Internet "Eyes Turned Skywards" - Alternate space history

[Pipcard]

What if NASA continued to develop Apollo instead of developing the Shuttle?

"Eyes Turned Skywards" on the Alternate History Discussion Board (the first post contains a screenshot of a thread taking place within the alternate timeline, speculating what would happen if the Shuttle was built)

And for those who don't want to go through 100+ pages of thread, here's a summary.

Space Station Freedom (collaboration between U.S., Europe, Canada, and Japan; completed in 1991)

Apollo Block IV, featuring an orbital module similar to Soyuz

The Autonomous Automated Rendezvous and Docking Vehicle a.k.a. "Aardvark" Block II (it's like the H-II Transfer Vehicle, but American and developed in the 80s)

ESA's Minotaur (automated for now)

A different-looking Mir...

...that wasn't fully realized.

TKS capsule

(renders by Nixonshead)

---------- Post added 10-29-13 at 09:34 AM ---------- Previous post was 10-28-13 at 10:18 PM ----------

Saturn-1C - with an F1-A engine in the first stage and a J-2S in the second stage

Carrack - commercial launch vehicle operated by American Launch Services (made up of Castor-120 solid rockets)

Neva - jointly developed by (post-USSR) Russia and India.

Vulkan - Soviet/Russian launcher (24 to 100 metric tons into LEO)

Saturn Multibody (28 to 78 metric tons into LEO)

Also, the European Europa launcher doesn't fail, unlike in our timeline. So there is no Ariane.

 

[Linguofreak]

I'd seen this a few months or a year ago and found it quite interesting.

I'm actually investigating a somewhat similar personal project for Orbiter: using Velcro Saturns to establish a lunar fuel-mining base and then to build lunar and Earth orbit stations, which will then be fuel depots and assembly points for interplanetary missions (or rather, the lunar station will be a fuel depot for fuel awaiting shipment to LEO, and the LEO station(s) will be assembly/fueling/departure points for interplanetary missions). Unfortunately, I'm not entirely sure the addons needed to do it actually exist (especially a suitable lander), and if they don't, the project will probably require a bit more development time than I have time for. I'll be starting a thread about it in general questions soon.

I'm a bit undecided as to whether to do it as an alternate history thing set in the 70's/80's/90's using Apollo (which is what would be most similar to Eyes Turned Skyward), or a modern-day-fantasy project using Orion or Dragon: There's not a snowball's chance on Venus of the Saturns ever being revived in the present day, but given that the Shuttle never should have been approved for manned flight and that none of the followup options (SLS, Falcon 9, etc) are making manned flights yet, the Saturns are the most recent and best proven series of human-safe US launch vehicles, so it would be Really Cool if they *were* revived.

EDIT: One thing pondering a space program with lots of Lunar flights has made me wonder is why I've never heard Hawaii mooted as a potential spaceport location for the US. Ascenscion Island is fairly popular as a launch site among Orbinauts, but its remoteness and small population and economy make it seem a rather unlikely spaceport, despite its near-equatorial location. Hawaii, OTOH, is closer to the equator than Canaveral (though not as close as Ascension), and seems to me to be well populated enough that if a spaceport were built there, spacecraft manufacturing facilities could be built there too without having to jump trhough massive numbers of hoops to get sufficient manpower and supporting industries in place, making it unneccesary to ship stages thousands of miles by sea from the manufacturing site to the launch site.