Aren't you kicking the Soviet shaggy dog too much into the balls, eh?
They got kicked pretty hard OTL...here they do dodge the Energia/Buran bullet, but in some ways that's worse: now instead of being able to just write everything they just did off and go back to Protons and Soyuzes, they have to stay with Vulkan and TKS. They've burned their bridges back...
Anyways, this is not the last gasp of the Russian program, I can assure you. They have places to go and things to do yet, oh yes.
Exactly.
Their country fell apart. There's no easy way to find a shiny side of that. It was going to be ugly no matter how their space program had been built (short of acquiring alien technology).
And the truth is, they had a considerably better 1980's in Eyes Turned Skywards than they did in our timeline. Well: Now the bill comes due. And they'll be paying it, one way or another, to New Delhi and Beijing.
In our timeline in 1992, Baikonur looked like a scrapyard, and the Mir they had up in orbit was acting like a scrapyard. The only advantage they had was that Soyuz is fairly cheap and easy to run.
That's for sure. The higher cost of operating the system relative to Soyuz/Progress with regards to Manned Spaceflight meaning that their already squeezed budget is going to be at breaking point. So it's little wonder their so eager to give the Indians and Chinese a lot of their tech if it means hard money for their cash-strapped programme.
It better not be. But to get going, they really need to get out of their economic slump.
In a somewhat-related point. Given that the Vulkan LV did change in design between the Part II end and Part III start of ETS. I can't help but think that the opening of the Soviet Propaganda machine's secrets is going to be revealing some details with respect to that - along with a whole lot of other stuff.
It made me very very sad. Iron-Eyes-Cody single tear sad.It's back!
Looks good. Sad to see Gagarin's Start burn up.
Also nauseous.
I certainly didn't notice anything like this OTL; it seems pride on all sides trumped cooperation.
That seemed very plainly the case...
Nice to hear that. But...
Aren't you kicking the Soviet shaggy dog too much into the balls, eh?
Now on one hand, there certainly was one aspect of the collapse of the USSR OTL that seems very easy to make different ITTL, that by implication the authors chose to simply carry over instead--the expulsion of Central Asia from union with Russia. OTL, the Soviet Union held Eastern Europe and the European "members" of the "voluntary federation" of the USSR in an iron and resented grip, and those peoples were, by the 1980s and indeed for decades before (arguably for every moment they were under Russian rule under any banner) wriggling very hard to get out of it. Barring a massive Soviet-Wank bringing the Union success on its socialist, anti-capitalist own Leninist terms (which I think perhaps possible and interesting to explore, but a definite long-shot requiring POD generations back) those regions could only remain in Moscow's orbit by sheer force and intimidation.
The Soviet Asian south on the other hand was a completely different matter. I suppose Georgia and perhaps Armenia come more or less under the European rubric of "captive nations yearning for freedom," but the post-collapse Central Asian nations to the east had very little in the way of organized, deep-rooted anti-Soviet sentiment. Certainly the rulers who took over these states OTL had no plans to secede; they were run by the same apparatchiks who were happy enough to serve within the Soviet system, by default in the absence of any major secession movement.
It was Russians in Moscow who decided, entirely on their own hook, to toss the Central Asians out, on the grounds that the USSR had been subsidizing their economies for decades.
This was true enough, but it was also of course because the central planners had dictated certain economic roles for the region and the developmental imbalance Moscow had imposed pretty much required certain resources had to come from outside the region.
Just cutting them loose like that strikes me as amazingly short-sighted, particularly from a strategic point of view.
Therefore I think the authors may have missed an opportunity for a quite different outcome in Central Asia, given the greater relative importance of the Soviet/Russian space program, or just a slightly different roll of the dice regarding the mood of the people who newly occupied the Kremlin under Yeltsin.
Now it may be that Boris Yeltsin himself was one man who felt very strongly the widespread Russian sentiment that the Central Asians were a drag on potential Russian development, in which case keeping the Asian republics in union with Russia might have required deeper changes, such as a different successor to Gorbachev, and I quite understand not wanting to go there. And indeed, keeping Central Asia would pose some awkward challenges--in the short run for sure, and perhaps indefinitely, there would be some economic drain that perhaps would not be made up in the longer run by economic reorganization of the republics. Not to mention the very name and organization of the government that would unite the separate republics--Soviet Union no more! of course, so what exactly? It worked out pretty neatly, aside from the strategic abandonment of their entire southern tier of buffer territory
, to just have a giant Russian Republic and ignore the farce of the "Commonwealth of Independent States;" here the CIS or something with a more aggressively unionist name would have to become a functional thing, or else Russia would have to aggressively incorporate the Central Asians into itself.So I can see the Russians had their reasons OTL, but I felt the need to remind everyone that unlike losing the Baltic nations and Ukraine, the "loss" of Central Asia was entirely Moscow's choice OTL and would be here too. If they'd hung on instead the launch sites would be securely inside Greater Russia or whatever they'd call it (assuming the thing held together) and if the space infrastructure was not worth thinking about, I remain mouth-open amazed that Russians of all people would simply toss away a defensive buffer region they spent centuries acquiring control of, and in a timeline where they didn't do that it would seem only sensible given the historical Russian character.
So yes, the USSR fell apart, and in many important senses it was pretty much inevitable it would collapse and I can't fault the authors on rolling with it. But I still think they "lost" Central Asia in their own bigoted hissy fit and that could have gone otherwise.
------
The bigger issue is, how can Russia, with or without Central Asian resources (and admittedly, albatrosses around their neck too) possibly afford a space program that relies on rockets and spacecraft that are inherently more costly (if more capable) than the OTL R-7/Soyuz complex? The space program itself will not return a profit on investment. Obviously here we have the Chinese and Indians stepping in to subsidize it somewhat, but the motive of each is to transfer the capabilities to themselves and build up their own programs.
A path I can see is that the cooperation being laid down here in space launch capability opens up channels for cooperation in other endeavors, and a general pattern of Chinese/Indian/Russian partnership develops that leaves Russia substantially better off than OTL. This would be quite a feat not only because of long-standing hostility between Russia and China but also because there is quite a lot of rivalry between India and China as well, to the point of there being unresolved territorial claims in Kashmir that last time I looked were not yet settled and involved shooting. Not to mention the whole thing about China taking over Tibet!
So it seems unlikely; China would be the wayward partner everyone else watches nervously, and also relative to OTL China stands to lose, unless synergies in the partnership mean more development in both Russia and India that China gets a share of too, via more trade perhaps, or a faster pace of technical development. Of course the Chinese, and no one else, would not know how they would fare OTL, and can hardly measure by the benchmark of matching or exceeding their OTL growth and rising influence. If China does in fact happen to match OTL wealth development but the Russians and Indians do better China's relative political influence would be less, as would be her prestige. And they might all do worse collectively, with the Russians and/or Indians somewhat better off and the Chinese a bit worse off--the Chinese deficit bringing down the average more than the other partners' bonuses raise them--and yet the Chinese might figure they came out ahead, if not compared to some China-Wank imaginary timeline (that we happen to live in
) than in terms of their past.Short of that, I don't see how Russia can expect to do better than OTL and therefore have the glories of her own in space Workable Goblin assures us still lie ahead. OTL Yeltsin's Western backers encouraged the Russians to believe that all they had to do was ditch their creaky, rusty old Stalinist command economy and industry on a private basis would inevitably and certainly raise the economic performance and leave everyone better off--but I have little faith in the "magic of the marketplace" and Russia's stagnation on the margins is one reason for this sort of pessimism.
Japan's fate is another--I can see how Japan was headed for some degree of retrenchment as the 80's global bubble burst--as it did here in fact--but not how they never came back from that. Japan's wealth, however leveraged it might have been by aggressive investments overseas, was founded on the solid basis of production of quality goods at competitive prices, and if a nation like that can be sidelined for two successive growth cycles and show little sign yet of coming back to her respectable status of the 1960s and '70s, that rather tends to deflate any faith in the notion of capitalism as a meritocracy.
OTL I suppose that Japan is stuck in the doldrums in part because China is stealing her wind as it were, having taken her place, and also the Southeast Asian nations have moved into that niche as well.
Well, I don't suppose Chinese and Malaysians and Indonesians and Thais are any less deserving than the Japanese are, so I don't mean any kind of anti-capitalist rant here; I'm open to paraphrasing Churchill (on democracy versus other forms of government) and granting that capitalism is a terrible system--except it is better than all the others!
My point is, Russia was and still is a mess OTL, and can hardly afford what the author has suggested, unless they catch some kind of major break ITTL. And the Sino-Indian-Russian consortium I mentioned seems mighty improbable and problematic if it actually happens (it might become less so with success of course). But something has to help the Russians out, and if it is simply "The Magic of the Marketplace Works Here!" I will roll my eyes endlessly. At the very least--I will ask, "At whose expense?"
note on Shevek23 remarks of USSR collapse
i faced same problem in "Ronald Reagan's Space Exploration Initiative"
so i had to way back in past of year 1968 were Leonid Brezhnev is assassinated by a Policemen, Alexei Kosygin becomes new General Secretary.
this Soviet union will collapse also under struggle of Reformer and Conservative force in politbureau 1978-1991.
but on economic is much different as OTL, the economist and reform leaders realize, if they want to survived they have to stick to old economic system.
and stay together in Union of Sovereign States, of curse the Baltic State and Georgia seek independence (also on economic )
only to find there self "out side the system" and remorseful return into USS after socialists won the local election.
Boris Yeltsin martyred to Saint Boris liberator of Russia, as he die in Moscow during the putsch.
and USS got a Space-agency, but not budget to run it properly, but found friends in France, India and in some level in China.
but found a way of get Money: "Orbital Billboards" and Spacelab mission with Buran Shuttle
and now back to Eyes turned Skywards...
i faced same problem in "Ronald Reagan's Space Exploration Initiative"
so i had to way back in past of year 1968 were Leonid Brezhnev is assassinated by a Policemen, Alexei Kosygin becomes new General Secretary.
this Soviet union will collapse also under struggle of Reformer and Conservative force in politbureau 1978-1991.
but on economic is much different as OTL, the economist and reform leaders realize, if they want to survived they have to stick to old economic system.
and stay together in Union of Sovereign States, of curse the Baltic State and Georgia seek independence (also on economic )
only to find there self "out side the system" and remorseful return into USS after socialists won the local election.
Boris Yeltsin martyred to Saint Boris liberator of Russia, as he die in Moscow during the putsch.
and USS got a Space-agency, but not budget to run it properly, but found friends in France, India and in some level in China.
but found a way of get Money: "Orbital Billboards" and Spacelab mission with Buran Shuttle
and now back to Eyes turned Skywards...
Archibald
Banned
And in my own space TL (I may post it someday on this board, if finished) I also faced the same issue.
To make a long story short, Polyus and the 1991 coup share a certain person. His name: Oleg Baklanov. Without US shuttle there's no soviet shuttle and no Energia. Which in turns impact Polyus (or the alternate variant of it flying a N-1F) and thus Baklanov.
The end result of all this was that the (unavoidable) coup against Gorbachev happened three years earlier, and Nikolai Ryzhkov replaced Boris "I love my vodka" Yeltsin as Russia strong man after USSR collapse. I felt Ryzhkov couldn't be worse that Yeltsin, but I'm stalled there so far.
To make a long story short, Polyus and the 1991 coup share a certain person. His name: Oleg Baklanov. Without US shuttle there's no soviet shuttle and no Energia. Which in turns impact Polyus (or the alternate variant of it flying a N-1F) and thus Baklanov.
The end result of all this was that the (unavoidable) coup against Gorbachev happened three years earlier, and Nikolai Ryzhkov replaced Boris "I love my vodka" Yeltsin as Russia strong man after USSR collapse. I felt Ryzhkov couldn't be worse that Yeltsin, but I'm stalled there so far.
I never said the Russians would be going places on their own...
(By the way, no one, even NASA, is doing that...)
Hello Shevek,
Let's talk about butterflies:
Indeed, I think it's not only understandable, but the most plausible, assessment of possible butterflies resulting from shifts in space exploration planning in the U.S. and Europe in the 1967-1971 period. The authors assume that the larger political, economic and social butterflies will be minimal if not vanishingly small, and I think it's a heavy burden to carry to say that they're wrong. As much as all of us here are space boosters, I think we all recognize how very marginal the impact of space exploration has been to the larger world, at least outside the realm of global satellite communications.
Now, I *did* note on the previous page growing reservations I have been having about what I think might be the most plausible larger butterfly: the danger that "Vulkan Panic" would intensify the Cold War crises of 1981-1984, particularly the Able Archer 83 crisis, perhaps to fatal levels - and then we're all living in Giobastia's world. I'm still back and forth on that, however, and I'm not prepared to vigorously press the ETS authors on that point; the weight of plausibility still rests with their assumptions.
But as for the odds of the dissolution of the USSR taking a significantly different path because NASA's "Space Station Decision," they seem fairly small to me. I don't think they have any obligation to achieve an optimal outcome for Russian power and space exploration prospects, and indeed, it would bear a very high risk of damaging the plausibility of their story. The odds are very much in favor of very bad outcomes for Russia in emerging from communist rule, I'm afraid. In some ways, Russia's lucky it wasn't even worse.
Which is a shame, because I actually do agree with you that Boris Yeltsin really did play a critical role in how the post-Soviet world we have come to know came to be shaped. And it wasn't just Russo- or Slavophilic chauvinism (say, of the Solzhenitsyn sort), or excessive deprecation of the burden of keeping Central Asian republics inside the Russian fold. Yeltsin's entire power base was inside the RSFSR; he had no chance, no political base, inside the declining Soviet national political and party systems (at least not after 1987). For him to succeed, the Union had to die, and die quickly. Any attempt to carve out a super-Russian rump state would cut against that power base. For Yeltsin, the choice was to win as leader of an independent RSFSR-based Russia, or not to win at all. And I'm not at all sure that I can say that he was far wrong in that calculation.
Which leaves us with the other most plausible rival: Ryzhkov. Ryzhkov probably *would* have had the inclination, and the best power base, for preserving some larger post-Soviet rump state. The problem is that it's far less apparent to me that he would have defeated the 1991 coup (especially after his 1990 heart attack), or at least survived it. He's not the sort I can see standing on a tank in Moscow screaming defiance.
In conclusion, then, I'm not denying the possibility of a Soviet dissolution that takes a significantly different path, one that keeps more of the old Union together. The problem is that it requires a considerably different dynamic, one that almost certainly excludes Boris Yeltsin, and I just don't see any obvious way that the different direction of superpower space exploration is likely to foster.
Which leaves Russia in an ugly cleft, and not just in its space program:
I think the ETS authors have made some plausible assumptions in the Indian and Chinese involvement here. What I worry about is whether they fully appreciate just how difficult this three-partner dance is going to be, given the Sino-Indian rivalry. The cultural dynamic on Mir is about to get...very interesting.
But as for Russia, it really has very little choice if it wants to save any kind of space program at all beyond a small satellite-launch business rump. Glushko's success in his Vulkan-TKS-MOK program had the very ironic effect that Bahamut points out - they're stuck with a larger, more complex, more expensive system to maintain. And what's worse, they're basically deprived of the space program partner they had in our timeline: Bill Clinton's United States. And with Japan and the ESA retrenching and already neck deep in alliance with NASA, the only remaining great powers with the interest and the means to save ROSCOSMOS are...India and China.
Really, Chelomei is over a barrel here, and everyone knows it. He's had to make a deal with the devil - two devils, in fact. Because even with their capital infusion, the Russian space program as it existed in 1991 is simply not sustainable. Especially not as the Russian economy continues its implosion under the hammering of Yeltsin and Gaidar's shock therapy in the 90's. Mir in this timeline is a more robust and impressive station than the one in ours (just as TKS is a more impressive crewed vehicle than Soyuz) but it also requires more resources; and the moment the Chinese decide they've extracted enough from Russian technology, my guess is they'll pull out, and Mir won't survive it. Even keeping TKS and Vulkan in minimal operation will be hard enough, even after the petro-dollars start rolling in in the 2000's.
Let's talk about butterflies:
Indeed, I think it's not only understandable, but the most plausible, assessment of possible butterflies resulting from shifts in space exploration planning in the U.S. and Europe in the 1967-1971 period. The authors assume that the larger political, economic and social butterflies will be minimal if not vanishingly small, and I think it's a heavy burden to carry to say that they're wrong. As much as all of us here are space boosters, I think we all recognize how very marginal the impact of space exploration has been to the larger world, at least outside the realm of global satellite communications.
Now, I *did* note on the previous page growing reservations I have been having about what I think might be the most plausible larger butterfly: the danger that "Vulkan Panic" would intensify the Cold War crises of 1981-1984, particularly the Able Archer 83 crisis, perhaps to fatal levels - and then we're all living in Giobastia's world. I'm still back and forth on that, however, and I'm not prepared to vigorously press the ETS authors on that point; the weight of plausibility still rests with their assumptions.
But as for the odds of the dissolution of the USSR taking a significantly different path because NASA's "Space Station Decision," they seem fairly small to me. I don't think they have any obligation to achieve an optimal outcome for Russian power and space exploration prospects, and indeed, it would bear a very high risk of damaging the plausibility of their story. The odds are very much in favor of very bad outcomes for Russia in emerging from communist rule, I'm afraid. In some ways, Russia's lucky it wasn't even worse.
Which is a shame, because I actually do agree with you that Boris Yeltsin really did play a critical role in how the post-Soviet world we have come to know came to be shaped. And it wasn't just Russo- or Slavophilic chauvinism (say, of the Solzhenitsyn sort), or excessive deprecation of the burden of keeping Central Asian republics inside the Russian fold. Yeltsin's entire power base was inside the RSFSR; he had no chance, no political base, inside the declining Soviet national political and party systems (at least not after 1987). For him to succeed, the Union had to die, and die quickly. Any attempt to carve out a super-Russian rump state would cut against that power base. For Yeltsin, the choice was to win as leader of an independent RSFSR-based Russia, or not to win at all. And I'm not at all sure that I can say that he was far wrong in that calculation.
Which leaves us with the other most plausible rival: Ryzhkov. Ryzhkov probably *would* have had the inclination, and the best power base, for preserving some larger post-Soviet rump state. The problem is that it's far less apparent to me that he would have defeated the 1991 coup (especially after his 1990 heart attack), or at least survived it. He's not the sort I can see standing on a tank in Moscow screaming defiance.
In conclusion, then, I'm not denying the possibility of a Soviet dissolution that takes a significantly different path, one that keeps more of the old Union together. The problem is that it requires a considerably different dynamic, one that almost certainly excludes Boris Yeltsin, and I just don't see any obvious way that the different direction of superpower space exploration is likely to foster.
Which leaves Russia in an ugly cleft, and not just in its space program:
I think the ETS authors have made some plausible assumptions in the Indian and Chinese involvement here. What I worry about is whether they fully appreciate just how difficult this three-partner dance is going to be, given the Sino-Indian rivalry. The cultural dynamic on Mir is about to get...very interesting.
But as for Russia, it really has very little choice if it wants to save any kind of space program at all beyond a small satellite-launch business rump. Glushko's success in his Vulkan-TKS-MOK program had the very ironic effect that Bahamut points out - they're stuck with a larger, more complex, more expensive system to maintain. And what's worse, they're basically deprived of the space program partner they had in our timeline: Bill Clinton's United States. And with Japan and the ESA retrenching and already neck deep in alliance with NASA, the only remaining great powers with the interest and the means to save ROSCOSMOS are...India and China.
Really, Chelomei is over a barrel here, and everyone knows it. He's had to make a deal with the devil - two devils, in fact. Because even with their capital infusion, the Russian space program as it existed in 1991 is simply not sustainable. Especially not as the Russian economy continues its implosion under the hammering of Yeltsin and Gaidar's shock therapy in the 90's. Mir in this timeline is a more robust and impressive station than the one in ours (just as TKS is a more impressive crewed vehicle than Soyuz) but it also requires more resources; and the moment the Chinese decide they've extracted enough from Russian technology, my guess is they'll pull out, and Mir won't survive it. Even keeping TKS and Vulkan in minimal operation will be hard enough, even after the petro-dollars start rolling in in the 2000's.
Hello e of pi, workable goblin,
All right - I have some questions worked up now, if you don't mind:
1. Freedom once finished now has the two additional solar panel trusses added, making a total of four units (16 total panels) as we have on the ISS, right?
2. Are the Russians talking here about a straight up licensing of the RD-161 engine to India? What's the spec differences in the sea-level variant, if you do not mind my asking?
3. Have you worked out the power situation on Mir, especially as the solar panels deteriorate, given the need to support the additional DOS laboratory the Chinese are taking over? (I know we have discussed this before. But I'm curious if you're ready to provide hard numbers on this now.) And is there a timeline for when the DOS lab is going to be launched?
4. What will be the crew complement on Mir going forward in the 90's, once the Indian and Chinese deals start to deliver concrete results? You have three cosmonauts on skeleton crew watch now. Now there's going to be at least one Indian cosmonaut and one Chinese taikonaut on board at all times, right? You're going to need a crew of at least six for any remotely worthwhile research program up there....
5. Is the second MOK module really a dead deal now? (I'm guessing: Yes.)
6. What's the tempo for Freedom Expeditions? It looks like you're sticking with the Spacelab tempo of 3 per annum, right? I assume that FE4 happened in late 1989, and FE5 and FE6 happened in early and mid-1990, yes?
7. This is more a question that you already planned to answer, but...how long do you anticipate Harrison Schmitt staying in charge at NASA into the Clinton Administration? He's a very "political" Republican, given his Senate career and I wonder how awkward it will be for him to work with Clinton and Gore.
I hope you're building in some delays and budget declines - modest, we can hope - as the Clinton Administration takes over, given the budget-cutting mood on the Hill (and the political deadlock after the 1994 GOP takeover, which I assume happens here as well). It's fair to ask how invested Clinton and Gore will feel in what looks like a Bush legacy in Constellation. Freedom is already a going concern, with lots of international involvement so they can't touch that...but Constellation will still exist largely on paper in 1993.
If NASA is smart, it will play up the Kennedy connection in everything it does to promote Constellation - Clinton was always sensitive to himself as JFK's heir. I expect to see a John Glenn stint on Freedom looking into geriatrics in microgravity, sooner rather than later...
All right - I have some questions worked up now, if you don't mind:
1. Freedom once finished now has the two additional solar panel trusses added, making a total of four units (16 total panels) as we have on the ISS, right?
2. Are the Russians talking here about a straight up licensing of the RD-161 engine to India? What's the spec differences in the sea-level variant, if you do not mind my asking?
3. Have you worked out the power situation on Mir, especially as the solar panels deteriorate, given the need to support the additional DOS laboratory the Chinese are taking over? (I know we have discussed this before. But I'm curious if you're ready to provide hard numbers on this now.) And is there a timeline for when the DOS lab is going to be launched?
4. What will be the crew complement on Mir going forward in the 90's, once the Indian and Chinese deals start to deliver concrete results? You have three cosmonauts on skeleton crew watch now. Now there's going to be at least one Indian cosmonaut and one Chinese taikonaut on board at all times, right? You're going to need a crew of at least six for any remotely worthwhile research program up there....
5. Is the second MOK module really a dead deal now? (I'm guessing: Yes.)
6. What's the tempo for Freedom Expeditions? It looks like you're sticking with the Spacelab tempo of 3 per annum, right? I assume that FE4 happened in late 1989, and FE5 and FE6 happened in early and mid-1990, yes?
7. This is more a question that you already planned to answer, but...how long do you anticipate Harrison Schmitt staying in charge at NASA into the Clinton Administration? He's a very "political" Republican, given his Senate career and I wonder how awkward it will be for him to work with Clinton and Gore.
I hope you're building in some delays and budget declines - modest, we can hope - as the Clinton Administration takes over, given the budget-cutting mood on the Hill (and the political deadlock after the 1994 GOP takeover, which I assume happens here as well). It's fair to ask how invested Clinton and Gore will feel in what looks like a Bush legacy in Constellation. Freedom is already a going concern, with lots of international involvement so they can't touch that...but Constellation will still exist largely on paper in 1993.
If NASA is smart, it will play up the Kennedy connection in everything it does to promote Constellation - Clinton was always sensitive to himself as JFK's heir. I expect to see a John Glenn stint on Freedom looking into geriatrics in microgravity, sooner rather than later...
Hello Athelstane.
I believe I can answer at least some of the questions you have. If they're incorrect, could you correct them E and WG? No offence intended to the three involved.
Well I recall E stating that the RD-160 ITTL is the Single-engine single-chamber high-altitude/vacuum version of the RD-150 - which is a single-engine dual-chamber sea-level biased engine. So I suspect that having 50% the sea-level and vacuum thrust of the RD-150 for the RD-161 would be a reasonable guess at this point in time. Though it's quite believable that they may try to up the thrust a bit - similar to how the RD-170 had 1815 KN per chamber yet the RD-180 has 1986 KN per chamber IIRC.
Well OTL Mir had about 30 KW on tap at any time and so was starved of power for most of it's life. TTL Mir has 140 KW for the time being so I suspect that electricity-wise, they'll be okay for a few years. I do see powering the fourth DOS Module as being something within its capabilities.
Most likely. No money available for at least another two decades is my best guess.
I recall mentioning this before - somewhere in the past 40 pages. With Freedom being a well established and fully functional station in the mid-90's, there's far less risk involved in sending John Glenn to Freedom - as opposed to his short trip on STS IOTL. It's certainly a good publicity move with not too much increased risk.
I believe I can answer at least some of the questions you have. If they're incorrect, could you correct them E and WG? No offence intended to the three involved.
Well I recall E stating that the RD-160 ITTL is the Single-engine single-chamber high-altitude/vacuum version of the RD-150 - which is a single-engine dual-chamber sea-level biased engine. So I suspect that having 50% the sea-level and vacuum thrust of the RD-150 for the RD-161 would be a reasonable guess at this point in time. Though it's quite believable that they may try to up the thrust a bit - similar to how the RD-170 had 1815 KN per chamber yet the RD-180 has 1986 KN per chamber IIRC.
Well OTL Mir had about 30 KW on tap at any time and so was starved of power for most of it's life. TTL Mir has 140 KW for the time being so I suspect that electricity-wise, they'll be okay for a few years. I do see powering the fourth DOS Module as being something within its capabilities.
Most likely. No money available for at least another two decades is my best guess.
I recall mentioning this before - somewhere in the past 40 pages. With Freedom being a well established and fully functional station in the mid-90's, there's far less risk involved in sending John Glenn to Freedom - as opposed to his short trip on STS IOTL. It's certainly a good publicity move with not too much increased risk.
It's not just a paper study, it's actively under development. We'll get to that more in the next Ops post, but basically they're bringing Russia onboard to speed up their manufacturing timetable and increase the quality of the final product. The goal for them is a ~1995 introduction off the top of my head--I'd need to check our back end timeline to give more details and I can't load Docs where I am.
Something happened to it when I copied it out of the google doc--it inserted a bunch of font tags I didn't have in there, and converted everything to eensy weensy Arial. No idea why, it's never done that before, but I got it cleaned up. Is that better?
It's, well, inspired by bits of OTL. India builds French engines under license for their PSLVs and GSLVs. Meanwhile, IOTL, Russia's in a partnership with South Korea supplying Angara first stages as the first stage of SK's Naro launcher. The arrangement here is something of a combination--India would want licensing options, and Russia seems like they'd be in no position to refuse--and hopefully India will put off that for a while so Russia can milk the contract.
Not quite as much as you might think. Soyuz at Korou, Russian stages supplied under license to South Korea and American companies, and Japan's license-built Delta clones.
This is basically it. India, Russia, and China aren't forming some kind of ESA-style alliance--Russia is desperately selling every technology it can to anyone who'll buy to preserve their cashflow. India and China happen to be two of those buyers, but to paraphrase the 70 Maxims, the business partner of my business partners is my partner's partner--nothing more.
Nope, I don't mind. Have some (though not all) your answers.
Total of four units, yes. IIRC< they're slightly larger than OTL's station, though.
It's a deal a lot like the OTL RD-180 deal with the US--they'll supply them in the short term, while also providing supporting materials to allow for native production. India, though, seems a bit more likely to actually take that ability and run with it, unlike the OTL RD-180 deal where Aerojet was pretty willing to just take their middleman markup and pass Russian engins along to ULA.
The hard numbers are someplace in the thread, I'd need to dig it up, but it's as Bahamut-225 says: they're far better off than OTL Mir even was, even with all four DOS labs. As for the Chinese DOS< it's to fly sometime in the mid-90s.
We'll get to crew complement in the relevent Ops post, the one '92-'95ish. That's post 10 or so, IIRC. Basically, though, the goal is 6--first bulked out with a couple Indian cosmonauts, then the Chinese--there won't be Indians and Chinese onboard at the same time.
It's still on the ground, in storage. It'd be a billion to a couple billion to outfit and launch it, and neither the Chinese nor the Indians can afford that for a station neither can currently access themselves.
Four per anum, like ISS: a crew stays up for six months, the crews rotate in staggered patterns. (So you fly up, the crew you're replacing comes down, then three months into your stay the other "old" section rotates.)
There's a lot here I can't get into in full detail. It's interesting thoughts, anyway, even if there's some bum assumptions.
Oh, by the way, about the fire at Gagarin's Start, it's inspired by reading this Jim Oberg article about Russia IOTL after the Fall. Se the mentions of bad fire suppression and fires in working space and on pads? That's what I was inspired by. And, ITTL, Gagarin's Start is no longer an active pad, the launches of remaining R-7 family vehicles are all unmanned polar stuff moved to Plesetsk. They're too proud to say they're not going to be using it again for quite a while (it's in the plan to use it for Russian Neva launches, the launcher India's helping pay to build.) so they don't stand it down properly, but they also aren't using it, so when the maintenance funds come up short (as they are every month), they defer the work needed by the inactive LC-1. And finally...it catches up.
Archibald
Banned
We space geeks just went for a better space program and ended up blowing the planet, damn it.
Same issue for me, with KAL-007. OTL Larry McDonald was aboard, but there was also a host of caricatural conservatives dic*heads on the next Boeing (KE-015 that made it safely to Seoul) all this because August 1983 marked the ceasefire 30th anniversary, a great victory against those pesky commies that had to be celebrated with the brave koreans heros.
So I had Jesse Helms joining McDonald aboard KAL-007 with another one, but then realized that three senators dead (even top grade idiots) is perhaps a little too much to swallow for Reagan's America - enough to raise tensions to a point where Stanislas Petrov may blow the planet three weeks later (butterflies !)
Last edited:
Or, worse, the Protect and Survive universe (read that if you think Giobastia's TL is dystopic).
You know, I had that exact same thought: How ironic would that be - our shrewder space strategy ends up inadvertently triggering Armageddon 13 years later.
Maybe God was looking out for us - saving our skins by saddling us with the Space Shuttle....
A minor continuity note: while adding Freedom launches to the wiki, I realized I was off by one on my calculations. The FE-7 crew fly in July 1990, not October. Other than the date of their press conference with Shepard, this changes nothing else (they're still on station for the events crew members are mentioned in relation to). I apologize for letting this slip through.
By the way, we'd appreciate the help getting the new date page formatted properly--Athelstane's done a nice job with his, but the wiki doesn't have that yet. The markup is pretty easy, but time consuming, so I can't do it all myself. Any assistance would be appreciated!
By the way, we'd appreciate the help getting the new date page formatted properly--Athelstane's done a nice job with his, but the wiki doesn't have that yet. The markup is pretty easy, but time consuming, so I can't do it all myself. Any assistance would be appreciated!
Last edited:
e of pi,
Well, I can see I bollixed up the Freedom construction/crewing timeline pretty bad...
I think I see what you mean now, if indeed crew launches are staggered every three months apart (with three month overlaps) once the station goes to full capacity.
So here's what I have for a Freedom timeline, Does this sound right to you?
Code:
1988
July 1988 Test Launch of Saturn H03
Oct 1988 Launch of Freedom Module Challenger
Oct 1988 Freedom Expedition 1 launch
1989
Early 1989 Node 1, Truss 1 added
Apr 1989 Freedom Expedition 2 launch
Summer 1989 Discovery, Columbus, Truss 2 added
Aug 1989 Initial Operational Capacity
Aug 1989 Freedom Expedition 3 launch, Crew Size increased to 10
Oct 1989 Freedom Expedition 4 launch
1990
Jan 1990 Freedom Expedition 5 launch
Early 1990 Node 2 + Cupola
Apr 1990 Freedom Expedition 6 launch
July 1990 Freedom Expedition 7 launch
Aug 1990 Truss 3 added
Oct 1990 Freedom Expedition 8 launch
Nov 1990 Centrifuge Gravity Lab added
1991
Jan 1991 Freedom Expedition 9 launch
Apr 1991 Freedom Expedition 10 launch
Jun 1991 Japanese Kibo Module attached to Space Station Freedom; the attachment of Kibo completes the assembly of Space Station Freedom
July 1991 Freedom Expedition 11 launch
Oct 1991 Freedom Expedition 12 launchI don't see anything on when Truss 4 gets added, but I'm guessing it has to be late 1990 or early 1991. Right?
As for the Wiki page - I don't have time to help out on that just yet, but I can pitch in when I do. Do be sure that I haven't made any other mistakes. I'm also not attached to any of the styling that I used; it was just the best I could come up with.
Last edited:
Yeah. Like I said, it's a lot like ISS that way.
Look at the wiki, it's on there now: Feb 1991.
Well, the colors were useful, I thought.
Yes. But the station sure gets assembled much more quickly!
Ah - I see it.
I'm updating and tweaking the timeline on the post on the last page. I keep finding minor mistakes and tweaks to fix. I'd like to keep the fine-tuning there until I'm sure I'm where we need to be before moving on to the Wiki.
Very good.