Hi All

Just been visiting Mark Wade's Encyclopedia Astronautica, checking out some old designs. Apollo is my favourite, since it's the only real space-ship to have gone anywhere. I've often wondered what mods it would need to get to stations further out, like NEOs and Mars, or even Venus fly-by/orbital missions. Such trips would all need Skylab-style accomodation, though the original Apollo was being designed for 100 day missions. Then to get the Skylab-CSM stack out of LEO would need a few Saturn IVBs, perhaps launched by the modified Saturns listed in the Encyclopedia. Some were designed to orbit ~ 220-280 tons, which would've been a Skylab-CSM stack and a near full Saturn IVB. A couple more full Saturn IVBs and the assembly would be ready to boost to anywhere, nearish. Mars easily, though not to land, but it could orbit Venus, or even physically 'dock' with an NEO.

But coming back? I reckon the CSM could do this easily by using the SM's engines for a partial burn from interplanetary return to bring re-entry down to the standard ~ 11 km/s. Whether the Skylab would be worth recovering, don't know, but with some remote systems it would be a great solar-orbit observatory.

All been done by Stephen Baxter's "Voyage" - alternate history manned Mars flight set in 1986. Has the ship do a gravity-boost fly-by of Venus before reaching Mars. Lander was the MEM design.

Final question - of Gary, if he's around - is the stagnation temperature of Apollo's shock-wave at its re-entry peak. I'm fuzzy on the details - I estimated ~ 9,500 K, for a 9 gee peak at ~ 11 km/s re-entry speed. No wonder it was an ablation shield. Apollo's CM massed ~ 5,800 kg and its base was ~ 12 sqm in area.

Anyways a few fun thoughts at what might've been.