u/Futurographer

Everyone knew that the floods were coming. Everyone prepared in their own way. Some built large sail boats. Others built small towns of rafts. I built my shelter from my van. For the first year, I found others every few weeks. Now, in the fifth year, I mark a full year since I've seen anyone else.

I wake up, tend to my hydroponics, clean my solar cells, and fix whatever breaks. Today was special though. Today, I received my first signal from a satellite since before the flood. The signal flickered for a moment, but then stabilized. I've sent back a signal to whoever is listening. Now, I just need to wait for a reply.

What if Biff Tannen had been successful in changing history?

Some people think that an airline as prestigious as Pan Am would have a more modern website, but I actually like its retro style. I'm super excited to go on this trip! I've always wanted to fly on the SSTO, but the tickets are always so expensive. Disney is looking into more ventures for Disneyland Cosmos, so they bought me a ticket to go to a major conference on Dr. Sally Ride Spaceport. Hopefully once the ticket costs drop a little more I'll be able to take the family up for a week.

(Lore: The USSR lands on the moon shortly after the USA, keeping spaceflight politically centre-stage. This is followed by the USSR launching the first space station. America sets up the first moon base in 1981 in retaliation. The Soviets follow suit. A smaller but more reusable Shuttle is delayed until 1986. Tech giants pioneer interconnected computers to the market years earlier due to greater satellite infrastructure. The Internet develops in the 80s, but the personal computer is delayed until the 2010s. Major lunar ISRU manufacturing booms in the 90s and 2000s make space a luxury commodities and tourism centre. This grows exponentially until spaceflight becomes routine, if not still expensive, for a quarter-million people a year by 2026.)

Some people think that an airline as prestigious as Pan Am would have a more modern website, but I actually like its retro style. I'm super excited to go on this trip! I've always wanted to fly on the SSTO, but the tickets are always so expensive. Disney is looking into more ventures for Disneyland Cosmos, so they bought me a ticket to go to a major conference on Dr. Sally Ride Spaceport. Hopefully once the ticket costs drop a little more I'll be able to take the family up for a week.

(Lore: The USSR lands on the moon shortly after the USA, keeping spaceflight politically centre-stage. This is followed by the USSR launching the first space station. America sets up the first moon base in 1981 in retaliation. The Soviets follow suit. A smaller but more reusable Shuttle is delayed until 1986. Tech giants pioneer interconnected computers to the market years earlier due to greater satellite infrastructure. The Internet develops in the 80s, but the personal computer is delayed until the 2010s. Major lunar ISRU manufacturing booms in the 90s and 2000s make space a luxury commodities and tourism centre. This grows exponentially until spaceflight becomes routine, if not still expensive, for a quarter-million people a year by 2026.)

Some people think that an airline as prestigious as Pan Am would have a more modern website, but I actually like its retro style. I'm super excited to go on this trip! I've always wanted to fly on the SSTO, but the tickets are always so expensive. Disney is looking into more ventures for Disneyland Cosmos, so they bought me a ticket to go to a major conference on Dr. Sally Ride Spaceport. Hopefully once the ticket costs drop a little more I'll be able to take the family up for a week.

(Lore: The USSR lands on the moon shortly after the USA, keeping spaceflight politically centre-stage. This is followed by the USSR launching the first space station. America sets up the first moon base in 1981 in retaliation. The Soviets follow suit. A smaller but more reusable Shuttle is delayed until 1986. Tech giants pioneer interconnected computers to the market years earlier due to greater satellite infrastructure. The Internet develops in the 80s, but the personal computer is delayed until the 2010s. Major lunar ISRU manufacturing booms in the 90s and 2000s make space a luxury commodities and tourism centre. This grows exponentially until spaceflight becomes routine, if not still expensive, for a quarter-million people a year by 2026.)

Across the endless skies of the United Republic of Humanity, Liberation was the first planet fully terraformed outside the solar system. Orbiting around Tau Ceti, due to its relatively low density it is slightly larger than Earth, with slightly less gravity. When people first set foot upon the planet, it was with heavily-armoured pressure suits, as the planet was shrouded in irradiated wastes of dust and smog.

Over the course of nearly two hundred years, through the industry of its planetary ring, along with countless other projects throughout the system, the planet changed. The winds softened, the smog cleared, the dust fell to become dirt, and the water rose. Two hundred years after first setting foot on the planet, they landed on it again, but now they were bare along sprawling beaches and grasslands, comforted by slow rolling waves.

All those who reach the planet are greeted with one simple message, one that echos across all worlds touched by Humans. Here, you live freely.

Photo Context in order, (not all photos are necessarily from the same timeline)

1. Famed food critic J.F. Kennedy being served Fettuccine Alfredo by its inventor in 1958.

2. Admiral Richard Nixon before being honoured for his bravery in the second Korean War.

3. Hijacker Ronald Regan and his crew holding the Secretary of Defence hostage during the infamous Air Force One crisis of 1980.

4. Comedian Georgie Bush preparing for his performance at Al Gore's State of the Union.

5. Actor L.B. Johnson on the set of "Free Birds" a live action animal comedy about time-traveling turkeys made in 1973.

6. Cyber-activist G-Bush during the 1999 television takeover broadcast, where he threatened to release blackmail on president Rick Cheney if the Iraq Blockade isn't stopped.

7. McDonalds manager Donny Trump on his last day before retirement due to increasing medical problems. He was later charged with health-code violations for spitting in customer's food.

8. Performer Harold Truman performing his "Wacky Truman Dance" to lift moral of the crew of the USS Hawaii.

9. Professor Bill Clinton explaining the new invention of "Digi-coin" to his economics class in 1992.

10. Inventor Rick Nixon meeting with "RoboSoldier" the first generation of cybernetically-enhanced military personnel.

In 1779, Alexander Hamilton fought a duel with royal officer John Auldjo. during this duel, Hamilton was fatally shot. This small action would change the course of North American history forever.

During the American Constitutional Convention, New England, New York, and the southern states failed to reach a compromise. The failure of consensus between the states eventually led to relations between the North and South souring, as Great Britain threatened to regain economic control over North America. This eventually lead to the Trinity System. An arrangement where three political and economic unions would be formed, each of which would to 'standards of national decency' by the other two. This was an extremely loose agreement that helped establish what is still understood as the Shared American Spirit.

The first of these unions to form into a formal nation was the American Confederation in the south in 1799. These southern states united together into a confederacy which would act to protect the interests of each member state from both imperial nations and other states. The second to form was the Republic of America in 1808. This was a much more unified nation, with almost all power given to the federal government. The Republic is controlled by a unicameral legislature, which is called the Continental Parliament. The final union never actually unified. That of Maryland, Delaware, and Virginia. Virginia would become the dominant power of the three, while Maryland and Delaware united together to form the United Nations of America in 1866.

As the 19th century began, North America continued to change. After the British victory during the war of 1809 between the French Republic and Great Britain, France was forced to give up the Luisiana Territory to the British. This was challenged by the continental congress, who stated that France had guaranteed the territory to them in 1803. This led to the Continental War between Great Britain and the Continental Congress from 1809 to 1811. The war ended in a stalemate, leading to the territory being divided between the American Confederation and British North America. The war also led to the formal abolition of the continental congress.

As Great Britain's dominance on the world stage appeared unquestioned, further colonization plans were settled, and many moved to British North America for lucrative government incentives. As the colonies of Upper Canada, Lower Canada, the Maritimes, and Luisiana continued to grow, calls for greater autonomy also grew. In 1832, this autonomy was granted in the Canadian Articles of Federation, which reorganized the colonies into provinces under a federal government.

In 1874, a slave revolt took place in the American Confederation. This revolt spread across the south, with many abolitionist movements also rising up. Known as the Freed People's Revolution, it eventually led to the toppling of the Confederate Government by former slaves, worker's unions, and abolitionists. the former American Confederation was reorganized into the American People's Confederation and the Union of Freed Peoples. These were the first two 'People's States' and their creation led to similar uprisings across the world.

For the next seventy years, Canada grew in power, eventually establishing itself as a strong player on the world stage, especially after Great Britain's embarrassing defeat in the Russo-British War of 1895, where greater powers were granted to Canada. This power faltered, however, in 1902, when the Canadian Civil War broke out. This war was made up of three major sides. The Constitutional Monarchist ruling government, the french nationalist Lower Canada Independence Movement, and the fascist National People's Senate to the south of Upper Canada. The war then spread across North America, becoming the Great American War. The two sides were the fascist Continental Powers, made up of the National People's Senate and the Mexican Empire, and the Unity Powers, made up of all other nations on the continent. After four years of war, it finally ended in a Unity victory in 1907. As part of the peace deal, Texas gained independence, and the southern Canadien provinces were rearranged to nullify their federal power. It also led to the end of the failed Trinity System and the establishment of the Second Continental Congress, this time as a peace-keeping and democratic organization.

Today, Canada stands as the undisputed champion of the western world. It is one of the three global Superpowers, the other two being Russia and Japan. Canada became the first nation to land a person on the moon, with Olivia McAllister touching down on its surface on December 12 1988 as part of the Space Race between Canada and Japan. Canada continues to stand as a beacon of progress and democracy across the world. With the promise that, wherever there is tyranny and oppression, the Great North will be there to fight it.

Based on the post by VireluneNova earlier today, I tried recreating it for my own planet. I needed to alter some values to get it sort of working, but for some reason, the Rayleigh scattering and atmospheric falloff aren't working, no matter what settings I change. When I set the values exactly to what is shown in their atmosphere shader, the whole thing becomes opaque and oversaturated. Does anyone know what might be causing this?

While the US was busy playing catchup to the Soviet's unprecedented victory in landing the first person on the moon, Sergei Korolev was planning his next steps. while the consolidation of the Soviet Space program had given Korolev giant influence across Soviet engineering, he was not without challengers. Namely Vladimir Chelomney and Valintin Glushko, who were still dragging their feet on using the N1 rocket. a compromise was made between the two groups in early 1970 to make the larger N2 rocket to use a larger hypergolic-powered first stage. This would satisfy Glushko's unwillingness to build oxydiser-based engines. The N2, using Glushko's RD-270 rocket engine, would increase the rocket's capacity to over two hundred metric tonnes. This was almost double the original capacity of the N1 and over fifty tonnes more than the American Saturn V.

The N2 went into service in 1975 and was used to perform most of the early construction of the Zvezda Moon Base. After Soviet spies became aware of the American Sea Dragon Program, the N3 rocket was green lit. This rocket was once again an insane leap in rocketry. The N3 had a mass-to-orbit of four hundred and fifty metric tonnes. It used the revolutionary RD-290 rocket engine, to this day, the most powerful hypergolic rocket engine.

While Korolev and Glushko focused on the moon, Chelomney worked on low Earth orbit. After the moon landing, the Salyut Space Stations were reworked into a modular single station called Mir, to be a microgravity research, manufacturing, and fuel depot. Mir's first module was launched in 1972, and by 1982, it had grown to over a dozen modules, which constantly held a tight race for habitable volume with America's various Skylab and Moonlab space stations.

Hi Bob! Thank you for reading part 4 of Project Grey. This one took a look at the N1, 2, and 3 rockets, along with the Mir Space Station to celebrate the release of the show Star City. Part 5 will be community decided again by the top comments from r/ForAllMankindTV and r/AlternateHistory. After that, I think Part 6 will be the last one. Thank you so much for the support for the project and I'm excited to see what's next! After this series wraps, I might do a couple FAM Redux posts, set in a more realistic FAM universe!

While the US was busy playing catchup to the Soviet's unprecedented victory in landing the first person on the moon, Sergei Korolev was planning his next steps. while the consolidation of the Soviet Space program had given Korolev giant influence across Soviet engineering, he was not without challengers. Namely Vladimir Chelomney and Valintin Glushko, who were still dragging their feet on using the N1 rocket. a compromise was made between the two groups in early 1970 to make the larger N2 rocket to use a larger hypergolic-powered first stage. This would satisfy Glushko's unwillingness to build oxydiser-based engines. The N2, using Glushko's RD-270 rocket engine, would increase the rocket's capacity to over two hundred metric tonnes. This was almost double the original capacity of the N1 and over fifty tonnes more than the American Saturn V.

The N2 went into service in 1975 and was used to perform most of the early construction of the Zvezda Moon Base. After Soviet spies became aware of the American Sea Dragon Program, the N3 rocket was green lit. This rocket was once again an insane leap in rocketry. The N3 had a mass-to-orbit of four hundred and fifty metric tonnes. It used the revolutionary RD-290 rocket engine, to this day, the most powerful hypergolic rocket engine.

While Korolev and Glushko focused on the moon, Chelomney worked on low Earth orbit. After the moon landing, the Salyut Space Stations were reworked into a modular single station called Mir, to be a microgravity research, manufacturing, and fuel depot. Mir's first module was launched in 1972, and by 1982, it had grown to over a dozen modules, which constantly held a tight race for habitable volume with America's various Skylab and Moonlab space stations.

Hi Bob! Thank you for reading part 4 of Project Grey. This one took a look at the N1, 2, and 3 rockets, along with the Mir Space Station to celebrate the release of Star City. Part 5 will be community decided again by the top comments from r/ForAllMankindTV and r/AlternateHistory. After that, I think Part 6 will be the last one. Thank you so much for the support for the project and I'm excited to see what's next! After this series wraps, I might do a couple FAM Redux posts, set in a more realistic FAM universe!

Of all the vehicles built by NASA, few compare to that of Sojourner. It was originally planned for its first mission to Mars in 1996, but after the Soviet Union announced their Mars-94 mission, its launch was moved up by two years.

Sojourner was the first spacecraft fully constructed on the moon. Many of the manufacturing breakthroughs that were made in its construction led directly to the Lunar Industrialization Boom of the 1990s and early 2000s, with a majority human-rated stations and ships being built on the moon by 2008. Sojourner-1, aka MV-101, was one of a planned five Sojourner-class Interplanetary Shuttles. Though after the unfortunate nature of the first Sojourner 1 mission, two of these planned Shuttles were scrapped, with their hulls being eventually used for transport between Jamestown and lunar space stations until 2011. MV-102 and MV-103 both went into service in 1996 and 1998 respectively. MV-102 would last the longest, being converted to a cargo vehicle in 2004 and is still in limited service between the Earth and Mars for radiation-sensitive materials. MV-103 would set the crewed vehicle speed record on its trip to mars, though it would only complete four trips before being retired for larger fusion-powered vehicles, with it now residing in the Ellen Wilson Space Museum in Texas.

The architecture of the Sojourners were based heavily off of the Pathfinder-class Shuttles, using the same type of thermal blankets and heat shield tiles which had first been designed for aerobraking through Earth's atmosphere from lunar orbital velocity. This design language carried over to its refuelling, where a gen-1 Space Shuttle External Tank would be used to fulfill this demand. This was out of necessity, as the new tanks were not ready for the 1994 launch, and so one of these tanks was taken out of storage for launch on a sea dragon. Given time constraints, no long-term ETs were available to be used. Because of this, the orange foam insulation that was used on them began to flake off in space. by the time they were fully fuelled and docked to the outgoing Sojourner-1, vast portions of the insulation had fell away. The launch of Sojourner-1 marked the last time an ET was ever used.

Hi Bob! Thank you for reading part 3 of Project Grey. As promised, Part 3 was decided by the you guys across r/ForAllMankindTV and r/AlternateHistory, where a Sojourner deep dive was suggested. Hope you liked it! Sorry for the wait, but Part 2 was very big, and I needed a bit of a break after it, which is also why this part is a bit smaller. Part 4 will explore the Soviet rockets that came from the N1. Part 5 will be community decided again, and I think Part 6 will be the last one. Thank you so much for the support for the project and I'm excited to see what's next!

Of all the vehicles built by NASA, few compare to that of Sojourner. It was originally planned for its first mission to Mars in 1996, but after the Soviet Union announced their Mars-94 mission, its launch was moved up by two years.

Sojourner was the first spacecraft fully constructed on the moon. Many of the manufacturing breakthroughs that were made in its construction led directly to the Lunar Industrialization Boom of the 1990s and early 2000s, with a majority human-rated stations and ships being built on the moon by 2008. Sojourner-1, aka MV-101, was one of a planned five Sojourner-class Interplanetary Shuttles. Though after the unfortunate nature of the first Sojourner 1 mission, two of these planned Shuttles were scrapped, with their hulls being eventually used for transport between Jamestown and lunar space stations until 2011. MV-102 and MV-103 both went into service in 1996 and 1998 respectively. MV-102 would last the longest, being converted to a cargo vehicle in 2004 and is still in limited service between the Earth and Mars for radiation-sensitive materials. MV-103 would set the crewed vehicle speed record on its trip to mars, though it would only complete four trips before being retired for larger fusion-powered vehicles, with it now residing in the Ellen Wilson Space Museum in Texas.

The architecture of the Sojourners were based heavily off of the Pathfinder-class Shuttles, using the same type of thermal blankets and heat shield tiles which had first been designed for aerobraking through Earth's atmosphere from lunar orbital velocity. This design language carried over to its refuelling, where a gen-1 Space Shuttle External Tank would be used to fulfill this demand. This was out of necessity, as the new tanks were not ready for the 1994 launch, and so one of these tanks was taken out of storage for launch on a sea dragon. Given time constraints, no long-term ETs were available to be used. Because of this, the orange foam insulation that was used on them began to flake off in space. by the time they were fully fuelled and docked to the outgoing Sojourner-1, vast portions of the insulation had fell away. The launch of Sojourner-1 marked the last time an ET was ever used. The story of Sojourner-1 did not, however, stop at Mars. It would embark on yet another incredible journey in 2012. but that is a story for another day.

Hi Bob! Thank you for reading part 3 of Project Grey. As promised, Part 3 was decided by the you guys across r/ForAllMankindTV and r/AlternateHistory, where a Sojourner deep dive was suggested. Hope you liked it! Sorry for the wait, but Part 2 was very big, and I needed a bit of a break after it, which is also why this part is a bit smaller. Part 4 will explore the Soviet rockets that came from the N1. Part 5 will be community decided again, and I think Part 6 will be the last one. Thank you so much for the support for the project and I'm excited to see what's next!

In September of 1983, Space Shuttle Pathfinder, OV-201, flew off of the back of a C-5 Galaxy to the moon, marking the first time a fully reusable spacecraft ever launched. It is often forgotten, however, the semi-reusable Shuttles that came before it. Between august of 1981 and January of 1983, a total of ten generation-1 Shuttles would be built. in order of first launch, these were Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Enterprise, Atlantis, Constitution, Endeavour, Victoria, Kan-Tiki, and Beagle. While these Shuttles were ambitious for their time, it took almost a decade for them to finish construction, with the approval of the Shuttle finalizing in 1970, but not seeing its first launch until 1981. These delays were primarily due to the rapid expansion of NASA back to the funding levels of the mid-60s. This required NASA to not only reactivate the production line of the Saturn V but also begin work on the Sea Dragon rocket at the same time as the Shuttle Program. Before Columbia ever flew, plans for a second-generation orbiter were being finalized, and the Generation-2 nuclear Shuttle began construction in 1979.

A total of twelve Pathfinder Shuttles were constructed between 1983 and 1989. These were Space Shuttle Pathfinder, Vanguard, Inspiration, Observation, Intrepid, Kitty Hawk, Paradise, Independence, America, Resilience, Exploration, and Titan. Like Enterprise and Constitution before them, some of these Shuttles would be moved from NASA to the Air Force, and later the Space Force in 1989. While the first-generation Shuttles had a turn around time of approximately three months, the Pathfinder Shuttles were capable of a flight every month. this meant that, with a crew capacity of twelve (without the later Spacehab payload module) the launch cadence of the USA grew to over 1700 Astronauts per year. The program did have a rocky start, as in 1989, Space Shuttle Independence depressurized while coming back to Earth, killing the crew on board. This resulted in the grounding of the Pathfinder fleet and the pushback of the Gen-1 fleet retirement by nearly a year. the Pathfinder fleet continued to operate until its slow phase-out in the late 90s and early 2000s. The final flight of a Pathfinder Shuttles, taken on by the original Pathfinder itself, took place in 2010, after almost a year since its last flight.

While Pathfinder first started flying, the USSR's Cosmo-Shuttle began as well. The USSR had prioritized the reusability of main stages over vehicles, creating the Block-RA in 1975 for their new N2 and N3 rockets. This same reusable stage would be used for the NCS rocket. This rocket was made up of the Block-RA first stage, Block-B second stage, and the side-mounted Cosmo-Shuttle, along with two side-mounted solid rocket boosters. This rocket stack, especially the boosters and shuttle design, were based heavily on the American Shuttle. While it was far more reusable than the American gen-1 Shuttle, by 1988, the USSR had created their own second-generation shuttle. This vehicle differed significantly from the American Pathfinder. The Mriya Shuttle was the world's first true SSTO. It was far more crew-centric, giving up most of its cargo capacity to the N3 and later N4 rockets, and it was capable of delivering up to 50 people to space at a time.

In 1991, the US was determined to bring their own SSTO up to speed. This was made possible by the generation-3 Space Shuttle. The first gen-3 Shuttle lifted off in April of 1997. These new Shuttles are capable of bringing up to 110 tonnes to low Earth orbit and have crew variants that can bring up to 80 people at a time. This vehicle is the largest reusable Earth-to-Moon vehicle ever constructed. It is capable of taking off and landing from standard commercial runways and can remain in orbit for up to six months on its own. The production of this vehicle type continues to be built to the modern day. 24 of these vehicles are in operation, 15 used by NASA, 8 used by the Space Force, and one loaned out to Helios Aerospace as a technological test bed. These vehicles are still considered the gold standard of aerospace engineering, even while they are no longer alone in terms of technological advancement, with the private sector expanding its influence in space. The Space Shuttle remains as a formidable tether for those living and working in Space to the Earth.

Hi Bob! Thank you for reading part 2 of Project Grey. In this part we looked at the history of the Shuttle program in For All Mankind, and how it changed over the course of forty years from a humble launch vehicle to the backbone of government space infrastructure. As promised, Part 3 will be decided by the top comment of this post across r/ForAllMankindTV and r/AlternateHistory. But I will be taking suggestions and influence from all comments! I'm excited to see what people decide and I will be back with part 3 soon!

In September of 1983, Space Shuttle Pathfinder, OV-201, flew off of the back of a C-5 Galaxy to the moon, marking the first time a fully reusable spacecraft ever launched. It is often forgotten, however, the semi-reusable Shuttles that came before it. Between august of 1981 and January of 1983, a total of ten generation-1 Shuttles would be built. in order of first launch, these were Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Enterprise, Atlantis, Constitution, Endeavour, Victoria, Kan-Tiki, and Beagle. While these Shuttles were ambitious for their time, it took almost a decade for them to finish construction, with the approval of the Shuttle finalizing in 1970, but not seeing its first launch until 1981. These delays were primarily due to the rapid expansion of NASA back to the funding levels of the mid-60s. This required NASA to not only reactivate the production line of the Saturn V but also begin work on the Sea Dragon rocket at the same time as the Shuttle Program. Before Columbia ever flew, plans for a second-generation orbiter were being finalized, and the Generation-2 nuclear Shuttle began construction in 1979.

A total of twelve Pathfinder Shuttles were constructed between 1983 and 1989. These were Space Shuttle Pathfinder, Vanguard, Inspiration, Observation, Intrepid, Kitty Hawk, Paradise, Independence, America, Resilience, Exploration, and Titan. Like Enterprise and Constitution before them, some of these Shuttles would be moved from NASA to the Air Force, and later the Space Force in 1989. While the first-generation Shuttles had a turn around time of approximately three months, the Pathfinder Shuttles were capable of a flight every month. this meant that, with a crew capacity of twelve (without the later Spacehab payload module) the launch cadence of the USA grew to over 1700 Astronauts per year. The program did have a rocky start, as in 1989, Space Shuttle Independence depressurized while coming back to Earth, killing the crew on board. This resulted in the grounding of the Pathfinder fleet and the pushback of the Gen-1 fleet retirement by nearly a year. the Pathfinder fleet continued to operate until its slow phase-out in the late 90s and early 2000s. The final flight of a Pathfinder Shuttles, taken on by the original Pathfinder itself, took place in 2010, after almost a year since its last flight.

While Pathfinder first started flying, the USSR's Cosmo-Shuttle began as well. The USSR had prioritized the reusability of main stages over vehicles, creating the Block-RA in 1975 for their new N2 and N3 rockets. This same reusable stage would be used for the NCS rocket. This rocket was made up of the Block-RA first stage, Block-B second stage, and the side-mounted Cosmo-Shuttle, along with two side-mounted solid rocket boosters. This rocket stack, especially the boosters and shuttle design, were based heavily on the American Shuttle. While it was far more reusable than the American gen-1 Shuttle, by 1988, the USSR had created their own second-generation shuttle. This vehicle differed significantly from the American Pathfinder. The Mriya Shuttle was the world's first true SSTO. It was far more crew-centric, giving up most of its cargo capacity to the N3 and later N4 rockets, and it was capable of delivering up to 50 people to space at a time.

In 1991, the US was determined to bring their own SSTO up to speed. This was made possible by the generation-3 Space Shuttle. The first gen-3 Shuttle lifted off in April of 1997. These new Shuttles are capable of bringing up to 110 tonnes to low Earth orbit and have crew variants that can bring up to 80 people at a time. This vehicle is the largest reusable Earth-to-Moon vehicle ever constructed. It is capable of taking off and landing from standard commercial runways and can remain in orbit for up to six months on its own. The production of this vehicle type continues to be built to the modern day. 24 of these vehicles are in operation, 15 used by NASA, 8 used by the Space Force, and one loaned out to Helios Aerospace as a technological test bed. These vehicles are still considered the gold standard of aerospace engineering, even while they are no longer alone in terms of technological advancement, with the private sector expanding its influence in space. The Space Shuttle remains as a formidable tether for those living and working in Space to the Earth.

Hi Bob! Thank you for reading part 2 of Project Grey. In this part we looked at the history of the Shuttle program in FAM, and how it changed over the course of forty years from a humble launch vehicle to the backbone of government space infrastructure. As promised, Part 3 will be decided by the top comment of this post across r/ForAllMankindTV and r/AlternateHistory. But I will be taking suggestions and influence from all comments! I'm excited to see what people decide and I will be back with part 3 soon!