Although the operational Buran(s) were and are mostly just sitting in hangers in Kazakhstan, not really being ornamental...
And got any naming ideas?
To Rise From the Earth: Alternate 'post-Apollo' space program
- Thread starter Workable Goblin
- Start date
Although the operational Buran(s) were and are mostly just sitting in hangers in Kazakhstan, not really being ornamental...
And got any naming ideas?
Hanging round the Smithsonian, hanging round in Kazakhstan…
I’m a fan of Freeman Dyson so not sure I’d go for a flashy name for a launch vehicle.
How about naming it; “Big, Cheap and reliable” and making sure it lived up to the name?
Good one, and I like the sentiment a lot, but you know they'll go for some flashy historical or mythological thing
Hanging round the Smithsonian, hanging round in Kazakhstan…
I’m a fan of Freeman Dyson so not sure I’d go for a flashy name for a launch vehicle.
How about naming it; “Big, Cheap and reliable” and making sure it lived up to the name?
*familiar music starts playing*
Space, the final frontier.
These are the voyages of the NASA-Ship Enterprise
On her brave new mission
To go where man has gone before but-it-is-really-hard-to-go-there-so-it-is-still-an-achievement
Wouldn't be too ASB though, supposedly the Shuttle Enterprise was (partially) named after the USS Enterprise. (Wikipedia isn't 100% reliable, but it has SOME true stuff)
Edit: I just realized that because of Enterprise, the USS Enterprise is named after itself.
Cook
Banned
The testbed Shuttle was named Enterprise after a massive Treky write in campaign.
That was before they found out it would never actually fly in space.
Well, at the time they actually planned to modify it to be flight-capable. They scuppered that when they figured out that modifying the structural test article Challenger would be cheaper because of changes made during the manufacture of Columbia. You can see this in the naming, actually; Enterprise is OV-101, while Challenger was OV-099. 101+ designations were supposed to be for flight vehicles, while <100 designations were for test articles and such.
It was then reconsidered post-Challenger, but it was again decided that it would be cheaper to take a different path--in this case, building a new OV out of spares.
However, the suggestion of naming it after naval exploration ships has merit. I'm not sure that necessarily best applies to the LV, but it's definitely possible for the other program.
Stop that. Trekker, if you please. Trekkies are groupies.
As for the program? Are you looking for a Mars shot or a booster? That is, Ares=Mars or (say) Poseidon=Neptune? To avoid confusion with OTL systems, how about Sedna (Inuit sea goddess) or Rahab (Hebrew sea-demon)?
Pure booster. The idea is a sort of EELV/NLS/ALS-type system; to get a cheaper, faster turnaround, more reliable booster to replace the old Titan/Atlas/Delta/Saturn tetralogy. It kicks off earlier than OTL because there's no Shuttle, so when the DoD looks at Star Wars requirements and NASA begins to figure they're going to be flying at least 26 Saturns (not necessarily all Saturn IIs, either!) per year to maintain their planned exploration program by the mid '90s, besides what they might want to fly to go to Mars or whatnot, they go "uh, can't do that now" and start to really intensively look at getting a new booster. Of course, they kick off DC-X-type programs too, but the first thing is a better expendable.
Now, the other thing is something that will fly on top of the booster and will be kicked off about the same time and for much the same reasons. So, a theme: like Orion/Altair for the Constellation Program. That way, we can have (say) the Neptune/Triton, the first being the booster, the second being...something. Sedna and Rahab are good suggestions, BTW. Thanks!
Blair152
Banned
Plus, you could concentrate more on a sending a manned mission to MarsYou mean the Buran? If so, it ain't gonna be built ITTL, since the US isn't building their Shuttle, and so there's no reason for the Soviets to waste their money on it (a lot of why they built it IOTL is because the US was doing it--it was very expensive, more expensive than everything else they were doing at the same time combined
Instead, as I believe I indicated earlier, I'm butterflying the results of the fourth N1 test a little so that it is mostly successful. Since the Soviets are good at space stations and know it, they abandon the insane single-launch N1 moon landing plan and instead use it to launch very big space stations, and later try an EOR-type moon landing attempt in the early '80s. Those two things spur Carter to restart the Saturn V line and approve launch of Skylab B, and Reagan to make space, particularly America's own large station and a moon return, a priority early on (more funding, you see), leading to the 1989 landing. It's not all grins and giggles, though; while I gave unmanned exploration a bit of a boost here early on, that's gonna taper right off later.
by 1975. In Arthur C. Clarke's 1968 book The Promise of Space, he talked
about sending a mission to Mars by 1975. No Viking though.
'zat's not gonna happen. Even the most optimistic (ie., Paine-written) NASA projections had a Mars landing no earlier than 1982, and that assumed huge funding levels that they just weren't going to get, ITTL as IOTL. Also, that quote is out of date, though as I haven't (and won't for a while yet) posted what is now actually going to happen, that's none of your fault.
Forgive me for not knowing the difference, and not caring either.
You and phx: Knock it off, please.
So... what Blair says does have something to do with something.
Blair152, I apologise. All that's happening (sometimes, anyway) is that you're not following through on your thought processes, and jumping ahead to the end result without explaining the rest. Thus, unfortunately, many of your comments seem to be divorced from the subject at hand.
If this was a Maths class, I'd tell you to 'show your workings'
.If the explicit objective was Mars, then the obvious choice would be Ares. But you've said this is more a low-Earth Orbit booster, or at least it could be for various things. Hmm...
How about the Jupiter? I know that was a name already used for some of von Braun's Redstone/Atlas-era rockets (hence the progression 'outwards' to Saturn), but as far as I'm aware the rocket, and so the name, had fallen by the wayside since then.
Besides, it would be what would appear, to the general public, a logical progression - Saturn = second-biggest planet: this new rocket is one bigger! - and a nice reference
.How about the Jupiter? I know that was a name already used for some of von Braun's Redstone/Atlas-era rockets (hence the progression 'outwards' to Saturn), but as far as I'm aware the rocket, and so the name, had fallen by the wayside since then.
Besides, it would be what would appear, to the general public, a logical progression - Saturn = second-biggest planet: this new rocket is one bigger! - and a nice reference
Oh yeah, and I did think of that
But I'm not sure...as you say, the name Jupiter had already been used for Von Braun's IRBMs/launch vehicles, and it would be terribly difficult on encyclopedians...So...names so far:
Jupiter
Neptune/Poseidon
ELVRP
Sedna
Ares/Mars
Rahab
Exploration vehicles are going to be used for the other program, to the point where I've already picked out all the names I need to use (luckily, between test articles, OVs, and displays, there are just enough), but I'm not going to call it the Columbia program or some such. So far, it's called Triton. If the booster program ends up Jupiter, I'll call it Artemis. For the others, I'm not sure yet...
"Life on Mars? The possibility might seem outlandish. As we have seen, Mars is many times colder and dryer than the Earth, and it has only a thin atmosphere to protect it from the harsh environment of space. Certainly nothing like Barsoom or Lowell's vision can be found there. But there is a way. Microorganisms, living under the surface, protected from radiation and cold, only coming to life when conditions are right, much like certain plants found in deserts around the world, could yet survive on Mars, remnants of a wetter and warmer past... Wolf Vishniac has worked on the problem of finding such life, if it exists, for over a decade. For the Viking missions to Mars, he devised a simple test--the "Wolf Trap". Simply place a sample of soil in a habitable environment--warm, accomodating, and full of nutrients, and see what happens. The Viking missions to Mars each carried one of his "Wolf Traps" along with other experiments...Unfortunately, while the biological experiments all indicated that there might be some form of life, the chemical experiment indicated that there were no organic materials at all in the soil...One hypothesis is that there are only a very few thinly spread organisms encapsulated in thick spores to protect them. Such a population would be almost impossible to detect chemically..."
--Carl Sagan, Cosmos: Voyaging the Universe
"When Pioneer 11 entered the Saturn system, many wonders awaited. None, however, were more peculiar than the moon called Titan. The only moon in the Solar System with an atmosphere, it is eternally shrouded in thick haze, much like Venus except far colder...In fact, Titan seemed so odd that the committee in charge of the trajectory for the Voyager probes had to make a decision. We had two probes that could be redirected to fly by Titan, Voyagers 1 and 3. However, those were already supposed to use the boost provided by Saturn to fly on to mysterious and distant Pluto. If they were redirected to Titan, that would be impossible. Eventually, it was decided to fly Voyager 3 by Titan but let Voyager 1 fly on to Pluto..."
--Carl Sagan, Cosmos: Voyaging the Universe
The successful launch of the European Test Satellite last week came at a critical juncture for the European Launcher Development Organisation. Smarting after multiple launch failures, many members were beginning to question the design and management of the program, with France and Germany rumored to be studying an alternate system. It has also raised the visibility of space flight in the Heath cabinet, as the crucial first stage of the Europa launcher is built in the United Kingdom. It is rumored that the British government is considering the establishment of some kind of space agency to better manage and promote their efforts...
--Aviation Week and Space Technology, June 1970
--Carl Sagan, Cosmos: Voyaging the Universe
"When Pioneer 11 entered the Saturn system, many wonders awaited. None, however, were more peculiar than the moon called Titan. The only moon in the Solar System with an atmosphere, it is eternally shrouded in thick haze, much like Venus except far colder...In fact, Titan seemed so odd that the committee in charge of the trajectory for the Voyager probes had to make a decision. We had two probes that could be redirected to fly by Titan, Voyagers 1 and 3. However, those were already supposed to use the boost provided by Saturn to fly on to mysterious and distant Pluto. If they were redirected to Titan, that would be impossible. Eventually, it was decided to fly Voyager 3 by Titan but let Voyager 1 fly on to Pluto..."
--Carl Sagan, Cosmos: Voyaging the Universe
The successful launch of the European Test Satellite last week came at a critical juncture for the European Launcher Development Organisation. Smarting after multiple launch failures, many members were beginning to question the design and management of the program, with France and Germany rumored to be studying an alternate system. It has also raised the visibility of space flight in the Heath cabinet, as the crucial first stage of the Europa launcher is built in the United Kingdom. It is rumored that the British government is considering the establishment of some kind of space agency to better manage and promote their efforts...
--Aviation Week and Space Technology, June 1970
No comments? I thought for sure Carl Sagan and a British Space Agency would get at least a couple remarks.
Hey... we're not all here, all the time
... y'see, that's the advantage of having three Voyager probes. We can get some of the Cassini data twenty years early!
Successful? Woo!
I wonder if this will be an alt-ESA, or a British agency... (yes, I know you said "a British Space Agency". I'm just trying to provide some dramatic tension
)Actually, this is based on real life. IOTL, Voyager 1 could have been directed to fly by Saturn and go on to Pluto, but Titan was so darn interesting that they redirected it to fly by it very closely, incidentally delaying any Pluto flyby 25 years. That's part of the reason they wanted to do Cassini. ITTL, with two Voyagers placed to do it, they can keep the Pluto mission going.
And you get Voyagers 2 and 4 going Jupiter-Uranus-Neptune, launching in '79 (as per original TOPS/Grand Tour scheduling). Yep, twice as much Tritony goodness!
Because I just want to expand on the unmanned program a bit, ITTL Viking 1 landed successfully on July 4th, 1976 at Tritonis Lacus, which IOTL was an alternate landing site considered after the original site proved to be unmanageable. Yes, the landing was a pretty big deal. Due to slightly greater funding (due to the absence of Shuttle development), the "Wolf Traps" were able to fly ITTL, preventing Wolf Vishniac's tragic death in Antarctica in 1973, since he was busy with Viking.
I wonder if this will be an alt-ESA, or a British agency... (yes, I know you said "a British Space Agency". I'm just trying to provide some dramatic tension
Both, actually! You get a British space agency which is a founding member of the European Space Agency when ELDO and ESRO merge in 1974. Said ESA is going to play an interesting role in the future...
EDIT: Also, I just remembered: What effects might this have on science fiction, particularly Star Trek etc.? There are some obvious things (anything with space shuttles, for a start), but, for instance, TNG was first aired in 1987. ITTL, that's a bit late--the second space race heats up in '81, so it would make sense if it hit the air a couple years sooner. Particularly as I just realized I have one major event kicking that race off the same year Star Wars and CETK screened IOTL! That means Star Trek films are likely to be even more popular ITTL than IOTL.
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