spaceflight

Plausibility check: X-15 being the first spacecraft to carry human in space, preferably in 1960-1961.

What is the earliest possible date, in a 20th century with closely similar technological progression of spaceflight as in OTL, that the first man on the Moon ends up being an African-American citizen of the US, or a person of Afro-Caribbean descent, or a person born directly in an African...

John Young once said a Return to Launch Site abort would require a string of miracles interspersed by acts of God. What if, on STS-51L the crew of the Challenger some how realized there was a problem with the SRB, separated from the stack and attempted to either ditch or return to the launch...

NASA's Waterloo October 2, 1983 Kennedy Space Center A crowd had gathered at Kennedy Space Center, larger than any seen since 1969. They cheered as the countdown timer approached the final minute. Miles away, on the pad, a white and black rocket glistened on the pad. Though larger, and more...

How do you think would it be possible to have more space infrastructure, possibly more frequent manned space missions, or even a rotating space station, or Moon or Mars bases today with the earliest PoD of 1945? In essence in this TL, much of the hopes for a "space future" as imagined by people...

All right, this could very well be a future history WI as well, but given possible alternate developments in ESA's past, I'm rather posting this discussion here. To date, the European Space Agency has not developed a spacesuit of its own, particularly due to not having its own manned...

After Ravaun kamikaze-d Ironstark's three year old discussion on ATL SSTO spacecraft with his particular brand of conspiracy craziness, that thread had to be locked by CalBear. But before that troll necroed and torpedoed that poor thread with his nonsense, it was a nice and reasonable...

I've read bits of Stephenson's Anathem recently, and it kind of got me thinking... Imagine a typical ATL, like the ones we write about all the time. It is currently in the 21st century. In terms of technology, almost absolutely everything is the same as in OTL. With the exception of a few...

I'm talking about this. If it wouldn't have happened, would the infant Brazilian space programme be a bit further today ? Do any of our spacecraft-minded Brazilian members want to take a shot at this ?