AH space programs

Hey, my last post on Eire was #26,000! And my next will be Topic #2600!
Okay, seriously, we haven't had many AH space programs. Just a few about what NASA might have done. But what if...?
What other space programs might have been started?
Belief that the ancestors of (insert ethnic/language group here) really got their start on (insert planet/star here).
Belief that the descendants of Atlantis are living on (insert planet/star here).
Hitler goes into aeronautics so he and his cronies can colonize the moon first before attempting to conquer Earth.
Somebody tells a rich eccentric the moon is made of--not green cheese, but the elixir of life.
The scion of a wealthy/noble European family had the bad luck to be fishing in Tunguska when the meteor hit. (He'd been on one of those Grand Tour expeditions popular in the 19th century. I know, this would be 1908, but still...) The family is informed that there are a lot of meteors in outer space, and we'd better be prepared for the possibility of meteors or asteroids hitting a major city. So they want to build a space station to catch meteors before they hit the Earth.
Napoleon conquers the world and 200 years later...?

Japanese space program.

Chinese space program starts sooner (no cultural revolution?)

European. Not as big as US/SU but bigger than now.

hmmm...

1929 - Russian engineer Tupolov develops prototype liquid-fuel engine

1931 - noted German romancier Oberth publishes "Rocket Flight to Mars"

1938 - secret missile research programme unveiled by German Republic. Early missiles said to be able to reach Moscow from the Baltic.

1940 - German scientists leak classified paper ("applications of superatmospheric ballistic flight in military rocketry - technical requirements") to Anglo-Canadian armaments conference

1942 - 'Simlah accords' set into motion British rocketry research programme. Other nations follow suit.

1953 - French Organisation Nationale de Recherche Aeronautique (ONRA) launches the first true multi-stage space rocket (imaginatively named 'Spatiale I'). The second such vehicle, carrying a satellite, follows the same year.

1955 - Ambler I (first British satellite) launched from Spanishtown Aerodrome

1957 - First return vehicle tested by joint Franco-German scientific commission. German shepherd sideronaut 'Hasso' returns to earth dead of heat suffocation during re-entry.

1959 - first successful human-sized return vehicles tested

1960 - French sideronaute Colonel Alain Frontera becomes first man in space, followed seven months later by Pilot Officer Chandar Singh.

1964 - first docking maneuver of Minotaure IV and Hermes XII carried out successfully.

1968 - Laperouse probe circles the moon,transmits back images.

1970 - manned moon mission Selene III circles moon

1971 - severe setback to British lunar programme after ground fire destroys Selene V, killing 3 sideronauts

1972 - French moon flight programme orbits moon with manned vehicle, launches and recovers unmanned lander

1974 - Pilot Officers John Mackenzie and Allan Lacquer and Saudra Bonde PhD land on the moon.

to be continued, funding permitting...

Wait! What happened to my favorite world war?

There could be plenty of different space programs, depending on the TL. Are we talking about AHs devoted specifically to a space program, such as a French one? Or other AHs with different space programs than OTL... If it's the latter, we would most definately see a Nazi space program. With their advances in rocketry, they might be a good challenge to the USA.

Could be anything, really. One TL I'm writing has an Imperial German land on the moon.

As for OTL countries that could have had a space program at one point... France, Japan, Britain, maybe Canada or Australia?

aktarian said:

Japanese space program.

Chinese space program starts sooner (no cultural revolution?)

European. Not as big as US/SU but bigger than now.

Click to expand...

Banning some early PoD's I would put my money on the Chinese.
Back in the earliy 70's they were close to sending a man in orbit
but the internal problems forced them to halt the program.

To build a viable CHinese AH space program, i would asumme
an earlier PoD - some time in the 60's Mao dies. China and the
Soviet Union remain firnedly and eventually joint space efforts.
In fact, in OTL the USSR gave China some rocket technology,
mainly regarding ballistic missiles.

The cooperation will give the Soviet Union a southern launch
area, giving favorable assist from the Earth rotation.

Sept 1968 - Zond 7 circles the Moon with Leonov and Makarov.

Dec 1968 - Apollo 8 cicles the Earth - there is no incentive to
take extra risk repeating what the Soviet's have already done.

July 1969 - Appolo 11 lands on the Moon with Armstrong and
Aldrin, on schedule. The Russians have no booster to land a
man on the Moon yet.

May 1971 - Zond 10 lands on the Moon with Rukavishnikov
and Chian Li; the N-1 rocket is not man rates so they use a
separate start of the unmanned N-1 with LK-7 and a manned
start of a 3-person Souz; the 3rd kosmonaut returns from the
Earth with the Souz.

1973 - The Soviet Union and China start a long-term moon-base
program, the so-called L3M. This requires one N-1 flight to the
Moon per year for supplies and one more for changing the crue.
The USA answer with a similar program but the public support
is decreasing.

1977 - The Soviet - Chinese base is operational, with two
inhabitants. This provokes a respons fro the USA: "... this
nation will land a man on MARS and return him safely to Earth
by the end of the decade..."

So the Mars race begins.

But ... all good things must come to an end. Same for this
tmeline. The icereased spending on the space will deplete the
resources of China and the Soviet Union, forcing them to
embark on an early "perestrojka". Given the conservatism of
the Chinese Lidershtip, a split between the two communist
poswers is inevitable.

1983 - The Chinese - Soviet relations deteriorate to a point
when coopeartion is no longer possible. The joint launches
stop. Russia enters a period of internal turmoil. However, China
remains adamant to complete the Martian program.

1994 - The US astronauts John McLeod and Chris Wright land
on Mars. The last few years the program has been carried out
entirely by the inertia - it has become clear that the Chinese
are unable to send a man on Mars but the US has already
spent ca. 150 mlrd. in research and development, and two of
the components - the land habitat and the return ship have
already been sent to Mars furign the prevous launch window.

It is clear to the public that the space race has esentially won
the Cold war for the West but this does not translate into
further funding.

The forsed rapid development over the last fifteen years means
that the technology hasnotreally advanced much. The flight to
Mars used chemical rockets, there are no winged spacecrafts
of any kind. It is all straight out of the 60's and the 70's. Well,
the computers are better, but this is about all. Due to the
singlemindness of the programs, no much has been done for
unmanned probes. These has never been any Voyager, Cassini
Galilleo or mars rovers.

Stephen Baxter's written some stories set round alternate British space programs. See for instance:

http://www.cix.co.uk/~sjbradshaw/baxterium/prospero.html
http://www.cix.co.uk/~sjbradshaw/baxterium/firstmoon.html

WWI is more evenly matched and lasts longer. Russia still collapses and goes communist, but the Germans sign a much more favorable treaty in order to concentrate on defending the Rhine. The technological war is a fact a generation earlier as the river line armistice leaves three wounded beasts staring at each other across the trenches.
America doesn't get involved at all, except for selling food to the Allies. We put lots of money into making a very large navy and a very large air force of the most technologically advanced design to keep up with the Europeans. The technology race starts up a generation earlier, but with America matching the three European powers of the Council Union (Russia), Mitteleuropa (Germany), and the Allies (France, Britain, Italy, etc). The neutrals keep very quiet. Japan is also keeping a low profile and out of China due to a stronger Russia. India is granted independence by an exhausted Britain. Turkey occupies all the 'stans, Iran, and the Arabian peninsula as part of the peace treaties. It's big enough to stay independent of India, but that's about it until after a revolution the Egyptians decide to join up with the Islamic federation, and Afghanistan signs on because the Indians are looking tough.
The Allies have Africa and Asia, for what they're worth, with the British Commonwealth as a counterweight to the Union Romance. Germany and the Balkans are a political equivalent, but handicapped by having to maintain an army big enough to defend itself against two large opponents. Russia is too weak to take on Mitteleuropa without Allied aid, and the Allies won't give them assistance because they are communists. India won't let Japan occupy China without a naval war that they can't really lose and Japan can't really win. Russia is a constant threat to Korea, too, so Japan stays quiet.
So we have an American led space race with lots of rival countries keeping an eye on each other and staying in the game. Technological progress keeps going and starts a feedback reaction, with competition for new products and new technologies instead of colonies.

Heres one, Rome never falls. I know we did some backtracking during the middle ages, re-learning stuff (not sure how mcuh though). If Rome never fell, how long do you think they would need in order to put some poor cenutian into orbit?

WngMasterD said:

Heres one, Rome never falls. I know we did some backtracking during the middle ages, re-learning stuff (not sure how mcuh though). If Rome never fell, how long do you think they would need in order to put some poor cenutian into orbit?

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As soon as those wacky Gauls brew another barell of that magic potion. Or until Obelix comes along as he doesn't need it.

tetsu-katana said:

As for OTL countries that could have had a space program at one point... France, Japan, Britain, maybe Canada or Australia?

Click to expand...

Just as a question : which TL are you from, that these countries do not have a space program?

aktarian said:

Japanese space program.

European. Not as big as US/SU but bigger than now.

Click to expand...

???????

I suppose you mean bigger space programs than OTL in those cases.

fhaessig said:

Just as a question : which TL are you from, that these countries do not have a space program?

Click to expand...

I think he means programs in which a human has been put into orbit. France and Japan and such have put things like satellittes and rockets into space, but never a person. Only three countries have done that- Russia, the USA, and China.

sunsurf said:

Hey, my last post on Eire was #26,000! And my next will be Topic #2600!
Okay, seriously, we haven't had many AH space programs. Just a few about what NASA might have done. But what if...?
What other space programs might have been started?
Belief that the ancestors of (insert ethnic/language group here) really got their start on (insert planet/star here).
Belief that the descendants of Atlantis are living on (insert planet/star here).
Hitler goes into aeronautics so he and his cronies can colonize the moon first before attempting to conquer Earth.
Somebody tells a rich eccentric the moon is made of--not green cheese, but the elixir of life.
The scion of a wealthy/noble European family had the bad luck to be fishing in Tunguska when the meteor hit. (He'd been on one of those Grand Tour expeditions popular in the 19th century. I know, this would be 1908, but still...) The family is informed that there are a lot of meteors in outer space, and we'd better be prepared for the possibility of meteors or asteroids hitting a major city. So they want to build a space station to catch meteors before they hit the Earth.
Napoleon conquers the world and 200 years later...?

Click to expand...

What's the earliest POD that you would accept? 19th century may give you a British space "programme" for instance. Or is there no limit? Could I propose Carl Sagan's idea of an interstellar Greek empire?

tetsu-katana said:

I think he means programs in which a human has been put into orbit. France and Japan and such have put things like satellittes and rockets into space, but never a person. Only three countries have done that- Russia, the USA, and China.

Click to expand...

Actually, all have done so, in Russian and US ships.

So I think you mean put them up on their own rocket and ships ( discounting the european laboratory flowing in the shuttle bay )

At least in the case of France - and europe, depending on how and when you count -, there was a program to develop independant manned launch system in OTL, altough it was abandonned before going to the end. See Hermes. The left-over hardware is Ariane V ( yes, it was designed to be man-rated ). There were also a flown experiment with reentry technology ( ARD ).

So saying France or Europe never had a space program to fly people in space is wrong.

ObWI : WI hermes program had not been cancelled. What would be the impact of having a way to fly a crew of 6 to the ISS on a non-russian craft, even with shuttle grounded? Would NASA buy one as CRV?

fhaessig said:

Actually, all have done so, in Russian and US ships.

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Yeah, I'm talking about, for example, a French program in which a French rocket is used to put a Frenchman into orbit. Not like an Israeli getting a ride on an American craft; that doesn't count as an "Israeli space program".

tetsu-katana said:

Yeah, I'm talking about, for example, a French program in which a French rocket is used to put a Frenchman into orbit. Not like an Israeli getting a ride on an American craft; that doesn't count as an "Israeli space program".

Click to expand...

See the rest of my previous post. Hermes

Britain should have had a space programme - logically speaking

But 2 world wars pay havock with your finances when you are paying for them yourself

This raises the 1945 POD

Churchill reckoned Roosevelt would forgive British loans, basically write them off, with a payment to cover war expenses etc

But Truman got elected. Harder

Then Attlee got elected. Even harder

Even though Keynes came to the USA to meet with Truman and support Attlee's mission, Truman was being advised by someone who was both anti-imperialist and very right wing (hated socialist type parties). Attlee only got a loan and a massive one whose repayments still hinder the British treasury even now

The details are escaping my mind these days. But the essence is a potential for this loan not to hang over Britain in the 40s, 50s and 60s

Without it, and even with a full Labour Party programme of 1945, Britain would be in a much better position to finance grandiose programmes like this

Grey Wolf

if the UK was stupid enough to fall for such a trapped loan it deserved all it got.

Straha said:

if the UK was stupid enough to fall for such a trapped loan it deserved all it got.

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Well they were in the typical debtor position - need money to pay for expensiture (e.g. in fighting a war the USA didn't enter till the end of 1941 and on many fronts and against 2 enemies etc) and to raise new monies for new expenditure - basically what to do with everyone once the war was over

Grey Wolf