Solar Space - Pleminary Timeline
Sep. 2nd, 2005 01:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jeriendhalNote: Needs work obviously. Particularly bits that crib a trifle too closely to RAH's original works.
December 1944 - The Battle of the Bulge. An unexpected and fierce counterattack, aided by a month of bad weather that grounds Allied planes, pushes Allied forces out of the Belgian forests and back into France. President Roosevelt, in consultation with Manhattan Project leader Gen. Leslie Groves, modifies the initial target lists for the American atomic bomb program.
February 1945 - Nazi rocket scientists launch Werner Von Braun’s Amerika Bomber towards New York City. The rocket-powered bomber fails to reach New York, drifting off course instead to crash in Newfoundland, Canada. Found among the remains is a primitive nuclear device, which if detonated would have spread a large cloud of radioactive Cesium-137 dust over the city, rendering it uninhabitable for decades.
April 12th, 1945 - President Roosevelt dies. President Truman is sworn into office, and briefed on the Manhattan Project for the first time.
July 16th, 1945 - First true atomic bomb successfully detonated outside of Alamogordo, NM. President Truman authorizes the use of atomic weapons in the war effort.
August 9th, 1945 - The B-29 bomber Enola Gay detonates the first atomic weapon used in anger over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Six hours later Bock’s Car detonates it’s atomic payload over Berlin. Two days later Hitler commits suicide in his bunker as a faction of the German Army attempts to arrest him. Germany surrenders to the Allies.
September 2nd, 1945 - Japan surrenders.
1947 - The United Nations is first convened.
1948 - Vickers successfully launches the Z-1, a suborbital mail rocket. Overnight mail service quickly established between Great Britain (launching from Falmouth) and Sydney, Australia.
1949 - “First Lightning” the USSR’s atomic weapon, detonates during the final stages of the assembly process, killing most of the lead scientists of the Soviet atomic weapons program, including project leader Igor Kurchatov, and leading scientists Yakov Zel'dovich and Yuli Khariton. The Soviet program is put on indefinite hold.
1950 - 90% of international mail carried by rockets. Soviet Union quits the UN Security Council in dispute over Western intervention in the Korean War.
1951 - In the midst of the Korean War, General Douglas MacArthur is abruptly dismissed by President Truman. It will take two decades for the shocking truth to come out: A high level FBI investigation discovered that Macarthur intended to break the stalemate in Korea by using atomic weapons without White House authorization. Fearing further Army attempts to usurp White House control, Truman proposes the United Nations Atomic Treaty.
Most of the United Nations, including all members of the Security Council, sign on to the United Nations Atomic Treaty (UNAT). Under the program, all atomic research is conducted under UN auspices, and active nuclear weapons programs have permanent UN monitoring. The first byproduct is the “Atoms for Peace” program, providing standardized atomic reactors for all the nations of the world, so that even the poorest of nations would have reliable means of power. Little noted at the time was a provision giving the United Nations oversight over all use of atomic power and weapons launched “outside of a sovereign nation’s territory.”
1953 - Robinson Atomics, a major contractor in the Atoms for Peace program, proposes a nuclear powered rocket to act as a ferry rocket for the proposed “Space Wheel”, an orbiting space station with rotational gravity. The idea is shot down in favor of conventional kerosene and oxygen rockets.
Christmas 1954 - Robinson Atomics, now renamed Robinson Atomics & Rockets makes a surprise launch of its privately funded nuclear rocket to the moon from a base in the Nevada desert. The outcry against flying an unproven atomic vehicle is muted when the three man, one woman crew find unfathomably ancient ruins on the moon, apparently left by a space faring race that traveled the Solar System long before Man.
Late fifties: Nearly all suborbital and all orbital ferry rockets are nuclear powered.
1960 - First permanent base established on the Moon to study the alien ruins.
1965 - Joint USA/USSR mission to Mars in the first successful interplanetary rocket, the RS General Zhukov. Orbital photography reveals extensive ruins and canali (channels), which upon further investigation prove to be part of a vast planetary irrigation network.
1967 - Twelve days prior to the Zhukov’s intended launch back to Earth, contact is made with a small group of Martians. Upon returning to Earth, immediate plans are set into motion to return with a larger expedition to study Martian culture.
1972 - Two incidents mar mankind previously peaceful exploration of space. In the first incident, what was believed to be an unexplored Near Earth Asteroid captured by Earth’s gravitational field is found to be a secret weapons platform, operated by expatriate National Socialists, and serviced by a secret rocket base off the coast of Argentina.
The weapons platform is discovered by a group of Explorer Scouts that had experienced a malfunction in the orbital ferry that they constructed and were testing at the time. Through a combination of luck and ingenuity, the Scouts capture the weapons platform and the surviving Nazis. Under interrogation, the Nazis reveal the location of their ground base, which is subsequently captured by joint forces operating under United Nations command.
The second, far more serious incident, called the Pavonis Horror, involves a private company that was contracted to the Smithsonian Institute to excavate Martian ruins. Instead, they enslave the local Martian populace, using them as slave labor, and selling the artifacts they find to wealthy collectors back on Earth. Eventually their operation is discovered and shut down by an Earth based sting operation, but not before the Martian slaves die from abuse and starvation.
1973 - The United Nations Solar Patrol (usually abbreviated to just “The Patrol”) is established in the wake of the Pavonis Horror and the Nazi weapons platform incidents. The Patrol is a multinational, semi-military in nature (similar in structure to the US Coast Guard), charged with “Maintaining peace in the space between planets, and on all the soil of Earth and planets beyond, and assisting in all peaceful interplanetary scientific endeavors.”
1977 - The Patrol ship R.S. Sergeant York successfully lands on Venus, and makes contact with the Naushiphen.
1980 - What are later claimed to be “Nationalist Chinese Traitors” incite a series of peasant revolts in mainland China. In retaliation, the Peoples Liberation Army Air Force drops several atomic weapons on Taiwan, completely destroying the cities of Taipei, Tai-tung, and Su-ao. The United Nations Secretary General condemns these actions, and threatens to use the provisions of the UNAT treaty to launch a retaliatory strike against Beijing, using the Nazi weapons platform still orbiting the Earth and guarded by the Patrol. China backs down from it’s threatened invasion of Taiwan, and agrees to allow UN inspectors to enter previously hidden atomic weapons facilities.
1981 - After considerable debate, the Solar Patrol is given formal authority over the Nazi weapons platform, and three more that are subsequently constructed. Their purpose: “To prevent any United Nations member nation from engaging in aggressive military action against another United Nations member, and to act as a deterrent against any non-United Nations member from attacking a United Nations member”.
1985 - First permanent colony established at the Venusian north pole. The first Naushiphan ambassador is welcomed to the United Nations.
1991 - Colonists permitted immigrate to Mars, to areas of the planet known to have been abandoned by the Martians. The Mars Colonization Agreement is established, strictly prohibiting contact between Martians and humans except for high-placed UN diplomats and Patrol members.
2005 - First successful expedition to the Asteroid Belt, with landings at 1 Ceres and 4 Vesta.
2008 - Asteroid Expedition returns. The theory of Ariel, the Lost Planet, is formed.
2010 - First exploration of Jupiter’s moons. Europa and Ganymede are discovered to not only be habitable, but apparently protected from the massive radiation that spews forth from Jupiter by massive magnetic fields.
2015 - Scouts on an camping trip in the Sea of Tranquility discover and successfully overpower a gang of ‘ice pirates’, stealing cometary ice that hand been dropped there for colonization purposes.
2017 - Colonies established on Europa and Ganymede.
2020 - The Saturn Expedition makes landings on Titan, discovering it to be cold, but covered in water ice. There is a brief debate on terraforming it for colonization, but its decided that would be too expensive and difficult, when there were so many other habitable places in the Solar System.
2023 - Commercial mining expedition finds evidence of in asteroids in the vicinity of Ceres. Mars becomes a staging base for a massive “gold rush” as Martian prospectors head out for the Belt.
December 1944 - The Battle of the Bulge. An unexpected and fierce counterattack, aided by a month of bad weather that grounds Allied planes, pushes Allied forces out of the Belgian forests and back into France. President Roosevelt, in consultation with Manhattan Project leader Gen. Leslie Groves, modifies the initial target lists for the American atomic bomb program.
February 1945 - Nazi rocket scientists launch Werner Von Braun’s Amerika Bomber towards New York City. The rocket-powered bomber fails to reach New York, drifting off course instead to crash in Newfoundland, Canada. Found among the remains is a primitive nuclear device, which if detonated would have spread a large cloud of radioactive Cesium-137 dust over the city, rendering it uninhabitable for decades.
April 12th, 1945 - President Roosevelt dies. President Truman is sworn into office, and briefed on the Manhattan Project for the first time.
July 16th, 1945 - First true atomic bomb successfully detonated outside of Alamogordo, NM. President Truman authorizes the use of atomic weapons in the war effort.
August 9th, 1945 - The B-29 bomber Enola Gay detonates the first atomic weapon used in anger over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Six hours later Bock’s Car detonates it’s atomic payload over Berlin. Two days later Hitler commits suicide in his bunker as a faction of the German Army attempts to arrest him. Germany surrenders to the Allies.
September 2nd, 1945 - Japan surrenders.
1947 - The United Nations is first convened.
1948 - Vickers successfully launches the Z-1, a suborbital mail rocket. Overnight mail service quickly established between Great Britain (launching from Falmouth) and Sydney, Australia.
1949 - “First Lightning” the USSR’s atomic weapon, detonates during the final stages of the assembly process, killing most of the lead scientists of the Soviet atomic weapons program, including project leader Igor Kurchatov, and leading scientists Yakov Zel'dovich and Yuli Khariton. The Soviet program is put on indefinite hold.
1950 - 90% of international mail carried by rockets. Soviet Union quits the UN Security Council in dispute over Western intervention in the Korean War.
1951 - In the midst of the Korean War, General Douglas MacArthur is abruptly dismissed by President Truman. It will take two decades for the shocking truth to come out: A high level FBI investigation discovered that Macarthur intended to break the stalemate in Korea by using atomic weapons without White House authorization. Fearing further Army attempts to usurp White House control, Truman proposes the United Nations Atomic Treaty.
Most of the United Nations, including all members of the Security Council, sign on to the United Nations Atomic Treaty (UNAT). Under the program, all atomic research is conducted under UN auspices, and active nuclear weapons programs have permanent UN monitoring. The first byproduct is the “Atoms for Peace” program, providing standardized atomic reactors for all the nations of the world, so that even the poorest of nations would have reliable means of power. Little noted at the time was a provision giving the United Nations oversight over all use of atomic power and weapons launched “outside of a sovereign nation’s territory.”
1953 - Robinson Atomics, a major contractor in the Atoms for Peace program, proposes a nuclear powered rocket to act as a ferry rocket for the proposed “Space Wheel”, an orbiting space station with rotational gravity. The idea is shot down in favor of conventional kerosene and oxygen rockets.
Christmas 1954 - Robinson Atomics, now renamed Robinson Atomics & Rockets makes a surprise launch of its privately funded nuclear rocket to the moon from a base in the Nevada desert. The outcry against flying an unproven atomic vehicle is muted when the three man, one woman crew find unfathomably ancient ruins on the moon, apparently left by a space faring race that traveled the Solar System long before Man.
Late fifties: Nearly all suborbital and all orbital ferry rockets are nuclear powered.
1960 - First permanent base established on the Moon to study the alien ruins.
1965 - Joint USA/USSR mission to Mars in the first successful interplanetary rocket, the RS General Zhukov. Orbital photography reveals extensive ruins and canali (channels), which upon further investigation prove to be part of a vast planetary irrigation network.
1967 - Twelve days prior to the Zhukov’s intended launch back to Earth, contact is made with a small group of Martians. Upon returning to Earth, immediate plans are set into motion to return with a larger expedition to study Martian culture.
1972 - Two incidents mar mankind previously peaceful exploration of space. In the first incident, what was believed to be an unexplored Near Earth Asteroid captured by Earth’s gravitational field is found to be a secret weapons platform, operated by expatriate National Socialists, and serviced by a secret rocket base off the coast of Argentina.
The weapons platform is discovered by a group of Explorer Scouts that had experienced a malfunction in the orbital ferry that they constructed and were testing at the time. Through a combination of luck and ingenuity, the Scouts capture the weapons platform and the surviving Nazis. Under interrogation, the Nazis reveal the location of their ground base, which is subsequently captured by joint forces operating under United Nations command.
The second, far more serious incident, called the Pavonis Horror, involves a private company that was contracted to the Smithsonian Institute to excavate Martian ruins. Instead, they enslave the local Martian populace, using them as slave labor, and selling the artifacts they find to wealthy collectors back on Earth. Eventually their operation is discovered and shut down by an Earth based sting operation, but not before the Martian slaves die from abuse and starvation.
1973 - The United Nations Solar Patrol (usually abbreviated to just “The Patrol”) is established in the wake of the Pavonis Horror and the Nazi weapons platform incidents. The Patrol is a multinational, semi-military in nature (similar in structure to the US Coast Guard), charged with “Maintaining peace in the space between planets, and on all the soil of Earth and planets beyond, and assisting in all peaceful interplanetary scientific endeavors.”
1977 - The Patrol ship R.S. Sergeant York successfully lands on Venus, and makes contact with the Naushiphen.
1980 - What are later claimed to be “Nationalist Chinese Traitors” incite a series of peasant revolts in mainland China. In retaliation, the Peoples Liberation Army Air Force drops several atomic weapons on Taiwan, completely destroying the cities of Taipei, Tai-tung, and Su-ao. The United Nations Secretary General condemns these actions, and threatens to use the provisions of the UNAT treaty to launch a retaliatory strike against Beijing, using the Nazi weapons platform still orbiting the Earth and guarded by the Patrol. China backs down from it’s threatened invasion of Taiwan, and agrees to allow UN inspectors to enter previously hidden atomic weapons facilities.
1981 - After considerable debate, the Solar Patrol is given formal authority over the Nazi weapons platform, and three more that are subsequently constructed. Their purpose: “To prevent any United Nations member nation from engaging in aggressive military action against another United Nations member, and to act as a deterrent against any non-United Nations member from attacking a United Nations member”.
1985 - First permanent colony established at the Venusian north pole. The first Naushiphan ambassador is welcomed to the United Nations.
1991 - Colonists permitted immigrate to Mars, to areas of the planet known to have been abandoned by the Martians. The Mars Colonization Agreement is established, strictly prohibiting contact between Martians and humans except for high-placed UN diplomats and Patrol members.
2005 - First successful expedition to the Asteroid Belt, with landings at 1 Ceres and 4 Vesta.
2008 - Asteroid Expedition returns. The theory of Ariel, the Lost Planet, is formed.
2010 - First exploration of Jupiter’s moons. Europa and Ganymede are discovered to not only be habitable, but apparently protected from the massive radiation that spews forth from Jupiter by massive magnetic fields.
2015 - Scouts on an camping trip in the Sea of Tranquility discover and successfully overpower a gang of ‘ice pirates’, stealing cometary ice that hand been dropped there for colonization purposes.
2017 - Colonies established on Europa and Ganymede.
2020 - The Saturn Expedition makes landings on Titan, discovering it to be cold, but covered in water ice. There is a brief debate on terraforming it for colonization, but its decided that would be too expensive and difficult, when there were so many other habitable places in the Solar System.
2023 - Commercial mining expedition finds evidence of
