Project Apollo started as a program simply to land a man on the moon before the Russians. But, as time went on, the Apollo technology found more and more uses as we learned how to live and work in space. Apollo technology gave us earth orbiting space stations, two bases on the` lunar surface, a lunar orbiting space station, communications satellites a quarter of a million miles from either the earth or the moon, and a crewed mission to flyby the planet Venus. What a legacy. But what’s next?...

We landed on the moon. We built a habitat on the moon. We are living in earth orbit, and we are living in lunar orbit. We are living on the far side of the moon, with no visibility to earth...ever. With four space stations, two lunar bases, and over 35 crewed trips between the earth and the moon, how can we possibly communicate with each other over the long term? How can we keep all these missions in communications with earth? The answer, is a communications network that grows and becomes...

The United States was forming quite a bit of a space complex. They had space stations in low earth orbit, learning how to live and work in space, eventually to establish a permanent presence in low earth orbit. They had bases on the surface of the moon. Learning how to live and work on the lunar surface, 239,000 miles from earth, and in the case of the BLA base, not even visible from the surface of the earth. They even had satellites far from earth at the earth-moon Lagrangian points. All of...

Not long after the end of the Apollo lunar landings, it was time for the next step in lunar exploration. There was belief, and some evidence from the experiments that were performed on the lunar surface during the Apollo missions, that there were minerals...water...and other scientifically useful resources on the lunar surface. There was also a concern that the Soviet Union would eventually land on the lunar surface, and attempt to claim all or part of it as their territory. So, the space...

Links and More Informationhttps://belitopia.com/?utm_source=shownotesandutm_medium=linksandutm_campaign=107 (Belitopia Website) https://belitopia.com/lunarbase?utm_source=shownotesandutm_medium=linksandutm_campaign=106 (Apollo Lunar Base - Belitopia) https://belitopia.com/106?utm_source=shownotesandutm_medium=linksandutm_campaign=106 (Apollo Moon Bases p1 Episode) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tycho_(lunar_crater) (Tycho Crater...

What is Belitopia all about? This is a bonus episode where I answer questions about Belitopia and my plans for the future of the world of Belitopia, including future podcast episodes and other content. Plus, have you seen the Apple TV+ show “For All Mankind”? If not, you should! Hear my thoughts on this new show and how it is similar, yet different, from Belitopia. This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy Podtrac -...

I hope you are enjoying our world of Belitopia. We’re going to be taking a few weeks off for our mid-season break while celebrating the holiday season. However, stay tuned! There might be some bonus content coming out during the break! We will continue the second half of Season 1 in the new year, where we plan on talking about Space Station Freedom, our two Apollo moon bases, a heavy lift space transport system, and our very first space station in lunar orbit! Thank you for listening to our...

The Space Race wasn’t just about who could get to the moon first. There were other battlefields where the space race was fought. One of those battlefields was in building a permanent manned presence in space in the form of a space station in low earth orbit. Such a station would not only be a great place for space based research, but also a starting point for military use of space. Winning the battle over low earth orbit against the Soviet Union was just as important as beating them to the...

Links and More Informationhttps://belitopia.com/104 (Episode Details) https://belitopia.com/venus (Belitopia Venus Flyby Information) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manned_Venus_flyby (Wikipedia - Venus Flyby) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Applications_Program (Wikipedia - Apollo Applications Program) https://belitopia.com/space/venus-flyby-feasibility-study (Original 1967 NASA Venus Flyby Feasibility Study) https://belitopia.com/support (Please support our show). IntroductionIn the...

Among the many missions that came out of the Apollo Applications Program, one of the most amazing was the Venus Flyby mission. Imagine, using the same Apollo technology that brought us to the moon, for a long duration mission to fly by our nearest planetary neighbor, the planet Venus. Humans, traveling to another planet in our solar system. It was an ambitious plan. Unfortunately, in real life, funding for this mission never materialized. It wasn’t even close. Yes, there was some actual...

The Apollo space program was much more than a set of missions to the moon. It was also a technology platform that provided the basis for future space programs. A technology platform that the Apollo Applications Program was created to leverage and enhance. In real life, not much came of the Apollo Applications Program. Very little funding was given to the program, and the program suffered. A stunted Skylab space station, and a Apollo-Soyuz joint docking in space were all that came out of the...

The Apollo space program. The quintessential peak of human kinds manned space program. The funding that went into this program was astronomical, around $120 **billion** dollars, adjusted for inflation. But once we landed on the moon, we lost interest in space. With the reduced interest in space came reduced funding...and our future in space suffered. But, what if funding didn’t stop suddenly… This is “Apollo Plus”. For more information, please see https://belitopia.com/apollo...

This is the world of “what if”. What if we had continued the space race, what would our space footprint look like? What if we had invested heavily in a transportation infrastructure around the globe, how would that change how we get from point A to point B today? What if we decided as a species that world hunger was not acceptable, how would we have solved it with technology? What if we had solved the autonomous car problem 50 years ago, how would that have changed how we worked and played...