1.11 Acknowledgements: Volume 1

Author's Comments

Welcome to the first issue in what I hope to be a multi-part update to Goldstein and Sternbach's original Star Trek Space Flight Chronology. It's been a long time since that book was published and a lot has happened in Trekdom since then. All of us know an update has been long overdue. Since nobody else is doing it, and since I want to make my own contribution to Trek tech fandom, well, here I am. I'm an old school TOS/TAS Trekker from the 1970s who was heavy into the tech aspects at the time before military service and later jobs intervened. Now I'm back on the scene and would like to give a hand, if you will. So much for introductions.

I know some of you will be upset by my choice of a modified Graham/Mandel timeline (aka Prime One) as the basis for this work. The reason is twofold. First, it's the timeline on which the really good original TOS/TAS era “Trek tech” is based. You know the works I'm talking about. This is ostensibly a TOS/TAS era “Trek tech” publication so it needs to be consistent with the others. Second, to be honest, it's the timeline that's always worked for me. I have no problem with the original Star Trek taking place from 2261 to 2265 and it made sense at the time back in the heyday of TOS/TAS fandom. Also, to this day and other than Dixon's interesting work this timeline remains the only one that doesn't cherry-pick its sources. The “official” Berman-Okuda timeline does, which makes it invalid insofar as I am personally concerned. You fans that have a dictionary up your keester and want to preach to me about sticking with “official canon” can just save your breath. I'm going with what works for me and my fellow old school Trek techies. Don't write to me claiming that my dates are wrong because they're not. It depends on your base Trek timeline, and mine is definitely the “old school” approach. Now that we've settled THAT issue, let's move on.

Oh, and in case you're wondering, Dixon's integrated Trek timeline is Prime Zero for purposes of this work. The “official canon” timeline, aka Berman-Okuda, is Prime Two. The Trek magazine/FASA/original SFC chronology is Prime Three and the “mirror universe” is Mirror One. That should be simple enough!

I've tried to hit only the high points with regards to our time and space exploration. There's a lot I left out – the X-15, the NASA lifting body program, the history of Russian space stations, the early probes to Mars and Venus, ESA involvement in the Space Race, the Delta Clipper (other than the lone picture), more data on Spaceship One, and so on. So much more. I had to cut it off at some point; otherwise, this installment of my planned series would have become a book in itself. I included the information on the German World War II V-2 program because that truly marked the start of the Space Age. That's also where von Braun first became famous as a rocket pioneer. As for the inclusion of the Vrill programs? They're one of the greatest of the post-war Nazi science mysteries. One might say that they're indirectly referenced by the technology of the Temporal Cold War in Enterprise but I'm not going there. Like Dixon I regard that series as existing in a different continuity than the Prime One timeline. Makes for a great “curious footnote,” though.

My contention that the Star Trek television series proper only exists in the Prime One Trek timeline is based on the movie Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. We know TOS/TAS exists in the original timeline because of “Tomorrow Is Yesterday” and the Star Fleet Technical Manual. Given this, Kirk and company should have been instantly mistaken for their real-life counterparts (and the show that made them famous) the moment they set foot in 1986 San Francisco. To be fair, if Section 31 were being truly honest then it was the actual trip back in time and not Scotty's “gift” that created this alternate “official canon” timeline. Spock still didn't have his head screwed on right, you know. Who's to say they didn't end up in an almost identical parallel reality? After all, Klingon Bird-of-Prey scouts don't come with tachyon detectors as standard issue equipment. There's no way they could have known they had ended up in a 99.9% identical parallel reality (save for Star Trek's notable absence) without a tachyon detector. “Their” reality (aka the Berman-Okuda timeline) would not have seemed to change at all. How could they have known that their actions in resolving the Whalesong Crisis would ultimately result in their own version of reality as they knew it? I know a lot of fans agree with this argument because I've read your posts on the Internet. I find no fault with your reasoning; hence its inclusion in my work. It's also as convenient a way as any to account for the existence of the “official canon” within the body of this work.

As you might have guessed Dr. Hogan Richman is the Trek universe's fictional counterpart to Dr. Richard Hoagland of the Enterprise Mission. We all know what a big Star Trek fan Dr. Hoagland is and I couldn't conceive of doing this work without at least mentioning the topic for which he is best known. I also thought it would be a great way to explain the mysterious loss of the Terran space probe S.S. Charybdis as mentioned in the TNG episode “The Royale.” Trek's own version of 2001, if you will. More on this in future installments.

The presence of the fictional Apollo 18 mission, which never happened in our reality, is twofold. First, it gives mankind the chance to discover the Slaver stasis box on the moon as recorded in the original Graham/Mandel timeline. Second, the discovery of the stasis box is the motivating factor behind humanity's great drive towards space at this time that is so conspicuously absent in our reality. The desire to possess “alien tech” has long been talked about in New Age and certain military circles. Think if you will, what would happen to the United States and Russian space programs if they KNEW that alien tech existed on the Moon and might exist on other planets in the Solar System. Like a certain Red Planet next door? They'd be knocking themselves out to get into space, which is exactly what we see happening on Terra in the 20th century of the Star Trek universe. We'll deal more on the subject of “alien tech” later.

You might be interested to know that Copernicus Crater was the actual planned landing site for Apollo 18. Elements in the United States government at the time had long wanted to land an Apollo mission at Copernicus but were leery of the rough terrain. One might also imply that Goddard Moonbase was also built at Copernicus, although this was nowhere stated in my source materials.

StarLab One in the Trek universe roughly corresponds to the Russian Mir space station in our reality; hence my use of the photo of Mir.

All of the data concerning the Goddard Moonbase comes straight out of Goldstein and Sternbach's original Space Flight Chronology. Also, since they accurately predicted the Space Ferry concept I've taken the liberty of using current NASA conceptual art to represent it in the timeline.

Space Station Freedom was the original Reagan-era name for what would become the International Space Station.

The UESPA logo shown in this work is the original design by Geoffery Mandel and Doug Drexler for the classic TOS/TAS “Trek tech” work U.S.S. Enterprise Officer's Manual.

There are conflicting accounts on the Internet as to what the “DY” in “DY-100 class spaceship” stands for. I used the “Dyson-Yoyodyne” interpretation simply because I'm a Buckaroo Banzai fan (as are many old-school Trekkers). The logo also comes off the Internet but I can't find the source at this time. Hopefully I can correct this in a later issue or revision. I followed Goldstein and Sternbach's naming convention for the DY-100 series (as opposed to the Kevin Willcocks blueprints) for the first three ships since my concept of their development is oriented more towards the original SFC than what Willcocks has written.

The phaseout of the OV-100 space shuttle program as recorded in the original SFC was based on actual NASA projections at the time the book was written (and boy, did they miss THAT one!). I included the phaseout of the Russian Buran class shuttle since it was a copycat project and would have been put in the same class as the OV-100s by UESPA. This early phaseout would preclude the Columbia disaster from taking place, as I've noted in the timeline.

The only real sources about what happened during the Eugenics Wars are the non-canon series of Trek novels by Greg Cox and various non-canon fan chronologies (first in Trek magazine and later on the Internet). I've tried to keep away from these for that very reason; however, it does seem plausible to me that Khan stole the Botany Bay early on given the data at hand. The name implies an Australian location for building. We Terrans are so proud of our national origins and prison ships have a unique place in Australian history. By the way, Australia was within Khan's sphere of influence per the various non-canon sources. If I were a military dictator seeking the path to power on Terra c.1990s one of the first things I'd want to capture would be the airfields … or, if they existed, the spaceports. Now if I knew that the local UESPA contractor was building one of the famed DY-100s, supposedly the most advanced spacecraft of the day, and the ship was practically complete … well, I think you can follow my line of reasoning. This would have given him plenty of time to refit it for whatever purpose he wanted, and since the “sleeper ship” concept was one of the options of the DY-100 series (long-range exploration or colonization), then why not?

You can read all about the real X-20 DynoSoar project on the Encyclopedia Astronautica web site.

The X-27 Raven is based on the Project Blackstar study as published in the 2006 article in Aviation Week and Space Technology article “Did Pentagon Create Orbital Space Plane?”

Mars Probe One is based on the 1968 IMIS proposal by Boeing as modified by NASA in 1971 (also referenced in some sources as the NASA PRMG). The only change that I have made is to retain the original 1968 NERVA-style nuclear rocket engines, which cuts down on the fuel requirements but still requires the “extended boom” construction per the IMIS specs. The John F. Kennedy return ship is based on the 1962 EMPIRE flyby proposal by Lockheed. The reason for using these particular studies is that they would have been what were “current” when the original Star Trek television series was produced back in the late 1960s. My own personal preference is more modern, being a cross of the Russian RD-0410 and American DRM-4 NTR concept studies. These seem more suited for the “left behind waypoint” concept and also include the idea of aero-braking for initial orbit insertion (as used by the Russian spacecraft Leonov in the feature film version of 2010).

The image and data for the Goliath HLV are those for the proposed NASA Aries class heavy-lift rocket. The Dyson-Yoyodyne Conestoga III civilian “heavy lifter” is based on a 1970s NASA design study using Saturn technology by none other than Werhner von Braun himself (as mentioned in the Goliath writeup).

The ALIEN ENCOUNTERS section is where I make a significant departure from the original SFC. It has long been the contention of many (Dr. Hoagland being but one voice) that mankind has long been the subject of alien visitation. This section is intended to provide articles dealing with either first contact or significant encounter events with other intelligent lifeforms during the history of Terran spaceflight. Naturally the three most significant events during this time period in the Trek universe are the Roswell Incident (1948), the materialization of the timewarped Enterprise over Omaha AFB (1969), and Viking's discovery of the face on Mars (1976). This pattern will be repeated in future issues.

Finally, I integrated the history and ship's logs sections of the original SFC into a single section titled HISTORICAL ARTICLES. I've taken the liberty of adding a few that were missing from the original work, most notably President Kennedy's speech on the space program and President Reagan's address on the Challenger disaster. Both are moving in their own unique way. I can still almost hear President Kennedy saying, “We go not because it is easy, but because it is hard.” My eyes still well up as I remember watching President Reagan help our nation deal with the sudden and tragic loss of the Challenger. No two speeches better reflect the triumphs and tragedies of this part of the Terran history of spaceflight than these.

Well, that's all for now. See you next issue.

– Richard E. Mandel

The tale of spaceflight development in the world of STAR TREK, from the “old school” fandom point-of-view, is continued in Volume 2 of the Federation Spaceflight Chronology.

Special Thanks To

• Apple Computer, Inc.
• HP/Compaq Computer, Inc.
• Eric Kristansen
• James Dixon
• Harry Doddema
• Encyclopedia Astronautica
• Ex Astris Scientia
• Stan and Fred Goldstein
• Walter Irwin and G.B. Love
• Masao Okazaki
• Timo Saloniemi
• The San Diego Aerospace Museum
• Aridas Sofia
• Rick Sternbach
• The United States Air Force
• The United States Army
• Wikipedia

Photo and Mesh Sources

• Aviation Week and Space Technology
• The Enterprise Mission
• The National Aeronautics and Space Administration
• The National Archives
• OrbiterMods
• Paramount Pictures
• The United States Air Force Museum
• The United States Army
• White Sands Missile Range

Conceptual Artwork Sources

• Encyclopedia Astronautica
• The Enterprise Mission
• Rick Sternbach