Boldly Going is an alternate spaceflight history found on the alternatehistory.com forums. In this timeline, Space Shuttle Enterprise does not become an Earthbound museum piece. Instead, it becomes "Space Station Enterprise", America's first permanent space station. As a result, the Shuttle helps to push space exploration forward, with Enterprise serving as a major foothold and staging ground for all of NASA's major operations in space, including their return to the moon in the 1990s.
The thread can be found here
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This work features the following tropes:
- Alternate History: Focuses on an alternate timeline with spaceflight developments surrounding the Space Shuttle and its unmade variants, including the Shuttle-C and Shuttle II.
- April Fools' Day: The story started out an April Fools Day joke, and the authors have said that the real joke was the plan for the story to take less than ten thousand words to tell.
- Cool Spaceship: The Space Shuttle, which is pushed to its absolute limits in this timeline. Other examples include:
- The Shuttle-C, which serves as the primary launch vehicle for the lunar "Minerva" program. While its payload bay is expendable, the vehicle's rear-mounted engine pod can be recovered for reuse.
- The Shuttle-II, the successor to the original shuttle and its capabilities. Unlike its predecessor, the Shuttle-II can fly without the need for input from a human pilot. It can, however, fly with a crew module that can be ejected from the orbiter in the event of an emergency.
- ESA's Kepler spacecraft. While it was initially designed as a lifeboat for Space Station Enterprise, it is later selected to serve as the Command Module for the international Minerva lunar program.
- The Conestoga LSAM (Lunar Surface Access Module) and its upgraded variant, Diana. While the former functions much like the old Apollo spacecraft, its descent stage can carry heavy payloads to the lunar surface. Also, its fuel tanks can be converted into living and workspaces for the astronauts inhabiting the moon bases. The latter, meanwhile, is a reusable, single-stage lander that can ferry payloads between lunar orbit and the lunar surface. The Diana spacecraft can also double as a cislunar tug, transporting crew and cargo between Earth and the Moon.
- For Want Of A Nail: The point of divergence for this timeline is American intelligence agencies making errors in interpreting Soviet plans for Mir and President Reagan's acceptance of a proposal for an orbiter-derived space station as an expediency, which leads to the conversion of Shuttle Enterprise.
- In this timeline, both Columbia and Challenger survive to see retirement. Discovery, however, does not survive, and Challenger is tapped to make the "Return to Flight".
- With the development of NASA's Shuttle-C, the Liquid Rocket Boosters, and ESA's Kepler spacecraft, the lunar Minerva program is soon launched, resulting in astronauts returning to the moon before the end of the 20th century. The program also culminates in the establishment of multiple Moon Bases that lay the foundation for planned missions to Mars.
- The Solid Rocket Boosters are eventually phased out in favor of larger liquid rocket boosters, which help to streamline the assembly process for the shuttle and to make the system safer.
- While the original orbiters are still retired as in our timeline, public perception of the system is much more positive, leading to the development of the Shuttle-II as a successor. Also, the original orbiter fleet lasts about 11 years longer than in our timeline, with the last flight to be flown by Atlantis in 2022.
- While the Hubble Space Telescope still requires servicing, ESA's ATV (Automated Transfer Vehicle) Galileo is able dock with it and ease it into a coplanar orbit with Space Station Enterprise. In this orbit, Galileo can not only dock with the vehicle, but also bring it to Enterprise so it can be serviced by the station's crew. A special hangar is also created within the station's hydrogen tank so Hubble can be protected during servicing.
- In Spite of a Nail: Despite Columbia and Challenger surviving, one orbiter ends up being lost, and Endeavour is still built to take its place.
- While it takes a longer time for the original orbiter fleet to be retired, Atlantis still gets the honor of flying the last mission.
- As in our timeline, Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken are tapped to fly the first manned flight of a spacecraft that's designed to replace the aging Space Shuttle. The Shuttle-II can even operate autonomously!
- Moon Base: Several, including crew-tended outposts at Tsiolkovsky Crater and Oceanus Procellarum, and a much larger facility at Shackelton Crater near the lunar south pole.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: The Loss of the Shuttle Discovery in 1986 was on a mission for which only one crew member had been named, and said crew member was explicitly pulled for health reasons.
- Space Station: The Space Station Enterprise, which serves not only as a science lab and orbital outpost, but also a foothold for traveling back to the moon and to other destinations beyond low Earth orbit.
- What If?: "What if NASA was given the approval to launch an orbiter-derived space station" as well as numerous other spaceflight what-ifs surrounding the Space Shuttle are prominently featured in this timeline.
