Alternate Spacecraft

[chrispi]

I was wondering what alternate spaceships you have in your ATLs? Me? In my For Want of a Nail scenario, I have many nations launch smaller DynaSoar-type spaceplanes to orbit; I'm even thinking about having a DynaSoar War but...

[Evil_evol]

I wrote a science fiction story once, inspired by "the man in the high castle" by Philip K Dick. It was quite unrealistic AH, but i was happy with my work when i finished it. Anyhow, the AH just served as a backdrop (and a reason to put a swastika banner on the moon and let the famous words just before the landing be, "one small step for one man, a gigant leap for the aryan master race") but it had plenty of AH spaceships, moonbases, satelites and spacestations, all named after charachters from the norse mythology and/or charachters from the Wagners niebelung saga. The terraformed Mars was called Valhalla.

[fortyseven]

I find a a spaceplane war very interesting. Evil, those are great ideas. :)

[Glen]

I like the Delta Clipper personally....

Curse the Clinton administration for going with nice graphics over a nearly complete prototype!

And curse NASA for buying up the prototype and then improperly installing an experimental fuel tank and blowing it up!

Curses, foiled again (twirling mustache...).

[Fenwick]

I wrote..... god knows when..... a AH story about the Russians publicly announcing their goal to put a space craft armed with a nuclear missile into space. At first America argues over this topic, but once the Lenin is launched the government realizes how dangerous the Soviets can become. The Lenin is basically a tin can that can pivot to fire a one mega ton missile at the earth. It was followed by the Stalin a six manned craft holding eight nuclear weapons. Still looking like a tin can, but a streamlined one, with wings for greater manuverability.

Nasa used the Apollo capsule, and expanded it to hold more cargo. Instead of moving ships, it focused on satillites to deliver its spaced based weapons. But it only made two, before the solar panels on one broke disabling the satillite. The airforce once again is given control of the space program, and makes the Lincoln class space craft by 1971. Created by Lockheed-Martin the Lincoln uses booster rockets to send a fixed wing craft out of the atmoshpere. It could return to earth under its own power. But its true purpose was to attack Soviet craft.

I believe that if the USSR or we put nukes in space our space ships would be much more advanced. For no reason other then conflict creating change.

[wkwillis]

A large (big dumb booster) variant with propane and oxygen, single stage to orbit without return.

[JLCook]

was and is a bad idea.

The very best place to put those weapons is in space---just not directly over our heads, that's all!

Build the equivilent of a trident missile sub, in space, with fuel and engines allowing considerale lattitude in deployment in "near Earth" but further away than "right next to Earth" space. Lunar orbit, LaGrange IV and V, anyplace between Mars and Venus orbits, and you have a deployed system that can see approaching enemies a long way off and can get out of their way. You have a platform which if attacked, is located not in North Dakota or Missouri but in deep space, where the effects of a nuclear attack, while lethal for the crew, cannot harm citizens in Des moines or Peoria.

Group such forces into fleets, and the Nuclear equation becomes: Just so long as the Fleet remains intact and is not defeated completely, the nuclear umbrellas remains in place. In a war fought between such "fleets" in deep space, victory would place the winner in the same position the USA had with it's Navy vis a vis Japan, in July, 1945. The loser might not WANT to surrender, but really has no choice. Meanwhile, the decision has been settled, away from where people live and from where they grow food.

[chrispi]

Do you think it's even possible for one nation to control them ALL? Indeed I would expect that, since there are five Lagrange Points, that there would be five nations controlling each one of them.

[simonbp]

Ok, dyna-soar was cancelled because it was useless as a weapons system (unmanned ICBM's did the same thing faster), and as a reconnaissance platform (CORONA and the U-2 go the job done), and as a orbital vehicle (Gemini was just as good and already flying). Delta clipper would have run into the same problems as killed the X-33, namely getting the Lithium alloy fuel tanks to work (ironically, because of the Lockheed/Martin Marietta merger the same engineers would have run into the same problem).

Space-based ground bombardment is pretty useless because ICBM's accomplish the same thing for a much smaller price. Space-based anti-satilite weapons are concieveble and were actually deployed by the Soviets (two of the Saulets have ASAT missiles and a defensive gatling gun).

What is really requisite for a space war is some way of reducing drastically the cost of getting cargo to low earth orbit such that suffiecent facilities are there that need to be protected. To do this in althist, someone either needs to spend ~$100 billion (2005 USD) to develop a proper aerospaceplane with a combined-cycle turbojet/scramjet/ducted rocket and/or said "damn the environment" and started launching nuclear thermal rockets from the ground, and/or something else equally unlikely in OTL...

Simon ;)

[McTodd]

Space-based ground bombardment is pretty useless because ICBM's accomplish the same thing for a much smaller price.
Aye. It costs enough to build and run a fleet of Trident missile submarines, how much would it cost for a fleet of space missile bases? Also, weren't space missile bases also ruled out because of the length of time it would take for the missiles to reach their targets? A missile launched from elsewhere on earth would get to its target a damn sight quicker than one launched from near the moon.

[MarkWhittington]

I'm surprised that no one has throught of the Orion, that neat interplanetary ship from the late fifties that would have been propelled by the explosions of nuclear bombs.

[hammo1j]

People dont realise the difference between sub-orbital and orbital space flight.
The energy difference is 30 times.

Physics here : http://www.badastronomy.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=479391&highlight=#479391


This is why ICBMS are prefered over 0rbiting Peace Platforms (Robocop).

Orion would have worked and added about 1% to our background radiation which would have resulted in 10 deaths per year on the planet as a whole but would have advanced space travel beyond belief.

The future is no longer with rockets but rests with the space elevator - literally a string reaching down from orbit up which the astronauts will climb.

[Justin Green]

I'm surprised that no one has throught of the Orion, that neat interplanetary ship from the late fifties that would have been propelled by the explosions of nuclear bombs.


The Orion project is something humanity is lucky no one ever pursued.

[McTodd]

I'm surprised that no one has throught of the Orion, that neat interplanetary ship from the late fifties that would have been propelled by the explosions of nuclear bombs.
True. But how could you turn it into a viable weapons platform? It's fine for putt-putting around the Solar System carrying big loads, but I can't see it as an orbital or near-Earth weapon.

Even the guys working on it couldn't actually come up with a way of weaponising it. Sure, they built a big display model (as big as a Corvette, apparently) of an Orion Space Battleship (bristling with 500 missiles and Casaba howitzers, whatever they were) which they showed to JFK in 1962; and sure, a bunch of them worked out that an Orion could carry a stupendous hydrogen bomb in permanent orbit which could sterilise the side of Earth facing it when detonated; but neither was practical. Even the USAF, during its phase of flirting with Orion, never seriously saw it as a weapons system, and only ever tried to devise military uses to get funding for it.

Still, shame Orion was never built...

[Scarecrow]

i always liked the idea of just modding the Space shuttle into different uses, such as using the fuel tank and boosters as a launcher, or using the Shuttle to go somewhere, eg an asteriod, and use it as a temporary base (perhaps a permenant one, if the fundings low)