It really makes me think what could have been if we dedicated more investment towards space travel/research.
I mean, James Cameron could've gone with generic sci-fi brick or saucer spaceships for Avatar, but instead gave us the beauty that was the ISV Venture Star, which introduced a lot of people to hard sci-fi design aesthetics.
However, if you have a big settlement on the Moon, wouldn't a "space truck" actually make a lot of sense, for carrying large cargo loads both to and from the Moon? What am I missing?
The wings, wheeled landing gear, all that aerodynamic streamlining,etc. everything that makes it useful to fly in the atmosphere is dead weight on its way to the moon. Best off sending the supplies up in a simple capsule and using something like a space tug to take the capsule to the moon
If it is, would it make sense to use the Shuttle (or something like it) to ferry cargo to and from orbit, and then use a "space tug" to transport it to the Moon without the extra mass of the Shuttle?
From what I read, the main problem with the Shuttle was the requirement of bringing cargo back to Earth, intact: this prevented using small, simple capsules, with disposable rocket stages like on Saturn V (or now with SpaceX, a reusable lower stage). This required a big Shuttle craft that was horrifically expensive to both build and to maintain, and we no longer use the Shuttle because they finally figured that out. However, in an alternate timeline with significant facilities on the Moon, they'll probably want to, for instance, manufacture stuff there with the low-g environment and ship it back to Earth, which would require some way of transporting such cargo safely through re-entry. Just sticking it in a disposable capsule might not be sufficient.
A lot of Apple TV is just weird. I suspect weird people have creative input, EG Apple execs, who shouldn't.
In the event, budgets got cut, and the Saturn V derivatives went away.
Granted, the Shuttle going to _the moon_ is a weird one, alright.
On the other hand, it feels slightly odd that everything in this alt-history just falls nicely into place. Everything is better, society, technology, even little things like king Charles marrying Camilla instead of Diana. It feels like someone doused the reality in sugar.
Which is not bad per se. I had my fill of bleak dystopias. But it is starting to stretch disbelief.
Haven't watched that far, but if _King_ Charles is marrying Camilla, then it obviously didn't work out so well for poor ol' QEII, did it?
I assume the thesis is that space stuff is inspiring, leads people to aspire to better things, royals to approach dating more sensibly, etc.
They send marines up there to retake a mining site from Russians without violence, but they can't even speak Russian.