Another alternate space race thread

[Thande]

Ah yes, I hadn't really considered the Entente as an aberration. Certainly the treaty with Russia was rather odd. OK.

And should a British space programme be based in India, this will of course provide more equatorial boost than the Americans get in Florida. Woomera is at 31' south (roughly), Kennedy Space Center is at 28.5' north (again, roughly). Parts of India are 10' or less above the equator.

The French would probably have a site in either French Guiana or French West Africa.

Germany's platform would be in either Cameroon or Tanganika.

Japan's would probably be in Formosa.

Russia's would probably be set in Baikonur.

I've found that the whole 'spaceport near the equator thing' is over-exaggerated on this board. While it does mean you save fuel thanks to the gravity business, it's far from essential. Note the sites used now in OTL.

America and France are the only countries to specifically try to use rocket launching sites as near to the equator as possible. While the Russians do use Baikonur, they also use Plesetsk, which is near Archangel, almost in the Arctic! And the Chinese choose to use ports in Outer Mongolia, in the north, rather than closer to the equator in the south.

 

[Dean_the_Young]

I've found that the whole 'spaceport near the equator thing' is over-exaggerated on this board. While it does mean you save fuel thanks to the gravity business, it's far from essential. Note the sites used now in OTL.

America and France are the only countries to specifically try to use rocket launching sites as near to the equator as possible. While the Russians do use Baikonur, they also use Plesetsk, which is near Archangel, almost in the Arctic! And the Chinese choose to use ports in Outer Mongolia, in the north, rather than closer to the equator in the south.

Especially since a space port in an- shall we say unhappy? - African colony may happen to suffer from most ungentlemanly sabotage at a critical moment.

Or that said colonies might be lost due to natural pressures from the populace, perhaps a populace aided by a mysterious benefactor (wink-wink-nudge-nudge).

It would be pretty embarrassing for an imperial program to fail due to losing the empire!

 

[Jomazi]

Hydrogen peroxide are a nasty chem, in such high concentrations anything it touches will spontaneously burst into flames, not to mention the risk of it exploding by being catalytically decomposed to oxygen + water at the wrong moment.

As mentioned before, the V2 used a mixture of ethanol and water mainly due to the additional use of this fuel-mix as engine coolant. Hydrocarbons such as gasoline/kerosene/whatever are immiscible with water, has a much lower heat of vaporization (which means they're inefficient coolant fluids) and releases only slightly more energy per total weight when the fuel is burned with an oxidizer.

So EtOH is likely to be used as the fuel. Hydrazine adds the issue with containment since it is poisonous as hell.

Another possibility for oxidizer would be nitric acid, or more specifically "white fuming nitric acid", with a concentration of 99% HNO3. It's corrosive, but can be handled since certain metals resist the attacks due to passivisation. It is also dense, having a density of 1500kg/m^3.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_fuming_nitric_acid

It has the additional benefit of being hypergolic with a wide range of possible fuels.

EDIT: Found a chart of specific heat-of-vaporization for some fuels. Twice as high = twice as good cooling. This explains a lot:
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/fluids-evaporation-latent-heat-d_147.html
Consider gasoline a mix of those higher hydrocarbons, so that the HoV would be someting like 300, in contrast with the 850 for ethyl alcohol, 1100 for methanol or 2257 for water.

 

[Tyr]

I'd think it would be Britain-France working together if anything. Japan and Russia don't really have the expertise for that sort of thing and they were regarded as being much worse then they actually were.

The launch site would probally be kept in Europe too- it being 'better' near the equator is irrelevant. It would be want to be kept as a British endeavor, the empire wasn't part of the UK and not many people would see the launch out there.
Perhaps there would be the occasional 'secret'/military launches from and a test site in Australia but definatly not Africa and probally not India.
The same would apply to France and especially totalitarian countries like Germany- the kaiser would want to see the launch!
Even besides this a space base needs quite a bit of infrastructure. And the cost and effort of shipping your huge rocket from the factory in Europe down to the test site in Africa would take a rather large bite out of your 'fuel savings'.

I see it likely that the powers would launch a man into space and maybe to the moon on their own but be far more willing to co-operate with each other for bigger projects then the US and Soviets.

 

[stevep]

I'd think it would be Britain-France working together if anything. Japan and Russia don't really have the expertise for that sort of thing and they were regarded as being much worse then they actually were.

The launch site would probally be kept in Europe too- it being 'better' near the equator is irrelevant. It would be want to be kept as a British endeavor, the empire wasn't part of the UK and not many people would see the launch out there.
Perhaps there would be the occasional 'secret'/military launches from and a test site in Australia but definatly not Africa and probally not India.
The same would apply to France and especially totalitarian countries like Germany- the kaiser would want to see the launch!
Even besides this a space base needs quite a bit of infrastructure. And the cost and effort of shipping your huge rocket from the factory in Europe down to the test site in Africa would take a rather large bite out of your 'fuel savings'.

I see it likely that the powers would launch a man into space and maybe to the moon on their own but be far more willing to co-operate with each other for bigger projects then the US and Soviets.

Lee

Not so sure about that. In a colony your got a lot more land and less population, at least who have political power, to complain about anything your doing. Not to mention that normally rockets are launched west to east to make use of the rotation of the Earth - Israel being the only exception I know of. That's for the reason that they don't want to be dropping components from launch modules over their eastern neighbours. I could see similar problems for people launching from west or central Europe.

The other thing I have seen suggested as being useful for a lunch site is high. [Giving the rocket a early boost]. Have seen Kilimanjaro and Kenya [the Mt not the country] suggested but also an alternative for Britain might be somewhere in New Guinea say? High launch site, near the equator, in a colony that can easily be controlled while Australia being nearby could supply more advanced technical facilities.

Steve

 

[alt_historian]

I've found that the whole 'spaceport near the equator thing' is over-exaggerated on this board. While it does mean you save fuel thanks to the gravity business, it's far from essential. Note the sites used now in OTL.

America and France are the only countries to specifically try to use rocket launching sites as near to the equator as possible. While the Russians do use Baikonur, they also use Plesetsk, which is near Archangel, almost in the Arctic! And the Chinese choose to use ports in Outer Mongolia, in the north, rather than closer to the equator in the south.

Well... yeah. Doesn't Russia use Plesetsk specifically for launching into polar or high-inclination orbits?
I can't comment on the Chinese ones.

 

[blueczar]

the best thing about this is you can actually have countries owning territory on the moon, mars etc. rather than the stupid space is the 'common territory of everyone' treaty that is now in place. Imagine if the European powers met together in 1450 and decided that all territory outside of Europe is common territory with no country allowed to own anything - how far would civilisation have progressed?

 

[Dean_the_Young]

the best thing about this is you can actually have countries owning territory on the moon, mars etc. rather than the stupid space is the 'common territory of everyone' treaty that is now in place. Imagine if the European powers met together in 1450 and decided that all territory outside of Europe is common territory with no country allowed to own anything - how far would civilisation have progressed?

Er, something like this did happen OTL. Spain was given all the Western Hemisphere, and everyone else was told to but out. Not surprising, Britain didn't listen.

 

[Tyr]

the best thing about this is you can actually have countries owning territory on the moon, mars etc. rather than the stupid space is the 'common territory of everyone' treaty that is now in place. Imagine if the European powers met together in 1450 and decided that all territory outside of Europe is common territory with no country allowed to own anything - how far would civilisation have progressed?

I don't get you.
How is it slowing progress that to claim land people have to actually use it?
If anything this is speeding things up- were you allowed to claim the moon would be American and thus any chance of a Russian or Chinese mission there would be upset somewhat.

 

[blueczar]

I don't get you.
How is it slowing progress that to claim land people have to actually use it?
If anything this is speeding things up- were you allowed to claim the moon would be American and thus any chance of a Russian or Chinese mission there would be upset somewhat.

The Russians could claim the part of the moon around their unmanned landing sites which were to the north and sort of around the American ones. See the red triangles on this map

 

[Tyr]

The Russians could claim the part of the moon around their unmanned landing sites which were to the north and sort of around the American ones. See the red triangles on this map

That would still screw the Chinese or anyone else who might want to actually do something with the still uninhabited moon.

I don't think unmanned landers would be enough for a claim though- or else you would see countries spamming space with useless landers that do nothing but 'plant their flag'.

 

[Faeelin]

If a Space Race even that probable? ISTM that this world lacks the ideological divide that ours had, and given the expense of the space race.... well, why bother?

 

[Tyr]

If a Space Race even that probable? ISTM that this world lacks the ideological divide that ours had, and given the expense of the space race.... well, why bother?

I agree.
Having a space race is a rather large AH cliche.
I really think that things would be a lot different given the empires in space- there would be some competition at times but it would mostly be friendly with a lot of co-operation as well.

 

[Dean_the_Young]

If a Space Race even that probable? ISTM that this world lacks the ideological divide that ours had, and given the expense of the space race.... well, why bother?

For the same reason that the Space Race happened in OTL: pride, prestige, and the strategic element. Do you think that landing on the moon really mattered one way or another except for pride? No, the space program was a public-friendly way to build giant rockets, giant rockets which then could be changed over to hauling something more... unpleasant... than lab equipment.

 

[B_Munro]

For the same reason that the Space Race happened in OTL: pride, prestige, and the strategic element. Do you think that landing on the moon really mattered one way or another except for pride? No, the space program was a public-friendly way to build giant rockets, giant rockets which then could be changed over to hauling something more... unpleasant... than lab equipment.

But this TL, I assume, doesn't _have_ a nuclear arms race, and international competition isn't likely to be as intense - I mean, do you see the Czar's minister at this TLs "League of Nations" [1] equivalent proclaiming Russia will "bury" the British Empire?

(OTOH, in a world which hasn't had either world war, the dangers of overblown bellicosity are less familiar. In this TL, possibly every time the Japanese and the US get into a trade war the newpapers mutter about the size of the US nuclear arsenal and how countries which are teeny tiny little targets shouldn't piss us off. It's all in good fun, at least until the first hundred million deaths).

Bruce

[1] I'd assume some sort of permanent international forum for diplomats to gabble in would be too convenient for it not to be eventually invented.

 

[pacifichistorian]

See above. Would the Germans be the front runners in a Great Game-type space race?

Probably, in chemistry. Russians in 19hC seemed more interested in rocketry than anybody, tho. Maybe hire German experts?

Do you actually need computers, compact electronics and so forth, in order to effectively work out orbital trajectories?

Not to work out the trajectories, but I've read (somewhere, don't ask where) to figure when to make the burns, the spacecraft had to have onboard computers, & the ones in Apollo were barely good enough; some FI systems today are smarter.

Oh, BTW: BUMP!

 

[Kevin Renner]

Perhaps tied in with Sterlings ALT Solar System that has Venus inhabited by Homo Sapiens and Homo Neanderthalis along with dinosaurs, saber tooth cats and or mammal species. Plus Mars has various bird species and Homo Martianis

http://www.amazon.com/Sky-People-S-M-Stirling/dp/0765314886

 

[PMN1]

Ah yes, I hadn't really considered the Entente as an aberration. Certainly the treaty with Russia was rather odd. OK.

And should a British space programme be based in India, this will of course provide more equatorial boost than the Americans get in Florida. Woomera is at 31' south (roughly), Kennedy Space Center is at 28.5' north (again, roughly). Parts of India are 10' or less above the equator.

Could try a Sea Launch??

 

[Michel Van]

Could try a Sea Launch??

yes it would work !

Hermann Oberth was the first who proposed that
because Germany had no launch corridors (or colonies at equator in 1920)
the stage had landed on Poland or Russia

he had Idea to build Rocket in shipyards
then pull it by ship to launchsite, followed fuel Tankers

the Rocket is fueld crew stept in an start the coundown
while tanker and tug boat goes on save distance.

strange was that not the monopole of Seadragon ???

 

[alt_historian]

yes it would work !

Hermann Oberth was the first who proposed that
because Germany had no launch corridors (or colonies at equator in 1920)
the stage had landed on Poland or Russia

he had Idea to build Rocket in shipyards
then pull it by ship to launchsite, followed fuel Tankers

the Rocket is fueld crew stept in an start the coundown
while tanker and tug boat goes on save distance.

strange was that not the monopole of Seadragon ???

Monopole? What does magnetism have to do with it?

But yes, that was the proposed launch method for Sea Dragon.