How Silent Fall the Cherry Blossoms
- Thread starter Geon
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No-one has anything to say about the possibility of the ISS having a polar orbit ITTL?
Geon
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No-one has anything to say about the possibility of the ISS having a polar orbit ITTL?
Wouldn't that be somewhat dangerous even in TTL?
Geon
No-one has anything to say about the possibility of the ISS having a polar orbit ITTL?
It's implausible because of the severe mass penalty for launching things into highly inclined orbits and because of the excessive radiation exposure it would entail for the crew and systems.
I was asking because of the GNU/FS having to fly to the ISS ITTL, so it would help them get to the station if it was launched into a polar orbit, allowing GNU/FS spacecraft to simply launch up to the station, as opposed to having to either make several orbital adjustments over a relatively long period of time or launch into a polar orbit anyway and then do a gradual radical orbit change when nearing the ISS's orbit; the increased mass penalty for launching the ISS into a polar orbit would be more than offset by the much decreased mass penalty for launching all those GNU/FS spacecraft towards a low-orbital-inclination ISS>
Geon
Donor
Why?
During the Cold War both sides largely refrained from launching satellites into Polar orbits. They could too easily mimic an ICBM course hence the rationale for the Fractional Orbital Bomb System. I think, though others may correct me on this that for the most part both Russia and the U.S. avoided launching satellites on polar orbital trajectories for this reason.
Geon
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How odd that "things getting better" in what used to be Germany will depend on Goering resurfacing and telling them where Adolf is buried.
One, why are you writing in red? It's a little irritating to look at.
Two, that only matters if the Nordics are part of the station in the first place and not part of some larger organization that has a low-latitude launch site. Remember, Freedom was supposed to be at a 28.5 degree orbit...and ESA included (and includes) both Sweden and Switzerland. The former was even somewhat important with several projects and sounding rocket launches. It's quite possible, even likely, that they would join ESA (which, note, does not include the United States and has, at multiple points, clashed with them--so by no means a pawn of America) or some analogous organization and gain access to French or British launch sites at near-Equatorial latitudes. They would in fact fit rather neatly in as a substitute for the OTL role of Germany in ESA.
No, actually they put a ton of satellites into polar or near-polar orbits (one of the two major US launch sites, Vandenberg AFB, essentially does nothing else). Polar orbits are the only ones that let you see the whole Earth over a short span of time, so they're very important for things like weather satellites or reconnaissance satellites. Quasi-polar (rather, highly inclined, but not truly polar) highly elliptical Molniya orbits were very important for communications as well, since they were the only ones that would allow communication to very northerly locations like the Soviet Union (which was important for the US as well, because they wanted to intercept communications from the Soviet Union and talk to their low-orbit spy satellites).
Geon
Donor
Okay, I stand corrected, I had read something to the effect that polar orbits were not used. My mistake.
Geon
http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/Operations/POES/index.html
I use their products every day for my applications
The US did launch south rather than north, partly to avoid tthat problem. And partly because there was open ocean to the south. Its possible thats what you read?
I dont know what trajectory the Soviet polar (and Molynia) satellites were launched on.
North. To the south of Baikonur is Pakistan or Iran, where there were American listening posts. To the south of Plesetsk is Turkey...
I still think you are overdoing it with the Nordic ("..and we are nuclear and also not members of NATO! Suck up our *PEEP*!") wank. If you want to still have it I would create a contra-wank in the form of massivelly beefing up the Soviet and American industry and military.
I actually kinda agree with this assessment.
Geon
Donor
Part 3 of German Update
Here is part 3 of the German update. I'm dealing here with the Nuremburg Trials. This section may also explain why the Scandinavian Federation got such a boost scientifically.
Geon
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The Nuremburg Trials:
The Nuremburg Trials would begin in November of 1946. The purpose according to the Allies was to bring to justice those members of the Third Reich’s government, military, and scientific community who had committed “crimes against humanity.” The purpose according to many Germans was to punish Germany period. The judges for the trial were initially planned to come from the major allied nations. However, at the request of the developing Scandinavian Federation a judge was allowed to sit on the panel from that group of nations as well.
The trials would come in several stages; first the trial of senior civilian leaders of the Reich which lasted from November 1946 to June 1947 and ended with most of the defendants (Frick, Frank, etc.) being sentenced to death with the exception of Rudolph Hess who was sentenced to life imprisonment and Karl Raeder who was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Only one senior civilian leader of the Third Reich was acquitted and this was Hjalmar Schacht.
The second stage of the Nuremburg Trials would last from June, 1947 through the end of December. Several judges and lawyers who had been responsible for condemning their fellow Germans to terrible fates were tried and found guilty. In this phase while there were no acquittals there also were no executions. However all of those found guilty in this trial would end up staying in Spandau Prison for very long prison sentences; some would spend the remainder of their lives there.
The third stage of the trials would be for the military leaders of the Reich. Many both in and out of Germany questioned the legality of bringing military leaders to trial for crimes committed by the military in a civilian court. But it was decided that a civilian court would decide the fate of the generals simply because they had been responsible for so many civilian deaths especially by their indiscriminate use of poison gas toward the end of the war. The “General’s Trial” as it would be called resulted in most of Germany’s finest generals being condemned either to life imprisonment (Guderian, Model, etc.) or death (Jodl, von Rundstedt, etc).
The final stage of the trial was the so-called “Scientist Trial” which lasted from January 1948 through May and included not only those who had conducted horrifying medical experiments on inmates in concentration camps but other scientists who had used slave labor or had helped to manufacture “weapons of mass destruction” which were later used against civilians. Among those in the docket was Dr. Werner von Braun. Many in the Allied nations believed von Braun and those that worked with him should see the short end of a noose for the part they had played in Operation Trojan Victory and the use of V1s and V2s during the war on civilian targets. Many of the justices privately would write later that they would have had no problems sending the men who built the weapons that had hit Paris, Philadelphia, and Oslo to their deaths. However, to the surprise of all not one rocket scientist was condemned to death. Rather all would receive life sentences. Most of the medical scientists on the other hand were sentenced to death. Among the “mad doctors,” as they would be called in the media only a handful managed to survive with life sentences.
The fact that not one of the rocket or atomic scientists received either the death sentence, a reduced sentence nor was acquitted might seem puzzling until you added in a simple but very ugly little word – blackmail. By a prior agreement (the one made with Stalin and later modified to include the Scandinavian nations) it was agreed the scientists would be equally divided among the victors. The knowledge of the rocket and atomic scientists was simply too valuable.
The convicted were given a simple choice. They could accept their sentences and remain for the rest of their lives in Spandau Prison with not even paper and pencil to continue their work or they could accept the offer of a “more comfortable confinement” in exchange for working for one of the victorious allied nations. It was not surprising that especially among the rocket scientists the choice was to work for the Allies. Von Braun and several of his colleagues would be secretly brought to America and would live under comfortable “house arrest” for most of the rest of their lives at the Vandenberg Air Force Base where they would test early models of the rockets that later would be the staple of the American space program. The scientists that the Soviet Union claimed simply disappeared into special Siberian gulags where they would eventually die in captivity after being milked dry for all of their knowledge. The scientists who went to the SF however (which included both specialists in the rocket and atomic fields) were told that if they cooperated with the governments of the SF and produced results their cases would be “reexamined” at a later date and they might be given their freedom. By 1970 all of the scientists from Germany who were still alive in the SF were free “on parole” as it were.
There were several notable absences from the Nuremburg Trials; notably Hitler himself, Goering, Martin Bormann, Adolf Eichmann, and Dr. Joseph Mengele among others. However in 1952 the Nuremburg Tribunal was reconvened one final time when an army counterintelligence/counterinsurgency group captured Martin Bormann literally almost right under the Tribunal’s nose! Bormann’s trial was an anticlimax, except for the infamous “Prison Raid,” which spelled the end of the active Nazi insurgency for that time. Bormann steadfastly refused to admit guilt for any of the crimes he was charged with and proudly stated his innocence “before God and history.” The court condemned him to death and the sentence was carried out three days afterwards. To avoid the creation of a shrine to his memory Bormann’s body would be cremated and the ashes would be given a burial at sea during the night.
Here is part 3 of the German update. I'm dealing here with the Nuremburg Trials. This section may also explain why the Scandinavian Federation got such a boost scientifically.
Geon
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The Nuremburg Trials:
The Nuremburg Trials would begin in November of 1946. The purpose according to the Allies was to bring to justice those members of the Third Reich’s government, military, and scientific community who had committed “crimes against humanity.” The purpose according to many Germans was to punish Germany period. The judges for the trial were initially planned to come from the major allied nations. However, at the request of the developing Scandinavian Federation a judge was allowed to sit on the panel from that group of nations as well.
The trials would come in several stages; first the trial of senior civilian leaders of the Reich which lasted from November 1946 to June 1947 and ended with most of the defendants (Frick, Frank, etc.) being sentenced to death with the exception of Rudolph Hess who was sentenced to life imprisonment and Karl Raeder who was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Only one senior civilian leader of the Third Reich was acquitted and this was Hjalmar Schacht.
The second stage of the Nuremburg Trials would last from June, 1947 through the end of December. Several judges and lawyers who had been responsible for condemning their fellow Germans to terrible fates were tried and found guilty. In this phase while there were no acquittals there also were no executions. However all of those found guilty in this trial would end up staying in Spandau Prison for very long prison sentences; some would spend the remainder of their lives there.
The third stage of the trials would be for the military leaders of the Reich. Many both in and out of Germany questioned the legality of bringing military leaders to trial for crimes committed by the military in a civilian court. But it was decided that a civilian court would decide the fate of the generals simply because they had been responsible for so many civilian deaths especially by their indiscriminate use of poison gas toward the end of the war. The “General’s Trial” as it would be called resulted in most of Germany’s finest generals being condemned either to life imprisonment (Guderian, Model, etc.) or death (Jodl, von Rundstedt, etc).
The final stage of the trial was the so-called “Scientist Trial” which lasted from January 1948 through May and included not only those who had conducted horrifying medical experiments on inmates in concentration camps but other scientists who had used slave labor or had helped to manufacture “weapons of mass destruction” which were later used against civilians. Among those in the docket was Dr. Werner von Braun. Many in the Allied nations believed von Braun and those that worked with him should see the short end of a noose for the part they had played in Operation Trojan Victory and the use of V1s and V2s during the war on civilian targets. Many of the justices privately would write later that they would have had no problems sending the men who built the weapons that had hit Paris, Philadelphia, and Oslo to their deaths. However, to the surprise of all not one rocket scientist was condemned to death. Rather all would receive life sentences. Most of the medical scientists on the other hand were sentenced to death. Among the “mad doctors,” as they would be called in the media only a handful managed to survive with life sentences.
The fact that not one of the rocket or atomic scientists received either the death sentence, a reduced sentence nor was acquitted might seem puzzling until you added in a simple but very ugly little word – blackmail. By a prior agreement (the one made with Stalin and later modified to include the Scandinavian nations) it was agreed the scientists would be equally divided among the victors. The knowledge of the rocket and atomic scientists was simply too valuable.
The convicted were given a simple choice. They could accept their sentences and remain for the rest of their lives in Spandau Prison with not even paper and pencil to continue their work or they could accept the offer of a “more comfortable confinement” in exchange for working for one of the victorious allied nations. It was not surprising that especially among the rocket scientists the choice was to work for the Allies. Von Braun and several of his colleagues would be secretly brought to America and would live under comfortable “house arrest” for most of the rest of their lives at the Vandenberg Air Force Base where they would test early models of the rockets that later would be the staple of the American space program. The scientists that the Soviet Union claimed simply disappeared into special Siberian gulags where they would eventually die in captivity after being milked dry for all of their knowledge. The scientists who went to the SF however (which included both specialists in the rocket and atomic fields) were told that if they cooperated with the governments of the SF and produced results their cases would be “reexamined” at a later date and they might be given their freedom. By 1970 all of the scientists from Germany who were still alive in the SF were free “on parole” as it were.
There were several notable absences from the Nuremburg Trials; notably Hitler himself, Goering, Martin Bormann, Adolf Eichmann, and Dr. Joseph Mengele among others. However in 1952 the Nuremburg Tribunal was reconvened one final time when an army counterintelligence/counterinsurgency group captured Martin Bormann literally almost right under the Tribunal’s nose! Bormann’s trial was an anticlimax, except for the infamous “Prison Raid,” which spelled the end of the active Nazi insurgency for that time. Bormann steadfastly refused to admit guilt for any of the crimes he was charged with and proudly stated his innocence “before God and history.” The court condemned him to death and the sentence was carried out three days afterwards. To avoid the creation of a shrine to his memory Bormann’s body would be cremated and the ashes would be given a burial at sea during the night.
Scandinavia wank strikes again!
Scandinavian judges for Nurmberg..when Swiss judges were as good!
Scandinavians aren't heartless like the US and Soviets..even though in RL they would be pragmatic as hell too!
Hooray!
This is like reading fanfiction with a Mary/Marty Sue in it: So sweet and perfect it causes you a stomache.
I am starting to consider the idea of getting this story into the ASB sub-forum.
Scandinavian judges for Nurmberg..when Swiss judges were as good!
Scandinavians aren't heartless like the US and Soviets..even though in RL they would be pragmatic as hell too!
Hooray!
This is like reading fanfiction with a Mary/Marty Sue in it: So sweet and perfect it causes you a stomache.
I am starting to consider the idea of getting this story into the ASB sub-forum.
Scandinavia wank strikes again!
Scandinavian judges for Nurmberg..when Swiss judges were as good!
Scandinavians aren't heartless like the US and Soviets..even though in RL they would be pragmatic as hell too!
Hooray!
This is like reading fanfiction with a Mary/Marty Sue in it: So sweet and perfect it causes you a stomache.
I am starting to consider the idea of getting this story into the ASB sub-forum.
You think Scandinavia didn't get wanked OTL?
You think Scandinavia didn't get wanked OTL?
I am more of the opinion that the US and USSR got wanked in OTL.
Scandinavia? Most of them became either part or associated with the EU or NATO and not a superstate and local hyperpower.
On the pother hand, I have no problem with what happened to Germany ITTL. I actually think that what happened in OTL was rather implausible.
Good update really, just one thing sure the Scandinavian are part of Wallies and fought hard, but they are still the very junior patner of the alliance, Sweden has joined very late and before was enough chummy with Nazi Germany (forced by the circumstance but nevertheless), Finland just dodged the soviet bullet but she will feel the breath of Stalin in her neck, Norway is even more devastated than OTL and frankly their effort has not been so important (relatevely speaking) so in the overall situation they don't have much political clout in the Alliance to demand much thing, hell probably someone still resent their veto to the invasion through Denmark.
So even if the scientist will be 'equally divided between the ally' some will be more equal than the other, and frankly the scandinavian are pretty low on the pole (up of Turkey and the other late comer and the former axis but lower than France, probably on par with Brazil), is more probable that many scientist will have found some 'unofficial' way to them and later received that kind of deal.
In the postwar they will desperately need the aid of the Marshall plan plus all the fancy weapons of British and the UK to defend them to any aggressor aka the Soviet so in all honesty they will have the same policy of Sweden: official neutrality but in reality on the west camp at least on the first decades or two
To resolve any problem with Greenland, just sell it to the USA as almost happened in OTL, after all the FS are in more urgent need of cash.
Regarding the judge, more than a request is a simple proposal of the SF and look good for PR, the difference seem nothing but in diplomatic term just denote the difference of importance, if the FS 'request' anything they will be politely reminded to shut up.
So even if the scientist will be 'equally divided between the ally' some will be more equal than the other, and frankly the scandinavian are pretty low on the pole (up of Turkey and the other late comer and the former axis but lower than France, probably on par with Brazil), is more probable that many scientist will have found some 'unofficial' way to them and later received that kind of deal.
In the postwar they will desperately need the aid of the Marshall plan plus all the fancy weapons of British and the UK to defend them to any aggressor aka the Soviet so in all honesty they will have the same policy of Sweden: official neutrality but in reality on the west camp at least on the first decades or two
To resolve any problem with Greenland, just sell it to the USA as almost happened in OTL, after all the FS are in more urgent need of cash.
Regarding the judge, more than a request is a simple proposal of the SF and look good for PR, the difference seem nothing but in diplomatic term just denote the difference of importance, if the FS 'request' anything they will be politely reminded to shut up.
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