Small Steps, Giant Leaps: An Alternate History of the Space Age
- Thread starter ThatCallisto
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Unlikely as it all is, that's the bed we've made and we're determined to lie in it. Stranger concepts have been written and played with. While we do expect politics to take a backseat increasingly through the 1970s and into the 80s (save for the occasional interlude update, when we choose to drop them in), it's still something that's part of talking about a government spaceflight initiative, for us. There's something to be said for the narrative potential in how differing administrations affects NASA's plans going forward differently than IOTL.
Plus, we just think it's fun, and that's what writing this is all about c:
Priklyucheniye? It's non-tipycal name for Soviet interplanetary probes. They used moze casual names like "Zond" (probe) or planets' names like Mars of VeGa (Venus - Halley's comet) and I don't remember any idead about changing naming scheme IOTL
Yeah, we admittedly get a bit more fanciful with it than the Soviets perhaps would've actually gone IOTL - the same can be said of Rodina ("Homeland", our N1-L3 complex), as has been brought up before - but in this case perhaps it can be attributed to the more international nature of the Grand Tour? We technically never specified why it was named that.
But yeah, in short, you're absolutely right.
It's closer to OTL Soviet naming scheme for rocket complex and I totally believe that Soviets could use this name for their space ships (compare with Soyuz (Union) ship and rocket)
Vega was not pure Soviet program so I think that Priklyuchenie-like names would be in list after names like Zond Vneshnikh Planet (Other Planets' probe) or Bolshoy Tur (Grand Tour). And I remembered about Ulysses-like probe project named "Tsiolkovsky" but it was in late 1980s
I forget about this earlier but Brezhnev wasn't Premier Minister. He was Secretary General of the CPSU since 1964 and
Do the Soviets have electronics that will last for decades as needed for a Grand Tour?
As mentioned in the interlude, getting electronics of a higher quality than typical Soviet probes is one of the main reasons Adventure nearly gets canceled due to cost overruns, as well as more extensive quality control and testing in general.
Yeah, I saw that. Is that effort anywhere near enough to be confident enough to gamble that much money?
Remember, the Soviets are a couple of generations behind the west on electronics. And the initial US Grand Tour designs were HUGE due to the built in redundancy it was felt was necessary - like 'launched on a Saturn V' huge. IIRC.
The Pioneer craft they got lucky with. Those were built for just Jupiter (and Saturn?), With the option of going on if they still survived. Which, of course they did.
I honestly can't see the Soviets pulling off a Grand Tour without each spacecraft being launched on an N1. Especially since they didn't have a Centaur equivalent LH2 upper stage....
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Trust me when I say we've thought of all this. I can't get into the specifics without spoilers, though...
The Chennault Affair has been butterflied ITTL, and Nixon's not president, so peace is a bit unlikely but we think justifiable. That's probably the entirety of what we'll say about Vietnam in the TL. As for politics, don't expect it to come up unless absolutely necessary.
Oh, good catch, yeah! That's a genuine typo - Brezhnev's Chairman and General Sec. as OTL. Fixing!
It was said previously that Part 10 would concern the USSR. My guess is further Rodinas + maybe Salyut (?)
Happy New Year from the team at SSGL. Hope your 1973 is as fantastic as we plan ours to be - and see you soon for Part 10.
The IPP/STS envisioned a massive network of space infrastructure, with chemical and nuclear “space tugs”, space station modules boosted to orbit by a reusable "Space Shuttle", and modified Saturn Vs, all in service of extensive lunar and even Martian exploration. The plan was ambitious, broad-reaching, technologically feasible, and completely politically impossible.
[The STS/Integrated Program Plan as originally envisioned. Credit: NASA History Office]
geez, even if NASA got all the funding they could have, would all this have been possible before 1990s?