Euro-Sputnik.

What if the first artificial satellite (EuroLuna) was built from Europeans members of the NATO and launched in late 1956?
Which reactions in USA and which consequences on US space program?
 
Europe was still rebuilding after that real nasy war that ended more than a decade before. Did they even have the industrial or techinical capacity to launch a saddle-light?
 
Europe was still rebuilding after that real nasy war that ended more than a decade before. Did they even have the industrial or techinical capacity to launch a saddle-light?

They probably could have - look at some of the military tech the British developed in the postwar years. The problem is that it'll cost a bundle, and no government is going to find it easy to pay that kind of money for something that is purely a prestige project.

If the British had been in on Manhattan, a missile-.based delivery capacity would make more sense to them - limited aviation industry, airfields within Soviet bomber range - than it would for the USA, so they might push harder. But without their own nukes, why bother? Sputnik was great, but it was good for bugger-all.
 

Sachyriel

Banned
They probably could have - look at some of the military tech the British developed in the postwar years. The problem is that it'll cost a bundle, and no government is going to find it easy to pay that kind of money for something that is purely a prestige project.

If the British had been in on Manhattan, a missile-.based delivery capacity would make more sense to them - limited aviation industry, airfields within Soviet bomber range - than it would for the USA, so they might push harder. But without their own nukes, why bother? Sputnik was great, but it was good for bugger-all.

...Britain and Canada did have an agreement with the USA to receive nuclear technologies from before the wars end you know.

Saddle-light:D

This tiny little radio transmitter device doesn't need the thrust that later missions need, so it's easier than you might think. I mean, no squishy humans (or dogs or monkeys) inside, so use a giant cannon and blast off takes a different meaning. Or what about a reusable rocket that fires a reusable high-altitude plane to a high enough altitude that the plane shoots straight up and launches another rocket with the non-commie sputnik inside.

We need a better name than sputnik. I got it: The Satellite. Any satellite after will need a different name, even the Soviets. ;)
 
...Britain and Canada did have an agreement with the USA to receive nuclear technologies from before the wars end you know.

They still only got their first bomb in the early 50s. I don't quite see them starting a missile program before, and three years from the word go to orbital launch is a bit too fast, I think.
 
Europe was still rebuilding after that real nasy war that ended more than a decade before. Did they even have the industrial or techinical capacity to launch a saddle-light?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_economic_miracle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-war_economic_boom
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirtschaftswunder
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trente_Glorieuses
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Coal_and_Steel_Community
They probably could have - look at some of the military tech the British developed in the postwar years. The problem is that it'll cost a bundle, and no government is going to find it easy to pay that kind of money for something that is purely a prestige project.

I speak of UK,France,Belgium,Italy,West Germany,Netherlands,Luxemburg,grouped by 1951 in a sort of "European Space research Community (ESRC or Eurospace)".

This tiny little radio transmitter device doesn't need the thrust that later missions need, so it's easier than you might think. I mean, no squishy humans (or dogs or monkeys) inside, so use a giant cannon and blast off takes a different meaning. Or what about a reusable rocket that fires a reusable high-altitude plane to a high enough altitude that the plane shoots straight up and launches another rocket with the non-commie sputnik inside.
Exactly.
 
I speak of UK,France,Belgium,Italy,West Germany,Netherlands,Luxemburg,grouped by 1951 in a sort of "European Space research Community (ESRC or Eurospace)".

Capacityisn't really the issue. what's their motivation? Space wasn't about dickwaving until the Soviets got there first, and I can't see any reason to launch a satellite urgent enough to make the French and British team up with the Germans to play with rockets. How do you sell this to the average voter is the problem.
 
Capacityisn't really the issue. what's their motivation? Space wasn't about dickwaving until the Soviets got there first, and I can't see any reason to launch a satellite urgent enough to make the French and British team up with the Germans to play with rockets. How do you sell this to the average voter is the problem.
"A new bold Europe is born from the war's hash,an Europe unite for progress and knowledge.
This is yet the Century of Europe,the old, new,democratic Europe"!
Translation "Hey folks,we not be old shit,the Europe is back to stay. We have economic boom,we send the first satellite in orbit before Americans or soviets.
Ah... And remember,buy European"
 
My suggested checklist:

1. Delay US satellite launching program. This will be easier if you

2. Delay USSR satellite launch. So, kill off the ICBM (or its designers) in some way. Perhaps Korolev has an accident in his Gulag.

3. Bring the UK ICBM program forward. Have Sandys get in earlier and axe all of the pretty ships and planes, and put Great Britain on a fast-track to big rockets.

4. Keep the Fourth Republic in France, along with its cooperation with Great Britain. A good way to do this would to

5. Have a different Suez. Eisenhower was quite the meanie to the Europeans, and pretty much killed the idea of looking to the UK and France as significant international players on the order of the two superpowers. Perhaps if someone who was a lot more careful about upsetting Cold War Allies was president the US would just shrug and tell the USSR "a nuke for a nuke"...so how about

6. Eisenhower has a stroke in 1955 and dies, leaving Nixon in charge, or isolationist/anti-communist Taft wins the nomination in 1952.

So now you have a situation where the US is more isolationist/pro-colonial up to 1960, Britain and France are seen as poles around which a European team can realistically be built (although everyone will know who is in charge!), and Britain and France jointly lead the world in rocketry development in an attempt to "more cheaply" toss nukes at Moscow.

That's my best shot...in text form:

Korolev dies in a Gulag pre-WW2. Flash forward to 1952, where Bob Taft wins the nomination, picks Richard Nixon as his veep, and then dies after a month in office.

Duncan Sandys gets placed as Minister of Defence in 1954, rather than spending three years at Housing, so we get a 1954 White Paper that says that "Rockets are the Future!" (This, incidentally, will kill the Victor bomber, so you get 2/3 of the "V-Bombers".) Assuming that missile development takes four years with joint French funding and project fast-tracking, and assuming two years of very intensive testing before a payload gets launched (judging from the attempts at Woomera with the ELDO after the cancellation of Blue Streak), you get a Euro-launch of a payload in 1960.

As for the aftermath, the US and USSR will be right behind the Europeans, the RAF bomber force and the RN will be gutted, and the Euro-organization will topple before a manned flight because it's just too damn expensive for the UK and France to play at being superpowers with space shots when those missiles need to be saved as the very expensive deterrent they were always meant to be. But you will have your ten to twenty weeks of glory in 1960, and plausibly to boot.

Hope that helps!
 
Hells Bells and Bloody Ding Dongs!

Once the US Army got in control of Manhattan, all co-operation with the British-French scientific group in Montreal was terminated. When Nye Bevin went over to ask for the agreed share of nuclear technology, he was given the run-around. That is why the sociaklist and former miner said that if Britain was going to have an atomic bomb, it must have a Union Jack on the side of it.

Furthermore (and I've posted this one before) British engineer Isaac Lubbock of Shell Petroleum test-fired a 1-ton thrust petrol/liquid oxygen rocket engine in 1942. This was cited as part of the investigations into the practicality of a German rocket programme. America had nothing more than the Private and Corporal rocket programme at the time.

As for the Bell X-1 - look up Whittle's M-52 project andf you'll see that Britain was actually ahead of the USA on a Mach 1 test aircraft until the government pulled the plug. The same with Lippisch's postwar work - he went to Britain, giving Saunders-Roe the idea for the SR-53 and SR-177, before nmoving to the USA.

For more stuff on British rocketry, look up Black Knight, Black Arrow and Blue Streak and weep...:mad:

As for satellites - Arthur C. Clarke told the government in 1947 that a launcher could be developed for less than the cost of a jet bomber. Britain had four jet bombers in the 1950s (Canberra, Valiant, Vulcan, Victor) and failed Clarke.

Britain could have had a SUCCESFUL space programme right up to 1974, but now it's too late...:(
 
Ok, now did they have the political will to do it? I've noticed they don't have much will these days.

The UK was on the receiving end of the V2 rockets. Perhaps if they were a bit more effective, or "lucky" in the targets they hit, some-one in the British Government could get the idea that rockets are the weapons of the future and direct research funding that way.

Cheers,
Nigel.
 
...Britain and Canada did have an agreement with the USA to receive nuclear technologies from before the wars end you know.

This arrangement was squashed by the Macmahon act of 1946, and only repealled after Britain had shown that they could explode a H bomb and that the US had no real secrets to keep.
 
For more stuff on British rocketry, look up Black Knight, Black Arrow and Blue Streak and weep...:mad:

Worse: when the Europeans actually did get around to establishing their own space program (ELDO and ESRO, not the ESA!), Blue Streak was selected as the first stage of their launcher. It worked fine on each test flight, only to be let down by the Franco-German upper stages every time. So what happened? Did the French and Germans come to their senses and go with a British rocket? Of course not! They managed to convince the British to go along with a scheme that had no British parts whatsoever in a wholly new launcher. How I will never know...
 
France had a crash program for V-2 rockets called Super V-2
the program began in 1946 with first launch planed in 1952
they had about 75% of the parts necessary for construction (of 30 german V-2's)
but not there Guidance system and so france terminate the Program in 1948
more here
http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/superv2.htm

if they had all Parts, the French R2M had base for satellite launcher for 1956
 
France had a crash program for V-2 rockets called Super V-2
the program began in 1946 with first launch planed in 1952
they had about 75% of the parts necessary for construction (of 30 german V-2's)
but not there Guidance system and so france terminate the Program in 1948
more here
http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/superv2.htm

if they had all Parts, the French R2M had base for satellite launcher for 1956
Hmmm... My rough calculations suggest a R2S had a launch velocity of ~4km/s. The R2M would be a bit higher, but it's hard to tell how much of that extra range is due to the gliding warhead.

So, to get to orbit, you'd need a second stage of ~1 tonne that can also generate that kind of delta-v. Based on the mass fractions cited (20tonnes initial, 1 tonne payload), you could get 50kg in orbit. Of course, most of that would be upper-stage.... Maybe 10kg actual payload? A bit higher....


OK, it would be an extremely rudimentary launcher, but as a proof-of-principle, it looks like it would work.
 
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