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Saturn V was cancelled in 1968. Back then, there were no commercial entities designing and launching satellites. The first two Telstar comsats were basically i

Saturn V was cancelled in 1968. Back then, there were no commercial entities designing and launching satellites. The first two Telstar comsats were basically international collaborative experiments between national-level telcos; Telstar didn't actually get under way with operational comsats until the 1980s. Similarly, Inmarsat, the maritime comsat company, was founded in 1979. The first GPS prototypes weren't launched until the 1970s, and the civilian use of GPS didn't take off until the late 1980s. And in the 1960s, the only people with Earth Resources Satellites were national-level spy agencies. Short version: civilian space applications barely existed until 1-2 decades after the Saturn V was cancelled. The current efflorescence of communications, positioning, observation/meteorology, and broadcasting satellites were foreseeable and foreseen, but the entire manifest of commercial satellite payloads through 1990 could probably have fitted on top of a single Saturn V (although the need to deliver them to different orbits, over a 30 year period, would have made this a non-starter). Finally, NASA had a program for Apollo science missions (from 1966 onwards), the Apollo Applications Program: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Applications_Program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Applications_Program Only two AAP missions eventually flew -- Skylab (plus three crew launches aboard S-IB stacks, and a spare "lifeboat" stack), and the Apollo-Soyuz Mission (IIRC ASM used the "lifeboat" stack for the US flight). The proposed Venus fly-by was cancelled, the Saturn V launcher to carry the Viking Mars lander was cancelled, and so on.

rbanffy 5y ago
> Finally, NASA had a program for Apollo science missions (from 1966 onwards), the Apollo Applications Program: It kills me every time I remember what could have been. We could already be multiplanetary.
- cstross 5y ago
  Alternatively, we had a near-miss: given there was a solar maximum around 1972, the Venus flyby would probably have killed the crew (who would have died of radiation sickness weeks from Earth, live on TV). The Viking landers got to Mars and the Voyager probes launched atop Titan III-C anyway: the only real need for Saturn V was for crewed missions in the absence of something cheaper/better/more reusable. (Alas, the Shuttle turned out to be a white elephant with a couple of lethal design flaws.)
  - rbanffy 5y ago
    > Alternatively, we had a near-miss: given there was a solar maximum around 1972 I think that by the time they actually built flyable hardware for that mission, they'd learn to properly shield the crew. They could at least hide behind the propellant tanks. Except that the 3rd stage would be empty by then :-( BTW, it'd be a cool movie, even if a bit Apollo 13-like. > Alas, the Shuttle turned out to be a white elephant with a couple of lethal design flaws Indeed. The Shuttle shouldn't even called "reusable", but merely "fixable" or "rebuildable", if you got lucky. In any case, I'd have loved more Skylab workshop launches and the AAP permanent lunar presence. The modules were huge compared to ISS ones. It was a tragic loss to have Skylab fall to Earth because they didn't have the money to build something to boost it up a little.
    - cstross 5y ago
      The Skylab reboost mission was originally targeted for 1981, IIRC; but it was going to fly as a Shuttle payload, and in the meantime, Skylab de-orbited a couple of years early (just as the Shuttle flew a couple of years later than planned) due to a poorly-understood phenomenon. (The ionosphere extends upwards when it gets hot due to a solar maximum/solar flares, which increased the drag on Skylab, which caused it to drop into a lower orbit ... positive feedback ensued). Skylab wasn't great, but if it hadn't re-entered prematurely it could have been fixed up (new solar panels FTW!) and refurbed internally (methane scrubbers!) and used as a learning platform for a new space station, rather than the USA going nearly two decades without one.

rbanffy 5y ago

> Finally, NASA had a program for Apollo science missions (from 1966 onwards), the Apollo Applications Program: It kills me every time I remember what could have been. We could already be multiplanetary.

cstross 5y ago
Alternatively, we had a near-miss: given there was a solar maximum around 1972, the Venus flyby would probably have killed the crew (who would have died of radiation sickness weeks from Earth, live on TV). The Viking landers got to Mars and the Voyager probes launched atop Titan III-C anyway: the only real need for Saturn V was for crewed missions in the absence of something cheaper/better/more reusable. (Alas, the Shuttle turned out to be a white elephant with a couple of lethal design flaws.)
- rbanffy 5y ago
  > Alternatively, we had a near-miss: given there was a solar maximum around 1972 I think that by the time they actually built flyable hardware for that mission, they'd learn to properly shield the crew. They could at least hide behind the propellant tanks. Except that the 3rd stage would be empty by then :-( BTW, it'd be a cool movie, even if a bit Apollo 13-like. > Alas, the Shuttle turned out to be a white elephant with a couple of lethal design flaws Indeed. The Shuttle shouldn't even called "reusable", but merely "fixable" or "rebuildable", if you got lucky. In any case, I'd have loved more Skylab workshop launches and the AAP permanent lunar presence. The modules were huge compared to ISS ones. It was a tragic loss to have Skylab fall to Earth because they didn't have the money to build something to boost it up a little.
  - cstross 5y ago
    The Skylab reboost mission was originally targeted for 1981, IIRC; but it was going to fly as a Shuttle payload, and in the meantime, Skylab de-orbited a couple of years early (just as the Shuttle flew a couple of years later than planned) due to a poorly-understood phenomenon. (The ionosphere extends upwards when it gets hot due to a solar maximum/solar flares, which increased the drag on Skylab, which caused it to drop into a lower orbit ... positive feedback ensued). Skylab wasn't great, but if it hadn't re-entered prematurely it could have been fixed up (new solar panels FTW!) and refurbed internally (methane scrubbers!) and used as a learning platform for a new space station, rather than the USA going nearly two decades without one.