Our Fair Country: The Commonwealth of New England
- Thread starter CosmicAsh
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You’re either part of the British Crown, or you’re everyone else.
@Kanan Holy moley, I was not expecting you to go to this level of detail, but thank you! This is really neat to see and I remain, as ever, in awe of the work that you put into these boxes and this timeline as a whole. Seriously, this is awesome!
One question: am I reading it right that at one point Michael Heseltine was Prime Minister? Are we talking UK, Commonwealth, or pre-current electoral system Hong Kong?
Loving this!
This is Brother Cream, Hong Kong's most famous cat.
*applies ear scratches*
Deleted member 82792
My family is Australian, but I was born in Hong Kong. Great job!
The Treaty of Canton seceded all of Hong Kong to the United Kingdom in perpetuity.
It's basically a standard liberal party with some dashes of Social Democracy added in.
Great to hear you enjoyed it!!
Michael Heseltine was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Prior to the First Ministers, Hong Kong's government was run by the British appointed Governor.
Incorrect. China was a military dictatorship under the KMT, but has become a multi-party democracy.
The housing market in Hong Kong is incredibly strained. Rents are extremely expensive, and there's a massive problem with overcrowding, and consolidation of housing within a few people (mostly British) who can charge massive rents. It's a constant issue the colonial government attempts to deal with, without angering the landowners. Average rent for a studio in Hong Kong (which is to say about 40m2) is roughly equivalent to (in IRL 2019 monies):
€1,780
$2,000
£1,600
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Deleted member 107125
Oh no.
Wow, space exploration is much more advanced in this timeline. Why is this the case? Do countries just take space exploration a lot more seriously and therefore governments give their space agencies a lot more funding?
Awesome!! You really put your heart into it.
I see that galileo was launched on our schedule, this is sad, i hoped it would be able to take pictures of Shoemaker-levy 9 more closely.
I have a few questions:
That Pioneer program is very interesting, that strategy of going to venus to then go to mars is bold, but that makes sense, since they would already have Long deep space mission knowledge from venus and unmanned mars landing, also nice to see that the IRL curse that prevent non american vehicles to succesfully land and operate on mars is lifted
. How thorough were the manned explorations of venus and mars? Was the Pioneer 6 fly by repeated? Did a mission enter venus or mars orbit before Pioneer 14? How many manned mars missions were there and did they put a base, or was each mission self contained?This Fokker industries is interesting, the fact that it happened in a country as small as the netherlands is also interesting, since SpaceX's rise IRL depended on the vast interior military and civilian space lifitng needs, does the Zolverein have common military satellites, or does germany launches some on Fokker's launcher? Is the commercial satellite market larger, are there LEO constellations like Iridium, or larger one like those planned by SpaceX and Oneweb? Are cubesats more common and more accessible, and are some of the more out there LEO commercial use like space based solar power or Microgravity manufacturing a reality ITTL? Is there some kind of pan-European space organisation, or a Zollverein/LMU one?
What was the reason for Canada and New England to start a manned space program? This would cost some billions pounds and why was it needed if the UK has the capabilities? Was Canada exit from the commonwealth related to it? Also do all 3 superpower have manned spaceflight capabilities in 2019 (like, currently the US doesn't have any but Russia and China do)?
How far along are the space programs other powers like France, Italy, Brazil, Japan and China? Did any of these launch a human to space or tried to? Did they make some notable Beyond-Low Earth Orbit scientific missions? Also do Israel and Korea have orbital launch capabilities?
Why doesn't India have orbital capabilities? That seems like a pretty important thing to have. Was the lack of a pakistani threat the reason why they didn't care as much for military purpose? It's still weird that a country as large as india wouldn't even make a satellite until 2015, i mean IRL Bangladesh's first satellite was launched in 2018, and it is an order of magnitude smaller, and with a much more tumultous history than India and much less international ambition.
I see a notable lack of Soviet large program since the lunar bases, same to a lesser extent with Britain/commonwealth. What are the current medium to long term programs. Is the CGASA trying to make a lunar base or planning to participate in either of the two bases' refueling and maintenance? Did any american astronaut visit the soviet base? Did any British astronaut go to the moon after the end of the Newton Maponos program as part of the Lunar Mir program? What is the current interplanetary "hot" destination (like mars is right now)? Are there plans to go back to mars, maybe in an international effort?
A bit more in depth, what is the status of some of the non conventional space propulsion methods? Did any Nuclear Thermal Rocket powered vehcile go into space? Is Ionic propulsion as common on commercial satellite as IRL? Was high power plasma propulsion already used, for exemple on Moon-Earth cargo transit vehicles? Was any nuclear reactor used to power a manned mission somewhere in space or on the moon? What methods did the British use to get to the moon? Direct ascent, Lunar Orbit Rendez-Vous, Low Earth Orbit assembly/Rendez Vous with dual launches? Same goes for the Pionneer mars mission, did they require in orbit assembly and refueling (and are those developped ITTL)?
I see that only "Capsules" appear in type, does it mean that no spaceplane ever flew? Were there any Reusable or partially reusable launch vehicles?
This is a lot of question, i naturally don't expect you to answer them, you really did an amazing job and the result is much better and more believable than the first spaceflight chapter!
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Orbital mechanics, I'm afraid. Launch windows are rather narrow. If there's one thing that would have to happen almost on schedule in an alternate history, it's this.
The satellite could have been launched at the windows before... After all there is a Jupiter window every ~13 months, not all are equal but it's deinitely possible for it to be launched earlier.
Also, windows are flexible,although it would be kinda useless to a jupiter mission, there are definitely a lot of different trajectories to mars and venus depending on how much dV you're ready to expend.
Fokker’s succes is largely due to the Zollverein’s common market en continued Dutch rule of West Papua. Zollverein’s common market has given Fokker immense wealth and status (which is how they avoided OTL’s partial bankruptcy) as Fokker is the preferred civilian airline manufacturer in the Zollverein rather than the French Aèrospatiale/Airbus. Dutch rule in West Papua means that Fokker has direct acces to huge copper and gold deposits, which has made it a world leader in aerospace electronics.
The Zollverein does not have common military satellites because the Zollverein is at it’s core an economic union, not a military alliance. Germany’s National space agency AfW has it’s own launchers, but does rely heavy on Fokker’s electronics… which is why Argelander-Huygens has the ‘-Huygens’ part in it’s name. Afw also holds a fair amount of shares in Fokker Industries.
Besides France and Italy there is no real space effort from other LMU members so none there; France and Italy do share a launch facility in French Guiana. As for the Zollverein, national space agencies work together in the same way OTL Canada and US does… but there is no established agency like the ESA.
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