Alternate technologies

Can we have a discussion of which recent technologies could have been butterflied away, and conversely which technologies that failed or were not developed could exist?

Examples:

1. It's practically a trope of the genre that airships could be the dominant mode of air travel if it weren't for the Hindenburg disaster.

2. Neal Stephenson has an article in Slate arguing that the space program could only happen because of the juxtaposition of several technologies from WW2 and the 1950s (V2 rockets, nuclear weapons, ICBMs) that were not cost-effective, even in wartime; an alt-WW2 might well fail to produce those technologies, making it impossible to later start a space program at acceptable cost.

3. Supersonic travel was brought down by the 1973 oil crisis, and by concerns over noise emissions. Both could have easily gone a different way - the oil crisis was the result of a specific political crisis, and so did the rules giving communities more power over infrastructure decisions in the 1960s.
 
Supersonic rocket zeppelins it is, then...

Seriously, the safety issues killed off zeps, even without the flammability issues they are very vulnerable to weather and dangerously crash prone;

what would be the point of a scramjet or PDWE airliner even now, when it takes say two hours to get to Australia, but four hours in airport security at each end?

The potential failure of space, yes, on the other hand.


And a discussion? To be honest probably not- because it's such an enormous shading to endless topic, with nested fractal complexities, that you might more readily need a forum for instead of a single thread.

Too much at once and you have to seriously gloss the details to get anywhere, as I have above- exaggerating a bit for effect, maybe.

One possibility at a time, that I think we could certainly do, even if some of them are well trodden hardy perennials. Because, I mean, rocket powered supersonic zeppelins are just silly.
 

Delta Force

Banned
3. Supersonic travel was brought down by the 1973 oil crisis, and by concerns over noise emissions. Both could have easily gone a different way - the oil crisis was the result of a specific political crisis, and so did the rules giving communities more power over infrastructure decisions in the 1960s.

People were actually questioning the economics of supersonic airliners years before the Energy Crisis. I think the main issue is that they were planned for general use to replace existing subsonic airliners, rather than as supplements. The economics might have worked out if the airliners had been used solely for business and first class passengers, or at least people paying a premium to fly it.

It could lead to interesting market segmentation. Perhaps there could be a supersonic economy class that is similar to modern economy and not very comfortable. Standard economy on the subsonic airliners could have more room, perhaps not as much as the norm for the 1960s and 1970s, but at least as much as modern business class.
 
For the record, I think airships were doomed by high labor requirements and low speed. I brought them up because of the alt history trope. Not just alt history, even - The Diamond Age features them as the standard way of freighting intercontinental cargo.

Also, rocket-powered supersonic zeppelins sound like a cool premise for the next James Bond film.
 
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