The impish Max Faget, chief engineer of the Mercury, busybody extraordinaire on Apollo, and designer of the alternative Shuttle "DC-3".

The manuscript for False Steps is done, just a quick read-through to double-check it and I'm printing it and sending it to the publisher I would like to use. That said there's still two "Chief Designer" entries that I've not stuck up on the blog yet.

Here's one of them, Wernher von Braun. A more problematic figure in the history of spaceflight you ( Read more... )

Two more entries to False Steps for you, both "Chief Designers" entries. Two more to go (one written and one halfway there) and that's the manuscript for the book done. I'll be continuing the blog indefinitely, though, with more entries about projects and items that I decided to not put into the book for one of several reasons. Got to keep my ( Read more... )

It's been a while, but I'm getting False Steps back up and running. For your enjoyment I present the 52nd installment of the alternate Space Race blog:

The Reusable Nuclear Shuttle: To the Moon, Again and Again

Enjoy!

Again! It's like these guys were overambitious nutbars or something!

Sonnengewehr: The Sun GunSome stories on this have circling the web the last few of days (the epicentre appears to be a Gizmodo article), so I figured I'd best pull my notes on it together and say something myself for False Steps. Much more detailed than the other articles you've ( Read more... )

Posts, I mean.

Today we look at Kliper, a fairly serious effort by the Russians and the ESA to come to an agreement to build a manned spaceplane. From 2004-2006 things got hot and heavy between the two, but the crush wore off once Europe realized that Russia was talented but skint.

Kliper: Russia and Europe Try a Spaceplane.

Between 1967 and 1969 NASA engaged in quite a large battle over what spacecraft they should build next to get to low-Earth orbit and they space station they were sure they'd be building in the 1970s. Eventually the idea of a winged orbiter won and for better or worse we got the Space Shuttle ( Read more... )

I don't think the Soviets get enough credit for their space station work. The USSR's economy started stalling and eventually contracting sometime around 1970, yet they remained well ahead of the curve in orbital building until about the year 2000. So I think it's kind of interesting that a project they first started thinking about in 1979 is, as I ( Read more... )

In 1989 George Bush (the first one) told NASA to come up with a new goal in space. They came back with a Mars mission that was going to take thirty years and $540 billion dollars. After everyone stopped laughing they set about cleaning house and trying to come up with a space agency that understood how Earth worked as well as they did things ( Read more... )

The USSR had two manned Moon landing programs from 1965-75. Completely mental when you consider that the US had one, was straining to pay for it, and the Russian economy was considerably smaller, but there you have it ( Read more... )