Recent content by Craig

Whoo boy, you put the kitchen sink into this one. Thanks for the update. Scary to consider letting certain genies out of their bottles. Yet without that as a real threat, those genies would have never stayed in the bottle as long as they have.

You do quality, independent work. No worries.

My point about Ike's "coronary" was more along the lines that the future is an unknown territory, and that Ike would have no guarantees that the arrangements he makes in 1956 will be operable in 1957. Strauss may start with no political ambitions, but who knows how that might evolve if he takes...

Pity it is absolutely impossible for Vice President Strauss to succeed to the Presidency following Ike's massive coronary in 1957...

Wow, ask and ye shall receive. Thanks!

I was an undergraduate in the early 1980s and one of my more memorable classes, "Contemporary Soviet Union", was taught by a retired DIA analyst. During the time of the Dying General Secretaries, he brought special attention to the growing competition between the "young Turks" of Mikhail...

Picture a super-strong wind shear kind of wind that topples that sucker over on its side. "I don't understand Comrade! Those bolts were made by Socialist Labor! There's no way they could have failed!"

That Re-Entry Capsule may prove useful in the event of a Solar storm. Was that a consideration?

If we had built a couple dozen Orbiters, I could see price being a factor. Not so much if we only build a half-dozen. Especially as part of the overall cost of the project.

My inner broken-record keeps asking "if the Orbiter had a been built from titanium instead of aluminum, would the greater heat resistance have led to either a different heat shield design or the ability to withstand the temperatures longer of a Columbia-type accident?

There are several Grade-B through ZZZ movies that show a standard Orbiter being used to travel to the Moon. Please God, no. Just don't send a winged spaceship that can't break out of LEO on a round trip to the friggin Moon. It just doesn't belong there.

That's EXACTLY what I was hearing as I read your update. Although hearing Sir Humphrey with a Russian accent wasn't working very well. Thanks.

Might the more recent work done for the Russian atomic cruise missile "9M730 Burevestnik (NATO: SSC-X-9 Skyfall) be a successor technology to this? A radioactive exhaust was seen as a feature, not a bug. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9M730_Burevestnik

But doesn't THIS TL contemplate not just a Soviet lunar capability, but as series of lunar missions starting in the mid-70s? In fact, if they want to do a "first", what better than establish the first lunar base by 1980?

"Into the Black" by Rowland White specifically dismisses the advantages of building the Orbiter from titanium rather than aluminum. But I still have to wonder. His point is based upon conversations with those in Lockheed who had built the Blackbird, but I'm not sure if those conversations...