill until 1947-11-02, when the expendable boosters, 1st stage and 2nd stage were replaced with naturally more battleship orbital-reentry capable spaceplanes (the 2nd stage having additional ablative heat shielding), in turn allowing a much higher launch rate.

Element I, IV: Launch Escape Systems:

Because of Verne's objectives to produce a landing and propulsion system suitable for lunar colonization, leaving a Service Module to burn up into the atmosphere or a Descent Module on the ground simply won't do, as that inherently reduces the reusability and thus the launch rate while raising material cost. Hence, it was decided at an early stage that the Verne spacecraft would not only be direct-ascent but single-stage. Though ambitious, contemporaneous BORE plans like the BIS Lunar Lander and Von Braun's Moon Ferry show direct-ascent and "single-stick" designs were the norm for that period. This presents challenges not only in the mass budget (one which was almost not met in development) but also in crew safety: How do you abort a spacecraft that's so much more massive than a simple crew module safely, one chock-full of propellant?

The main, less-serious abort mode for the Verne Spacecraft is called the "Dump Abort" (DA), labelled here as Element IV. In this mode, the propellants are dumped overboard to reduce mass if a launch failure is detected. They are expelled from 4 slits (expansion ratio = ~1.015) at the bottom of the spacecraft around the heat shield, forced out by corresponding gas generator turbopumps massing 6 times all engines on the craft combined. This also carries out the Launch Escape action, as the H2O2 mixes with the hydrazine, neutralizing it and creating a very crude but powerful rocket engine, barely convergent-divergent to provide absolute maximum thrust-per-unit area at a specific impulse of only ~100 seconds. After a Dump Abort, the Spacecraft could hopefully be refurbished and put back into use.

If either a catastrophic failure occurs in the spacecraft itself—such as a rupture of the tanks—or the Dump system fails to work between launch and slightly before orbital insertion, the "Last-Ditch Abort System" (LDA system; labelled here as Element I) activates, which uses a solid motor system similar to that on the Adam/Eve and Enoch spacecrafts to jerk the crew module away from the spacecraft at 8+ gs at a 20° angle.

Element III: Verne Spacecraft Proper:

In terms of general shape, Verne is a blunt-bottomed cone like that of the Adam/Eve/Enoch spacecrafts and is generally similar with the exception of not having a taper, making it more like the Apollo or Orion Command Module in that regard. This was done in large part to "future-proof" the design, as creating larger versions of the vehicle would be far easier than if a bullet-shaped design was stuck with.

As said earlier, the Verne Spacecraft is a single-stage, direct-ascent vehicle. Apollo, however, had a separate Lunar landing and ascent stage and used Lunar Orbit Rendezvous. So, how was such performance attained without making the vehicle enormous?

The main answer comes from the choice of engines. Remember the Hisser II alluded to in the Enoch Phase-2 description? 9 of those were the primary means of propulsion for the Verne spacecraft, with added throttling capability down to 30%. Using a closed cycle, a 50 bar chamber pressure, a nozzle extension, and perhaps using more energy- and mass-dense Diesel fuel rather than RP-1-analogue (the latter may not be needed if it would not be used for cooling), it would achieve similar specific impulse to the Lunar Module Descent and Ascent Engines in addition to the Service Propulsion System. What's more, as it is not a pressure-fed system, Petrol/H2O2 is denser than the Aerozine-50/diNitrogen TetrOxide used in Apollo, and the shape is much more compact, the tanks and engines can be made massively lighter—at least to a 9% dry mass fraction including engines. While pump-fed engines are more complex, potentially decreasing reliability, the redundancy of the engines reduced the chance of mission failure (only 2 symmetrical engines being required for end-ascent and 1 for Trans-Earth Injection), and the high delta-v meant that these "landing" engines were tested by using them for orbital ascent and Trans-Lunar Injection on test missions with less ambitious goals and with less powerful launch vehicles.

Its design also brings up another question: How do you produce thrust from the base while also surviving reentry? Well, there's a reason why the final Enoch missions (15, 16, 17, and 18) experimented with a "manhole cover" heat shield design: After Trans-Lunar Injection, the manhole cover is retracted to reveal the engines, which would allow Lunar Orbit Insertion, descent, ascent, and Trans-Earth Injection. After re-entering the Earth's Sphere of Influence, the manhole cover is put back into place. Unlike with Enoch, where the manhole cover had to be physically removed from the Service Module section and installed manually, 2 motorized locking racks† did so for Verne, being stored symmetrically under sections of the "permanent" heat shield. This automatic method was also used to "future-proof" it, as that ability would be used for future missions where propulsive landing would be performed after atmospheric entry.

After re-entering Earth's atmosphere, the Spacecraft contained 4 of the 5 parachute clusters (in these each holding 1 parachute, with 3 smaller ones on the Crew Module) used to slow the craft to a safe landing speed. The vehicle is supposed to land on land (like all other IGBBT spacecraft), although due to its very low density it is capable of a splashdown. Even with the first missions, the crew would attempt to open the heat shield and extend the 4 landing legs after reentry (again as an experiment for the future), though it is unknown if this would be initially successful as the reentry heat could fuse the heat shield and landing leg parts together.

Element II: Verne Crew Module:

Like Adam/Eve and Enoch, the crew module used for Verne was a blunt-bottomed capsule, though with a more conical constant-taper form as stated before. It can hold 3 people, making it much like the analogous Apollo Command Module. Or is it? Unlike Apollo but like Enoch, the docking system is hermaphroditic and supports propellant transfer to the Spacecraft. Also, as the Spacecraft itself is its own reentry vehicle, the backup heat shield on the Crew Module is only Low Earth Orbit-rated, as any "Last-Ditch" abort would happen before orbital insertion and even if the main heat shield was compromised, the ablation of the spacecraft itself should sustain it down to survivable levels. In addition, there is a vacuum toilet in case crew members have to go #2, thank god...

Further differences involve the control system. Because of the large horizontal extent of the lander and back-facing position of landing (although the chairs were designed to support both sitting positions), landing detection had to be done considerably differently. In addition to a mirror shade system allowing a very limited view of the ground, 2 television cameras mounted near the bottom (one fixed and one on a gimbal) and connected to a CRT provided most visual information. While landing with only the mirror and other instruments including the artificial horizon and RADAR altimeter (the latter incidentally using the same antenna as the docking rangefinder) was possible, it was considered so risky that it was expected to abort to orbit instead. Another CRT was used to display the contents of guidance computer memory as a modified Williams tube. Eventually, as solid-state RAM became sufficient to store the quantities shown, for later Verne missions it was converted into a glass cockpit, with the hybrid nature of the tube allowing it to serve as its own VRAM, massively reducing the size of the computer needed to drive it.

In addition, while Apollo used a pure oxygen atmosphere at 0.3 atm pressure, Verne used an Earth-like atmosphere like found on most other spacecraft. Also, while Apollo used hydrogen fuel cells to provide power and drinking water, an combined-cycle turbine APU powered by the combustion of stoichiometrically-stored Petrol and H2O2 (using exhaust gas recirculation to keep turbine inlet temperature manageable) provided the same to Verne, charging a lead-acid or NiCd battery to smooth out output. (Interestingly, given thermal, generation, and transmission efficiency losses, this makes the fuel/oxidizer combo about as energy-dense as state-of-the-art lithium-sulfur batteries. ) For later missions, this was replaced by an array of solar panels wrapped around the Crew Module.

...

If you have any questions or comments, please say 'em.

*Even more specific performance details will be revealed in a document similar to Into the Wild Black Yonder: Atlas-LANTRtaur Specs . (I would have uploaded it at the same time, but it appears Sta.sh has been somewhat depreciated with Eclipse, preventing me from making new journals with it... Also, what is with the lack of superscript/subscript text in descriptions now!?)

Description

...Didn't make it by the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11, but I did by the 51st! (If only by the barest definition; that is, by the last time any location was in the last day of the mission, July 24) BTW, here's evidence I was working on it for the 50th anniversary, though I had further modified the document by Christmas.

This depicts the Verne spacecraft and its Launch Vehicle from my It's a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow alternate history in profile view, showing each of its 9 elements. Note that I will add to the drawing later on, as stated on the drawing itself—it was honestly rushed, work being intermittent due to well, read my most recent status update .

Verne, depending on count, was either the second or third crewed spaceflight program in IGBBT, after Adam/Eve and Enoch and conterminous with Silbervögel (a program to develop technologies for reusable spaceplanes, or in IGBBT parlance "Ultraplanes"). Verne (named after Jules Verne, writer of From the Earth to the Moon, the first scientific description of a crewed Lunar mission) was the culmination of the efforts of Adam/Eve and Enoch, with the primary goal of sending humans to the Lunar surface and return them alive. In this manner, it is very similar to the Apollo program undertaken by NASA and the failed N-1/L-3 program undertaken by the Soviet space programs, though with some differences in objective and large differences in mission mode. Importantly, while both of those programs were focused almost entirely on a flags-and-footprints Lunar landing—future applications like the Apollo Applications Program being somewhat of an afterthought—Verne was also focused on developing launch and landing infrastructure for Lunar colonization, hence it continued well after its primary objective was fulfilled. This primary objective was first accomplished by a young Chuck Yeager, Erich Warsitz, and Ola Mildred Rexroat after launching on 1945-05-07 from near Tampa, landing on the 10th and returning by the 14th, with Erich taking the first steps.

Note that unlike with the previous Enoch Phase-2 diagram (made *checks date* 1 3/4ths years ago), the elements are listed from bottom-to-top as I feel that it would be more effective in this situation. Also, unless otherwise stated, this will be describing the architecture as existed for the version at 1st lunar landing, as the Verne spacecraft was continuously improved and derived to the point where the last models share very little from the original, so much so that not even the Thor-Delta series is a fair comparison—the only thing I can think of as an analogy is the IBM PC-compatible series.

WARNING: Lots of information ahead:

Elements V, VI, VII, VIII, IV: Columbiad Launch Vehicle:

With a program name such as Verne, it only makes sense to name the launch vehicle after the space gun used in From the Earth to the Moon—the Columbiad.

Following the successful development of the Micheldeuse 3 iteration used in Enoch Phase-2 (officially called the Micheldeuse F.K.I.G.E. "Full gas-generator, Kerolox, re-Ignitable, Gimballing, Electric ignition", borrowing from BORE British WWII naming conventions), there was a desire to create higher-thrust engines burning higher-energy propellants, especially the LOx/LH2 stated by Tsiolkovsky 35 years earlier to be the optimum propellant combination for an orbital rocket. So, starting in 1941, two engine projects were stated in unison: Großmicheldeuse and Aquarius. After an often-troubled and explosive 3-year development history, Großmicheldeuse produced a kerolox engine that outputted 5.5× more thrust, or around 1776.3 kiloNewtons at sea level and 2067.5 kiloNewtons in vacuum. Aquarius succeeded in 2 years to adapt the Micheldeuse into a HydroLOx engine, following much the same development path as the LR87-LH2 project in BORE. The ultimate near-literal offspring of these projects resulted in the Big Aquarius, the main engine on both stages of the Columbiad, with a thrust comparable to the RS-68 and specific impulse comparable to the J-2*.

With a 9–1 engine arrangement performing well with the Enoch Phase-2, this was copied in the Columbiad. As the propulsive landing found in said launch vehicle would take too much delta-V and Silbervogel was lagging behind other projects, it was decided for the moment to have the stages (labelled VIII and VI, respectively, separated by an interstage labelled here as VII which is discarded from the 2nd stage a few seconds after ignition) be expendable. To further reduce weight, both stages had a common bulkhead between their LOx and LH2 tanks, initially developed for the Sparker-derived Hydra upper stage, and extensively used bleeding-edge aluminium-lithium alloys.

However, just this arrangement was still not sufficient to hurl the Verne on a Trans-Lunar trajectory*. For the first operational launches of the vehicle in Verne 3 and 4 (with the goals of sending crew into Lunar orbit and performing the first crewed Lunar landing, respectively), 6 Bertha Solid Rocket Boosters (analogous to our UA1207; labelled here as Element IV) were used, massive single-segment motors burning a 50/50-mixture of paraffin wax and aluminium fuel with ammonium perchlorate oxidizer to augment thrust—afterwards, they were replaced by 2 cropped 1st stage tanks cross-fed into the central core, building on technology for the Enoch Heavy (2-booster), Superheavy (4-booster), and Ultraheavy (6-booster) variants. This was overkill until 1947-11-02, when the expendable boosters, 1st stage and 2nd stage were replaced with naturally more battleship orbital-reentry capable spaceplanes (the 2nd stage having additional ablative heat shielding), in turn allowing a much higher launch rate.

Element I, IV: Launch Escape Systems:

Because of Verne's objectives to produce a landing and propulsion system suitable for lunar colonization, leaving a Service Module to burn up into the atmosphere or a Descent Module on the ground simply won't do, as that inherently reduces the reusability and thus the launch rate while raising material cost. Hence, it was decided at an early stage that the Verne spacecraft would not only be direct-ascent but single-stage. Though ambitious, contemporaneous BORE plans like the BIS Lunar Lander and Von Braun's Moon Ferry show direct-ascent and "single-stick" designs were the norm for that period. This presents challenges not only in the mass budget (one which was almost not met in development) but also in crew safety: How do you abort a spacecraft that's so much more massive than a simple crew module safely, one chock-full of propellant?

The main, less-serious abort mode for the Verne Spacecraft is called the "Dump Abort" (DA), labelled here as Element IV. In this mode, the propellants are dumped overboard to reduce mass if a launch failure is detected. They are expelled from 4 slits (expansion ratio = ~1.015) at the bottom of the spacecraft around the heat shield, forced out by corresponding gas generator turbopumps massing 6 times all engines on the craft combined. This also carries out the Launch Escape action, as the H2O2 mixes with the hydrazine, neutralizing it and creating a very crude but powerful rocket engine, barely convergent-divergent to provide absolute maximum thrust-per-unit area at a specific impulse of only ~100 seconds. After a Dump Abort, the Spacecraft could hopefully be refurbished and put back into use.

If either a catastrophic failure occurs in the spacecraft itself—such as a rupture of the tanks—or the Dump system fails to work between launch and slightly before orbital insertion, the "Last-Ditch Abort System" (LDA system; labelled here as Element I) activates, which uses a solid motor system similar to that on the Adam/Eve and Enoch spacecrafts to jerk the crew module away from the spacecraft at 8+ gs at a 20° angle.

Element III: Verne Spacecraft Proper:

In terms of general shape, Verne is a blunt-bottomed cone like that of the Adam/Eve/Enoch spacecrafts and is generally similar with the exception of not having a taper, making it more like the Apollo or Orion Command Module in that regard. This was done in large part to "future-proof" the design, as creating larger versions of the vehicle would be far easier than if a bullet-shaped design was stuck with.

As said earlier, the Verne Spacecraft is a single-stage, direct-ascent vehicle. Apollo, however, had a separate Lunar landing and ascent stage and used Lunar Orbit Rendezvous. So, how was such performance attained without making the vehicle enormous?

The main answer comes from the choice of engines. Remember the Hisser II alluded to in the Enoch Phase-2 description? 9 of those were the primary means of propulsion for the Verne spacecraft, with added throttling capability down to 30%. Using a closed cycle, a 50 bar chamber pressure, a nozzle extension, and perhaps using more energy- and mass-dense Diesel fuel rather than RP-1-analogue (the latter may not be needed if it would not be used for cooling), it would achieve similar specific impulse to the Lunar Module Descent and Ascent Engines in addition to the Service Propulsion System. What's more, as it is not a pressure-fed system, Petrol/H2O2 is denser than the Aerozine-50/diNitrogen TetrOxide used in Apollo, and the shape is much more compact, the tanks and engines can be made massively lighter—at least to a 9% dry mass fraction including engines. While pump-fed engines are more complex, potentially decreasing reliability, the redundancy of the engines reduced the chance of mission failure (only 2 symmetrical engines being required for end-ascent and 1 for Trans-Earth Injection), and the high delta-v meant that these "landing" engines were tested by using them for orbital ascent and Trans-Lunar Injection on test missions with less ambitious goals and with less powerful launch vehicles.

Its design also brings up another question: How do you produce thrust from the base while also surviving reentry? Well, there's a reason why the final Enoch missions (15, 16, 17, and 18) experimented with a "manhole cover" heat shield design: After Trans-Lunar Injection, the manhole cover is retracted to reveal the engines, which would allow Lunar Orbit Insertion, descent, ascent, and Trans-Earth Injection. After re-entering the Earth's Sphere of Influence, the manhole cover is put back into place. Unlike with Enoch, where the manhole cover had to be physically removed from the Service Module section and installed manually, 2 motorized locking racks† did so for Verne, being stored symmetrically under sections of the "permanent" heat shield. This automatic method was also used to "future-proof" it, as that ability would be used for future missions where propulsive landing would be performed after atmospheric entry.

After re-entering Earth's atmosphere, the Spacecraft contained 4 of the 5 parachute clusters (in these each holding 1 parachute, with 3 smaller ones on the Crew Module) used to slow the craft to a safe landing speed. The vehicle is supposed to land on land (like all other IGBBT spacecraft), although due to its very low density it is capable of a splashdown. Even with the first missions, the crew would attempt to open the heat shield and extend the 4 landing legs after reentry (again as an experiment for the future), though it is unknown if this would be initially successful as the reentry heat could fuse the heat shield and landing leg parts together.

Element II: Verne Crew Module:

Like Adam/Eve and Enoch, the crew module used for Verne was a blunt-bottomed capsule, though with a more conical constant-taper form as stated before. It can hold 3 people, making it much like the analogous Apollo Command Module. Or is it? Unlike Apollo but like Enoch, the docking system is hermaphroditic and supports propellant transfer to the Spacecraft. Also, as the Spacecraft itself is its own reentry vehicle, the backup heat shield on the Crew Module is only Low Earth Orbit-rated, as any "Last-Ditch" abort would happen before orbital insertion and even if the main heat shield was compromised, the ablation of the spacecraft itself should sustain it down to survivable levels. In addition, there is a vacuum toilet in case crew members have to go #2, thank god...

Further differences involve the control system. Because of the large horizontal extent of the lander and back-facing position of landing (although the chairs were designed to support both sitting positions), landing detection had to be done considerably differently. In addition to a mirror shade system allowing a very limited view of the ground, 2 television cameras mounted near the bottom (one fixed and one on a gimbal) and connected to a CRT provided most visual information. While landing with only the mirror and other instruments including the artificial horizon and RADAR altimeter (the latter incidentally using the same antenna as the docking rangefinder) was possible, it was considered so risky that it was expected to abort to orbit instead. Another CRT was used to display the contents of guidance computer memory as a modified Williams tube. Eventually, as solid-state RAM became sufficient to store the quantities shown, for later Verne missions it was converted into a glass cockpit, with the hybrid nature of the tube allowing it to serve as its own VRAM, massively reducing the size of the computer needed to drive it.

In addition, while Apollo used a pure oxygen atmosphere at 0.3 atm pressure, Verne used an Earth-like atmosphere like found on most other spacecraft. Also, while Apollo used hydrogen fuel cells to provide power and drinking water, an combined-cycle turbine APU powered by the combustion of stoichiometrically-stored Petrol and H2O2 (using exhaust gas recirculation to keep turbine inlet temperature manageable) provided the same to Verne, charging a lead-acid or NiCd battery to smooth out output. (Interestingly, given thermal, generation, and transmission efficiency losses, this makes the fuel/oxidizer combo about as energy-dense as state-of-the-art lithium-sulfur batteries. ) For later missions, this was replaced by an array of solar panels wrapped around the Crew Module.

...

If you have any questions or comments, please say 'em.

*Even more specific performance details will be revealed in a document similar to Into the Wild Black Yonder: Atlas-LANTRtaur Specs . (I would have uploaded it at the same time, but it appears Sta.sh has been somewhat depreciated with Eclipse, preventing me from making new journals with it... Also, what is with the lack of superscript/subscript text in descriptions now!?)