A Sound of Thunder: The Rise of the Soviet Superbooster
- Thread starter nixonshead
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My knowledge of nuclear stuff is HBO Chernobyl, Voyage by baxter, and documentaries on youtube. the TMI Netflix documentary was confusing as all shit as they decided to do everything out of order (they followed the same style as their excellent Challenger documentary).
The media propagates alot of stuff due to both outright not knowing, to following corperate interests and public perception, there was a conspiracy that TMI was covered up, Dyatlov was a prick after the explosion while in reality he helped save lives and even tried to find that dude who got buried in the explosion at Chernobyl (the guy's body is still there).
The US puts their stuff in Yuma mountian if im not mistaken, i remember it from the 2014 godzilla
I still think the Union will fall, the New Union stuff will be hugely different from OTL Russia. Russia after collapse was an instant capitalist society rife with corruption, the New Union would be better economically but the reforms will still be hugely damaging to the economy. Gorbachev had good intentions but the results from the reforms were outright horrible for the economy, wheras Krustchev's reforms were better for the economy. Privatization will need to be a lottary based system as the IRL "auction" Russia had created the elite ruling class we have today.
The one thing people forget today is in 89 to 91 a LOT of people wanted the "old way's" to still happen, Gorbachev faced huge resistance from people who had something to lose with decentralization, and because of that the economy tanked hard, not to mention his idea of business but "owned by the state" was half assed and led to huge problens with lack of supply for simple items like food. a person in 84 could go to the market and get their weeks food, by 89-90 the shelfs were nearly always empty and cleared, and the quality dropped significantly.
There is a reason why Gorbachev is thought of highly in the west, but a controversial figure in Russia
Not to mention the Soviet state planning basically made the people carrying it out lazy, factory managers would purposfully not overproduce for fear of alloted goods, this led to huge inefficancies with production, a factory that makes steel in the Union would make less then half of a similar sized factory in the west, while the Soviet factor would use twice as many materials, Gorbachev as a result faced a huge problem that not even he could realize
Long story short a Union of Soverign Soviet Republics will face huge issues throughout the 90s regardless
The one on the left looks ok (like a Russian delta 4 heavy), the second looks way too kerbal space program to be practical, having tanks on the outside "hanging" like that is wierd and will have alot more development unknowns due to the tank placement,
Maybe ITTL will choose better.
Not to mention the tanks on the right rocket look like they are above the second stage, that would make staging a bit more stressful, given any yaw or pitch the first stage has will lead to contact with the second stage. Rockets are sensitive as fuck to contact, SpaceX had one on their Falcon 1, Challenger's explosion specifically was caused by the SRB becoming loose and the top of the SRB basically plowed into the External Tank, causing detonation. MIR was also the victim of a drunk driving incident when a Progress piloted remotly slammed into the station and caused a whole module to be abandoned
Speaking of which, when you watch alot of space shuttle launches, you notice how wrong Challengers looked with the SRB exhaust
I feel like i should expand on this. Under Communism everything was state run, the state commitees would decide production i,e, how many shoes and shirts to make in a given year. Because of the system being built by the government and not by businessmen, there were inneficencies and corruption that resulted. This was due to a lack of incentive to improve and be better, as doing so would result in a higher production quota and less resources, making your job more stressful every year. The Soviet government also didn't care about the inputs to the factories, only the outputs, as a result the Soviets suffered from a huge imbalance in production, where more materials would make less steel then a western country. Basically it was easier to improve production by simply building another factory then improving the existing ones.
The lack of incentives even expanded into the people, in the west factories will give managers monetary bonuses for high production, in the Union this rarely happened, one might get a medal for labor "Hero of Socialist Labour" being my favorite because it sounds ridiculous.
The union also suffered from high military spending, equaling 15 percent of total GDP at points (the soviets spent 13 percent of GDP on missiles to be at pairity with the US). As a result luxury goods were often rare and sold out quick, famously a car was a 13 year wait after buying. The Warsaw Pact countries were also propped up heavily by the Soviets, with East Germany being the jewel due to the industry. This huge military investment meant that factories that SHOULD be making civilian products were instead making tanks, guns, bullets etc in order to keep up with the West. Having ones economy so dedicated to the military will cause tons of issues later on and usually result in economic turmiol, North Korea built its economy on heavy industry and their military, when the USSR stopped funding the economy collapsed as their economy wasn't built to be self sufficent (i don't think they cared to make it so either)
Gorbachev's reforms were well intentioned but bound to fail without huge changes. the way the industry was built was totally opposite from capitalism, and worse, there was a huge lack of businessmen with any talent or experience, as a result you had people who genuinely didn't know what to do running things. And worse, their were some inside the government to actively opposed reform. and WORSE, this reform led to huge shortages in the simplest of items, like food,
Its amazing looking at how the GDP of the Union collapsed due to the reforms. I get what Gorbachev did and think he had the best intentions, but it would take somebody better then him to unfuck the situation
Not to mention his policy of openness downright fucked the Union, people saw what they were missing in the West and want the same, TV's, cars, rock n roll, jeans and PEPSI
Depending on the details of sarcophagus construction, it's conceivable that it's too hot to safely remove from the payload bay of Tsiklon. In that case, burying the entire shuttle may be the only option - in which case, recovering it to a disused airfield somewhere isolated makes sense. I'd suggest Dolon Southwest, which is adjacent to the Semipalatinsk test site.
What safety concern would there be for its removal? They would use autonomous cranes/tracked recovery vehicles to take out the reactor and then bury it under water to cool down. It would less safe to bury the shuttle as it would still have fuel on board, fuel cells, electrical wiring etc that are not rated to house the reactor for a long duration and might, in the worst case, lead to a meltdown/burning of the reactor/explosion.
These are suggestions for Angara. On the left is the Energia-3 project using three RD-180 engines, on the right is its competitor which won and became Angara.
That would have to be defueled (probably by remote) but given the reactor is largely unshielded whatever happens that shuttle will have to be buried due to almost all it's surfaces being exposed to hard radiation and contaminated.
The reactor is inactive though, and the interior of the cargo bay could be decontaminated through various procedures, and it already received a protective layer so that would make it easier.
Not worth the risk, leaving aside you'd have to strip to the bulkheads and the outer hull was also exposed on approach (as they couldn't shield themselves due to the reactor tumbling) who would ever fly on a bird where people died?
Left is basically Russian Atlas V Heavy, down to the RD-180 and RL-10 derived engines (RD-0146), virtually same diameter and mass, although a bit less powerful;
Frankly too early to say, depending on how the collapse of the USSR goes still using Vulkan may still be very well viable (ukraine could end up much closer aligned to russia, or eastern ukraine containing the missile industry could very well end up in a russian state, alongside baikonur). However RD-180 development from RD-171 was non-trivial and 2xNK-35 already covers that thrust range.
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We'll see if the NK-35 will be such a success here.
Together with the NK-39, it could seriously constitute an interesting alternative for future launchers.
I recommend the "Atomic Rockets of the Space Patrol" website. Don't let the name fool you it's a very in-depth information site for writers and others who want to put some serious "hard" science into their writing. (Warning: It WILL be a time sink that rewards deep study but it'll take a while
) Has a bit from a late 50's book on Nuclear Spaceship design that (in the book) dedicates an entire chapter on how to reenter, recovery and refurbish nuclear rocket engines Randy
My passtime rightnow is denarrativizing the Nixon years, and vietnam stuffI recommend the "Atomic Rockets of the Space Patrol" website. Don't let the name fool you it's a very in-depth information site for writers and others who want to put some serious "hard" science into their writing. (Warning: It WILL be a time sink that rewards deep study but it'll take a while
Randy
I never knew the democrats started and supported the war while the republicans were anti-war, history says the oppisite, Kennedy won narrowly vs Nixon while its narrative is kennedy beat Nixon in a landslide. Nixon was the spearhead for desegragation and a bunch of super liberal stuff like Eviormental protection, NOAA, OHSA.
The biggest narrative being Nixon was hated by everybody, while he won a landslide second term that is still unbeaten interms of percentage of popular vote (60-70 percent)
Its facinating reading how it actually was vs how it is portrayed
Makes me wonder if the media would be the same if instead of Nixon it was RFK who had spied on the Republicican Convention, would he resign or would the media excuse it
Being against communism wasn't exactly unpopular in those days, Nixon won his senate seat by being more anti-communist then his opponent, the Algier Hiss stuff also helped him.
What i meant was the 68 election and afterward, the media says he was hated and sucked, but he did a bunch of good things and supported desegregation and a bunch of other programs
Desegregated busing specifically was one of Nixons biggest "good things' imo, he reduced racism. Its crazy thinking the current US president opposed the program back in the day
Not to mention he was able to be so successful with his foreign policy victories like China and SALT due to how anti-communist he was, if a democrat went to China they would be viewed as a communist
If you don't believe me look up news interviews with people when drinking alcohol while driving was made illegal, and seatbelts were required, people claimed the Government was going communist, the same attitude was for Bussing, which was derided as "Socialized Busing"
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I had to do a fair bit of Nixon research for Ocean of Storms. My best conclusion is that his temper and ambition constantly overwhelmed his better angels.
My 2nd best conclusion is that, if he were alive the present day, the far right would see him as a traitor and the far left would see him as a milquetoast annoyance.
Either way, I think one of his biggest challenges was that he was never as charming as any of the Kennedys.
JFK is one of the most overrated presidents IMO, didn't do much (other then cuban crisis) before getting shot. Had RFK (the only kennedy i like) survived and beat Nixon he wouldn't be regarded so good today outside of his racial equality message, which at the time was hugely controversial. RFK would have to deal with Vietnam, pulling troops out would be policial suicide, not to mention he would have the ressecion and stagflation issue in his second term. You can also say goodbye to China opening and SALT.
Ted Kennedy was an idiot imo he killed a woman and never got in trouble for it, what the actual fuck
Nixon did bad things and got caught, but what concerns me is how other stuff gets swept under the rug. Obama had the FBI and CIA make up the Russian Spy hoax (this is true and came out a few years ago). And Trump also got spied by the FBI during the 2016 election. Reagan did a bunch of fucked things but is very well regarded by most, they made two movies on Reagan, one the drug running and the other inner city drugs, nobody really cared, which is sad.
What is insane to me is how some presidents are hugely well regarded for not much (JFK, Clinton, Obama to an extent), while others who did a bunch of stuff are controversial (Nixon, Trump, Johnston to an extent). Though that is due to the media, Republicans beside Lincoln are villains while Democrats are heros, just look at the way both are treated (nowadays this is much, MUCH worse)
George W. Bush is in a league of his own due to Iraq, but his reaction to 9/11 and speeches cannot be forgotten, his policies afterward were hugely popular AT THE TIME and his issues imo were mostly Cheney being a shadow president. Bush Jr was a moderate while Cheney was nuts with power
As a Canadian we suffer from similar issues with Prime Ministers, Pierre Trudeau is treated as the best PM of all time, i think he was average but shined during the October Crisis (Quebec independance terrorists). His son Justin is treated as god in the media, he had a huge blackface scandel in 2019 that would end careers, but he got off with more popularity, even with minorities
That's the media for you, and it will get worse. This bias/narrative is also obvious in history books, not sure about all of them but anything to do with WW1&2 will have most authors looking over historical material (archive, conversations between X and Y, charts etc) and reach their own conclusions and push for their view on the matter, even if other authors consider it false. It is only recently that some authors started to simply add quotes from the archive and let the readers come to conclusions.
Please keep Current Politics and references in Chat.