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I can only really think in any depth about US universities, based on personal experience. The major shift in ideological orientation came in the humanities, starting in the 1960s, accelerating with the development of the "New Left" in the mid- to late-1960s. There were plenty of cultural...

First, Einstein didn't "invent the atom bomb." He did some of the work that eventually led to the development of nuclear weapons. But only basic theoretical parts, and even then, probably not the most important parts of that. His only real role was using his fame to get FDR's attention to...

I don't know how you keep the towers from falling and still have the planes impact them squarely. I just don't think it could be done. IF both planes had struck glancing blows, then MAYBE they can still stand. BUT there's still going to be massive damage and death. And then there's the...

OOC: I think there's too much emphasis on the X-20 as a weapon here. The X-20's payload was VERY small. Big enough to carry perhaps a single mid-60s nuke, yes (I haven't checked the numbers, but I'm pretty sure I'm right), but that's about all. As I've read the X-20 material that's available...

... I was playing the game. Now you've gone and ruined it! :p

Actually, IIRC, the third X-20 flight demonstrated significant orbital PLANE change with skip-gliding and reboost. But the original X-20 had so little on-board Delta-V that major orbital ALTITUDE changes were beyond it. At any rate, there seems to be little question that the decision to go...

I sure hope the Internet doesn't break or I die or anything before this TL is finished. It's like back when Rome was playing on HBO ... I couldn't wait for the next episode, and they were a highlight of each week ...

I didn't mean to slight the French air force. But I recall (don't have the details -- will check later if we get into it, but perhaps you know), the top command of the French air forces made a decision to pull back fighter forces at some point before "all was lost." That seemed key to me when...

The book I'm currently reading certainly makes that point. Richtofen's success with his tactical bombing in Spain and Poland had a huge impact on the Luftwaffe's self-perception going into the BOB. But there are two other important points about how the Luftwaffe was "set" in the summer of...

I happened to be on my first trip to China when this war began. We still had "minders" back then and the group I was with always had two or three LuXingShe folks keeping an eye on what we saw and the newspapers we had access to. I remember saying to another round-eye in our group when we were...

I'm currently reading Eagles of the Third Reich: Men of the Luftwaffe in World War II, which is basically a biographical history of the Luftwaffe. BlairWitch's analysis seems basically right, based on what I'm reading in this book (and, many others). What comes through in Eagles is the...

As much as I admired and continue to admire Carl Sagan, I remember asking myself this exact question back when he was pushing the nuclear winter notion. The fact that it was so widely accepted and so little criticized at the time is one of those "things that make you go hmmmm."

VERY interesting and, I'm ashamed to say, a POD I've never considered before. My first thought is that, yes, the US embargoes oil earlier, which forces Japan to "go South" earlier. This is a tough problem to work out, because the Japanese weren't really ready or organized for that yet -- but...

If you mean a real START to establishing a self-sustaining lunar settlement then, with any luck, we'll be seeing that in the next 20 years. The two keys, to me, are (1) robotics for lunar construction and (2) a robust, maximally-reusable cislunar transport infrastructure. Both are achievable...

A quick note on orbital telescope vibration. Two words: solar arrays. It's definitely a solvable problem (it was with Hubble -- an interesting story). As for how much lift you need to get a sustainable lunar settlement started, it depends on whether you're talking 1970s technology or not...

Two-week stays on the moon don't get you much, by themselves. But if they were really a prelude to more substantial development, then the moon has enough resources to be self-sustaining after a concerted effort.

I don't know if that's knowable with the work that's been done up to now. But we do know that there's plenty of exercise that can be done in a zero/micro-G environment (i.e. on ISS) that has a positive effect. So I'd guess that with 1/6G to work with, it wouldn't be that hard to do even better...

If I have introduced you to the "Colliers Space Program" (my term, but if you do some research, you'll see what I mean), then I am very happy, because you have discovered a CRUCIAL bit of cultural history. This work was HUGELY influential on people my age and a little older (i.e. peak Baby...

My dad worked on the Bikini tests, instrumenting the ships (he was a Navy EE at Pearl during the war). So, for sentimental reasons, I vote for that option.

Without any technological stretch at all, 1973-ish. There were plenty of Apollo-based long-duration (~2 weeks) mission plans. In connection with these, there was real work done on what would be involved in establishing a "revisited" landing site, so you can get a semi-permanent base by that...