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Attempting to Fulfill the Plan MNKh Edition

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fasquardon said:
Certainly, it will be easier for the Americans to pivot to a station, whereas if we go for probes and nuclear drives, they will have more catching up to do.
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This sounds backwards to me? Like, afaik what the Americans lack that we have is a capable heavy carrier (in our case the RLA-3 which can carry 40 tons to LEO). Meanwhile, we haven't touched nuclear engines while iirc they started dabbling with it like a decade ago with stuff like Nerva (at least OTL anyway). That is not to say we can't wring smtg useful from the project if we are lucky, but we are quite well equipped for a station project while this sounds like a capability we need to build from the ground up.
 
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Simon_Jester said:
I dunno. It seems to me that nuclear drives aren't all that helpful if we don't have active, ongoing programs to do good science in space and bring back a steady stream of new results. With Venera dead in the water and the Luna program probably winding down sooner or later, we may find our planetary science operations withering if we don't have something for them to do next.

I'd be pleased to learn that this concern is baseless.
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Yeah, nuclear drives are a high equilibrium item for a space program - but unless the budget gets cut down again, we can afford this sort of long lead time, niche item - and nuclear drive allows for more capable probes (maybe even orbiters in place of flybys in outer system, who knows?), Sol-independent energy source that allows for more energy-intensive experiments on space stations and, as a stretch goal, manned moon mission with moonbase.

While at the moment we don't have either of those three customers for nukes, budget very much allows a nuclear drives + outer system probes focus, otherwise outer system probes could be launched next year with likely little detrimental results as we're still in 60's (and 35 rpt available provides a generous pillow in case costs become higher than expected). And we still have moon and mars programs either way.

By the time probes (and nukes) actually fly, I assume we'd have enough slack in budget to start at least (currently cooking) space stations, if not moonbase.
 
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Simon_Jester said:
What are the signs on the Americans launching a station? Given the path they've pursued, I would think it hard for them to do a station other than Bastard Son of MOL, because they don't seem to have a Saturn V-class rocket to loft something like Skylab.
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I am really guessing. My reasoning is:

The Americans seem to have neglected probes and satellites to get to the moon.

Their heavy lift rocket would be able to launch decently sized space station modules, meaning they can get more return on the most expensive part of their moon program.

The Americans have won the manned moon race, and the best way for them to capitalize on that is to claim that their manned efforts are superior to soulless Soviet robots and a few hundred grams of Lunar regolith isn't as big a deal as them sending human beings to orbit the moon. That makes it difficult for them to politically to prioritize their probe program, since that would require admitting that we were onto something.

And finally, their first station may well be a bastard son of MOL, but our own people are telling us that we lack alot of experience with manned structures in space - the bastard son of the FGB won't be any better and our manned program is likely behind theirs in accumulating experience due to us de-prioritizing it to maintain the tempo of our probe program and them continuing to prioritize getting men to Lunar orbit and back. They can see our focus is on robots, and that if they start a station they have a small advantage.

Vi'Talzin said:
This sounds backwards to me? Like, afaik what the Americans lack that we have is a capable heavy carrier (in our case the RLA-3 which can carry 40 tons to LEO). Meanwhile, we haven't touched nuclear engines while iirc they started dabbling with it like a decade ago with stuff like Nerva (at least OTL anyway). That is not to say we can't wring smtg useful from the project if we are lucky, but we are quite well equipped for a station project while this sounds like a capability we need to build from the ground up.
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The Americans have a launcher that is at least somewhere between the OTL Proton and TTL RLA-3 in capability - probably closer to the RLA-3. Remember, they didn't just get men into a free return trajectory around the moon (which a Proton could barely do) they got men into Lunar orbit and back.

And it is true that they may well have already been working on a nuclear stage. The USAF started the work on nuclear stages before it was handed to NASA, so there not being a NASA doesn't have a huge impact here.

If they do develop a nuclear stage and we don't, that would make for a huge advantage and would completely upend my previous assumptions about what they will prioritize next and would make the space race in the 70s continue to be serious.

We can't allow a nuclear drive gap!

'Course they could also decide to do something completely out of left field and focus on cheap access to orbit. That means re-useability and that risks a Shuttle... The USAF weren't super keen on the Space Shuttle in OTL tho, so I would be surprised if they did converge on the OTL path.

Regards,

fasquardon
 
I'm changing Plan Oil Good:

There's a risk that if 2x Consumer Goods Production Grants completes, we'll actually go all the way into General Labor being too expensive. As such I'm reducing its investment from 3 dice to 2, and putting its dice onto the Bakchar steel, pushing it from 74% chance of completion to 99%. This also basically guarantees we don't lose the steel bonus, and removes the chance of Educated Labor dropping to sub-40.

This also costs an extra 40R, reducing the reserve from 50R to 10R.
 
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[X] Plan EMERGENCY MAINTENANCE plus atomic rockets

Also, the original post of this plan doesn't have its bureaucracy dice marked correctly.
 
fasquardon said:
I don't think that light launchers are really a priority. If you are spending a free dice to start three things, go for nuclear drives, outer systems probes and jovian probes.
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I think those three would have good synergy with each other. One could follow it the next year with a Mercury mission as well then I guess, which would have reasonable synergies as well with a large effort to get space probes everywhere in the Solar System. Certainly one would be picking up experience in most kind of space environments.

It's incidentally worth mentioning that if the USSR focuses that much on space probe work, that they will be well ahead of the curve compared to OTL on results. The USSR would be putting so many resources in to the probe program that it would start looking like a mini-manned Moon program. And be doing so which having an already fully developed and reliable very heavy lifter. One could be visiting places that otherwise wouldn't be getting this kind of attention for a decade or two later in OTL. Which means the 70s would become a far more exciting time in space, with new discoveries coming in all the time.

It's also worth keeping in mind that one can probably cancel the communication and weather sat programs some time in the future. Those will surely become standard services in future. Possibly the comm sat one can be discontinued and left to government and companies soon already, Geo-sat TV transmissions to the whole communist world are surely already being envisioned after all, if not already in the works. That would together with hopefully some rise in budget free up enough resources to start a space station program in the mid-70s already if one wanted to, it would be around about the time that just launching more long term manned capsules to space missions might be hitting diminishing returns as well. And one can basically use all that experience to develop a space station with then.


Also I think there is an argument to be made to continue the Moon probe missions rather then starting to scale them down. Historically the Moon got ignored after the Moon landings and so we missed quite a few pretty interesting things about it for several decades. It's not till we went back that we realized that for instance the Lunar pole had a large hydrogen excess indicating it probably had water ice. If one instead continued pretty substantial Moon exploration, including sample return missions, it's conceivable that late in the 70s that such discoveries could then already be made. In which case one would for the 80s have a smooth and exciting reason to restart efforts for manned missions to the Moon, with the goal of course being a base on the Moon at the pole, rather then just putting a few boots on the ground. Such a goal would also be much easier to do with all the experience gained on the Moon over the 70s. If one is lucky it might even get one a bit more budget to start a new cheaper rocket development program to replace the current RLA. (Also continued and improving sample return experience from the Moon would allow getting a Mars and or asteroid sample return missions going far far sooner)


Well as a plan going heavy on probes for now is a bit speculative of course, but something like this would at the least I think give pretty good chances for a good result from the space program. Constant activity, translating in to getting quite a few news headlines about space every year and hopefully keeping interest in space activities at a reasonable pitch. All while steadily improving ones technical abilities in space and preparing for the next big things.

At the least we do know there are a lot of surprises to be found at each and every one of the planets in our Solar System, heck even a few at the comets and asteroids. So it's pretty obvious that there will be quite substantial early science returns from this as well as many interesting pictures for the news.
 
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fasquardon said:
Their heavy lift rocket would be able to launch decently sized space station modules, meaning they can get more return on the most expensive part of their moon program.
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While as far as your people can tell, they do not have an RLA-3 sized rocket, as they flew their moon mission as a two-part process with a fairly light capsule there is still active work on heavier stages/rockets on effectively a very solid rocket-boosted sustainer core. Their new rockets are going in the direction of effective variations on an OTL titan-IV, with concepts towards a four-booster configuration and two hypergolic stages as a new heavy/super heavy lifter, to an extent copying from your work on modular boosters, just with some variations and different priorities.
 
MSH said:
[X] Plan EMERGENCY MAINTENANCE plus atomic rockets

Also, the original post of this plan doesn't have its bureaucracy dice marked correctly.
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Dang thanks for pointing that out! Fixed now.

Also, I'm inclined to change the plan a little to drop Light Launchers in exchange for starting the jovian program at the same time as outer systems. Would any of my voters be opposed to that?
 
Blackstar said:
While as far as your people can tell, they do not have an RLA-3 sized rocket, as they flew their moon mission as a two-part process with a fairly light capsule there is still active work on heavier stages/rockets on effectively a very solid rocket-boosted sustainer core. Their new rockets are going in the direction of effective variations on an OTL titan-IV, with concepts towards a four-booster configuration and two hypergolic stages as a new heavy/super heavy lifter, to an extent copying from your work on modular boosters, just with some variations and different priorities.
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You mean the Americans got to Lunar orbit and back with a two-launch Podsadka style mission architecture and a Gemini capsule with some extra heat shielding? I take back all the bad things I ever said about the American program TTL, it's all so much worse.

Whoever those astronauts were, they were damn brave.

In any case, that definitely means that @Vi'Talzin is right about us having the advantage in space stations. They could get the first space station if we don't prioritize a station program, but they'd know that we could easily follow that up with a far larger station. Not great return on investment for them. If they have been working on something like Project Rover on a similar timeline to OTL, them going for a nuclear stage to try and catch up with our probe program is probably more attractive than focusing on a station to them.

Regards,

fasquardon
 
I think concerns about Tariff Compensation are overblown. True, it's not the most efficient strategy, but we already picked other, more efficient reforms and helping our farmers corner new markets is still more likely to pay off than not, especially when you remember that just raising tariffs is actually pretty difficult, diplomatically speaking. Furthermore, let's not forget that economics are only one side of the issue - successful reform will give the ministry one more tool to support the farmers we like against the enterprises that rebelled and grabbed as much authority as they could get away with, which is very important, especially with elections right around the corner. Another way to ensure those that support the delegates we like are rewarded will not be amiss.

And speaking of elections, this is also why I think looking for deputy now is ill-timed. No matter their outcome, I think an open senior position we can use to either make a deal or to fill with someone closer to an ideal candidate will be worth more after we have the new assembly and are entering the new plan. Filling it right now will just deprive us of flexibility for no good reason I can see.
 
I think bribing governments to lower their trade tariffs so our SoEs can dump grain in their economies, massively destabilising places like East Africa where the agricultural economy is really important and gives them revenues to industrialize, is not great for them. It will not endear us to anyone or solve more problems than it creates imo
 
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Vi'Talzin said:
I think bribing governments to lower their trade tariffs so our SoEs can dump grain in their economies, massively destabilising places like East Africa where the agricultural economy is really important and gives them revenues to industrialize, is not great for them. It will not endear us to anyone or solve more problems than it creates imo
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It might cause some economic troubles in underdeveloped countries, but not only we can negotiate the details with the countries on our side, as long as we maintain the support of the not-dictators, it's not going to destabilize the countries or make them feel negative about USSR. And if the countries are not on our side, well, they get to enjoy capitalism. Not a significant price to pay for political support back home, in my opinion.

Edit: But, well, actually, I suppose I don't care that much about Tariff Compensation in itself, and I am more concerned with other stuff in Oil Good plan. I think it would work out perfectly fine, but if people are against it, I can always make another variant plan. Here, a version that replaces Tariff Compensation with Scientific Exchange programs, also edited into the original post.

[] Plan Price Recovery, Oil and Science
-[]4265/4340 Resources (75 Reserve), 46 Dice Rolled
-[]Infrastructure (9/9 Dice, 810 R)
--[]Western USSR Regional Roads, 1 Dice (90 R), 89%/100%
--[]Ural Regional Roads, 4 Dice (360 R), 42%/52%
--[]Caucuses Regional Roads, 1 Dice (90 R), 85%/100%
--[]Central Asian Regional Roads, 1 Dice (90 R), 0%/0%
--[]Power Grid Expansions, 2 Dice (180 R), 74%/83%
-[]Heavy Industry (6/5 Dice, 1030 R)
--[]Bakchar Deposit Utilization(Stage 1/3), 2 Dice (260 R), 96%/99%
--[]Sevastopol Technical Equipment Plants, 2 Dice (540 R), 30%/43%
--[]Kuzbas Deposit Exploitation(Stage 3/5), 1 Dice (90 R), 98%/100%
--[]Bryansk Truck Plant, 1 Dice (140 R), 91%/100%
-[]Rocketry (2/2 Dice, 0 R)
--[]Light Launcher Programs, 1 Dice
--[]Outer System Probes, 1 Dice
-[]Light and Chemical Industry (7/6 Dice, 780 R)
--[]Caspian Sea Petrochemical Extraction(Stage 1/2), 3 Dice (390 R), 97%/99%
--[]Samotor Field Development(Stage 1/3), 3 Dice (300 R), 100%/100%
--[]Consumer Goods Production Grants(Stage 1/3), 1 Dice (90 R), 67%/82%
-[]Agriculture (8/6 Dice, 735 R)
--[]Increasing Mechanization, 2 Dice (180 R), 86%/93%
--[]Agricultural Grants, 2 Dice (220 R), 74%/83%
--[]Universalization of the Food Program, 3 Dice (270 R), 62%/72%
--[]Topsoil Preservation Programs, 1 Dice (65 R), 0%/0%
-[]Services (10/10 Dice, 910 R)
--[]Transportation Enterprises(Stage 2/5), 1 Dice (100 R), 100%/100%
--[]Expanding State Catalogs, 3 Dice (210 R), 92%/96%
--[]Universal Distribution Systems, 4 Dice (360 R), 77%/84%
--[]Universalization of Telephone Networking, 1 Dice (130 R), 100%/100%
--[]Solving the Garbage Problem, 1 Dice (110 R), 82%/97%
-[]Bureaucracy (4/4 Dice, 0 R)
--[]Electrification Drives, 1 Dice
--[]Break Private Land Limits, 1 Dice
--[]Scientific Exchange Programs, 1 Dice
--[]Reorganize a Department(Services), 1 Dice
 
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agumentic said:
It might cause some economic troubles in underdeveloped countries, but not only we can negotiate the details with the countries on our side, as long as we maintain the support of the not-dictators, it's not going to destabilize the countries or make them feel negative about USSR. And if the countries are not on our side, well, they get to enjoy capitalism. Not a significant price to pay for political support back home, in my opinion.
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The governments negotiating it might not care, they aren't directly affected by it and they get nice bribes, but their people will, that's the whole issue. And we just don't have that degree of control anyway, we could roll badly and Babkov strongarms somewhere like Indonesia or the EAF, places we really don't want destabilized. We almost lost Indonesia a couple of turns ago because of backlash to economic issues, I don't want a repeat of that. Like, we can reach our agri goal atp without doing an imperialism for the sake of the SoEs, we are on target and have great projects in agri we can do to achieve it.
 
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Some CMEA countries depend a lot on agriculture in their economies. Giving money to our own farmers to get around tariffs could seriously harm the rural economies of countries like Indonesia and East Africa. I am quite worried how many of you are treating it as a minor inconvenience we can casually suck up while chasing Numbers Go Up, and not a potential huge setback to our goal of building world socialism as our own policies directly and majorly inhibit the ability of the rural proletariat abroad to develop itself, with corresponding damage to the legitimacy of their socialist governments and CMEA in the eyes of the locals.
 
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