An era of spaceplanes

Overview
A timeline akin to that of Red H-Bomb, but what if the Space Race focused on the spaceplanes instead?

Timeline
November 1952: The Ivy Mike thermonuclear bomb fizzles due to unforeseen technical errors. Point of divergence.

August 1953: The Soviet Union successfully tested the world's first hydrogen with their RDS-6 weapon. This shocked the U.S. which began to plan a response to this.

September 1957: The U.S. launched the world's first artificial satellite "Vanguard 1". This is widely regarded as the start of the Space Age, though the size of the object earned it the moniker "Grapefruit Satellite".

4 October 1957: CCCP launched their first satellite "Sputnik 1".

November 1957: CCCP launched Sputnik 2.

1958: NASA is formed.

1959: USSR's Luna 1 is the first object to enter heliocentric orbit.

March 24, 1961: NASA astronaut Alan Shepard became the first man in space with a suborbital Freedom 7 flight. Ticker tape parade were held in his honor thereafter.

April 12, 1961: Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin is the first to orbit the Earth, humiliating Americans as in OTL.



May 25, 1961: Kennedy delivers the "We shall go to the Moon" speech. In response Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev orders Chief Designer Sergei Korolev to work on a booster and spacecraft capable of taking cosmonauts to the lunar surface.

1963: Valentina Tereshkova is the first woman in space. Meanwhile USA's Joseph Walker flew the first operational spaceplane.

1965: Alexei Leonov is the first man to spacewalk.

1966: In this TL the X-20 program is not cancelled. As such USAF astronaut James Wood flew the maiden flight of the orbital spaceplane.

1968: NASA's Apollo 8 made the first manned circumlunar flight.

<p data-parsoid="{"dsr":[1201,1444,0,0]}">July 1969: NASA astronaut Neil Armstrong is the first man on the Moon.

<p data-parsoid="{"dsr":[1201,1444,0,0]}">Late 1969: China launched the Asian's first satellite "Dong-Fang-Hong I".

<p data-parsoid="{"dsr":[1201,1444,0,0]}">1971: USSR launched Salyut 1 the first space station.

<p data-parsoid="{"dsr":[1201,1444,0,0]}">1972: After NASA's conclusion of Apollo 20, they began to plot for a lunar base.

<p data-parsoid="{"dsr":[1201,1444,0,0]}">1973: Launch of NASA's Skylab space station. Meanwhile China launched their first man in space in this TL in Shuguang-1 mission, though there will be a long hiatus after this due to the chaos of the Cultural Revolution.

<p data-parsoid="{"dsr":[1201,1444,0,0]}">1974: Unlike in OTL, NASA launched Pioneer H into the interstellar space. USSR landed a man in the lunar south pole.

<p data-parsoid="{"dsr":[1201,1444,0,0]}">1975: NASA's Skylab B artificial gravity space station is launched, which is based on the Self-Deploying Space Station design. This is seen as another big lead against the Soviet Union in the Space Race.

<p data-parsoid="{"dsr":[1201,1444,0,0]}">1976: First components of LESA moon base arrives at the surface between the Reinhold and Lansberg Craters in the Sea of Islands. Later on June, a group of three NASA astronauts, namely John Glenn, Frank Borman and Buzz Aldrin, arrived at the location. The 4th of July proved to be one of the most significant moment in American history when these astronauts greeted the peoples of the United States from their lunar base via television feed. They returned to Earth on 20th July and received a hero's welcome more grandiose than Apollo 11. Viking 1 successfully landed on Mars on this year.

<p data-parsoid="{"dsr":[1201,1444,0,0]}">1977: The USSR sent Alexei Leonov to land on the Moon. Their lunar landing spacecraft is based on the direct ascent mission profile. Concurrently they launched their first spaceplane MiG-105 with Gherman Titov piloting the inaugural flight.

<p data-parsoid="{"dsr":[1201,1444,0,0]}">1979: Iranian revolution.

<p data-parsoid="{"dsr":[1201,1444,0,0]}">1982: The British began to develop the HOTOL spaceplane with the Americans.

<p data-parsoid="{"dsr":[1201,1444,0,0]}">1986: U.S. President Reagan called for "a new Orient Express that could, by the end of the next decade, take off from Dulles Airport, accelerate up to 25 times the speed of sound, attaining low earth orbit or flying to Tokyo within two hours."

<p data-parsoid="{"dsr":[1201,1444,0,0]}">1989: USA began to return to the Moon with the Lunar Outpost plan.

<p data-parsoid="{"dsr":[1201,1444,0,0]}">1991: USSR collapses, meanwhile the HOTOL spaceplane is operational.

<p data-parsoid="{"dsr":[1201,1444,0,0]}">2000: The X-30 spaceplane went operational as the new millenium sets in.

<p data-parsoid="{"dsr":[1201,1444,0,0]}">2001: The Americans return to the Moon, however the 9/11 attacks befell upon them.

<p data-parsoid="{"dsr":[1201,1444,0,0]}">2002: NASA begin setting up a new lunar habitat. U.S. military begin plans to develop a space marine under Project Hot Eagle.

<p data-parsoid="{"dsr":[1201,1444,0,0]}">2003: The U.S. invades Iraq as in OTL.

<p data-parsoid="{"dsr":[1201,1444,0,0]}">2004: U.S. Senator John Kerry won the presidential election.

<p data-parsoid="{"dsr":[1201,1444,0,0]}">2005: The NASA lunar habitat is finished.

<p data-parsoid="{"dsr":[1201,1444,0,0]}">2006: Eight crews are stationed in the NASA habitat, while NASA's New Horizons space probe is launched to Pluto.

<p data-parsoid="{"dsr":[1201,1444,0,0]}">2008: U.S. war hero John McCain won that year's presidential race.

<p data-parsoid="{"dsr":[1201,1444,0,0]}">2009: Iran is plunged into a civil war.

<p data-parsoid="{"dsr":[1201,1444,0,0]}">2010: NASA began to extract the lunar oxygen for use in their habitats.

<p data-parsoid="{"dsr":[1201,1444,0,0]}">2011: U.S. military preparations to build a space marine is finished. A presidential spaceplane dubbed "Space Force One" is finished.

<p data-parsoid="{"dsr":[1201,1444,0,0]}">2012: USA landed the first man on the lunar far side. Mitt Romney won that year's presidential election.

<p data-parsoid="{"dsr":[1201,1444,0,0]}">2013: Mitt Romney rides the Space Force One thereby becoming the first incumbent leader to go into space.

<p data-parsoid="{"dsr":[1201,1444,0,0]}">2015: New Horizons arrives at Pluto. The Sputnik Planum of  OTL is named as Vanguard Planum instead.

<p data-parsoid="{"dsr":[1201,1444,0,0]}">2016: Hillary Clinton won the U.S. presidential election.

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