Alternate History of the Space Age

[Bureaucromancer]

http://alternatehistoryofthespaceage.blogspot.com/

The author of Beyond Apollo recently spun off his space age timeline(s) into its own blog with some definitely interesting results. I just thought people here might be interested in it.

[M79]

To create a massive new space race I say have the USSR get its act together in the early 60s before Korolev dies and have their main rocket engineer work out a compromise with the main rocket designer. The N-1 has something like 33 engines to the Saturn V's 9. Make a program where the USSR has real space launch capabilities that could toss a manned craft to the moon and there you go. America to the moon in 1969, USSR to the moon in 1972 then to Mars in 1973 to celebrate the 55th anniversary of the Red Revolution on the Red planet. Forget military spending at that point, and forget the welfare system in the US, space becomes the new propaganda battleground and maybe we would have seen 2001 actually look like the movie of the same name. Alternatively you could have the USSR in its death throes stave off collapse temporarily under a very early Gorbachev by launching a Soyuz with a modified L-3 attached via an Energia rocket. This might to kick-start another space race but I'm not sure how long it would last.

[thekingsguard]

Cool blog, I've followed his other one.

[Archibald]

Yes, Beyondapollo is a great blog, and the alt-history is promising. The author has credential, since he wrote some of NASA histories, notably that one
http://history.nasa.gov/monograph21.pdf

[Hnau]

I'm disappointed, it seems that his blog has been removed? What's up?

[e of pi]

This note on the main Beyond Apollo blog notes that he's moving to a WIRED Science blog. I suspect that the downtime on his alt-history blog is due to something related to that.

[neopeius]

I've used a lot of Beyond Apollo stuff in planning out my Sputniks simulation (the chronology of which is being presented in my Sputniks thread).

[Bureaucromancer]

Originally Posted by e of pi

This note on the main Beyond Apollo blog notes that he's moving to a WIRED Science blog. I suspect that the downtime on his alt-history blog is due to something related to that.

He's confirmed in the comments that the alternate history stuff will be moving to WIRED.