Writers room for S3 started during the lockdown.
For All Mankind Trailer - Apple TV- SPOILER
- Thread starter Mysterion
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Looks pretty damn good. And great song choice, too! 
Now, I remember a paper about how an orbiter could remain attached to a refilled ET could make it to the Moon, return, slow to standard orbital speed, then ditch the External Tank at the last.
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19910014907.pdf
Think of the External Tank as Musk’s Starship.
Now, with hypergolics, the ET could have been made smaller, and refilled by a more squat SLS. Toxic, yes, but no LH2 boil-off.
I wonder what a hypergolic-only ET shuttle stack would have looked like.
No wet stage station-workshop concept there!
But the tank itself would have been cheaper, perhaps.
Or just stick the orbiter on Sea Dragon
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I wonder if a more active attention to the space program got more people interested in Star Trek and it wasn’t cancelled as soon.Wonder if there's a shuttle Enterprise?
I think Hexagon was what really drove the payload bays size.
The novel “Back To The Moon” also featured a lunar shuttle mission.
My problem is with the silvered up M-16s.
Better:
www.up-ship.com/blog/?p=33691
The novel “Back To The Moon” also featured a lunar shuttle mission.
My problem is with the silvered up M-16s.
Better:
www.up-ship.com/blog/?p=33691
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There were all sorts of ideas for the External Tank. One of the ideas, in the late 70s before the Skylab re-entry, when NASA realized the abandoned station still had value, was to make External Tanks that had crew quarters in them that could be used as space station modules.
Stephen Baxter sends one to Saturn in Titan. Good book, but depressing as hell and prescient politically.
Gemini is NASA's big road not taken.
The Air Force had a space station concept that utilized Gemini.
NASA had designs for a five-man "Big Gemini" capsule.
There was even a plan to use Gemini to go to the Moon instead of developing Apollo. The thinking was it would save time and be cheaper. The lander for this project would essentially have been an open tricycle that the astronaut piloted from orbit. Slightly crazier than the Soviet plan.
The Air Force had a space station concept that utilized Gemini.
NASA had designs for a five-man "Big Gemini" capsule.
There was even a plan to use Gemini to go to the Moon instead of developing Apollo. The thinking was it would save time and be cheaper. The lander for this project would essentially have been an open tricycle that the astronaut piloted from orbit. Slightly crazier than the Soviet plan.
Apollo was the better design, but the ugliest craft flown. An industrial toilet paper roll with a cone at either end....Boring
My favorite space vessel of the era was the orbital “autogyro” that was Skylab.
I’d have Sea Dragon launch it as an Earth-Moon cycled, with a MOL Gemini backing up to it what with the hatch through the heat-shield. The Soviet VA and shuttle landing gear shows the concept is sound.
The combined vessel is Skylab with a Gemini cockpit in its narrow nose.
My favorite space vessel of the era was the orbital “autogyro” that was Skylab.
I’d have Sea Dragon launch it as an Earth-Moon cycled, with a MOL Gemini backing up to it what with the hatch through the heat-shield. The Soviet VA and shuttle landing gear shows the concept is sound.
The combined vessel is Skylab with a Gemini cockpit in its narrow nose.
They used the clamshell door of a Gemini capsule for the airlock door on Skylab.
Dang, it's only a week away! I can't wait.
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