Right Side Up is an alternate spaceflight history surrounding the Space Transportation System, also known as the Space Shuttle. In this timeline, a different concept is selected for the design of the Space Shuttle. The result is a semi-reusable design that not only helps to make spaceflight relatively routine, but also helps to push space exploration forward during the later decades of the 20th century.
The thread can be found here
.
This work features the following tropes:
- Alternate History: Focuses on an development of an alternative design to the Space Shuttle of our timeline.
- Cool Spaceship: This timeline's take on the Space Shuttle, the design of which is based on that of Martin Marietta's X-24 lifting body.
- The Space Lifter, the manned flyback booster that serves as the Space Transportation System's first stage. Derived from the Saturn V's first stage, the Lifter features the reusable F-1B as well as jet engines for powered flight back to the launch site. It can also carry payloads aside from the orbiter with the help of the S-IVC, which itself is a new version of the Saturn V's third stage.
- The Lunar Transfer Vehicle, which boosts payloads into lunar orbit to help set the foundation for mankind's return to the moon.
- For Want Of A Nail: The point of divergence for this timeline is the inclusion of the Saturn INT-22 concept in the 1965 studies for a low-cost, reusable launch vehicle that could make spaceflight more affordable. This leads to the creation of a concept known as the Interim Semi-Reusable System, which ends up being chosen over the Thrust-Augmented Orbiter System (the Space Shuttle of our timeline).
