Amarna Forum

This thread is a revival of its old Amarna counterpart. Its mission is the same discuss and post technological  futures that have yet to happen or never did across the ages. From the constantly thwarted efforts to explore the final frontier to proto cindy architecture in the 18th century to canceled 2000s war fighter projects all is welcome!
I will post something more substantial on one of these topics later, for now I will ask you to go forth and post whatever cool technique thing that has yet to exist you wish to share.

I've had a post about the Space Transportation System/Integrated Program Plan and the Apollo future we were denied saved in my drafts for a long time. Every time I would do research or start writing, I'd get sidetracked and start writing about another thing I wanted to talk about. At this rate I'll never finish it so I'm just going to dump a bunch of links about my favorite lost space futures instead with a small blurb. Paul Drye's False Steps and David Portree's No Shortage of Dreams blogs (and later semi-paywalled Wired column) are the most accessible sources for a lot of cancelled projects and proposals.


IPP/STS

A complete infrastructure for manned and unmanned spaceflight from low Earth orbit to Mars. Brainchild of NASA administrator Thomas Paine. Reusability at every leg of the trip from Earth to the Moon: Nuclear spacecraft, modular space tugs, manned stations, orbital propellant depots, fully reusable shuttles. Tantalizingly close to being real - most of the core components were real or created for the program (Saturn V and its derivatives, NERVA, Space Shuttle) before being shut down for budgetary reasons. Only the Shuttle remained, devoid of the purpose it was created for, and the mission name of STS.
False Steps' 4-part series: [1] [2] [3] [4]
Think Big: A 1970 Flight Schedule for NASA's 1969 Integrated Program Plan




Space Shuttle evolution

The Shuttle program is rightfully criticized for its slow development, higher-than-estimated launch cost, and poor safety record. However, engineers were devising a number of modifications or special projects that, had they come to fruition, may have created a far better vehicle.

• The External Tank flew with the Shuttle nearly the entire way up to orbit. Using a bit more fuel to haul it into orbit could enable a host of new opportunities, ranging from sneaking a little more cargo space in the ET to turning the experimental demonstrator Space Shuttle Enterprise into the core piece of a space station to stringing together multiple ETs into Skylab-style wetlabs assembled on orbit.
  
• Most Shuttle modification R&D ended after the Challenger disaster. However, a complete redesign was not off the table, as were unmanned versions like the Shuttle-C and HLV concepts.
  

Other things I want to mention later:

• Lenticular Apollo: NASA's Flying Saucer
  
• Grumman's Ambitious Spider: Apollo LM variations
  
• SEI: FLO, ILREC
  
• Lunar Oasis
  
• Project Constellation
  
• How the VentureStar can still win
  
• Visions of #BigelowWorld
  
• DIRECT rejects: Shuttle-C, NLS, Jupiter
  

https://sci-hub.se/10.1088/0264-9381/11/5/001
Sometimes I think about this at night.

While I would like to believe that the Sloot Digital Coding System was real and we could have been swapping movies on floppy disks in 1999, the premise of such advanced data compression being the work of a lone inventor who suddenly dropped dead is somewhat implausible. Maybe Seagate had him rubbed out so there would be an excuse to continue increasing hard drive sizes?