Alex_semenov1965's alternate future line

[Alex_semenov1965]

I made this graphic.
By the way, the tool is the World text editor.

Dandridge MacFarlan Cole. He died at the age of 44, the year I was born. Heart attack. The ambulance didn't make it; it got stuck at a railroad crossing.
When I learned about this man relatively recently (for me, anything after 2000 and the advent of the internet is "recently"), I was shocked by the ideas he promoted. Yes, "Aldebaran"... Nuclear propulsion. But what struck me most was that he proposed Humanity's Path into space through the idea of Macrolife. An idea that was both insanely brilliant, delusional, and bold.

Yes, the idea, in the spirit of Cole's nuclear propulsion ships, is most likely a dead end. But as an engineer, I see that it is unfinished. Look closely. The nozzle. It's there—rickety. In the Helios project, the nozzle was already the size of the combustion chamber itself. But you can't simply add a bell-shaped nozzle to Cole's early designs. But here, perhaps, another approach was suggested. Think about what kind of nozzle would naturally suggest itself here... Aerospike! And no one has suggested it yet!

In fact, I had a whole storyline where the US and Nazi Germany enter the space race immediately after the end of World War II, which ended in a draw. While the Germans were first entering space with the Sänger bomber and, in competition with themselves, were building the classic line of von Braun rockets, America (finding itself in the shoes of the "barefoot Russians") pulled ahead with the Sea Dragon project, and then the Germans make a "knight's move" – they build a ship in the spirit of Dandridge Cole (the US's next move is Orion). The plot also involves a special German path to nuclear weapons (via hydride, low-yield bombs for tactical use on the battlefield).



In that alternative historical reality, there's no UN, the globalists have essentially lost the battle for peace to the imperialists, and there's no fear of nuclear war because nuclear weapons were already used on the real battlefield and turned out to be ordinary weapons, just like gases. I'm deeply convinced that the nuclear deterrence that emerged in our historical reality is yet another reason why we haven't yet left the cradle of space. We have the wrong historical timeline. Less severe, but far more boring. That's how it always is.

 

[Alex_semenov1965]

Well, since we're having such a drinking party... In Russian... "Cut the last cucumber!"



This is another alternative reality, one in which Khrushchev's plot against Lavrenniy Beria in the summer of 1953 is thwarted. Beria carries out radical reforms and a total purge of the Party. A different USSR, a different course of history. Specifically, the USSR naively fails to launch an artificial satellite first. Beria has figured out Eisenhower's plan for a World Geographical Year, and satellite overflights are equated with spy flights. Space becomes the arena of a fierce military confrontation and an arms race. Likewise, the wave of radiophobia unleashed in the US ends not with a treaty banning explosions in three environments, but only with quotas, which leaves a loophole for the development of Orion technology. A poster, made as if from an alternative 1976, is dedicated to the stamp issued for the 10th anniversary of the Moscow Treaty on Quotas for Nuclear Explosions in the Atmosphere, in Water, and in Space in 1966. Glory is sung to this wise decision of the great Beria, who wisely concluded precisely this correct treaty. This is precisely what paved the way to the stars for our older brother, the USSR, and our younger brother, China!



A Soviet propaganda poster from the same alternate reality, dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Great October Revolution. It recalls a key event of the 1970s and 1980s: the flight of the nuclear-powered impulse ship "Lavrentiy Beria" to Jupiter, Saturn, and back. A diagram of the ship is included. The poster is interesting because it contains a minor error. The landing boats are positioned incorrectly, on their sides. They should be vertical, like multiple warheads on a heavy military launch vehicle. Otherwise, everything is conveyed accurately.
Please note.

КОВА - "Командный Отсек, Возвращаемый Аппарат"

A radiation shelter and a rescue module in one. It's no coincidence that KOВA (command compartment, reentry vehicle) sounds like Stalin's party nickname, Koba, in English. Stalin's personality cult continues unabated in the USSR. Koba is a refuge and a protector. A father and mother in one! And Stalin, the great one, illuminated our path! Basically, we have complete Juche there, like in North Korea now! Even worse!

Some people (I know someone) might think the Russians shamelessly stole the American Orion designs, the lower section, cut off the doomsday payload (why did it need so many bombs in the magazine bay? Were they planning to bomb Mars?), and slapped their own version of a manned spacecraft on top. Yes. That's right. The Russians stole it, as usual. But if it's done well and creatively, it doesn't count as stealing. Right?

 

[Brett Davidson]

View attachment 793303

BTW, the 2STO is a Colani design.

 

[Alex_semenov1965]

BTW, the 2STO is a Colani design.

Yes, in the initial image, it was a Japanese man. I spent some time erasing the Japanese sun and replacing it with a Nazi swastika. I also added a photo from the Voskhod 2 cockpit (we Russians are exterminated or conquered in this story). I believed this particular illustration would have the greatest impact in demonstrating a very different, parallel, and more intense space race with Nazi Germany.