Just imagine

[ascan1984]

It is late 1986. The Rodgers comission has released its final report. Nasa decides it is too dangerous to fly the STS program and bans it from ever flying again.. Go to twenty years into the future. AKA today. What is happening in the alternate history space program today.

 

[ve7rkt]

1 Jan 2006 (alternate): The crew of Atlantis begins squaring things away, preparing to undock in two days, leaving a three man crew on the International Space Station. The all-important Cupola -- gods only know why this window is so important, but it is -- was installed, as were a large number of International Standard Payload Racks. CNN's text scroller reads "UKRAINE GAS ROW THREATENS EUROPE SUPPLIES - EAVESDROPPING HELPS PROTECT USA, SAYS BUSH - SHUTTLE TO BEGIN JOURNEY HOME TOMORROW, NOBODY CARES - CAT DIALS 911, SAVES OWNER".<br /><br />How did we get there? Well, after the Rodgers Report recommended shelving the STS, there was a great debate over the next generation of space transportation systems. And after all that debate, the conclusion was that they couldn't justify the cost of a new system in any reasonable period of time. That meant they had to choose between fixing the Shuttle and running it properly, or abandoning manned spaceflight.<br /><br />In my version of the alternate history, they chose the former. The Shuttle program is overhauled, and Discovery flies STS-26, the first post-Challenger flight, in 1989 instead of 1988.

 

[themanwithoutapast]

After the Shuttle program is cancelled in 1986, the Soviets do not see any further use of their Shuttle program and cancel the already half build Buran and scrap the Energia rocket entirely, reusing its boosters as a new rocket they name "Zenit". By cancelling the costly Energia program as a rival to the American STS program, the Soviet Union's budget crisis of the late 1980s is not severe enough to lead to a dissolution of the USSR. Gorbachov is recalled as the leader of the USSR and a very young and former unknown KGB man, Vladimir Putin, who has served in East Germany throughout the last years, unsuspectively gains the leadership position in the Soviet polit bureau in 1989. Uprisings in East Germany, Hungary and CSSR are met by military actions and suppression of the communist leaderships in theses countries backed by the USSR. Putin abandons the reform policy of his predecessor in power, consolidates the structural problems of the USSR by near stalinist brutality and the USSR lives on... until today.<br /><br />With respect to space programs, the 1990s bring us a new revival and unprecedented stage of the cold war, the militarization of space with Mir-2 equipped with 20-megaton wareheads and the American Space Station Freedom equally equipped. <br /><br />As for January 1, 2006, the American President Bill Clinton who has won his 4th election in 2004, after a 1992 constitutional amendment changed the two term restriction, meets his close ally and friend Saddam Hussein to discuss the deep crisis that the Golf Region has endured during the last month following Saudi Arabia's attack of the United Arab Emirates...<br /><br />TO BE CONTINUED (whoever wants to continue this crazy thread...)<br /><br /><br />