For All Mankind (AH Tv series at Apple TV)

Speaking of changes in this timeline. I wonder how much the womens lib movement will have changed. Surely it's going to be a lot harder to deny women are equal with women astronauts on the moon? That and imagine the generation of young girls inspired to go into science.

Humans are experts at rationalisation.
 
Wonder if Watergate plays out as OTL or does the ending of the War and the changed Space Race Butterfly that? Also if we're now onto a Moon Base I wonder will the US look to build support/funding with Allies by offering slots (ie like ISS cooperation?). Wonder what response the Soviet Union will have had to the results of Apollo 15 and the base?

The show has been pretty good with the butterfly effect so far. I think we might get a Watergateish event but not the same Watergate as our timeline. I don't think we'll see international cooperation for a while, this timeline seems to have a lot more nationalistic dick waving going about. I think with that in mind the US would be less likely to offer slots to allies.
 
Speaking of changes in this timeline. I wonder how much the womens lib movement will have changed. Surely it's going to be a lot harder to deny women are equal with women astronauts on the moon? That and imagine the generation of young girls inspired to go into science.

The FAM-verse's version of Star Trek will be much different, for sure. :p

Gene Roddenberry might actually be allowed to have a female second in command on the series, just like in Star Trek's first pilot; it'd be fun to have the series' power trio consist of William Shatner as Kirk, Majel Barrett as Spock (rather than as her original pilot character) and Nichelle Nichols as McCoy. :p
 
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The FAM-verse's version of Star Trek will be much different, for sure. :p

Gene Roddenberry might actually be allowed to have a female second in command on the series, just like in Star Trek's first pilot; it'd be fun to have the series' power trio consist of William Shatner as Kirk, Majel Barrett as Spock (rather than as her original pilot character) and Nichelle Nichols as McCoy. :p

Except Star Trek had already been cancelled before the Soviet moon landing, and in fact the last episode (airing June 3, 1969) was the one where it’s said that women can’t be starship captains because they’re too emotional.
 
Hey guys, just started - and finished - watching it today. I didn't see any of the trailers.

So the butterfly effect hasn't been as bad as some alt-history media and it's not massively negative consequences like other shows have been. I'm not really sure if we see the Soviets winning the Culture War yet but I guess.

Interesting thought - the whole Molly Cobb and Ellen Waverly thing has to be on purpose in terms of subverting viewer expectations. Hell, Molly basically says it to the camera, "they think I'm a lesbian."

Also not sure what to think about Gordo, I swing between having a hate-boner for him to kind of liking him sometimes.
 
That show was great, but IMO needed another two or three Episodes to make room for a Soviet POV and generally more international reaction to all this, because I doubt that an earlier end to Vietnam would have been the only significant change.
 
I'm enjoying this show, but I'm also kind of puzzled by it. Why go to the trouble of coming up with this high-concept alternate history premise and then not just going for it? It has a really narrow focus on the characters in the space program and seems to be really tame with changes from OTL outside the space program itself, which have mostly just been brought up as one-time offhand references so far. And I want to see the Soviet space program too, as it is as a black box they're not that compelling as antagonists. Would also love to see more of how politics is affected, American-Soviet diplomacy, everyday people - I guess they're trying to show this with the immigrant family subplot but they're not doing a great job of it there. Like I said I am enjoying it but with so relatively few alternate history elements (especially for me as a person who's not that familiar with the history of the space program, which probably also describes most of their viewers) I'm kind of wondering why they didn't just make it a historical fiction show about the real space program instead.
 
I'm enjoying this show, but I'm also kind of puzzled by it. Why go to the trouble of coming up with this high-concept alternate history premise and then not just going for it? It has a really narrow focus on the characters in the space program and seems to be really tame with changes from OTL outside the space program itself, which have mostly just been brought up as one-time offhand references so far. And I want to see the Soviet space program too, as it is as a black box they're not that compelling as antagonists. Would also love to see more of how politics is affected, American-Soviet diplomacy, everyday people - I guess they're trying to show this with the immigrant family subplot but they're not doing a great job of it there. Like I said I am enjoying it but with so relatively few alternate history elements (especially for me as a person who's not that familiar with the history of the space program, which probably also describes most of their viewers) I'm kind of wondering why they didn't just make it a historical fiction show about the real space program instead.
It's social commentary with a bit of rockets. If they use the historical space program, they need to deal with fictionalized versions of real people, no female astronauts until the late 1970s (IIRC), a former member of the nazi party un charge of NASA and less tension because there is no way an actual space mission pulls the stunts of the last episode, much less successfully.

And as a non American, there are plenty of historical references that simply causes me to say "meh"
 
Close up picture of that Moon Base design from Trailer

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That around 4 LM decent engines to bring that Baby down, how they launch that thing from Cape ?
 
The thing weighs 11 tonnes dry (based on the thrust of 4 LM engines). On Twitter, the creators said it’s launched by an unmanned Saturn V and remote-guided to landing. I did the math and, contrary to my first guess, all the prop for post-TLI operations can be contained in the four propulsion packages at each corner of the Jamestown core module.

I’m curious about packaging, though—that airlock module probably had to hinge down into place after TLI, or else the thing wouldn’t fit under a 6.6-meter fairing (Or a 10-m hammerhead was used).
 
The thing weighs 11 tonnes dry (based on the thrust of 4 LM engines). On Twitter, the creators said it’s launched by an unmanned Saturn V and remote-guided to landing. I did the math and, contrary to my first guess, all the prop for post-TLI operations can be contained in the four propulsion packages at each corner of the Jamestown core module.

I’m curious about packaging, though—that airlock module probably had to hinge down into place after TLI, or else the thing wouldn’t fit under a 6.6-meter fairing (Or a 10-m hammerhead was used).

"Some assembly required."
 
By the way, I have to say that given that it took Grumman almost 8 years to develop and deliver an operational Lunar Module - basically given unlimited funding to do it - it seems like a bit of a push that NASA and any given contractor could have crash program'd a lunar hab like this in just four years, even leveraging existing Apollo hardware. I mean, the Grumman guys were basically sleeping in their offices. There's a limit to how fast you can develop hardware like this, even back in NASA's lean-mean Apollo days.

Seems more likely, even on a crash program, that they would try something like an AES LEM Shelter as a quick short term solution (not nearly so much development required) while a more serious hab was being raced to completion, probably more like in the 1975-76 timeframe.

It is an interesting design, but if it is based on something Apollo Applications looked at, I've never seen it. I had just assumed they'd go for a LESA-type hab for their first real base.

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It seems that the show is a extrapolation of this article

http://www.astronautix.com/l/lesalunarbase.html

For LESA a "clean sheet of paper" direct lunar lander, the Lunar Landing Vehicle (LLV) was conceived, which would take full advantage of the Saturn V trans-lunar payload capability. The LLV would have a payload of 12,700 kg, which would include life support systems and consumables, a shelter, and a Lunar Roving Vehicle. The shelter was designed for six crew, but only three would use it in the early missions. It consisted of an airlock, a cylindrical domed center structure, and an outer toroid work area. Adequate space existed in the toroid for suited astronauts to function and operate the controls in case of an emergency depressurization. Net LLV translunar injection mass was 41,000 kg (equivalent to a 43,000 kg mass payload for the Saturn V, including fairings). Landed mass was 18,000 kg, including 11,5000 to 13,500 kg payload (depending on whether a one or two stage LLV was developed), 900 to 1,000 cu m of living area, and access platforms 1.6 to 3.0 m above the surface, depending on the staging concept. Engines for the LLV would be modifications of the RL10-A3 Lox/LH2 engine.
 
That sure doesn't look like a LESA module base, though...
The point is that mass and diameter are there. And it is consistent with the statement in the show that it was built out of a Saturn V stage.

OTL, the studies terminated in 1968 so all we have are that last iteration of the LESA. If you look at the development of SkyLab you will see a process of sketches and refinement.

My guess in that by late 1969, Skylab was being refined in its dry form. The new directive to establish came down from Nixon. The reason why it looks different it is a marriage of LESA and Skylab planning. To get it down on the moon by 1974 they were probably reused a lot of the work already done.

The success of Apollo 8 in December 1968, launched on the third flight of a Saturn V, made it likely that one would be available to launch a dry workshop.[33] Later, several Moon missions were canceled as well, originally to be Apollo missions 18 through 20. The cancellation of these missions freed up three Saturn V boosters for the AAP program. Although this would have allowed them to develop von Braun's original S-II based mission, by this time so much work had been done on the S-IV based design that work continued on this baseline. With the extra power available, the wet workshop was no longer needed;[34] the S-IC and S-II lower stages could launch a "dry workshop", with its interior already prepared, directly into orbit.

On August 8, 1969, the McDonnell Douglas Corporation received a contract for the conversion of two existing S-IVB stages to the Orbital Workshop configuration.

By mid 1969 there was some advanced planning already done. Then it was re purposed for Jamestown Base.

If you look at the picture below. The orbital workshop already has a vertical configuration. So they replanned and configured it as a Moon Base instead.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasamarshall/8429181495
 
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The point is that mass and diameter are there. And it is consistent with the statement in the show that it was built out of a Saturn V stage.

Sure, though I think that's all it's consistent with.

The design featured here seems only to fulfill the most basic qualification of the LESA Base module as conceived by 1968: a vehicle "which would take full advantage of the Saturn V trans-lunar payload capability." It just looks to me like a completely clean sheet design. (I would also have to assume that it would need to include a pressurized rover/mobile lunar lab, like the LESA proposal does, if it was really trying to take adantage of the full payload capability - maybe the rover is off camera.)

Nothing wrong with that, of course, and it's not like a ton of design work had been done on LESA by that point anyway...

The only thing that perplexes me is the timeline that gets to the Moon in October 1973. Given a green light for development in the second half of 1969, even on a crash program, it's a little hard to see how they could manage that in under four years. Six years, I could see.

But maybe that's just nitpicking on my part.
 
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