[X] My Assistant

[gndonald]

I've been looking through the NTRS server and recently found a document dealing with plans to fit a Centaur stage to a Saturn Ib rocket. (Saturn Ib/Centaur Study (3.8mb)) (Picture Below). The simulated 'launch stats' in the document are for a 4 (metric) ton flyby probe on the Mariner 6/7 trajectory to Mars and I'm curious to find out just how far out of the planning stage this got, can anyone help?

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[monitorlizard]

Yeah, the history of the Voyager Mars program, and of all other Mars mission planning in the 1960s, is very complex. Not just unmanned Mars missions, but also manned missions (including flyby-only scenarios). I recommended Chapter 4 of "On Mars" because it specifically mentions the Saturn IB-Centaur. It's hard to imagine what a four-ton flyby spacecraft would have been used for. Maybe a dual spacecraft in one launcher (or a single Soviet flyby craft at that time ).

I have a special fondness for Voyager Mars, because it would have carried the Automated Biological Laboratory hard lander, which gets my vote for the coolest Mars spacecraft NASA never launched.

[dvandorn]

I have a special fondness for Voyager Mars, because it would have carried the Automated Biological Laboratory hard lander, which gets my vote for the coolest Mars spacecraft NASA never launched.

Yep -- I especially liked Voyager's "sticky string" method of gathering samples for its biological lab to analyze.

-the other Doug