Truly a fitting end for the most iconic vehicles of the Olympus program; the old MTVs may have been supplanted by newer, shinier tech (the Armstrong class looks fabulous!), but their usefulness continued long into the future, slowly diffusing into the very bones of human exploration. I also really appreciate this final goodbye to Hera, after everything she and her controllers did to bring Olympus 9 home safe. She rests now, while her lifeboat serves as a poignant reminder of what's possible - both in hardship and in triumph.
Proxima: A Human Exploration of Mars
- Thread starter defconh3ck
- Start date
Hera's goodbye is one of the things I felt as though I needed to write. This being my first timeline, I wondered a lot if I should come back to some things I included, some things I should have and some things I didn't. Ultimately, this was a must-revisit.
Part 3 of Where Are They Now will focus largely on a wide range of vehicles, and even give us a look at the third generation of interplanetary transports! Can't wait to see you all there soon. It may be a little while before I get to it, as I'll be out of town but I can't wait to share!
Third gen?? What do you have planned for the future. I am excited
Really excited. Yes, this is your first timeline but it´s just great. Thank you for posting all this stuff here at no cost for us.Oh, there's a lot coming for Proxima's future in Horizon! The series will pick up around 230 years in the future....Third gen?? What do you have planned for the future. I am excited
Wow, that´s a huge timejump but i think it´s reasonable in this case. Colonizing a planet with our current or near future tech is nothing that can be done in 20-50 years. This just need time and i wonder where you will send our space traveler in that timeline.
Hi again, back with two more tracks as we wrap up the soundtrack for Proxima! Just one more left before a "full release" of sorts.
An Unknown Paradigm, which corresponds to an EVA conducted during Valiant's troubled OF-16 mission:
Designing for Mars, inspired by early musings of the Olympus program:
An Unknown Paradigm, which corresponds to an EVA conducted during Valiant's troubled OF-16 mission:
Designing for Mars, inspired by early musings of the Olympus program:
For Your Consideration...
Hi folks, Nik here! Over the last few years (wow its been more than one) it's been my pleasure to bring to you the story of the Proxima universe, and share with you all of the thought and care and work that has gone into it. It is an absolute honor to be considered for the Turtledoves this year, and if you enjoyed the story enough, please do consider voting in the Best Spaceflight and Technology poll! I can't wait to bring to you the sequel to Proxima, and a new interim project I've been working on with some friends. See you all soon!
Oh - also! Consider voting for me here as well, for Best Character - if you'd be so kind.
Where Are They Now... Part 3!
Hi folks, welcome to the long awaited Where Are They Now part 3! I wanted to talk today about the importance of space stations as a means of enabling greater human exploration within the story, and discuss the critical roles a variety of stations played in the story. This is a little less of a "where are they now" and more of an explanation of some of my choices here, which I hope you appreciate!
Where Are They Now... Part 3!
Several elements within Proxima remained key to ensuring the continuous movement of humans to Mars and beyond, but none played as important a role as space stations. Space stations represented the first sustainable forays into the stars as a permanent foothold. Throughout the utilization of the Shuttle, stations always remained at the forefront of thought - how best to live and work and what could be learned from long term habitation. Before plans for Mars could even begin to be considered, work leveraged on the relatively short lived Skylab program began to inform the design of a new breed of station - one that could be assembled in pieces. Out of this, Odyssey was born. Somewhat of an odd duck compared to OTL Space Stations, Odyssey had two roles - ensuring long term training for astronauts assigned to deep space missions, and assembling Mars Transfer Vehicles. In this vein, she became something of a compromise station, sacrificing capabilities in some areas to perform in others. Throughout the 80s and 90s, she was assembled into the strange “chimeric” shape she would end up taking through a number of shuttle flights, and relied on both Soyuz and Liberté as Assured Crew Return Vehicles. During this time, Zarya would also enter service - a Soviet (and later Russian) facility at which crews would learn how to live and work with their international counterparts - a necessary psychological component of deep space travel. However, these stations did present issues in their design. Zarya was limited in expansion room, and even with the addition of a European built node, could not support large crews due to aging equipment onboard. As the Olympus program continued to hit its strides, it became clear that the premier international space outpost, Odyssey, had reached the end of its usable life. By the mid 2010s, she was approaching nearly 30 years old, having her first components launched in the late 1980s. While the modular assembly ability of the Space Shuttle had been proved useful in assembling Odyssey, it sat for nearly 4 years from construction start before crews could regularly access and rotate through her, due to the lack of availability of lifeboat spacecraft. Ultimately, she would be decomissioned in the mid 2010s, as her replacement stations took up the role she once held. She would be deorbited over the Pacific in 2014, after 67 expeditions.
In light of these issues, a crucial decision was made. Instead of retaining all of the needed capabilities for Olympus within one station, it was realized that more specialized stations could be produced in order to ensure continued sustainable operations. Three new stations would be born out of this need, Gateway, Athena and Horizon. Gateway would become a more functional element, becoming the place where MTVs were built and assembled. She was much smaller than Odyssey, but more specially built to deal with the huge structural loads of construction. Gateway, unlike other stations before her, was not designed to be permanently crewed - rather, she would house surge crews for construction and logistics operations, providing a workshop space for construction of the new vehicles. Challenger would launch Gateway’s first components in 2008, and begin initial operations soon thereafter. Gateway would be christened in crisis, however, with the surge construction of the new MTV Selene after the loss of Hera on Olympus 9. Here she would prove her worth, assembling Selene in record time and enabling routine maintenance to continue on the MTV fleet. She would remain a core component of operations throughout the Olympus program, serving for nearly 30 years before the age of her modules would ultimately result in her retirement in 2036. She would be succeeded by “Workshop” facilities, smaller stations that would latch on to MTVs and other transfer vehicles to allow for servicing of the new Armstrong Class fleet.
Athena would join the fold not long after Gateway, replacing the aging Zarya and acting as a dedicated facility for European and Russian crews. While she was technically a joint project, most of her components would be built by European consortiums, eager to flex their might as a world space power. Athena would consist of a combination of Nodes, Labs and an ATV derived service/logistics module that would enable additional space for the growing station. A variety of international crews would ultimately fly to Athena, including Chinese Taikonauts in exploration of peaceful utilization of space following the collaborative rescue of Baochuan-3. Athena would be serviced by both Soyuz and Liberté CFV vehicles, and would be commanded most notably by Olympus 9 commander, Sergei Ivanov. The station would ultimately be decommissioned in the late 2030s, as new and more commercially viable station concepts came online. Europe would see themselves constructing a new station, Concordia, with the help of technology borrowed from the Americans. Europe would continue to support space station development, spinning off a branch of ArianeSpace to focus on orbital construction, Ariane Orbital Works.
The Chinese had their own space station ambitions, transitioning from the early Tiangong stations to Tianyu, a massive orbital complex designed to service and maintain a variety of different kinds of spacecraft. Built as a “Power Tower,” the station would host its six regular crew members in a facility facing Earth, with the solar collectors and radiators far away on the truss. The first flight of an international astronaut to Tianyu would come in January of 2021, with the United Kingdom’s Timothy Hoult flying in the Mission Specialist seat onboard Shenzhou-19. His four month stay in the laboratory would be a monumental achievement, and would be followed closely by an exchange flight in May to Athena. This would see a crew onboard Shenzhou 21 approach and dock with the station, completing science and outreach objectives over the span of 20 days. This would begin a close partnership between the European Space Agency, who themselves had cemented themselves as brokers of international spaceflight relations. Exchange flights would soon become a yearly occurrence, with the Americans joining in rotations after the monumentally successful Athena conference. Tianyu would remain a shining star in the night sky for nearly 25 years, being deorbited in 2042 after numerous refits to support Chinese Martian sorties, ultimately being replaced by Tianyu-II.
For the Americans and their international partners, it was decided that operational readiness would be the most crucial element to any new station design, and work began on producing a station that could be ready to enter service as soon as it launched. Based on a concept called "Supermodule" from Ames Research Center, a giant, monolithic core leveraging the powerful Jupiter-OPAV system. She would be constructed using similar structures to that of the External Tank, sharing the same 8.4 meter diameter, and augmented by 4.3 meter modules which could be launched onboard the Space Shuttle or Venturestar SSTO. On February 26th, 2014, OPAV Adventure would launch from Kennedy Space Center with the monolithic station core stacked on top, for a flawless 8 ½ minute ride to orbit. Here, she would be checked out by a variety of station crews, and only 3 assembly flights later, she was ready to support crew operations. Anna Douglass, commander of Olympus 3, would see her return to flight with Olympus 9 veteran Christopher Taylor - a heartwarming reunion and a symbol of strength in the face of adversity. Horizon would, after the retirement of the Shuttle, go on to be serviced by ACEV, Liberté and Venturestar, before the station was ultimately decommissioned in the late 2040s. Her replacements would be similar in form and function, forming a fleet of Horizon class stations served by both government operators and private corporations. Starlight, the first orbital tourism hub, would be based on the Horizon class, and grow into a popular tourist destination in the late 2030s. Horizon would pioneer the future of in space habitation, with future Interplanetary Transfer Vehicles incorporating lessons learned in habitat manufacturing and interior design.
Where Are They Now... Part 3!
Several elements within Proxima remained key to ensuring the continuous movement of humans to Mars and beyond, but none played as important a role as space stations. Space stations represented the first sustainable forays into the stars as a permanent foothold. Throughout the utilization of the Shuttle, stations always remained at the forefront of thought - how best to live and work and what could be learned from long term habitation. Before plans for Mars could even begin to be considered, work leveraged on the relatively short lived Skylab program began to inform the design of a new breed of station - one that could be assembled in pieces. Out of this, Odyssey was born. Somewhat of an odd duck compared to OTL Space Stations, Odyssey had two roles - ensuring long term training for astronauts assigned to deep space missions, and assembling Mars Transfer Vehicles. In this vein, she became something of a compromise station, sacrificing capabilities in some areas to perform in others. Throughout the 80s and 90s, she was assembled into the strange “chimeric” shape she would end up taking through a number of shuttle flights, and relied on both Soyuz and Liberté as Assured Crew Return Vehicles. During this time, Zarya would also enter service - a Soviet (and later Russian) facility at which crews would learn how to live and work with their international counterparts - a necessary psychological component of deep space travel. However, these stations did present issues in their design. Zarya was limited in expansion room, and even with the addition of a European built node, could not support large crews due to aging equipment onboard. As the Olympus program continued to hit its strides, it became clear that the premier international space outpost, Odyssey, had reached the end of its usable life. By the mid 2010s, she was approaching nearly 30 years old, having her first components launched in the late 1980s. While the modular assembly ability of the Space Shuttle had been proved useful in assembling Odyssey, it sat for nearly 4 years from construction start before crews could regularly access and rotate through her, due to the lack of availability of lifeboat spacecraft. Ultimately, she would be decomissioned in the mid 2010s, as her replacement stations took up the role she once held. She would be deorbited over the Pacific in 2014, after 67 expeditions.
In light of these issues, a crucial decision was made. Instead of retaining all of the needed capabilities for Olympus within one station, it was realized that more specialized stations could be produced in order to ensure continued sustainable operations. Three new stations would be born out of this need, Gateway, Athena and Horizon. Gateway would become a more functional element, becoming the place where MTVs were built and assembled. She was much smaller than Odyssey, but more specially built to deal with the huge structural loads of construction. Gateway, unlike other stations before her, was not designed to be permanently crewed - rather, she would house surge crews for construction and logistics operations, providing a workshop space for construction of the new vehicles. Challenger would launch Gateway’s first components in 2008, and begin initial operations soon thereafter. Gateway would be christened in crisis, however, with the surge construction of the new MTV Selene after the loss of Hera on Olympus 9. Here she would prove her worth, assembling Selene in record time and enabling routine maintenance to continue on the MTV fleet. She would remain a core component of operations throughout the Olympus program, serving for nearly 30 years before the age of her modules would ultimately result in her retirement in 2036. She would be succeeded by “Workshop” facilities, smaller stations that would latch on to MTVs and other transfer vehicles to allow for servicing of the new Armstrong Class fleet.
Athena would join the fold not long after Gateway, replacing the aging Zarya and acting as a dedicated facility for European and Russian crews. While she was technically a joint project, most of her components would be built by European consortiums, eager to flex their might as a world space power. Athena would consist of a combination of Nodes, Labs and an ATV derived service/logistics module that would enable additional space for the growing station. A variety of international crews would ultimately fly to Athena, including Chinese Taikonauts in exploration of peaceful utilization of space following the collaborative rescue of Baochuan-3. Athena would be serviced by both Soyuz and Liberté CFV vehicles, and would be commanded most notably by Olympus 9 commander, Sergei Ivanov. The station would ultimately be decommissioned in the late 2030s, as new and more commercially viable station concepts came online. Europe would see themselves constructing a new station, Concordia, with the help of technology borrowed from the Americans. Europe would continue to support space station development, spinning off a branch of ArianeSpace to focus on orbital construction, Ariane Orbital Works.
The Chinese had their own space station ambitions, transitioning from the early Tiangong stations to Tianyu, a massive orbital complex designed to service and maintain a variety of different kinds of spacecraft. Built as a “Power Tower,” the station would host its six regular crew members in a facility facing Earth, with the solar collectors and radiators far away on the truss. The first flight of an international astronaut to Tianyu would come in January of 2021, with the United Kingdom’s Timothy Hoult flying in the Mission Specialist seat onboard Shenzhou-19. His four month stay in the laboratory would be a monumental achievement, and would be followed closely by an exchange flight in May to Athena. This would see a crew onboard Shenzhou 21 approach and dock with the station, completing science and outreach objectives over the span of 20 days. This would begin a close partnership between the European Space Agency, who themselves had cemented themselves as brokers of international spaceflight relations. Exchange flights would soon become a yearly occurrence, with the Americans joining in rotations after the monumentally successful Athena conference. Tianyu would remain a shining star in the night sky for nearly 25 years, being deorbited in 2042 after numerous refits to support Chinese Martian sorties, ultimately being replaced by Tianyu-II.
For the Americans and their international partners, it was decided that operational readiness would be the most crucial element to any new station design, and work began on producing a station that could be ready to enter service as soon as it launched. Based on a concept called "Supermodule" from Ames Research Center, a giant, monolithic core leveraging the powerful Jupiter-OPAV system. She would be constructed using similar structures to that of the External Tank, sharing the same 8.4 meter diameter, and augmented by 4.3 meter modules which could be launched onboard the Space Shuttle or Venturestar SSTO. On February 26th, 2014, OPAV Adventure would launch from Kennedy Space Center with the monolithic station core stacked on top, for a flawless 8 ½ minute ride to orbit. Here, she would be checked out by a variety of station crews, and only 3 assembly flights later, she was ready to support crew operations. Anna Douglass, commander of Olympus 3, would see her return to flight with Olympus 9 veteran Christopher Taylor - a heartwarming reunion and a symbol of strength in the face of adversity. Horizon would, after the retirement of the Shuttle, go on to be serviced by ACEV, Liberté and Venturestar, before the station was ultimately decommissioned in the late 2040s. Her replacements would be similar in form and function, forming a fleet of Horizon class stations served by both government operators and private corporations. Starlight, the first orbital tourism hub, would be based on the Horizon class, and grow into a popular tourist destination in the late 2030s. Horizon would pioneer the future of in space habitation, with future Interplanetary Transfer Vehicles incorporating lessons learned in habitat manufacturing and interior design.
This is a super cool exploration of different roles space stations can play in supporting human spaceflight. I think we see a lot of that compromise with OTL ISS right now - a station built with many tasks in mind, which has provided a lot of value in its life, but isn’t as flexible going forward. With OTL Gateway and CLDs coming online in the next few years, we’ll definitely be in untried ground. Proxima for me emphasized how much variety space stations can really have, and this sort of meta look at why decisions were made is really insightful
Also don't forget to vote in the 2023 Turtledoves for Best Spaceflight and Technology and Best Character, and stay tuned for my interim project coming soon - Scorpion's Tale
Today's the last day of voting! And we're nearly there! If you think Proxima is worthy of your vote, make sure you vote for the project for Best Spaceflight and Technology and Best Character! Thanks so much!Also don't forget to vote in the 2023 Turtledoves for Best Spaceflight and Technology and Best Character, and stay tuned for my interim project coming soon - Scorpion's Tale
Hey everyone, one more update for you all: the full Proxima OST is up!!!
I had such a great time writing the soundtrack for this wonderful timeline, and I can only hope I did it justice. I'm so honored to have been able to contribute to this story!
Be sure to vote for Proxima in the Turtledoves - it's absolutely deserving of the award.
I had such a great time writing the soundtrack for this wonderful timeline, and I can only hope I did it justice. I'm so honored to have been able to contribute to this story!
Be sure to vote for Proxima in the Turtledoves - it's absolutely deserving of the award.
Absolutely go check this out! One of my most favorite collaborations of the entire project!
So because today's the last day of voting for Proxima, I wanna tell y'all about my next project - a Cold War thriller alt history. This is a collaborative project between Pedroperson and myself, centered around military history, submarine warfare, a tense standoff in the Atlantic, a sprinkle of space and more. We can't wait to share Scorpion's Tale: A World Unseen with you all very very soon!
Horizon is kiiiiiiind of on the backburner as i focus on getting scorpion's tale out the door, but you can see more of my project on my tumblr