Kekkle wrote:
I have off-and-on considered the idea of an earlier space race, which has manifested itself in two main iterations I wish to call The Cosmos in Their Hearts. The main problem is that I simply cannot be creative enough to imagine how the ideas I have would affect wars and borders and countries and policies. The main POD I have decided on is that the writings of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky published in 1903 gain widespread attention by scientific communities around the globe, as opposed to being largely ignored outside of Russia.
It wasn't though, not by those with existing interest
His work was the basis for just about every 'rocket society' that sprang up between the wars and most scientist who worked in the related fields had heard of if not read at least some of his work.
Of course this could raise questions as to how this could change World War 1 and World War 2, but I simply cannot consider what would change for some reason or another. I must ask for assistance once more, and ask you nice folks how the world at large would be affected by the concepts of space exploration via rocketry being introduced some 11 years before the War to End all Wars?
"None" per-se as while even if the concept were considered more seriously the technology was significantly lacking. As heavier-than-air flight was mostly 'theoretical' in 1903...
It took the technological advances from around 1908/1916 to the mid-30s to reach a point where it all could move significantly from "theory" to "practice' and in doing so found much of the early 'thinking' beyond the basic mathematics to be flawed. Sometime to the extreme.
Riain wrote:
Have Germany win WW1 so that rocket development between the wars is a race between Russia and Greater Germany.
As the ONLY reason Germany supported the development of rockets was to get around the Versailles treaty restrictions on artillery, a victorious WWI Germany would have no reason to pursue rocket development. Interest would be there but not much support or money due to the highly impractical nature of long range rockets. (Keep in mind the it wasn't until the V2 which took billions of today's dollars to get as marginally operational as it was and STILL was a very short range missile and very limited 'research' vehicle)
Now such an outcome of WWI could move the US to seeking "intercontinental" weapons delivery systems not being willing to assume any European allies to depend on in the 'next' war. (Assuming anyone still 'sees' a "next" war as they didn't OTL initially)
But that system will most likely be based on aircraft or Naval aviation rather than rockets.
Kaze wrote:
What you need for a space race:
1. Oxygen. Alchemists have discovered a method of extraction - they were trying to remove gold from salt water but found something else.
2. Space suit. Leonardo Di Vinci designed a diving suit which in theory could be adapted.
3. rocket. Ancient Chinese tech
4. fuel for the rocket. Solid fuel is an option - been around for centuries. Liquid fuel is an option - the V-2 used kerosene or a high-test version of Greek Fire.
5. math. math needed to do it has been done by Galileo when he calculated the motions of the moon and the movements of his artillery shells.
There you go. So technically, you could put a man on the moon in the Renaissance!
"Theoretically" actually not "technically" because despite those there are literally dozens of MAJOR advancements that have to be made let alone thousands of "minor" but highly difficult technologies and techniques that have to be mastered to even make a credible attempt.
The metallurgy needed alone is problematical when at that time they were lucky to keep cannon from bursting let alone something that could handle a rocket combustion chamber. You don't, BTW actually "need" a space suit... Just an air-tight pressure vessel the "occupant" can survive the trip in.
And while 'mathematics' IS rather a key so it a general understanding of the atmosphere as well as the void of space. None of which was available that early. (The "math" would not explain why the rocket continually veered off-course when there was no wind on the ground or clouds in the sky. One of the most annoying thing about launching a multi-stage model rocket is watching it stage several times with the trajectory altering by enough so that when stage 4 ignites it's pointed directly back towards the ground
)
The problem is #6 - the willingness to go
Kekkle wrote:
Wouldn't the idea of competition generate enough willingness to go?
If that were so then the Soviets would have kept going even after the US landed on the Moon but the fact was the 'competition' was limited in scope and vastly expensive to maintain. The Soviets got number of 'cheap' firsts using the massive first generation ICBM they had built as a weapons system. Meanwhile the US which had several similar systems in testing or nearly ready for testing purposefully "self-limited" themselves to a very small, obviously "non-weaponable" launch vehicle built basically from scratch.
No the 'competition' that drove Earthly exploration, (and exploitation) generated a "willingness" due to several geo-political and economic factors but mostly because compared to even orbiting a small satellite the COST to do so was overwhelming and vastly cheaper than trying to do the same with space. This has always been "space's" biggest hurdle in that it is vastly more expensive with far less of a possible 'return-on-investment' than activities on Earth.
If the Moon's surface was covered with diamonds or asteroids made of pure gold they would NOT be cost effective to bring back to Earth. (Worse they would crash the market and render the items 'worthless'.
I mean, the idea of exploring the moon had been introduced for ages. And famous authors like Vernes and Wells had made books on it in the 19th-20th century, with the latter writing about it two years before the POD.
And those ideas rested firmly in the realm of "Entertaining Fiction" for a very good reason until they became 'possible' in the late 50s and early 60s. The various "Rocket Societies" of the 20s onward dreamed of those fictional ideas but the reality was even the best of them usually couldn't successfully launch a rocket more than a few miles. At great expense and with great risk.
"Competition" requires will to initiate and sustain, but there has to be an initial 'spark' to begin the competition, the support to sustain the competition, (both political and public as this is going to cost a huge amount of money and resources that could be used for more near-term and generally "more important" things, such as the competition of military strength or exploration/exploitation of "colonial" assets here on Earth, etc) and a viable 'reason' to sustain the will to keep the 'competition' going once it's started.
You need a 'reason' that people on Earth, specifically those "in charge" but more importantly a majority of the public (at least initially) to see the development and deployment of the industrial and technological base and then the capability itself some 40 years earlier than OTL.
While Tsiolkovsky had some basic conceptual "reasons" for exploring space and which others expounded and expanded upon the cost and effort was always going to be 'astronomical' (pardon the pun) in nature to achieve and it would require similarly 'hefty' reasons to push the nations of Earth to focus on such development.
And most of those fall under ASB unfortunately.
Take for example we suppose that, as Arthur C. Clarke put it (
https://books.google.com/books/abou...ver&source=kp_read_button#v=onepage&q&f=false), that Moscow had not "escaped destruction by three hours and four thousand kilometers" and The Tunguska Event had taken place instead directly over that city. (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event) While a huge disaster and generally disrupting event unlike any time after the 1960s and the general 'acceptance' of space travel at the time there would be no great though of trying to prevent such an event by traveling into space. There might be some wild ideas thrown around in the popular press and fringe speculation* but the general consensus would be it was an 'act-of-God' that no man could prevent.
*Quite often "great men of science" were quoted on working on methods to stop, (or cause) such calamities with their "next" invention. More often than not the ones most surprised by these revelations were those same 'great men of science' who in fact had said nothing of the sort!
And people would move on. Despite arguably having the ability to actually DO something about such a disaster today in reality our response would of limited if not fully ineffective and we don't have the excuses our ancestors do.
The "Space Race" that we know of today has been compared to previous 'races' on Earth for territory, resources, and/or prestige but those all fall short as they are by their nature, (being ON Earth) vastly cheaper and far easier to instigate and sustain than the Space Race has been. This does NOT get less so the further back you go to 'start' but actually becomes vastly MORE so instead because of the required technological, industrial, and even social basis. At least in any 'realistic' setting.
Essentially what it would take is either a very real but very understandable threat to all human life, (and many writers had suggested such both cosmic and earthly disasters) along with the understanding and belief that humans could in fact do 'something' about it. (Look at how much 'hand-wavium was required to make "When Worlds Collide" in 1933.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Worlds_Collide )
Probably more essentially you have to make space travel pretty 'cheap' and accessible, or simply put 'airplane-like' as early as possible AND as easy to build with the 'technology' at hand. Essentially the "Road Not Taken/Herbig-Haro" (
https://eyeofmidas.com/scifi/Turtledove_RoadNotTaken.pdf,
http://turtledove.wikia.com/wiki/Herbig-Haro ) scenario.
Randy
