When it all went wrong

[james_davis_nicoll]

From a previous comment on my LJ:

I thought there was a significant contingent of politicians who feel most of the developments since [The development of agriculture/the Industrial Revolution/The Great Depression/Women's Lib/Etc (Pick one)] have been mistakes and that if only we could set the clock back, everything would be fine.

Or at least better than it is.

A Canadian example of a When It All Went Wrong (WIAWW) moment is the Avro Arrow, something that many Canadians are still bitching about (Mind you, Canada is a nation with a province whose motto is "Je me souviens," but none with the motto "No Use Crying Over Spilled Milk"). In fact, my father used to complain bitterly about the cancellation of the Arrow and not only was he not Canadian (until just before he died) but I don't think he was in Canada when the decision was made and he didn't work in aerospace. Complaining about the Arrow decision unites Canadians in one great mopey If Only.

Ken MacLeod chooses Sputnik as a moment when everything went wrong.

Is there any chance someone could offer up some links for Ken to use in his alt-history of space development that don't require him to cite a James P. Hogan essay? Yes, I saw the disclaimer in MacLeod's essay.

Comments

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Somehow I knew you'd pipe up here.

I remember hearing somebody pushing a similar idea on some Usenet group (but I don't remember which one): that the X-20 DynaSoar was in some way an incremental step beyond the X-15 that would somehow lead to us just flying really fast airplanes into space, much more efficiently than a big Roman candle could do it. I had to burst his bubble by telling him the X-20 was supposed to be shot into space on top of a Titan. He took it pretty well.

[montedavis.livejournal.com]

People go through some remarkable contortions to avoid accepting that we're in a deep gravity well and chemicals only offer so much energy. Most of the contortions assert in one way or another that access to space ought to be more like aviation... which would carry more weight if aviation itself hadn't hit a plateau in speed, for all practical purposes, not long after the space age began.