Steampunk Mars/ Cold War crossover

[marvin]

I was think of doing a GURPS Dying Mars/Space 1889 crossover with something like Red Storm Rising.

So the gist is that...

Ancient Artifact somehow transfers every other inner planet, Vulcan, Venus, Mars from a steam punk setting to a more modern year during the late Cold War. For simplicity's sake lets say 1973 (last year of Vietnam and a year after the last Apollo mission).

So my questions are...

How long would it take Earth to notice the difference? I'd imagine that would occur rather quickly.

How quickly could we send a manned mission to each of these planets?

Assuming a slightly modified Space 1889 setting for the Steampunk worlds; how would the Europeans on these planets fare until the Earth nations re-establish contact?

(NOTES: No Ether in space though I would be open to a sudden advancement in nuclear plasma propulsion.)

Thank you very much.
Benjamin

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by marvin

I was think of doing a GURPS Dying Mars/Space 1889 crossover with something like Red Storm Rising.

So the gist is that...

Ancient Artifact somehow transfers every other inner planet, Vulcan, Venus, Mars from a steam punk setting to a more modern year during the late Cold War. For simplicity's sake lets say 1973 (last year of Vietnam and a year after the last Apollo mission).

So my questions are...

How long would it take Earth to notice the difference? I'd imagine that would occur rather quickly.

How quickly could we send a manned mission to each of these planets?

An amateur with even a small telescope could probably detect the difference the first time he looked. Even just the atmosphere would change how things looked. Real canals would be noticed as well as cities and so on. One day would be quite possible for Mars. If your Steampunk Venus is still cloud covered it'd be the last one to have its' change confirmed.

Spend as much money as you like but it'd be at least a decade before manned missions could go anywhere and they'd be small at first. Possibly for a significant period of time as well. Realistic space flight is just hard.

I'd give it 2 years for an unmanned flyby also. The Viking landings could probably happen as scheduled in 1976, maybe with altered instrument packages..

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

If your Steampunk Venus is still cloud covered it'd be the last one to have its' change confirmed.

Steampunk planetary romance Venus is presumably much cooler than the current one. That change in temperature would be easily noticeable. (Astronomers were debating how far down in the atmosphere of Venus they were measuring temperatures even back in the 1920s.)

The real variable there is whether anyone was bothering to look. But there are amateur astronomer groups that routinely observe Venus (and other planets) in the UV and IR as well as visible light. For the professionals, ESA's Venus Express is still in orbit and operational (I think; it was last summer), Japan has Atasuki in orbit (after some travails), and it would notice a change in the atmosphere, as that's its main object of study.

I'd also put a from-scratch flyby mission at a couple of years. It could be done faster if there were some obvious urgency. If it's just "hey, the inner planets seem different, lets' build a probe", it's just another space mission, even if it is the one on top of the list. Not just the probe but the rocket is essentially built to order. If, on the other hand, Earth is getting radio transmissions in English from Venus, things will move quicker. (Radio seems post-steampunk to me, but everyone has their own definition. And maybe you can think of another way they'd get attention.)

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

But there are amateur astronomer groups that routinely observe Venus (and other planets) in the UV and IR as well as visible light. For the professionals, ESA's Venus Express is still in orbit and operational (I think; it was last summer), Japan has Atasuki in orbit (after some travails), and it would notice a change in the atmosphere, as that's its main object of study.

You seem to be thinking about _current_ activities in re Venus. I was working from the suggested change date of 1973. There was nothing orbiting Venus in 1973.

Well, nothing of ours anyway. A Steampunk Venus could have (and use) a moon. Something dark and small (but probably dense) to help stabilize things and reduce the solar tidal drag problem.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

You seem to be thinking about _current_ activities in re Venus. I was working from the suggested change date of 1973.

Good point. I did miss that. Thanks for the correction.

[dcarson]

According to Wikipedia there were three Saturn Vs built and not used, SA-513, SA-514 and SA-515. The two lower stages of 513 were used to launch Skylab. So if Skylab hasn't launched yet you have three usable Saturn Vs. I expect that the shutdown was recent enough that you can restart production fairly quickly so you could probably maintain a yearly or twice yearly launch rate.

So Skylab is launched and then added on to to serve as the basis of a orbital rendezvous base for the much larger then Apollo manned ship for a eventual Mars mission. At least 5-10 years to design that A large Mars orbiter is built and launched using a Saturn V to get a close look at the planet. That can probably be done in a year since you can afford to use heavier parts with a Saturn V as a launcher.

New Moon orbiters are launched to see if there has been some minor changes to the Moon and possibly a expanded Apollo program to put a base on the Moon since space is now much more important.

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

The real variable there is whether anyone was bothering to look.

If nothing else, Mariner 10 would be planned to flyby Venus in Feb, 1974. Possible if the change in Mars was noted and Venus was not the hardware could have been repurposed, I guess.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by RyanW

If nothing else, Mariner 10 would be planned to flyby Venus in Feb, 1974. Possible if the change in Mars was noted and Venus was not the hardware could have been repurposed, I guess.

There's no real question about Mars. That's a nightly object for thousands of professionals, students and amateurs. I was looking at Mars through an 8 inch Celestron in my Astronomy lab class in 1977.

By contrast they never had us look at Venus. Not much to see with simple optical telescopes in our world.

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

By contrast they never had us look at Venus. Not much to see with simple optical telescopes in our world.

I thought Venus was a pretty common spotting target. Perhaps not at the astronomy "class" level, but at least the astronomy "club" level. Assuming it is in the night sky, it is the brightest thing aside from the moon, so it is easy to find and see even before dark sets in fully. The perfect thing to get the newcomers to a stargazing outing used to the equipment early in the evening.

[marvin]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Spend as much money as you like but it'd be at least a decade before manned missions could go anywhere and they'd be small at first. Possibly for a significant period of time as well. Realistic space flight is just hard.

I'd give it 2 years for an unmanned flyby also. The Viking landings could probably happen as scheduled in 1976, maybe with altered instrument packages..

I think with the Atlas V still in production and a revived NERVA we might be able to get to Mars in less than 5 years.