alternate spaceflight

“Those were a tough couple of months. I say months - it felt more like a couple years. And just a lot of long nights. You can ask my husband, he’s getting ready for bed and I’m still at my desk, writing emails… “We were nervous, all of us were. It was like a big anvil cloud hanging over...

Part 1 Intro November 12, 1980 Kennedy Space Center, Florida Launch of Apollo 40 Crew: John Young-CDR Francis "Dick" Scobee-CMP Anna Fisher-MEMP Three Astronauts, donned in their space suits step inside a Command Module. It was the launch of the 37th Manned Apollo Mission and it was about...

Prologue: "Tap-off" It was the spring of 1981. A whitish visage emerges from the Orbiter Processing Facility. Rolled back on brand new tires, its fresh silica surface sparkles under the power of floodlights. It dwarfs the swarm of people, mostly reporters, trying to get their first peek at this...

First things first, this story has no relation or any connection to "Rewriting History" in any way and is totally new. This story is purely fictional, and will not always be 100% technically accurate, but I will try my best to give a reason for everything. Hey everyone, glad to be back here to...

What if the Space Race never ended? What if the Space Race continued? What if NASA didn't land a man on the Moon first? What if Soviet Russia did? What if Sergei Korolev never died, causing Russia to land on the Moon, which in turn causes the United States to try and out compete Russia, in turn...

Scott Harms woke up in a cold sweat. He wasn’t scared, or nervous. At least he didn’t think he was, it’s not like he’d admit it. Maybe it was because during the previous night, he dreamt about some sort of a speech. He couldn’t really see anything in the dream, not anything memorable, but he...

Path to the Stars Part 1 Ever since both the Soviet Union and the US had set the goal to launch a satellite in the 1957-1958 International Geophysical Year, the countries had been putting money and effort into that goal. The USA left the goal to the Navy and the Army, Whilst the Soviet Union...

Before we kick things off, a quick teaser... So, I had an idea last year for a timeline centered around the Apollo Program - basically, what reasonable changes could've happened so that more landings occurred. Nothing too complicated. What started out as a small timeline, however, quickly...

Exactly what it says on the tin. Can a BIS Moonship conduct a manned Lunar landing before July 20th, 1969? Personally I think it’s possible, but then I am a member of BIS, so I may be a bit biased. For those of you who don’t know exactly what I’m talking about, here are some articles about the...

What is the earliest possible date, in a 20th century with closely similar technological progression of spaceflight as in OTL, that the first man on the Moon ends up being an African-American citizen of the US, or a person of Afro-Caribbean descent, or a person born directly in an African...

All right, this could very well be a future history WI as well, but given possible alternate developments in ESA's past, I'm rather posting this discussion here. To date, the European Space Agency has not developed a spacesuit of its own, particularly due to not having its own manned...

After Ravaun kamikaze-d Ironstark's three year old discussion on ATL SSTO spacecraft with his particular brand of conspiracy craziness, that thread had to be locked by CalBear. But before that troll necroed and torpedoed that poor thread with his nonsense, it was a nice and reasonable...

I've read bits of Stephenson's Anathem recently, and it kind of got me thinking... Imagine a typical ATL, like the ones we write about all the time. It is currently in the 21st century. In terms of technology, almost absolutely everything is the same as in OTL. With the exception of a few...

I'm talking about this. If it wouldn't have happened, would the infant Brazilian space programme be a bit further today ? Do any of our spacecraft-minded Brazilian members want to take a shot at this ?

Well, it's not FH anymore, more like honorary alternate history now. What PODs would be necessary to recreate the same level of space-wank (as shown in both the novels and movies) by the early years of the 21. century ?