Belitopia - Notice: Mid-Season Break
Belitopia
I hope you are enjoying our world of Belitopia. We’re going to be taking a few weeks off for our mid-season break while celebrating the holiday season. However, stay tuned! There might be some bonus content coming out during the break! We will continue the second half of Season 1 in the new year, where we plan on talking about Space Station Freedom, our two Apollo moon bases, a heavy lift space transport system, and our very first space station in lunar orbit! Thank you for listening to our world of Belitopia, and see you next year!
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Belitopia S1E5 - Skylab +
Belitopia
The Space Race wasn’t just about who could get to the moon first. There were other battlefields where the space race was fought. One of those battlefields was in building a permanent manned presence in space in the form of a space station in low earth orbit. Such a station would not only be a great place for space based research, but also a starting point for military use of space. Winning the battle over low earth orbit against the Soviet Union was just as important as beating them to the moon. Low earth orbit wasn’t as glamorous as the race to the moon, so it did not receive as much...
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Belitopia S1E4 - The Venus Flyby p2
Belitopia
Links and More Information . Introduction In the last episode of Belitopia, we started our story of the Venus 1 voyage. In this episode, we conclude our story of this historic voyage. Venus 1, a mission launched as part of the Apollo Applications Program, used Apollo technology with some necessary extensions in order to send a crew of two astronauts on the first ever flyby of another planet. This mission never happened in reality, but a version of this mission was in the planning stages before budgets were cut. But this is Belitopia. In our world, funding did occur, and the Venus Flyby...
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Belitopia S1E3 - The Venus Flyby p1
Belitopia
Among the many missions that came out of the Apollo Applications Program, one of the most amazing was the Venus Flyby mission. Imagine, using the same Apollo technology that brought us to the moon, for a long duration mission to fly by our nearest planetary neighbor, the planet Venus. Humans, traveling to another planet in our solar system. It was an ambitious plan. Unfortunately, in real life, funding for this mission never materialized. It wasn’t even close. Yes, there was some actual planning that went into a proposed mission, and some early plans were created. But no serious...
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Belitopia S1E2 - Apollo Applications Program
Belitopia
The Apollo space program was much more than a set of missions to the moon. It was also a technology platform that provided the basis for future space programs. A technology platform that the Apollo Applications Program was created to leverage and enhance. In real life, not much came of the Apollo Applications Program. Very little funding was given to the program, and the program suffered. A stunted Skylab space station, and a Apollo-Soyuz joint docking in space were all that came out of the Apollo Applications Program. At least, that’s what happened in real life. But this is not...
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Belitopia S1E1 - Apollo +
Belitopia
The Apollo space program. The quintessential peak of human kinds manned space program. The funding that went into this program was astronomical, around $120 **billion** dollars, adjusted for inflation. But once we landed on the moon, we lost interest in space. With the reduced interest in space came reduced funding...and our future in space suffered. But, what if funding didn’t stop suddenly… This is “Apollo Plus”. For more information, please see . Transcript What if the world was different? Science fiction is usually utopian or dystopian, either unrealistically good or...
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Belitopia S1E0 - Welcome to Belitopia…
Belitopia
This is the world of “what if”. What if we had continued the space race, what would our space footprint look like? What if we had invested heavily in a transportation infrastructure around the globe, how would that change how we get from point A to point B today? What if we decided as a species that world hunger was not acceptable, how would we have solved it with technology? What if we had solved the autonomous car problem 50 years ago, how would that have changed how we worked and played today? What if sustainable energy was standard practice for a generation, how would that change how...
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Among the many missions that came out of the Apollo Applications Program, one of the most amazing was the Venus Flyby mission. Imagine, using the same Apollo technology that brought us to the moon, for a long duration mission to fly by our nearest planetary neighbor, the planet Venus. Humans, traveling to another planet in our solar system. It was an ambitious plan.
Unfortunately, in real life, funding for this mission never materialized. It wasn’t even close. Yes, there was some actual planning that went into a proposed mission, and some early plans were created. But no serious program was budgeted. Given the significant budget cuts after the moon landing, the Venus Flyby mission didn’t really have a chance.
That was in the real world. But this is not the real world…
This is…the “Venus Flyby” mission.
Links and More Information
- Belitopia Venus Flyby Information
- Episode Details
- Wikipedia - Venus Flyby
- Wikipedia - Apollo Applications Program
- Original 1967 NASA Venus Flyby Feasibility Study
Introduction
In the last episode, we talked about the Apollo Applications Program, and the future use of Apollo technology beyond its use in landing on the moon.
During the late 1960’s, one of the missions that was considered for the Apollo Applications Program was a Flyby mission of the planet Venus.
As we discussed previously, due to lack of support from both the Johnson and the Nixon Administrations, the mission never really was taken seriously.
But there was some actual planning that went into this proposed mission. In fact, you can check out Wikipedia and other online sources, and you’ll find information about what was proposed in the late 1960’s for this trip. A high level outline of a mission plan was created. A link to that proposal is included in the links above.
But this is Belitopia. In our world, Johnson and Nixon did support the AAP program, and the Venus Flyby mission was funded.
This episode describes a significant variation from the initial plans that were created in the 1960’s. Instead, it describes a trip that I believe is more inline with what would have actually occurred, if we were allowed to invest in and create such a mission.
In our version of the mission, the one that occurred in the world of Belitopia, the mission was named Venus 1 and it sent two astronauts on a planned nearly seven month round trip on a flyby pass around the planet Venus.
What follows is a fictional documentary about this flyby mission. The documentary takes place in the year 2040, 65 years after the mission took place.
This documentary, titled “Our World in Space”, describes the Venus Flyby mission in greater detail, as a historical record of past events.
While fiction, it’s based on much thought and consideration on what it would take to make such as trip possible. This documentary is about the voyage of the first humans to leave the Earth-Moon system and flyby another planet. This documentary is about the voyage of Venus 1 — the Venus mission, in the world of Belitopia.