It's not that bare-bones--it still needs to serve for a good 8 days (three days there, one day on surface while checking out and activating surface hab, three days back, one day reserve) as the sole crew habitat, for instance--but there's a big difference between a lander that can do that and one that can also transport all the equipment they need and tack on another 14 days of surface time. Thus the habitat/equipment lander.
He's probably been flying, like you say I doubt he's left. However, I've been aiming to use non-OTL astronauts as much as possible since I can put words into their mouths without worrying. Of the 64+ missions to both Spacelab and Freedom that have happened ITTL by 1996, I've covered a very limited number with full crew counts. Young has probably flown once or twice more to either Spacelab or Freedom in that time, but is by this point probably mostly of the active list and into supervisory or training roles for new astronauts.
Well, thank you very much for your kind words. I'm always glad when people enjoy this as much as we enjoy working on it.
Also, I see it's your first post, so I'd like to also take this chance to welcome you to the board.I tend to leave unmanned planning to Workable Goblin, so I can't offer a definitive answer, but we're both pretty excited about future missions ITTL. I know we've given some attention to the potential for Mercury and Uranus or Neptune orbiters, and to missions to some of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, but I'm not sure exactly what's topping the list of likely to fly at the moment--besides, that would be telling.
I'll try and get to the ones that Goblin didn't, then.
Yeah, Site 250 is for Vulkans, and site 1 and 31 were in use for R-7. However, with the decreasing use of those for anything other than national defense payloads and the breakup of the USSR, most R-7 launches have headed to sites inside Russia proper, so both Site 1 and 31 were semi-abandoned. After the Gararin's Start fire, Site 31 is the only remaining R-7 pad at Baikonur but mostly inactive (though in slightly better repair).
Titan is indeed still running at LC-40/41. (That's the topic for a post a few weeks out.) LC-36 is the Delta pad, and Saturn ops for national security uses are at LC-37.
Something like that, yeah.
I lean towards tail service masts. These can be more easily set up so the boosters can be identical instead of mirror-image, simplifying construction of the cores.
It's a solid maybe. There's benefits in a bigger hatch, but they got by on OTL Mir with the same hatches as on previous stations, so presumably there's a strong legacy reason to stay with it--you have to convert all the equipment on the ground, too, and potentially re-engineer the DOS modules more. Because IOTL they didn't switch to hybrid until ISS, I think they might still be using SSVP unless someone makes me a very persuasive case for it. Anyway, what I can say is that Salyut 7, Mir, and Longxing all use the same port, whichever it is.
Thank you, and once again I'm glad you're enjoying it! However, we're looking at ending the TL at about 2014 with the end of Part IV (essentially, we'll bring it to the present day at the time that we finish it, and stop). Partly this is because this TL takes a lot of work and time, and we're sort of interested in working on other projects, and partly it's due to the accelerating issues of planning alternate technical developments. As we go further beyond OTL's tech level and explorations, we start to get to the point where things get very speculative on a tech level.
Yeah probably by the time of 1995 he is off the active list for flight. He would be 65 by then. Of course it is interesting that he worked to maintain his flight status until he retired. I would suspect that he would be assigned to the Artemis program office to work on aspects like suit design etc. after that program gets into full swing during the Gore administration. He would be one of the few people able to offer insights into how it is to work and live on the moon for 3-days. I agree about using non-OTL astronauts. I am struggling with the same thing in my timeline about what words to put in historical characters. Anyway the entire Schmitt discussion got me thinking, hey there is already a Moon-walker on the NASA payroll and he is a active astronaut unlike Schmitt.
I've just spotted e of pi has nominated me for a Turtledove Award in the "Other Artwork" category. I'd like to say a huge Thank-you to him and Workable Goblin for the nomination, for creating this wonderful timeline, and for letting me play with their toys! I'm very proud to be able to contribute .
I have of course returned the favour, Eyes being my favourite continuing timeline.
Now make sure to vote when the time comes!!
.I have of course returned the favour, Eyes being my favourite continuing timeline.
Now make sure to vote when the time comes!!
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As Project Artemis comes closer to landing on the Moon, a question occurred to me - will flags be planted, and if so, which? If missions do indeed include international astronauts, would they plant a flag for each of the crew's home nations? But then what about ESA? Should a French astronaut plant the French flag, or an ESA flag to recognise the combined efforts of all the member states? (It can't be an EU flag, assuming that exists ITTL, as ESA and the EU have different memberships, and ESA jealously guards its organisational independence from the EU). And what about other contributing nations that have no astronauts on that particular flight? Should Japan's contribution be ignored on those missions with no Japaneses moonwalkers?
They could just plant a UN flag, but would this be acceptable to the US taxpayers who are footing most of the bill? Even with Gore's internationalist credentials, the name of the UN is still probably mud with many Americans, and who knows what his successor in office will think of it. Plus most UN members have nothing to do with Artemis - and will probably loudly deplore the wasting of dollars in space instead of sending it to their governments as aid.
Given all this, I suspect many in NASA will want to drop the entire flag thing and save the payload for something more useful!
They could just plant a UN flag, but would this be acceptable to the US taxpayers who are footing most of the bill? Even with Gore's internationalist credentials, the name of the UN is still probably mud with many Americans, and who knows what his successor in office will think of it. Plus most UN members have nothing to do with Artemis - and will probably loudly deplore the wasting of dollars in space instead of sending it to their governments as aid.
Given all this, I suspect many in NASA will want to drop the entire flag thing and save the payload for something more useful!
Plant two flags. The US and UN one. I do not think the right wing fringe of the Republicans, both evangelical and libertarian, is as crazy and powerful in TL then it is in our own. I even doubt the Tea Party will come into being the same way it did in OTL.
There will be Japanese boots on the Moon I think.
Posted by e of pi
"They have only 24 seats to the moon on the six Artemis flights, of which several have to be pilots, and others have been traded to ESA, NASDA, and Russia for precursors collaboration"
Interestingly, while all six of the US flags planted during Apollo are still standing, they've all been faded to white by unfiltered UV light. The flags were not exactly high end material - NASA bought them for $5.50. Lowest bidder, I guess. Link: http://gizmodo.com/time-to-go-back-and-lay-a-more-permanent-claim-474080801
I think we have to deal with what's most plausible in this timeline, which is not all that different from ours yet. I think the authors have done a great job of that for the most part. Flag planting is a symbolic exercise, which can make it political in this context, even as it's clear that no one is actually staking a territorial claim, thanks to the Outer Space Treaty.
Whatever else is true, it won't be a UN flag - the UN had zero involvement in this project, and what strong domestic public sentiment there is in the US (which is providing the great majority of the funding, personnel, and hardware) about the UN is mostly negative. The authors might surprise me here, but I doubt it.
It strikes me that lunar expeditions of this complexion in the first years of a 21st century very like to ours would either a) plant a US flag and permit a foreign national astronaut to leave some national token as well of his or her country, if that nation agrees, or b) simply not bother with flags.
The Cold War is over, so the patriotic fervor will not be at the same fever pitch if the 60's, but it would still be strong in the wake of the airliner attacks that the authors have posited, a la post-9/11, so I do tend to think that there will be pressure on to plant some American flags.
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I've just spotted e of pi has nominated me for a Turtledove Award in the "Other Artwork" category. I'd like to say a huge Thank-you to him and Workable Goblin for the nomination, for creating this wonderful timeline, and for letting me play with their toys! I'm very proud to be able to contribute
I have of course returned the favour, Eyes being my favourite continuing timeline.
Now make sure to vote when the time comes!!
I just did. ETS and your CGI Arts are now nominated by myself.
As for the Flags, they could spread them out over the flights, in accordance with who's on each one. Not going to be an easy one though.
I've just spotted e of pi has nominated me for a Turtledove Award in the "Other Artwork" category. I'd like to say a huge Thank-you to him and Workable Goblin for the nomination, for creating this wonderful timeline, and for letting me play with their toys! I'm very proud to be able to contribute
I have of course returned the favour, Eyes being my favourite continuing timeline.
Now make sure to vote when the time comes!!
hell it's about time that happened !
i wish you good luck, Nixonhead !
Will there be a Mars Direct mission by 2014? Otherwise, it would be quite anticlimactic if it just ends there.
Maybe a flag with the ESA logo on it?
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On French is a matter of nationalism if they got a spationaute* to moon, he will put the french tricolor on it, BASTA !
on putting the EU flag on moon, i will see that Artemis EU meeting or better say cage fight between british, french, German etc…
but there was in OTL interesting EU meeting on march 25, 1998. the minister of science decided to form a European Astronaut Corps
so it could be that EU flag is put on moon to please all EU members...
* spationaute is official term by CNES for french astronaut
CNES had always be obstinate in independent ! see the first french spationaute went not in space shuttle in orbit, but with Soyuz to Salyut and Mir Station.
it was on after 1998 that the CNES spationaute corps was integrated in the European Astronaut Corps.
Extremely unlikely.
Their focus right now with Manned Spaceflight is on Freedom and Artemis meaning they have neither the time nor resources to dedicate to Manned Mars Missions. And I severely doubt it would be via Zubrin's Direct Profile, not least because of the limited space available for the 6-8.5 month return journey in the ERV - 50 m3 is a number I recall for it.
Interesting about that '98 meeting.
My guess, however, is that the only flags that get flown will be national ones, and they will reflect the personnel on a given mission (an Artemis expedition with three US astronauts and one French spationaute would thus see the planting of a US flag and a French tricolor); that's what people will fight for, not some ESA banner. Multinational expeditions to polar regions are probably a precedent here:
Which isn't to say that there might not also be some ESA plaque or equivalent left behind.
Would the flags be of the same size and height? Fair question. Whatever the arrangement, hopefully they'll invest in superior (fade resistant) flag technology this time around.
I agree - it's just too ambitious (read: too expensive) even for an Eyes Turned Skywards world. They'd have to gearing up the planning and preparation *now* in the late 90's, to reach it by 2014. 2020's seems like the earliest possible time frame.
More likely will be a permanent lunar base, if Congress can be cajoled into extending the funding past the first six sorties, at least man-tended if not permanent staffed. That would not be too shabby of a terminus point - especially if they find something useful there.