Alternate Space Powers?

So, with a POD within the bounds of this forum, what alternate spacefaring powers could there have been? What I'm looking for is not just having touched space, but specifically having launched something home-made into space permanently (like a satellite).
 
How far into the past does your point of divergence go?

If it goes far enough the answer could range from greater Mexico to the British Empire to Japan.
 
Germany is an obvious answer. Uh China and India are definitely contenders given less trouble during the 20th Century. Even some sort of Iranian or Ottoman/Turkic space program are possible. Basically a lot of countries could have entered the space race with a 1900+ POD...
 

AndyC

Donor
How about having France and the UK make a bi-lateral space programme rather than sign up to a pan-European one? Both individually launched home-grown satellites on home-grown launchers (Diamant and Black Arrow) - have them develop each in competition.

Or have a kind of Concorde-style programme (maybe with Concorde being a success and the UK/France space programme building on that).
 
Having the British not cancel their Australia-based launch program would be a good start. The potential was there and the technology had been proven, but the British canceled the program for political reasons. :mad:
 
Germany is an obvious answer. Uh China and India are definitely contenders given less trouble during the 20th Century. Even some sort of Iranian or Ottoman/Turkic space program are possible. Basically a lot of countries could have entered the space race with a 1900+ POD...

China is sure in the future. India, less so. No manned stuff for even 50 years at least.

Japan if cyberpunk science-fiction was real, and there was no economical bubbles or if Japan solved this issue?
 
Japan if it avoids the Asian financial crisis that pretty much knocked it back down to reality OTL could definitely do it if it remains a massive financial juggernaut.

Neither China nor India is going to be able to develop the tech sector they would need with the problems they had OTL stemming back to centuries before, you don't undo things like that with a few lucky points of divergence.

Iran could do it if there was no 1979 revolution to set their tech sector back by decades because of all the exiled scientists.

Take your pick of any large, well-off European country to develop a space program, Germany is the prime candidate here.

South Korea if they wanted one could go for it.

If Argentina or Chile did better economically than OTL and didn't regress with either dictatorships or mass economic problems like both Chile and Argentina had (Chilean Economic Miracle existed in the mind of Milton Friedman) but instead emerged as powerful first-world economies comparable to European nations could go for it, probably would require collaboration with the US space program.

Canada could do a more independent program but that would negate the advantages of working with NASA.

South Africa if they don't go about getting themselves made into an international pariah state.
 
If someone can even mention "Imperial Siam," especially with a POD after 1900, then I'm going to mention Brazil, as a way to point to the possibility of South America in general.

All South American countries are a bit too small; Brazil is the least stretch. All would need to have avoided at least some of the mire of neo-colonialism they've mostly been sunk in the past century and more (though recently I think a number of them have perhaps finally pulled free of it? Too recent for this thread though--divergence would have to have been in the 1920s or earlier). Cooperation between them--Peru plus Brazil for instance have fantastic launching and recovery options, geographically speaking--makes it much more likely, but that's even more divergence of course; realistically if a South American power is going to want to launch its own craft rather than simply buy in to someone else's projects, they are going to be motivated at least in part by nationalism and won't want to share unless the nation they are sharing with has evolved into a favored partner post-POD.

South Africa, IIRC, did actually have its own space program OTL; again this was probably largely due to their isolation due to their social policies and frankly the last thing I want to contribute to is apartheid-wank! Perhaps one can conjure up some more benign reason the South Africans would be going it alone (or in partnership with neighboring African countries, rather than Britain or the USA or some such). Communist South Africa, perhaps?:p

(Yes, I seriously do think that's a lot less nasty than apartheid!)

Seriously, has anyone ever done a Red South Africa timeline?

I just typed "communist south africa" into the Search function, and got a totally blank page. Is this what is meant by "search function is broken again?" I confess I rarely have ever tried it!

Now it's freezing the same way with just "south africa." I wonder if it will be OK after a long time, like half an hour or more.

So I'll try that with Advanced Search; it seems to be freezing the same way but if I find something I'll get back to y'all!
 
let me see who was first pionieers in space flight in 1930s ?

German with Oberth, Von Braun, Valier
USA with Goddard
USSR with Ziolkowski, Koroljow, Gluschko
Austria with von Pirquet, Potočnik, Sänger
Japan with Itokawa
China with Xuesen (in US spell Tsien)
British Empire with Interplantary Society
France with Esnault-Pelterie
that's good base for this TL

other candidate for Post WW2
Argentina with little help of escape nazi and
stranded German Sub on way to Japan, in there belly Plans and parts of V2


OTL The Third Reich send sub to the Japan Empire
with Techlogy like Me 163, Me 262 and V1/V2. The last one went lost...
 
All South American countries are a bit too small; Brazil is the least stretch. All would need to have avoided at least some of the mire of neo-colonialism they've mostly been sunk in the past century and more (though recently I think a number of them have perhaps finally pulled free of it? Too recent for this thread though--divergence would have to have been in the 1920s or earlier). Cooperation between them--Peru plus Brazil for instance have fantastic launching and recovery options, geographically speaking--makes it much more likely, but that's even more divergence of course; realistically if a South American power is going to want to launch its own craft rather than simply buy in to someone else's projects, they are going to be motivated at least in part by nationalism and won't want to share unless the nation they are sharing with has evolved into a favored partner post-POD.

Brazil does have a space program, and has only not launched its own satellites thanks to terribly bad luck and a lack of focus/interest. It's also a member of the ISS program (has launched one astronaut up there, and IIRC is responsible for the EXPRESS pallets).

Michel has it about right, although Austria (post WWI) is probably too small for an independent space program. Now, if I were naming names, I would pick everyone who actually has a space program/actually builds orbit-capable rockets IOTL first. That means

  • Russia
    Ukraine
    Germany*
    France
    Britain
    United States
    India
    Japan
    China
    Iran
    Israel
for starters. (Mostly from B_Munro's link, thank you)

*Germany of course does not have and did not ever have its own domestic program, but it is a major contributor to the Ariane (and prior to that, to Europa), along with France, therefore I feel there is a strong reason for considering them to have their own launch capability if EADS and the ESA were to suddenly disappear, in a fashion. I'll admit that the inclusion of Germany here and Italy there is somewhat strange; in any event, both developing their own domestic programs is extremely plausible should WWII not occur (and even to a certain extent if it does).

To that, I would add, as Shevek did, Brazil, also Argentina. South Africa would be another reasonable state to throw in. Australia could have had a program; at the very least, they were a member of ELDO and could theoretically have continued on at least in close cooperation with the ESA as it was founded, had there been any political will. Canada could also build orbit-capable rockets, so they should be in there as well. Both Koreas, as well (South Korea has only not launched a satellite itself due to abominable bad luck, and of course we know about North Korea). Any other major European states are also perfectly plausible candidates; Italy certainly, probably one or the other of Belgium or the Netherlands could have managed it (if South Korea can), if only by leaching some tech off of other states. Possibly Spain or Turkey, as well. Pakistan is another possible candidate; they managed to develop their own nuclear bombs, after all, which is just as difficult as launching things into space. Indonesia might be another somewhat unexpected candidate; they did manage to train a few astronauts (who never flew, unfortunately, thanks to Challenger, and built several satellites. Something small like Scout or the early Japanese solids is probably within their capabilities. Additionally, several Arab states might also be able to manage a small program; Iraq and (apparently) Egypt both tried for something minimal IOTL.

So, the list of non-historical states would be something like

  • Italy
    Netherlands
    Belgium
    Spain
    Turkey
    One or more of the Scandinavian states
    Finland
    Australia
    South Africa
    Canada
    Brazil
    Argentina
    Korea (in one or more parts)
    Pakistan
    Iraq?
    Egypt?
    Saudi Arabia?
    Indonesia
    Taiwan? (political concerns may forestall)
    Malaysia
and those are just the most plausible candidates.
 
Tsien was in the US in the 1930's. If he had gone to Taiwan instead of the PRC, not only would China's space program but the whole Tanker War would have turned out differently...
 
Italy
Netherlands
Belgium
Spain
Turkey
One or more of the Scandinavian states
Finland
Australia
South Africa
Canada
Brazil
Argentina
Korea (in one or more parts)
Pakistan
Iraq?
Egypt?
Saudi Arabia?
Indonesia
Taiwan? (political concerns may forestall)
Malaysia
[/list]
and those are just the most plausible candidates.

Basically these are all issues of tech sector, just keep in mind that historically a lot of these nations didn't get space programs, there is indeed a reason for that. Just remember how huge of an investment a program is and how difficult it is to convince people of the possibility of returns. At the end of the day what convinces people is prestige, it makes us look cool, all the really important consequences in terms of new inventions were an unexpected result, not the intent.

Italy and the Netherlands aren't rich enough for their own programs, they'd have to piggyback off of someone else's. All the other European states are joining them except the big guys like France, the UK, or Germany in that regard.

Australia could.

South Korea could maybe.

Brazil and Argentina are likely going to be too much at odds to work together.

Pakistan isn't going to waste R&D on a space program when they have nukes and India to worry about.

Iraq is also too busy with a space program and its regional rivals to make that significant of a commitment. They would be starting from scratch.

Saudi Arabia doesn't have the tech sector.

Indonesia is too poor and doesn't have the tech sector.

Malaysia will need to find partners and investors, but it has the tech sector and the infrastructure.

Egypt lacks the tech sector and Israel (and by extension the USA) might think they're up to something, not Egypt's biggest priority by far.
 
Italy and the Netherlands aren't rich enough for their own programs, they'd have to piggyback off of someone else's. All the other European states are joining them except the big guys like France, the UK, or Germany in that regard.

Italy, in particular, is very much rich enough. They are already one of the big three major contributors to the ESA (along with France and Germany, and pointedly not the UK), and are quite involved in multiple aspects of ESA activity and ISS construction.

The Netherlands is also quite rich enough, by the South Korea standard. Basically, South Korea can do it (admittedly, with imported Russian technology in many critical areas; but so what?), so any country at least as rich as South Korea should be able to do it as well (from the perspective of funding, at any rate; I shall get to technology later). Italy is considerably richer, and I dare say the Netherlands is at least as rich as South Korea.

South Korea could maybe.

Maybe? They are--they have a space program already, and if it wasn't (as I noted) for atrociously bad luck, they'd be in the first list of people who have already done it.

Brazil and Argentina are likely going to be too much at odds to work together.

Did I say they were working together? No, I said Brazil and Argentina could have space programs. Brazil does have a space program and, like South Korea, if it weren't for some bad luck they would be on the first list of countries which have done it. Argentina, I'm pretty sure, did have a space program; if the 20th century turned out better for them, it could very well have proceeded (they were pretty rich at the beginning, after all).

Pakistan isn't going to waste R&D on a space program when they have nukes and India to worry about.

But they clearly have the technical and financial capability to do so, as demonstrated by those nukes. Since the OP basically says any POD after 1900 is acceptable, there's no reason to suppose that *Pakistan even has to worry about India (leaving aside, of course, the scenarios where there is no Partition in the first place). Therefore, they are certainly a plausible candidate for developing space launch, given the OP's bounds.

Iraq is also too busy with a space program and its regional rivals to make that significant of a commitment. They would be starting from scratch.

The thing is, they started on it IOTL. Now, admittedly, that was a Saddam project, and likely not too well funded or backed, but given an Iraq that doesn't go through a coup d'etat in the '50s, and may very well be richer for it, it's quite plausible they do something like the Japanese did. It's not particularly hard or expensive to develop a very basic orbital launcher like their Mu series--stacked solid rockets, they didn't even have active guidance!

Saudi Arabia doesn't have the tech sector.

See above. A basic Vanguard-level payload launched aboard a Mu-type rocket takes hardly any tech sector at all. Not to mention the possibility of any post-1900 POD, etc. Or tech importation, a la South Korea or Brazil.

Indonesia is too poor and doesn't have the tech sector.

See above. You are overstating the expense and difficulty of launching a basic orbital payload. Now, most people won't want to do that for the sake of doing it, but nevertheless. I would also note that Indonesia has its own satellite communications network, although it admittedly didn't actually build the things. Still, with any post-1900 POD there are plenty of scenarios where Indonesia is at least at the Malaysia, if not Brazil, level of development by now.

Egypt lacks the tech sector and Israel (and by extension the USA) might think they're up to something, not Egypt's biggest priority by far.

Again, any post-1900 POD; Israel might not even exist, in which case what they think doesn't matter. Similarly, they might be far more developed, or conversely have a regime which uses spectaculars to distract from internal problems (a la North Korea; in which case it may or may not work, but they'll give it a shot).
 
Top