Recent content by TimothyC

I first would like to thank @e of pi and @Usili for allowing me to join in this endeavor. It was a crash project, but was a lot of fun. At the core, for me, there were a few things that I wanted to see the work explore. First, I wanted to look at what would, and wouldn’t change with a higher...

While we are still working on our collected thoughts, there is one post I would like to address: As you may have noted, e of pi was the one to start the thread, and as a result, he is the only person who can add new threadmarks. For the first and third story posts that is easy because he was...

Roll Out The turn of the millennium found a generational turnover in progress in reusable vehicles. NASA’s Space Shuttle carried on its familiar roles launching commercial and governmental payloads to orbit and tested its new role as a space station construction and logistical support vehicle...

Divergence The opening of the 1980s had put to rest the question of whether NASA could build and fly a reusable vehicle. The new Space Shuttle debuted with its first flights in 1981, and had been certified as operational with STS-9 in 1983. However, the end of the 1980s would determine if...

Best Spaceflight and Technology Timeline: Children of Apollo by @Its_Just_Luci

I nominate Best Cold War to Contemporary Timeline: The President Lay Dying by @Vidal

Best Graphic: Return (in A Sound of Thunder); @nixonshead

I think that there also should be called out a distinction between plans on the ground, plans in space, and orders. One of the critical lessons in command is that you don't issue orders that you know are going to be ignored or disobeyed. I think once someone said that he should return into...

Let me repeat because I don't think you fully grasp it: Once Plushenko put the frame on the reactor he was already dead, he just hadn't stopped breathing yet. Once this happens, the reactor is placed in the sarcophagus in Tsiklon's cargo bay, and to get back into Tsiklon, Plushenko has to then...

The incident at Leningrad 1 was an actual event, and is independent of the Loss of Coolant event later in 1975 (February vs November). He probably was close enough to the tumbling reactor that having him come back aboard Tsiklon would have put the other three crew members at a higher risk of...

A very powerful interlude to end the section. I do imagine that the orbiter gets retired after the flight, even if none of the materials that make it up get radiologically activated.

So, the US will be ahead technologically, but the deployment of that technology is going to be slowed. The bad news is that means that the 1990s are going to see a need to do replacements of systems rather than bulk retirements of older systems, but those new systems that are bought will be more...

First, glad I could help. Second, with this R&D, we are going to see even more of the Revolution in Military Affairs than we did historically. AIUI, in the 1980s, the build up allowed a lot of technologies that had started to be developed in the 1970s reach a mature state, but it did slow down...

The High Frontier feels a lot like an OTL Sea Quest cover in development arc, if not the setting.

So, while others note that the are seasonal issues, going north, one thing that is easy to miss is the rainfall patterns. Once you get to points north of the Gulf of Mexico (IE, into Texas), moisture from the Gulf moves north-northwest and causes cloud formation (and storms, resulting in Tornado...