Challenge Magazine?

[Olefin]

Originally Posted by RN7

Olefin's going to love this one!

This article is about what happened to the US and Soviet space shuttles and space stations during the Twilight War.

Falling Fragments of a Dream (by David S.F. Portree)

Soviet Hardware

Mir Complex: The Mir Complex was abandoned in 1999 after the nuking of the Baikonur Cosmodrome, the Soviet Union's manned spaceflight centre. The six cosmonauts aboard Mir could expect neither fresh supplies or relief, so they closed down systems and fled the complex. Three of them returned safely to Earth in the descent module Soyuz TM-22 spacecraft which had been docked at the station. The remaining three cosmonauts cobbled together makeshift couches in the descent module of the Progress PM-9 cargo craft attached to the rear port of Mir. Progress PM-9 was designed to only carry manufactured parts and not crews. American radars tracked it to a landing in the mountains of Tibet. The faith of the three crewmen is unknown. When abandoned Mir massed about 150 tons. Despite the presence of ASAT weaponry, the Americans did not use ASAT against it because they feared Mir's destruction would fill near-Earth space with thousands of pieces of debris, which would interfere with the already faltering American network of surveillance and communications satellites in orbit. In May 2005, the Mir Station Complex will re-enter the Earth's atmosphere, During Mir's last days the best forecasters (all seven of them still alive) can only say that it will come down over Europe.

Buran Space Shuttle: The Buran was launched days before Baikonur was destroyed. Its objective was unknown but it may have been launched to rescue the cosmonauts aboard Mir, or to recover the Kvant-3 materials (usable in Soviet military hardware on the ground), or simply just to get it clear of Baikonur which was a tempting nuclear target. Buran represented the pinnacle of Soviet technology, and contained components that could be used as examples in how to rebuild Soviet technology. Buran was intercepted shortly after its launch by an American ASAT and crippled. It is expected to re-enter Earth's atmosphere over North Africa in September 2004.

Rumours are rife that both Mir and Buran carried radioactive, chemical or biological toxins, or even conventional or nuclear explosives. This is mostly hysterical rumour, however in the case of biological toxins it is based on fact. The Kvant-3 materials science module which docked in 1990, was detached from Mir in 1998 to make way for a new secret module set for a 1999 launch. Kvant-3 was to be recovered by an automated Buran, and then to land in a remote airstrip in Siberia which was normally on stand-by for aborted launches. The secret module was to be docked with Mir, and was designed to produce highly toxic viral bioagents which can only be made in space. Soviet research into a new generation of such toxins began with the deterioration of international relations in the 1990's, and the civilian Mir station had become increasingly devoted to military research. In preparation for the arrival of the new module Mir's crew had been boosted to six, even though three had no emergency escape craft. Soviet cutbacks during Perestroika had effected the manned space programme, and the 10 seat Buran was not yet ready to being kept at Mir. The Buran was infact planned to service the planned Mir 2 station that could house up to 50 cosmonauts. Economic pressure delayed the big station and it was eventually cancelled. The bioagent module was delayed so the Soviet launched the unmanned Progress PM-9 cargo craft with supplies and equipment to begin interim production. Its descent module was meant to return to Earth with sealed containers of reactive bioagent toxins. But Baikonur was destroyed, the cosmonauts fled Mir and there was no room for the containers. The bioagents are believed to be still onboard Mir, and will fall to Earth in 2005 and hopefully be incinerated when Mir burns up.

American Hardware

The American Hubble Space Telescope launched in 1990 fell to Earth in 2004. Fragments of its mirrors landed in the Yucatan, and were collected and displayed in local shrines for decades. Some were carved into mythical crucifixes.

The first elements of the American Freedom Space Station were placed in orbit aboard two space shuttle flights in 1997. They were destroyed by Soviet ASAT in 1999, and re-entered Earth piecemeal between 2001 and 2007. For decades after any meteor shower over North America was known as the "fires of freedom".

The American space shuttle fleet was grounded after the destruction of Atlantis in 1998. Atlantis suffered a main engine explosion minutes after lift off and was forced to ditch in the Atlantic Ocean. Newspaper headlines spoke of "the sinking of Atlantis", but due to the shuttle fleet being grounded no manned space station elements ever reached orbit for the Freedom Station. The nuclear strikes on the Kennedy Space Centre led to the destruction of Endeavour and Discovery. However Columbus survived. It had been launched before Atlantis went down on a mission to put a KH-18 surveillance satellite into orbit, and was then forced to make an emergency landing after colliding with space debris at Banjul, Gambia in Africa were it was stranded throughout the war. No mention of Enterprise, which means it was probably never made flight worthy.

Considering I was a Space Shuttle engineer yes I am interested. I still remember when Columbia went down - I was responsible for wiring the wings and when they reported how those sensors went down I immediately knew it had to be a burn thru even before they reported that as being the cause.

Got to love it - Columbus survived - you mean they got the name of the original Space Shuttle wrong?

Question - is this article from the V1 era or the V2?

[RN7]

Originally Posted by Olefin

Got to love it - Columbus survived - you mean they got the name of the original Space Shuttle wrong?

Question - is this article from the V1 era or the V2?

I suppose its a alternative timeline fit that leads to Columbus surviving. I don't really know if its V1 or V2.

[Olefin]

Thats Columbia not Columbus FYI

And Enterprise could never have been refit to have flown in space - it would have had to have been rebuilt almost completely

It was an atmospheric test vehicle not space capable

FYI The loss of Atlantis is incorrect by the way - the loss of one engine would not have caused them to ditch it in the Atlantic - loss of one engine during ascent means you have to abort to an alternate landing site not ditch - the person who wrote the article obviously didnt know the protocols for the Shuttle

Also given the US and Soviets continuing to have the space race Freedom would have most likely been manned and operational for sure by the war start - it was only delayed as it was due to the Cold War winding down - if that stays hot then Freedom is up there and manned - maybe not fully completed but manned for sure - if anything the start of the war with China would have definitely made them rush deployment just to get continual manned resources there

and a continuing Cold War means that they dont mothball the Vandenberg facility - and you are looking at a new shuttle as well - the only reason we cancelled the follow on to Endeavour was due to cost savings after the Cold War ended - so a V2 timeline would have no shuttles from Vandenberg and no new shuttle

V1 would have had at least one new shuttle and launches from Vandenberg

FYI all one engine failure modes (and even two engine failure modes) past Challenger lead to landing on a runway somewhere - the only ocean ditching option would have involved a failure with the strap on rockets and an engine or the shuttle being too damaged during orbit to successfully deploy its landing gear - thus the whole article should be treated as Apocrypha - and you cant have the shuttle damaged by sabotage - not after Challenger - it was checked way too much for that

But you cant really fault the author - have a feeling GDW didnt have someone who was an actual Rockwell Downey or NASA space shuttle engineer working for them

[Raellus]

Hey guys,

Although they've all been cited, I'm not sure whether it's kosher to post long chunks of text from Challenge Magazine articles. It might be overstepping fair use and copyright rules. Let's err on the side of caution and refrain.

[Olefin]

Originally Posted by Raellus

Hey guys,

Although they've all been cited, I'm not sure whether it's kosher to post long chunks of text from Challenge Magazine articles. It might be overstepping fair use and copyright rules. Let's err on the side of caution and refrain.

Much better to just cite the area involved and what issue it is (i.e. issue 58, article title, and maybe a certain small part but not the majority of the article)

would that fit the guidelines fro the site?

[RN7]

Originally Posted by Raellus

Hey guys,

Although they've all been cited, I'm not sure whether it's kosher to post long chunks of text from Challenge Magazine articles. It might be overstepping fair use and copyright rules. Let's err on the side of caution and refrain.

I thought about that but I haven't actually copied the articles. ie as in copy and paste as they are on PDF files and it does not let you do that.

I have typed information based on what I have read in the Challenge Magazine articles, but I have not copied word for word or even followed the paragraph structure as some of the information is not that relevant or is to unwieldy. In the last two articles I have posted I have had to add some of my own words and thoughts to make it better to read.

So basically from now on I am going to post up a list of these articles, name the issue and author and give some limited information about what they are about. If anybody is interested in a particular article then I will type up some information.

[Raellus]

I'm not trying to be a buzz kill or wet blanket. I just don't want anyone here- or the forum as a whole- to get in trouble.

I think brief synopses and issue/page numbers is fine. I'd just rather we all be safe than sorry.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

While I don't know the specifics and it's going to vary from nation to nation, as far as I am aware, RN7 has violated no copyright/IP laws by posting the information in the manner he did.
Copying parts of an article is "generally" acceptable as long as it doesn't exceed a certain percentage but because he relayed parts of the article but in his own words, even this is not a particular concern.

Again, this is as far as I understand it, copyright laws protect the way an idea was expressed, presented or executed. The idea itself is not subject to copyright protection. So I believe that in RN7's case, there has no reprinting/copying or plagiarism so there has been no particular violation of copyright/IP.