space

Last week, Russia celebrated Cosmonautics Day. Also recently a relatively good Russian film "The Time of the First" came out on the screens, about the first human entry into space. As some probably know in the 60s, in the USSR there was a boom of fancy fantasy, and a space theme in principle. Of...

The V2 rocket was a terrible weapon system, but a brilliant rocket. All major space launch vehicles ultimately descend from the V2 and the psychological impact of the V2 on the Allies made for a much higher profile for rocketry in the post war world. So WI the V2 isn't deployed - say either...

The 1990s have seen various successful sci-fi films and shows which explored the concept of visiting alternate worlds instead of alien planets. Examples include the 1992 film Doorways, which was technically the pilot of a series that never came to be, and the 1995-2000 series Sliders which...

(Original thread can be found here). Report from “Wedel-Schulauer Tageblatt”, Saturday 16th May 1987 “Wreckage Found in Search for Wedel Pilot” “English newspapers are reporting the discovery of wreckage believed to be from a light aircraft in the North Sea 325 km south of the Faroe Isles...

Let's suppose that a different Cold War happens

Report from “Wedel-Schulauer Tageblatt”, Saturday 16th May 1987 “Wreckage Found in Search for Wedel Pilot” “English newspapers are reporting the discovery of wreckage believed to be from a light aircraft in the North Sea 325 km south of the Faroe Isles. The debris found so far is consistent...

“In short, the Space Shuttle is so inefficient because it is built upside-down.”--Robert Zubrin Chapter 1: Preflight Technicians swarmed around the gleaming white delta-winged shape, mostly around the nose and tail, but some at strategic points along the length, at the engine bays, the...

With a POD before 2016, how can we have human powers fighting battles against each other in Space? These do not need to be large scale, and could be something like satellites launching space based projectiles at ground targets or high-altitude fighters attacking enemy satellites. No...

What kind of POD would be required for commercial lunar tourism to well established by the year 2010?

Prelude: Apollo 1 January 27, 1967, 6:24PM: Cape Kennedy Launch Complex 34 "Damn. Repeat Capcom?" A garbled, "We are p...on hol..." from Capcom came in reply. A third repetition finally revealed the message of, " We are putting the countdown on hold." "How are we going to get to the moon if...

Space has all sorts of interesting military applications. You can spy on people from orbit with spy satellites, use satellites to communicate, or built space vehicles to take out the former two. However, what I'm after is some real 'weaponising' of LEO and beyond: nukes in orbit, space lasers...

Now I know the X-15 did reach space twice, however i am not here to talk about those flights. I am here to talk about the proposed concept to launch an "Advanced X-15" on a Saturn I rocket. I also wonder if this proposal is a cheaper alternative to the X-20 dyna soar.

https://falsesteps.wordpress.com/2016/03/29/vr-190-stalins-rocket/ Found this POD yesterday, summed up it details Soviet designs for a modified Soviet clone of the V2 to put men into space. Stalin checked off on the endeavour in 1946 but the program got held up in bureaucracy and forgotten. The...

Hi. First post, though I've been a lurker for a while. I've been fascinated by Project Orion, a proposal for nuclear pulse propulsion from the 1950s. It would've been so much better than chemical rockets, with weight being no object pretty much. Certainly, it would have made space travel much...

May 12th, 1991 Low Earth Orbit The spacecraft glistened as the first rays of light slowly began to brighten the vehicle from the darkness of which she swam in. The nose began to brighten up first, the black of the nose and gray of the tiles giving way to the white that enveloped the entire...

The challenge is instead of an Operation Paperclip or recruited by Soviet or even Nasser's Egypt, most of German scientists who worked in Peenemunde facility in Second World War for the Third Reich move to newly-founded Republic of Indonesia and able to jumpstart a genuine space program. What...

This came from a joke suggestion I made on another website. With a PoD after the flight of Vostok 1, have Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin become the leader of either the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics or a Russian successor state thereof. You are free to arrange whatever plausible...

What if following the release of Star Wars Episode VI George Lucas, rather than the whole Ewok show he approved OTL, which was a very kid orientated and sortof poor quality show. Rather Lucas decides to go with a Anime style Star Wars series or series? The show could follow the established...

If US and USSR worked together to land in the Moon? What the impact?

"When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return." --Commonly attributed to Leonardo da Vinci Truth is Life and I have been working on this for a while, and we're finally ready to...