/sci/ - Science & Math

>>11993520
Don’t want to shit up this thread but I posted this in the previous one. Okay so I’m writing an alternate history story collection about a timeline where NASA chooses the MOL program over the shuttle due to budget cuts.

Would there be a way for a Gemini capsule to carry three people? I think you can fit a third person in there by using the Soyuz method of squeezing the shit out of everyone. However all plans for a Gemini that can dock and transfer crew with a station involve a docking port located on the bottom of the craft, which actually acted as a hatch on the heat shield.

My idea is that NASA uses the MOL style spacecraft into the 70s, and then they make a Gemini Mark II which has a crew hatch at the front to allow egress into “Skylab from this timeline”. The capsule’s interior is also refit which squishes a third seat between the two pre-existing ones, and puts those ones closer to the wall. The service module is also changed to include solar panels, which allow it to stay docked for hundreds of days. Lastly, NASA builds an expendable cargo vehicle based on “Gemini Mark II”. I did some math and I found that this thing would probably mass 6-7 tons. Honestly think of it as an American Soyuz/Progress.

Okay so I’m writing an alternate history story collection about a timeline where NASA chooses the MOL program over the shuttle due to budget cuts.

Would there be a way for a Gemini capsule to carry three people? I think you can fit a third person in there by using the Soyuz method of squeezing the shit out of everyone. However all plans for a Gemini that can dock and transfer crew with a station involve a docking port located on the bottom of the craft, which actually acted as a hatch on the heat shield.

My idea is that NASA uses the MOL style spacecraft into the 70s, and then they make a Gemini Mark II which has a crew hatch at the front to allow egress into “Skylab from this timeline”. The capsule’s interior is also refit which squishes a third seat between the two pre-existing ones, and puts those ones closer to the wall. The service module is also changed to include solar panels, which allow it to stay docked for hundreds of days. Lastly, NASA builds an expendable cargo vehicle based on “Gemini Mark II”. I did some math and I found that this thing would probably mass 6-7 tons. Honestly think of it as an American Soyuz/Progress.