an alternate alternate history (ETS-inspired)
I've been reading the Eyes Turned Skywards alternate history that I'm sure a lot of people are familiar with, and been enjoying recreating some of the missions so I thought I'd document some of it here.
In April 1978 the final Saturn V in NASA's inventory is used to launch Spacelab, a follow up to the Skylab station that was deorbited in 1976. Although it uses the same S-IVB dry workshop design as Skylab, it is built for a much longer mission duration, and is planned to receive future modul
In mid-1984, other progress was being made, with the suborbital testing of a new booster under development by Martin Marietta from Vandenburg Air Force base. After a strong backlash against the use of toxic storable propellants in the wake of the Titan IIIL disaster, research had begun on the use of a new hydrogen/oxygen first stage. This stage was powered by the new RS-25 engine, a design based on old work from the 1970s which was originally done for a planned "space shuttle" concept which was
