space exploration

Chapter 1 - Seeking Remote Globes “It is a plain road from the Earth to the stars, though mortal feet cannot tread it.” September 6, 1958 - South Atlantic Ocean The USS Norton Sound, having left the Californian port of Hueneme last month, now remains stationary amidst the frigid waves...

If America had been the only superpower during the second half of the 20th century, how would space exploration have been like? I think the US would still have invested in satellite technology because it offers many advantages, like surveillance and communications, but manned space flight...

Welcome, everyone, to Glorious Dawn! This is an Alternate Spaceflight Timeline which should hopefully be factoring in the political landscape of the respective times, To keep everything as accurate as possible. If you see any historical inaccuracies don't be afraid to let me know, I'll try to...

Alright! Hello! The following is the hyper-evolved headcanon for a replica shuttle program I started work on 4-5-ish years ago in KSP that I realized about 3 months ago I could turn into an objectively banger alternate history with a strangely low amount of effort. That being said, I have 3...

In response to the Japanese economy and space program losing its ambitions in almost every modern timeline, an alien space bat decided to give the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) an unlimited budget and resources for space development. The agency thus became known as JAXA+. The early...

Hi everyone! Today I wanted to bring to you a story inspired by my musings of Mars, and the nostalgia for the iconic Space Shuttle. It has been 10 years this year since the shuttle stopped flying, and I have not been able to stop thinking; what else could we have done? What if the Shuttle had...

The PoD I had in mind was Hugo Eckener running for and winning the Presidency in 1932, though I'm sure there are plenty of other ways to save the Weimar Republic. So let's say it survives, and World War 2 is averted (I assume Japan won't strike against the US all on its own). Germany already...

What might the culture of the modern world look like if feudalism was still the prevalent form of government? I'm talking about a society where the hereditary nobility and royalty still hold significant powers but the world's tech level is about the same as OTL. What would media and pop culture...

Here is something from October 2016: As you can guess Mr. Degtyarev statement was met with much jokes on the Eastern European side of the internet. At the same time, it isn’t as silly as it first appears as Ukraine does have a space-rocket industry (albeit one that OTL builds light/medium...

IOTL, Idi Amin's plan for a Ugandan space program was an absolute failure that consisted of only an attempt to train an astronaut on an obstacle course. How could a Ugandan government develop a functioning space program before 1990 with a POD after 1950? The minimum conditions for a space...

What if the United States had pushed hard on developing rocketry from the 20's on? Where would the US be by the time of WW2? Is it feasible that by 1945, missile subs could be prowling the waters of Japan? What about rocket assisted airplane take offs from carriers? An early bazooka? Air to...

So, my challenge here is rather simple, basically what it says on the tin. Here's the specific conditions: - POD in 1901 or later - I'm specifically looking at the total off-world population in 2018, and the number of nations with space colonies - Mäps give extra points, either of Earth or of...

I think that during the Cold War the Soviet Union may have drafted some conceptual proposals onsending their space probes to Mercury and the far outer planets like Uranus and beyond, but as I don't know Russian language so I would like to know that whether I'm correct that the CCCP has actually...

With no PoDs prior to the Apollo 11 mission in 1969, how can we have a manned base on the moon, or the start of one, within the next 50 years or as soon as possible?

What if NASA's Pioneer I became the first object to reach the Moon and beyond instead of USSR's Luna 1? Share your thoughts on this here.

Russianspaceweb.com has documented a planned Mars sample return mission in the 70s: http://russianspaceweb.com/5m.html What if the mission carried out and succeeded as planned?

Suppose that Alan Shepard became the first man in space in March 24th of 1961 but Yuri Gagarin overshadows him by being the first to go into orbit on April 12nd. Would the nicknames like "Columbus of the Cosmos" or "Columbus of the space age" still goes to Gagarin, or would he received other...

On Wikipedia I read that the Vanguard TV3 satellite was originally planned to be launched on September 1957, but countless delays forced it to be postponed to December culminating in its Kaputnik embarassment. Let's suppose that in an alternate timeline most of the problems for the Vanguard...

Prologue Olympic athletes are fast. Cars are faster. Airliners are amazingly quick. Rockets are in a different league altogether. The vehicle was moving at a velocity no human being can really comprehend, it was just very, very, very fast. We can measure it and see the resulting numbers, but...

Chris Kraft looked thoughtfully at the young man sitting across from him. The retired NASA flight director had done enough television interviews after the end of the Apollo program to ignore the cameras, lights, and boom mics that were just out of frame. Rubbing his nose and adjusting his...