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Old 06-15-2019, 03:32 PM   #8
AlexanderHowl
 
Join Date: Feb 2016
Default Re: Sol-1 [Infinite Worlds]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Phantasm View Post
This timeline is treading a fine line where the forum's RealPolitics rules are concerned, I think. Let's not focus too hard on the politics.

I love the push for more and better outer space exploration in this timeline, though. Do they have a moon base and/or a Stanford Torus or O'Neill Colony in orbit? Manned expeditions to Mars? Near-Earth asteroid mining?
The NASA plan in 1977 (OTL) required lunar mines and L4/L5 Stanford Torus assembly plants with a population of 10,000 by 1990. In the ATL, the greater amount of funding (allowing a faster and larger orbital solar array) would have required larger lunar mines and larger L4/L5 colonies similar to O'Neill, but only supporting 800,000 people each, by 1990. The first manned mission to Mars was in 2003, followed by the permanent base and the Demos and Phobos ice mines in 2006. During the Clinton administration, the push would have been to the asteroids, first the NEAs in her first her and then the big five in her second term (Ceres, Vesta, Juno, Eugenia, and Pallas).
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