alternatehistory.com

http://www.proaxis.com/cop/hv93desc.htm

Wednesday, June 23 1993.

Tim Roemer (Indiana) proposes to kill the space station. He fails by ONE vote - a 215-216 close tie !

Whatif the space station was cancelled that night ?

Back to the Moon and beyond, on the cheap, after 2000.

Early Lunar Access

http://www.nss.org/settlement/moon/ELA.html

A Earth-return capsule mounted atop a lunar lander. The whole thing boosted toward the Moon by a Centaur upper stage.
Only two launches are needed. One shuttle, one Titan IV.

Athena

Mars flyby. Four storable-propellant stages, one inflatable hab.

http://pdf.aiaa.org/getfile.cfm?url... &urlb=!* &urlc=!*0 &urle='+"D"#PJCU0

Asteroid flyby and Webb telescope servicing mission at Sun-Earth L1. NASA toyed with these ideas for its new Orion capsule.

- The shuttle is retired before Columbia accident, around 2002.
- Big reorganization at the Johnson Space Flight Center
- Griffin, Goldin, Abbey (and others) are butterflied away
- NASA administrator Wayne Hale (an excellent man)
- Shuttle-derived heavy lift vehicle, DIRECT style (inline)
- NASA / ESA "divorce"
- Mir space station extended with ESA funds
- Mir 2 build from Mir
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