Liftoff! 2.0

@GameHistoryOrg There is a beautifully running free shareware version now that operates on modern computers available now! The dedicated programmers fixed and improved a lot items.

Very relevant in 2026 (the space race is back!), Interplay's 1992 bid for PC game success was Buzz Aldrin's Race Into Space, where lunar landings are the ultimate gambit...

@GameHistoryOrg Hey! I know that game! I have a new board-game version coming folks! kickstarter.com/projects/lo2/l…

It is my favorite one! It’s retro but is expansive. It sadly is for strictly NASA Administration use only. Can’t be licensed or used for educational purposes. I’d like to use it in my educational simulation/game but it is not allowable. Think you can run an entire space program in the space race? This game gives you that opportunity. I would love Mr Goldin to see it someday. It is a 1-4 player, cold-war, crises, technology resource simulation, board-game with open mission architecture with over 30 approaches to the moon using historical and alt-historical proposed hardware. liftoff2.com

@dansgoldin What is your opinion on this one?

I de-wormed NASA in the '90s. At the time, it felt right to bring NASA's meatball back from retirement to reinvigorate that Apollo spirit we had when we got man to moon in under a decade. We were in a time when the end of the Cold War was indicating the end of our robust space program and the Challenger tragedy caused immense angst across the nation. The team and I felt we needed a symbol that was reflective of that aggressive spirit we had in the 60s to *explore and win*. Different times call for different symbols and emblems.

@maxnerdlife Agree! But that is what some are saying out there and it is a growing drive.

@fritzcav Humans will pollute Mars? We can't even keep a probe alive there long enough to litter properly. That's straight outa my nightmares. More Eris launches, less hysteria.

Anti-Space-travel to the Moon and Mars There seems to be a growing concerted effort/campaign from a variety of of sources, (some by industry connections or recently retired, or government space related agencies or recently retired) public presentations or YouTube vids of why we should not go, humans should not go or it’s impossible etc to go to MARS. Many of these naysayer arguments border on hysteria or luddite or biological, or just uninformed with lists of causes of deaths or no return from Mars. The most basic argument, is humans will pollute Mars (since we have ruined Earth)and kill any life on Mars and we should never step on. I saw a presentation last year by former three-letter space employees and now volunteers propagating this to the public. The title was something like “Why Humans will die going to Mars” . When politely challenged in Q&A, a few of us were shouted down as uninformed and they were “experts and planetary scientists and they know it better!” This is a funded campaign by a certain nonprofit and agency. This is incredibly uninformed and it ironically stirs growing population mass that is now opposing progress, technology and yet they blindly embrace its base functions in a world of TikTok based on rumour and emotions as their empirical reality and fact; unaware of the myriad of technological innovations behind it. We need to educate, and demonstrate better the benefits of space exploration and where humans fit in this growth around Earth, the moon, Mars etc. This starts early on with entertainment and pre-school and K-18 to PHD. From toys changing from muscled cars and fashion Barbie to realist spacecraft and Barbie and GI Joe in space suits on the Moon and Mars. Classrooms with challenges engaging what students will be doing 20-30 years in their futures. More STEM, is needed utilizing their minds for techno creativity.

Like an Alternate to FAM’s alt history, you can create and try your own with upcoming sim/game liftoff2.com and on Kickstarter. This you can run an entire space program, recruit and assign astronauts as US, Soviets and two additional powers to grow and expand. There are expansions I have designed that offer 4 tech eras a plenty of alt history up to the present to 2050. I am partnered with Ion Game Design and it fits well with where High Frontier kicks off.

I’ve only watched a few episodes in season 3, but IMO it has never made sense to me that it took until the 1990s for there to be Mars missions in the For All Mankind timeline. They have huge moon bases mining water, nuclear shuttles, Sea Dragon… but no one bothered to do Mars??

@LIM49Spartan @Robotbeat Concur . Mid 80’s

@Robotbeat two main issues. 1. it takes the same amount roughly to send something to mars as it does the moon. hence both sides (moon guys and mars guys )fight each other for limited budget 2. even von braun planned mars to be around the mid 1980s or so, with optimistic STS rates.

@space_stations 5x5

@fritzcav You can bet a lot of this comes from NASA people themselves, from the science wing and everyone who grifts off of it with robotic probes and satellites. Manned flight is a huge threat, especially when SpaceX is threatenign to do MSR for pennies on the dollar. They wanted that.

Anti-Space-travel to the Moon and Mars There seems to be a growing concerted effort/campaign from a variety of of sources, (some by industry connections or recently retired, or government space related agencies or recently retired) public presentations or YouTube vids of why we should not go, humans should not go or it’s impossible etc to go to MARS. Many of these naysayer arguments border on hysteria or luddite or biological, or just uninformed with lists of causes of deaths or no return from Mars. The most basic argument, is humans will pollute Mars (since we have ruined Earth)and kill any life on Mars and we should never step on. I saw a presentation last year by former three-letter space employees and now volunteers propagating this to the public. The title was something like “Why Humans will die going to Mars” . When politely challenged in Q&A, a few of us were shouted down as uninformed and they were “experts and planetary scientists and they know it better!” This is a funded campaign by a certain nonprofit and agency. This is incredibly uninformed and it ironically stirs growing population mass that is now opposing progress, technology and yet they blindly embrace its base functions in a world of TikTok based on rumour and emotions as their empirical reality and fact; unaware of the myriad of technological innovations behind it. We need to educate, and demonstrate better the benefits of space exploration and where humans fit in this growth around Earth, the moon, Mars etc. This starts early on with entertainment and pre-school and K-18 to PHD. From toys changing from muscled cars and fashion Barbie to realist spacecraft and Barbie and GI Joe in space suits on the Moon and Mars. Classrooms with challenges engaging what students will be doing 20-30 years in their futures. More STEM, is needed utilizing their minds for techno creativity.

@Simberg_Space True That’s part of it.

@fritzcav NASA project management responds to its incentives from Congress.

If China gets to the Moon before we get back to it, it will be because we spent so much money and years on SLS/Orion, while ignoring the issue of the lander. The lander is the long pole in the tent, and the lander creates the Design Reference Mission for everything else.

What about a StarBoat just for the first manned landing? A reduced version for less refueling trips for propellant. Less mass, less height/balance issues. Using a section fuel portion as expendable Is SpaceX looking at horizontal landing approach for starship cargo or hab landings that would stay on the moon? On the test unmanned HLS landing how many Optimus Bots will walk on the lunar surface ?

Just so I don't miss anything in my deep dive on Starship HLS, let me know what questions you have BESIDES the dozen plus refilling tankers, height / tippiness of it, and using methalox as those topics are greatly covered.

@Blaze_R935 @deltaIV9250 @BlueAero236 You can in liftoff2.com ! Soyuz to the moon!

@deltaIV9250 @BlueAero236 I think Russia should just come to terms that Soyuz is eternal and it’s better to build a lunar program around it.

The Russians could’ve had a decent lunar crew orbit capability if they just pursued Soyuz and Angara A5 dual launch It’s funny when you think about it, Soyuz was originally supposed to be a lunar capable craft.

@HenkPoley @deltaIV9250 That spells it out!

@deltaIV9250 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_7K-…

@peterrhague @deltaIV9250 I think the 7K-LOK Soyuz would needed the N1 to make LO. Proton couldn’t do it. And no solar panels either on the moon Soyuz type.

@deltaIV9250 Why need Angara? Proton could launch a big enough booster

@Truthful_ast It is the NIII. Korolev had a small version for scalability design before the mad rush. I have this as expansion hardware for liftoff2.com

I can't wait for you guys to see this baby do her work in the upcoming cinematic

Enthusiastically agree! !! My sim, as a game, also shows these merits -of required planning the lander and it must be factored in early on. We spent 100 billion on an under powered rocket with a spacecraft combo that is nearly heavier than Apollo and the LM combined. Orion has deep space features but it is very heavy for sprint race. A modular approach planned early on is more effective. liftoff2.com

Now if we had sane policy, and accepted from the beginning that we weren't going to repeat Apollo and do everything in a single launch, it wouldn't have mattered as much, but because Congress insisted that SLS/Orion be part of the architecture, it made the lander critical.

@carlossnaps @UnwantedBlog Yes you are right. The thinking back then was BOONDOGGLE!

@UnwantedBlog Imagine documenting a mission powered by this! 📸 The engineering foresight was decades ahead. We need more of this bold thinking today.

SP-100 was a 1980’s NASA/DoE/DARPA program for a space-based nuclear reactor with 100 kW electrical output. A great deal of progress was made & plans were in place for use on space stations, interplanetary probes, military satellites & the like, but of course it was cancelled.

@UnwantedBlog Of course it was cancelled. It was too practical. Items like this must be cost plus and balloon to tens of billions of dollars and never function until another 50 years!

@CuriosityonX More to come!

So many young girls have found their new role model.