Role Play
 

I was looking over the "Role Playing Supplement" in my Third Edition TM 1-1, and the opening text was something I hadn't looked at for many years.

The Morrow Project was not designed to save the world; it could not. There was too little time. Provision could be made to rebuild, and ensure the coming darkness would not last forever. Thousands of years of human thought and advancement would not be lost. The Morrow Project was to ensure there would be a tomorrow.
Provision was made for the entire world, and, at a later time, the stars. These concerns fall beyond the role playing expansion. For the time being, we are concerned only with activities on the North American continent. The key to the plan were the personnel of the Project.
The mission was to rebuild, recreate, preserve ...

The stuff about "provision was made for the entire world, and at a later time, the stars." was very interesting.

--
Michael B.

They backed up 'wikipedia' :)

Prime Base, at least, referenced a follow on "Atlantis Project" that would continue TMP's mission after the US had been stabilized and could be used as a resource in restoring the rest of the world.

As to "the stars"? A bit of romance, I think, since you cannot restore what has not yet been accomplished.

We know that the Project had a satellite in orbit (at least one, maybe more). It may have had the ability to boost small payloads into orbit after the war to replace other satellites for various purposes. It had a great interest in the Houston Space Center, ostensibly to control the existing satellite, but more likely for a much broader set of circumstances and capabilities, since a good old dish and vehicle mobile system could probably do the chore of managing one satellite and its data pretty well.

With fusion power and cryostorage space travel to even near stars is a reasonably doable prospect, once you can get everything you need into orbit. The catch here is getting material into orbit. The Project could use some sort of Project Orion type booster, since they appear to have pure fusion devices there will be a lot less fallout and residual radiation from such a vehicle.

Restoring the existing space program is of minor interest, since as of the war there would be no permanent extraterrestrial permanent settlements. BUT, I really like the idea (spin-off?) of TMP finding a way to create a colony on the moon or Mars, something nominally self-sustaining, as a fail safe. A bit of a stretch, but a cool idea.

"You can get to Backup Prime Base, but you really, really got work at it!"

--
Michael B.

Perhaps there's a special Project group tasked with securing and supporting an orbital and/or Luna bases/s?