European countries colonizing outer space

I think for this to happen we have to avoid WWI, in which case we may see a earlier and multipolar space race.
 

Ian_W

Banned
I think for this to happen we have to avoid WWI, in which case we may see a earlier and multipolar space race.

Probably, but you'd also need to answer how rockets become a thing, without the impetus from the V2 program and th atomic bomb in WW2.
 
Yep, and what's going to power the mining equipment for starters?
On Moon begin solarpower later nuclear fission power
He3 is nice idea, But real trasure of Moon is liquid Oxygen for rocket engine
And by products of Oxygen Mining are Steel, Aluminium, Titan, Glas and rear Earth Element


I think for this to happen we have to avoid WWI, in which case we may see a earlier and multipolar space race.

NO!
WW1 let to WW2 and that gave technogly of spaceflight and policical montivation for Space Race
Without those wars mandkind would far behind of today technogly
 

Ian_W

Banned
NO!
WW1 let to WW2 and that gave technogly of spaceflight and policical montivation for Space Race
Without those wars mandkind would far behind of today technogly

You can have a much richer Europe to afford greater expenditure on space - and as a side point, you keep picking the technologies with the mind-boggling R+D costs that are absolutely unable to be recouped by use unrelated to space colonisation - or you can have the technology boost of the world wars.

Pick one.
 
You can have a much richer Europe to afford greater expenditure on space - and as a side point, you keep picking the technologies with the mind-boggling R+D costs that are absolutely unable to be recouped by use unrelated to space colonisation - or you can have the technology boost of the world wars.

Pick one.

A very good Exempel are robbert Godards and Herman Oberth, the First rocket Pioniers
They had to fight over twenty yrears for there dreams, to realize something
Both got ridculized and humiliated by public and Media As insane idiots with overzised fireworks
Then came WW2 and the Germans start to develop missles as weapons under von Braun and Orters
Also The First Computers and the Atombomb were bulid

So i pick that one
 
I'd expect everything to be nuclear powered. Nuclear powered rockets, nuclear powered space stations, nuclear powered moon bases. Without the world wars there are plenty of scientists around in Europe to create rocketry and nuclear power.
 
enough of them you can get expertise with launching them.

You dont move a million pounds into orbit. You move forty thousand pounds in to orbit fifty times.
Unless you do it this way
orion-drive-spacecraft-using-atomic-rhys-taylor.jpg
 
Unless you do it this way

It's still a solution in search of a problem. There just aren't any plausible use cases for launching a few thousand tonnes at once instead of in many smaller launches (which can be done as needed, and allow you to benefit from economies of scale). The costs of Orion are also not-inconsiderable, to say nothing of the side effects.
 
It's still a solution in search of a problem. There just aren't any plausible use cases for launching a few thousand tonnes at once instead of in many smaller launches (which can be done as needed, and allow you to benefit from economies of scale). The costs of Orion are also not-inconsiderable, to say nothing of the side effects.

The one thing Orion has is ridiculous amounts of Delta V, with both high specific impulse and high thrust. If you want to visit planets past Mars, that's what is needed for manned missions
 
Yes, exactly!
ah so you mean an imperialistic approach to the space race for the continued European empires. Well France, UK and Germany would be the pioneers of course. Probably followed by the Netherlands and Spain. However, the first exploitations of space are gonna be meager and pretty pointless, for prestige alone so empire like The Netherlands and Spain will drop out eventually when they can't make money out of it. Leaving only France, Germany and the UK competing, where eventually a war will break out that will be mostly fought on the ground like OTL, except with kinetic bombardments from space and a fight over worthless territory on the moon. I wrote a story in which this scenario more or less has taken place, see my signature(the green planet).

Later on it can get iteresting with Russia and the USA joining in the competition, imperialistically. Unless USA is still part of European Empires.
 

Ian_W

Banned
The one thing Orion has is ridiculous amounts of Delta V, with both high specific impulse and high thrust. If you want to visit planets past Mars, that's what is needed for manned missions

It also really depends if you want a working magnetosphere and/or biosphere from where you left from.

Atmospheric nuclear detonations got banned for really, really good reasons.
 

Ian_W

Banned
A very good Exempel are robbert Godards and Herman Oberth, the First rocket Pioniers
They had to fight over twenty yrears for there dreams, to realize something
Both got ridculized and humiliated by public and Media As insane idiots with overzised fireworks
Then came WW2 and the Germans start to develop missles as weapons under von Braun and Orters
Also The First Computers and the Atombomb were bulid

So i pick that one

Right.

Then you get a France, Germany and the UK of roughly the same size they are now.

Which either means a Europe-wide development program of something about the size of Ariane, or independent programs about the size of Black Arrow or Vega.
 
(We hadn't even launched a man suborbital at the time it was announced)

Actually, Shepard had gone up already by the time Kennedy made the announcement.

But that was it. America had put a man (barely) into space for all of 15 minutes when JFK proclaimed he wanted to put Americans on a planet a quarter million miles away in less than nine years.
 
Avoid WWI and make it, to begin with, an action for prestige. That's feasible, especially if early lunar bases find Helium 3 which can then turn these outposts into mining stations kick-starting economic interest in space.

On the one hand, you pretty much have to avoid the world wars (lesser wars might be bearable, perhaps) if you want European empires vigorous, confident, competitive, and resourced enough to have any chance of mounting something as ridiculously expensive and ambitious as a space program. (They are going to need not only intact industrial bases and financial assets but also those massive colonial empires to pay for these damned things. And even then it will be marginally possible for only Britain, France, Germany, Russia and America.)

On the other hand, butterflying away the world wars also butterflies away so much of the aerospace and electronics technological advances needed to make it happen in the first place. Or rather, butterflies away the rapidity with which they happened.
 
You can have a much richer Europe to afford greater expenditure on space - and as a side point, you keep picking the technologies with the mind-boggling R+D costs that are absolutely unable to be recouped by use unrelated to space colonisation - or you can have the technology boost of the world wars.

Pick one.

Thus the conundrum.
 

Ian_W

Banned
Thus the conundrum.

It is solvable, but it's solved by mass production - you need one European rocket thats used a lot.

This means the one rocket has to do manned exploration, commsats and so on - you can't have a "human rated" rocket or a "heavy lift" rocket or any of the other stuff ... if you do that, then you get two, three or four times the amount of r+d and infrastructure to support and your program gets stuck.

Ideally, your ICBMs use the same rocket, as that means even more mass production.

Note I say European, because even given these limitations, none of Germany, France or the UK has enough of a need for ICBMs, manned exploration, commsats and so on to be able to get that level of mass production.
 
Would having the European powers lose their colonies in Asia and Africa without WW2 taking place drive them towards space exploration and colonization? Because part of the reason why the European powers started to colonize Africa and Asia was because they lost control over the Americas.
 

Ian_W

Banned
Would having the European powers lose their colonies in Asia and Africa without WW2 taking place drive them towards space exploration and colonization? Because part of the reason why the European powers started to colonize Africa and Asia was because they lost control over the Americas.

Not really. One of the dirty secrets of colonies is they cost you money - they might make certain bits of your society money, but as a whole, all those far-flung military forces and cruiser squadrons cost more than the colony brings in.
 
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