Challenge: 3-way moon race with a post-1945 POD
- Thread starter Thande
- Start date
Riain
Banned
Black Knight/Europa could have been a good start for a third independent space power, but since that could only lift about 2/3 of a contemporary Atlas (???) it isn't going to put the wind up the SU or US in a moon race. In the longer term though I could see robotic moon probes in the 70s perhaps.
Anaxagoras
Banned
Have de Gaulle remain firmly in power in France during the late 40s, rather than return to power in 1958. He initiates a policy of close cooperation among West European nations in an effort to prevent the Continent from coming under either American or Soviet domination. When Sputnik goes up, Europe decides it must stake its claim in space alongside the U.S. and the USSR.
Slim, I know. But the best I can come up with.
Slim, I know. But the best I can come up with.
ESRO was founded in 1964 as a result of some scientists pushing for a european agency after Sputnik, right?
Instead of 6 years to get themselves organized, they do it in 2 years instead. Not sure how to speed up the bureaucracy but maybe both the Brits and the French have a minor falling out with the US (well--France *did* leave NATO around that time, after all --could we have some kind of incident that annoys the Brits as well?) and everybody decides that they need to show the US up a bit?
Instead of 6 years to get themselves organized, they do it in 2 years instead. Not sure how to speed up the bureaucracy but maybe both the Brits and the French have a minor falling out with the US (well--France *did* leave NATO around that time, after all --could we have some kind of incident that annoys the Brits as well?) and everybody decides that they need to show the US up a bit?
A few ideas.
In 1945, Truman keeps the US promise to Britain to give them nuclear power (this was broken in OTL)
As a result, Britain doesnt have to spend the money researching it herself.
Second, offering to keep the main commonwealth countries under a British nuclear umbrella gives a defence and r&d strategy more efficient and coordinated than in OTL.
Third, someone like Sanger ends up in the UK rather than the USA
So with more money available, and feeling more of a great power with nukes, Britain and her allies decide to develop a space capability - to make it more interesting, around a spaceplane rather than rockets - indeed, this might have been beneficial to both Britain and the USA once Russia stole the lead - sharing information to allow 2 diffferent appproaches - I suspect that while both the USA and Britain would want to be first, they would much rather Russia came third. Again , this reduces British costs.
In 1945, Truman keeps the US promise to Britain to give them nuclear power (this was broken in OTL)
As a result, Britain doesnt have to spend the money researching it herself.
Second, offering to keep the main commonwealth countries under a British nuclear umbrella gives a defence and r&d strategy more efficient and coordinated than in OTL.
Third, someone like Sanger ends up in the UK rather than the USA
So with more money available, and feeling more of a great power with nukes, Britain and her allies decide to develop a space capability - to make it more interesting, around a spaceplane rather than rockets - indeed, this might have been beneficial to both Britain and the USA once Russia stole the lead - sharing information to allow 2 diffferent appproaches - I suspect that while both the USA and Britain would want to be first, they would much rather Russia came third. Again , this reduces British costs.
Thande
Donor
America did have a parallel spaceplane project in OTL, Dyna-Soar, so it's not inconceivable Britain might have taken that route as well. (Especially since most unfunded British space projects focus on spaceplanes rather than rockets).
Thande
Donor
Indeed!
Fireball XL5 with RAF markings.....
I love that show!
Some bits of it are actually quite far-sighted, as with many Gerry Anderson things - the ESA is even now working on the same rail launch method depicted there, and some Mars mission plans use the 'detachable forward cockpit to go down to the planet' method...
I always wondered if he'd seen any of Sangers work...Sangers spaceplane used a rocket sled to launch it.
The ww2 design would have I think put it with a 2 ton payload into sub-orbit.
Make the payload a rocket with a small satellite, and your the first into orbit.
A larger version could have done the same with a small spaceplane or cargo rocket. Probably putting the pieced together in orbit to make a lunar ship.
Thande
Donor
Very likely, from what I've read Anderson used to read up on the latest aerospace and other technology in order to find concepts he could use in his futuristic TV series.
UK is 1st on the moon
POD (end of war in Europe, not end of the year, though): In 1945, Churchill realises better how disgruntled the British soldiers are with his government. Just in time, he manages to turn around his fate with more campaigning among his soldiers. He wins the election and reigns for another term.
While his heavy handed style won't be all successful, at least he will avoid the efforts to turn Britain into a welfare state and other such misguided reforms. He will also bargain slightly harder about Germany, about the colonies, and so on, though India will become independent as IOTL. He will be less inclined to sell out British technology and business interests. More money in arms and infrastructure instead of an extreme bureaucracy and social engineering will instead keep Britain in the race with the US and the SU.
Butterfly1: He realises after 4 years that a few of his tactics did not really make him too popular, but manages to get a conservative successor of his choice into the next term. His successor is weak and loses the next election, but now it's 1953 or so.
By then, the British were able to see the ugly face of real socialism, and Labour also moved towards the political middle due to the long series of election losses. A moderate Labour candidate gets elected and imposes much fewer changes onto the country. The ones that do get through will still be enough to disillusion the British in terms of welfare and socialist ideas. Still, Labour sees full two terms.
Butterfly2: As the Labour Premier happens to be a little on the technocratic side and believes in large government projects, he starts a pretty impressive space program, with an English space port in some British colony close to the equator. This is justified partly to keep bright people from emigrating to the US - thus also putting a minor dent into the American space program. Many scientists from the war ravaged continent are added to the British space program instead of the US one.
In 1961, when the conservatives take over again, the British already shot a man into space, though on something resembling more a rocket plane with boosters than a space capsule. They also managed to put a few short lived satellites into orbit, and tested the feasibility of satellite communications, satellite observation, re-entry from orbit, and so on.
The conservatives decide to move the project more towards a commercial venture, with the goal of spinning off private companies from whatever is successful, while the rest is booked as research. Wheather forecasting, satellite telephony, and so on are invented or copied from the the other 2 space powers and turned into some commercial successes and some commercial failures. The latter are reintegrated into the science part, if they are useful in one way or the other.
All the space activity and other changes in this timeline mean the UK is more successful economically and technologically. This also makes it possible to spend more on space adventures than what's realistic IOTL.
Butterfly3: While the US went the super high-tech, purpose built, all costs allowed way, and the SU tried to realise even the most ambitious ideas with as little cost as possible, but duplicating their efforts, GB goes the middle way - mass producing useful rockets, capsules, and the likes in standard sizes, increasing their sizes only moderately, and using only a conservative amount of untested technology. Double research and the likes is usually avoided.
As automation is not as advanced, and I assume the UK lags slightly behind the US in electronics development, those 1960s style manned satellites are actually put to use by the UK. Small capsules filled with different equipment map the planet, observe wheather, troops, and building activities, provide communications, and so on - in ever increasing flight durations and numbers. GB develops the ability to dock space modules together to form small space stations, mainly to avoid having to haul telescopes, cameras, and other heavy equipment repeatedly into space.
In 1967, GB has all the technologies necessary for a moonlanding. The British assume that both Russians and Americans will land on the moon sometime in that year or a year later, as was tried IOTL, iirc. They attempt to land just a few months later, at the end of 1968, so they start building a landing module and a space booster (the only two parts missing at that time).
Butterfly4: Unlike their competitors, the British are lucky that they are not thrown back in their schedule as much as Russia and maybe the US. They actually manage to land a man on the moon in the middle of 1969, while the US lands in december (a few months later than IOTL due to a few scientists not available to them).
With 2 countries successfully landing on the moon, the SU can't stand behind and actually try to launch their little moon lander - the adventure ending successfully or in a fatality.
POD (end of war in Europe, not end of the year, though): In 1945, Churchill realises better how disgruntled the British soldiers are with his government. Just in time, he manages to turn around his fate with more campaigning among his soldiers. He wins the election and reigns for another term.
While his heavy handed style won't be all successful, at least he will avoid the efforts to turn Britain into a welfare state and other such misguided reforms. He will also bargain slightly harder about Germany, about the colonies, and so on, though India will become independent as IOTL. He will be less inclined to sell out British technology and business interests. More money in arms and infrastructure instead of an extreme bureaucracy and social engineering will instead keep Britain in the race with the US and the SU.
Butterfly1: He realises after 4 years that a few of his tactics did not really make him too popular, but manages to get a conservative successor of his choice into the next term. His successor is weak and loses the next election, but now it's 1953 or so.
By then, the British were able to see the ugly face of real socialism, and Labour also moved towards the political middle due to the long series of election losses. A moderate Labour candidate gets elected and imposes much fewer changes onto the country. The ones that do get through will still be enough to disillusion the British in terms of welfare and socialist ideas. Still, Labour sees full two terms.
Butterfly2: As the Labour Premier happens to be a little on the technocratic side and believes in large government projects, he starts a pretty impressive space program, with an English space port in some British colony close to the equator. This is justified partly to keep bright people from emigrating to the US - thus also putting a minor dent into the American space program. Many scientists from the war ravaged continent are added to the British space program instead of the US one.
In 1961, when the conservatives take over again, the British already shot a man into space, though on something resembling more a rocket plane with boosters than a space capsule. They also managed to put a few short lived satellites into orbit, and tested the feasibility of satellite communications, satellite observation, re-entry from orbit, and so on.
The conservatives decide to move the project more towards a commercial venture, with the goal of spinning off private companies from whatever is successful, while the rest is booked as research. Wheather forecasting, satellite telephony, and so on are invented or copied from the the other 2 space powers and turned into some commercial successes and some commercial failures. The latter are reintegrated into the science part, if they are useful in one way or the other.
All the space activity and other changes in this timeline mean the UK is more successful economically and technologically. This also makes it possible to spend more on space adventures than what's realistic IOTL.
Butterfly3: While the US went the super high-tech, purpose built, all costs allowed way, and the SU tried to realise even the most ambitious ideas with as little cost as possible, but duplicating their efforts, GB goes the middle way - mass producing useful rockets, capsules, and the likes in standard sizes, increasing their sizes only moderately, and using only a conservative amount of untested technology. Double research and the likes is usually avoided.
As automation is not as advanced, and I assume the UK lags slightly behind the US in electronics development, those 1960s style manned satellites are actually put to use by the UK. Small capsules filled with different equipment map the planet, observe wheather, troops, and building activities, provide communications, and so on - in ever increasing flight durations and numbers. GB develops the ability to dock space modules together to form small space stations, mainly to avoid having to haul telescopes, cameras, and other heavy equipment repeatedly into space.
In 1967, GB has all the technologies necessary for a moonlanding. The British assume that both Russians and Americans will land on the moon sometime in that year or a year later, as was tried IOTL, iirc. They attempt to land just a few months later, at the end of 1968, so they start building a landing module and a space booster (the only two parts missing at that time).
Butterfly4: Unlike their competitors, the British are lucky that they are not thrown back in their schedule as much as Russia and maybe the US. They actually manage to land a man on the moon in the middle of 1969, while the US lands in december (a few months later than IOTL due to a few scientists not available to them).
With 2 countries successfully landing on the moon, the SU can't stand behind and actually try to launch their little moon lander - the adventure ending successfully or in a fatality.
Very good! Except for the tear it brings to my eye whenever I contemplate our space projects
How about America initially shares its rocketry secrets with Britain, in the hope that one of the two can beat the Soviet Union to the moon?
Or maybe Werner Von Braun and/or other German scientists make it to Britain instead of the US?
Or maybe Werner Von Braun and/or other German scientists make it to Britain instead of the US?
Riain
Banned
It's not a lack of technical expertise which slowed the non superpowers down, although some extra German knowhow might take a few years off a Commonwealth programme. It was the sheer lack of resources compared with the US and SU, so with a 1945 PoD it's hard to give the only other contender, Britain/Commonwealth, enough cash and other resources to keep up.
Look up Hawker Siddeley Waverider, according to some, it (1960) was intended to reach the moon by 1970.
http://www.astronautix.com/craft/hawr1960.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waverider
http://www.astronautix.com/craft/hawr1960.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waverider
Archibald
Banned
A British-French alliance maybe ? From 1960 ?
Wrecking ESRO around 1960-61 won't be too difficult Have the Germans and Italians using the SCOUT from San Marco, and smaller countries will follow them (I wrote something along these lines some months ago. It is somewhere on my hard disk...)
Then go for a heavy launcher base on the Blue Streak, or an enlarged variant of it.
Blue Sreak RZ-2 engines were very similar to US engines of the time - Atlas MA-3, Thor/ Delta and Titan -
Sadly the Blue Streak used baloon-tanks ala Atlas, so you can't have a triamese Blue Streak
But the RZ-2 engines are the most powerfull in Europe until the Viking come around in 1970.
By clustering eight of them you would have something very similar to a Saturn IB, around 8*100 tons of thrust giving 20 metric tons to LEO.
You can land a man on the Moon (or fly around the Moon) with 2*20-tons in LEO.
What you need is a cryogenic upper stage and your manned capsule.
Dock them in "Gemini" fashion, light the cryo stage, and send that in TLI.
Circumlunar flight, Zond-like.
The pacing item would be the manned capsule. Very long and difficult to develop...
some informations
- In the 60's France send rats, cats and Monkeys in suborbital flights using Veronique rockets (Felicette, Hector...)
- Great Britain (partially?) tested the very first european LH2 engine around 1967, the RZ-20.
More or less a RL-10. Saturn I (not IB) had 6*RL-10 as second stage.
- The Viking engine program started as early as 1966, and the engine was fired on the bench in 1970.
- France and Great Britain can theorically have an Ariane-1-like launcher as early as 1968 (not 1979) using four RZ-2 (Europa L3B) or eight Valois (Supervulcain B)
Something like four tons in LEO.
By the way a Blue Streak with a cryogenic second-stage (two RZ-20) would have performance very similar to an Atlas-Centaur.
At least the Anglo-french could launch a lunar unmanned probe.
Wrecking ESRO around 1960-61 won't be too difficult
Have the Germans and Italians using the SCOUT from San Marco, and smaller countries will follow them (I wrote something along these lines some months ago. It is somewhere on my hard disk...) Then go for a heavy launcher base on the Blue Streak, or an enlarged variant of it.
Blue Sreak RZ-2 engines were very similar to US engines of the time - Atlas MA-3, Thor/ Delta and Titan -
Sadly the Blue Streak used baloon-tanks ala Atlas, so you can't have a triamese Blue Streak
But the RZ-2 engines are the most powerfull in Europe until the Viking come around in 1970.
By clustering eight of them you would have something very similar to a Saturn IB, around 8*100 tons of thrust giving 20 metric tons to LEO.
You can land a man on the Moon (or fly around the Moon) with 2*20-tons in LEO.
What you need is a cryogenic upper stage and your manned capsule.
Dock them in "Gemini" fashion, light the cryo stage, and send that in TLI.
Circumlunar flight, Zond-like.
The pacing item would be the manned capsule. Very long and difficult to develop...
some informations
- In the 60's France send rats, cats and Monkeys in suborbital flights using Veronique rockets (Felicette, Hector...)
- Great Britain (partially?) tested the very first european LH2 engine around 1967, the RZ-20.
More or less a RL-10. Saturn I (not IB) had 6*RL-10 as second stage.
- The Viking engine program started as early as 1966, and the engine was fired on the bench in 1970.
- France and Great Britain can theorically have an Ariane-1-like launcher as early as 1968 (not 1979) using four RZ-2 (Europa L3B) or eight Valois (Supervulcain B)
Something like four tons in LEO.
By the way a Blue Streak with a cryogenic second-stage (two RZ-20) would have performance very similar to an Atlas-Centaur.
At least the Anglo-french could launch a lunar unmanned probe.
Okay, the easiest way to handle this is to create a terrible disaster that screws over rockets--like maybe the Soviet Union decides to test a nuclear warhead and a missile and both of them malfunction, irradiating a patch of land and killing a hundred people, as well as scaring the 1950s world out of multistage rocket design.
Then in the 1990s, the Soviet Union dismantles itself. Advances in Nanotechnology means that Outer Space can be reached in a far different way--Space Elevators. At stake is the resources of the Rest of the Entire Solar System. Russia, Japan, the UK, France, the USA and China all want a space elevator of their own and the race is on!
Then in the 1990s, the Soviet Union dismantles itself. Advances in Nanotechnology means that Outer Space can be reached in a far different way--Space Elevators. At stake is the resources of the Rest of the Entire Solar System. Russia, Japan, the UK, France, the USA and China all want a space elevator of their own and the race is on!
British Interplanetary Society
IIRC, the eponymous BIS had a viable design for a moonship in ~1938. Using solids, yet ! Within weeks of first V2 debris piccies appearing, they'd re-worked moonship to use liquid fuel...
IMHO, one huge 'what if' was the WGerman 'widowmaker' debacle, where the still-questionable US contract shut out the UK's rocket-assisted jet-fighter design...
Given a bunch of rocket-plane pilots and ground-crew, 'higher & faster' is a natural progression...
IIRC, the eponymous BIS had a viable design for a moonship in ~1938. Using solids, yet ! Within weeks of first V2 debris piccies appearing, they'd re-worked moonship to use liquid fuel...
IMHO, one huge 'what if' was the WGerman 'widowmaker' debacle, where the still-questionable US contract shut out the UK's rocket-assisted jet-fighter design...
Given a bunch of rocket-plane pilots and ground-crew, 'higher & faster' is a natural progression...