Across the Space Frontier - Space Station Orbit

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Across the Space Frontier, Joseph Kaplan, Wernher von Braun, Heinz Haber, Willey Ley, Oscar Schatchter, Fred Whipple, edited by Cornelius Ryan, Viking Press, 1952.

I have a copy from the second printing, June 1953

Space Station’s Orbit

Embarrassingly, before a closer read of Across the Space Frontier and Conquest of the Moon, I thought von Braun’s space station flew in a polar orbit. That’s not true.

Von Braun and company have their space station in a 66.5° inclination, circular orbit. This is about the inclination of what we call a Molniya orbit today, but Molniya orbits are elliptical. I’m guessing the point was either to avoid useless flight time spent over the two polar caps, or, given the purpose of the Molniya orbit (long linger time over Soviet territory), a 66.5° inclination gives a better view of the (then) USSR if and when you want to rain nuclear fire on it.

Here’s the illustration from Across the Space Frontier:

Here’s a graphic illustrating the orbit complete with an attempt at illustrating precession of the nodes from Conquest of the Moon:

Von Braun and his fellow authors confusingly ignore the implications of a highly inclined departure and arrival orbit and precession of the nodes when describing the lunar excursion vehicle. Given how carefully they worked out other details, this seems odd.