Recent content by QueenofScots

Dormant Account

Apologies. No update this week due to the start of the school year.

Recognized. Changing to Ulysses.

Sorry if I've created that impression, but the part about US-Soviet cooperation is completely OTL. I'll be covering the Russian side of things in detail another time, but 1989 was the peak of Soviet-American cooperation, helped in part by Carl Sagan.

What’s Next? — NASA’s Persective Daniel Goldin, the new NASA administrator Daniel Goldin was a surprise pick for the role of NASA Administrator, relatively obscure to those knowledgeable with the program. Early on in his career, he worked at NASA, but then left to join the public sector. A...

Don't worry, there's an installment coming. I've decided to move this TL's update time to earlier, and on a Monday, to better accommodate readers in the eastern US.

What’s Next? — The White House Perspective GEORGE BUSH: For many years, our countries have called for the dismantlefication [sic] of the Berlin Wall. MARGARET THATCHER: Yes, and now it’s finally happened.” BUSH: Okay… What the hell are we gonna do? THATCHER: I KNOW! We’ll build more nuclear...

One thing to keep in mind for the time being is that the Soviet Union is still very much a leader in space exploration. Mir has been in orbit for nearly three years, gaining insights into microgravity and materials science. There will have to be some kind of US manned program. The form that...

Good catch. I've written a decent buffer of installments to keep this kind of thing from happening, but some things always make it through. As for the future, 1989 will be quite the year, regardless of the outcome...

Updates will be weekly. Cancellation “My fellow Americans, Nearly three years ago, I addressed a national tragedy, the death of seven brave Americans on the Space Shuttle. It is with great sadness that I must do so again. At quarter to eight tonight, Space Shuttle Atlantis broke up over the...

I don't see how "our esteemed author" is anything but patronizing.

If you're going to be rude about it, I'm not sure why I should discuss this.

I've seen sources disagree about what exactly the material was. It was, in all sources, under an antenna mounting, which accounts for the thickness.

Why is this necessarily a hit on the RCC? It was the specific location of the tile that was lost that saved Atlantis. Instead of exposing the normal aluminum skin, it exposed a heavy antenna mounting, with thicker than average aluminum. Things easily could have gone differently. EDIT: I...

As STS-27 was the public designation, it will be continue to be used for the duration of the timeline. In addition, the historical issue was that this was a DoD flight. The secure video had serious issues: