alternatehistory.com

Sorry if this seems long, I'm not a great writer. The current timeline goes up to 2015.

The crew of STS-107 survived.

When a closer look was taken at the damage to the thermal tiles, an emergency EVA was conducted to inspect whether or not the damage could be fixed.

It couldn't.

STS-107R was launched, and Atlantis docked to Columbia in the first-ever docking between two shuttles. Columbia was deorbited.

However, due to the unpreparedness for a deorbit burn Columbia crashed down into Chelyabinsk, Russia, killing thousands of people.

The Russians would never forgive America for this. They re-entered a the Second Cold War with the United States and most of the Western world, and re-took Ukraine and Kazakhstan. This war would last for 22 years.

The ISS program was canceled, the station abandoned in 2004. The Russians took Zvedza and Pirs and began to build Mir-2 in cooperation with China.

In 2005, President Bush announced the Constellation program. It would transform the Shuttle hardware into the Jupiter rockets. These would be used to launch Orion and Altair, a crew capsule and lunar lander respectively. It also would involve the construction of Tranquility, a space station designed for use by NASA and the ESA in addition to smaller space agencies such as JAXA for science experiments. Tranquility was based around the remnants of the International Space Station, which now consisted of Zarya, Unity, Destiny, Canadarm, and a few trusses.

In 2006 the first new module was launched: Freedom, the new service module for the station. It attached to the port of Zarya formerly occupied by Zvedza. The Russians launched the first Kliper mini-spaceplane to Mir-2, but continued the Soyuz program due to the public appeal and usefulness of the spacecraft.

In 2007, China docked the first new module to Mir-2: Tiangong, the habitat module for the station. It also contained 2 docking modules for visiting Shenzhou spacecraft and Shenlong re-supply spaceplanes.

In 2008, the first Orion was launched on a Jupiter I to visit Tranquility, which by now had a finished solar array. Barack Obama became president and announced his intention for NASA to land on the moon again by 2012, no later.

In 2009, the first Altair finished construction. It was launched on a Jupiter II rocket to Tranquility for systems testing. SpaceX launched the Falcon 9 for the first time on August 9, carrying their first Minotaur spacecraft to Tranquility. It exploded shortly after launch. Another attempt was made on September 22, but this time the Falcon 9 destroyed most of it's launch complex, causing destruction rivaling that of the second N1 flight. It would take 2 years to rebuild.

In 2010, on June 12 the ESA launched their first manned spacecraft, Perseus, to Tranquility. Named after the ancient Greek hero, Perseus was designed for European access to Tranquility and future missions to Lagrange-point space stations.

In 2011, a Minotaur was launched, the first since the 2009 Falcon 9 accident. Because of the cancellation of the Falcon rockets, the Aphrodite rockets had started development in 2010; however the first Aphrodite 2 wouldn't be ready until late 2012, so this Minotaur and 4 others would launch on Delta IV Heavy rockets. On Christmas Eve, Orion 7 was launched on a Jupiter III rocket along with a prototype Altair to enter lunar orbit and perform maneuvers similar to Apollo 10.

In 2012, on April 11 Orion 9 was launched and executed a similar mission to Orion 7. The Altair on this mission did in fact have the capability to land on the Moon, but mission controllers decided to wait until Orion 11 to actually land.

On July 1, 2012, Orion 11 lifted off towards the Moon. It landed in the Aitken basin on July 4.

Orion 14 (Wisely, NASA decided to skip a #13 mission) repeated Orion 11's mission, landing in Tycho Crater on October 17. The crew investigated the Surveyor 7 probe, now dormant for 44 years. Samantha Cristoforetti became the first woman on the Moon.

On October 31, the first Aphrodite 2, powered by 2 Raptor engines appropriately, carried a Minotaur to Tranquility, becoming the first private spacecraft to dock to another spacecraft.

In 2013 the Russians and Chinese launched a lunar mission of their own. A Long March 5 rocket would carry a Chinese-built EDS to Mir-2 where a few days later an upgraded Soyuz would dock to Mir-2, stay a few days, and proceed to the Moon. Yang Liwei and Gennady Padalka became the first non-Americans on the Moon.

In 2014 Project Artemis was launched by the Tranquility Project members. It was a semi-permanent base on the Moon that would have it's first manned expedition in 2015, helping to train astronauts for the 2020 Phobos mission, followed by 2 more Phobos and Deimos missions for the next 4 years before 2 manned Mars landings in 2025 and 2026. Tranquility was decaying, and it was decided that the newest module, Ares, would be handed over to SpaceX and Bigelow Aerospace to expand with inflatable modules.

On March 21, 2015, the first expedition to the Artemis base on a Jupiter IV was launched carrying Scott Kelly and Terry Virts. The lander and Orion were merged, becoming an Orion with a descent stage on the bottom.

On December 31, the first SpaceX Odysseus spacecraft was launched to the Ares space station.

We leave off here. Please feel free to post comments and say what you think!
Top