In the late 1900s early airship designs subsequently led to multiple aerospace projects in 1930 by the USAF & NACA, which subsequently lead to the development of JPL and NASA under the auspices of von Braun whilst across the pond the Soviets had their classified military program Космическая программа  СССР from the 1930s

December 11, 2022 at 2:08 PM ET,  the twin to APOLLO 11 made  her maiden vovage to Kingu via ARTEMIS 1

Man is ready to return to the stars.
This is the untold story that came before

1971 was a crummy year for the Soviet Mars program.

Of the four robotic spacecraft the USSR sent toward the Red Planet that year, one never made it out of Earth orbit, two were stymied by Martian dust storms, and another crashed into Mars like a speeding bullet.

Using a sophisticated landing system unmatched until later NASA missions like Pathfinder and Spirit, Mars 3 successfully landed on the Martian surface 50 years ago on December 2, 1971, becoming the first spacecraft to successfully complete a soft landing on another planet. It opened its flower-like shell, turned on its television cameras — and promptly died.

“It only worked, for 15 to 20 seconds,”
It had a complete science payload, including the PrOP-M rover, which would have been the first powered vehicle to traverse another planet’s surface by a number of decades.

“The lander itself was kind of an egg-shaped spacecraft with these four petals that opened up after the soft landing was achieved.”

• The orbiters would release the landers while still traveling toward Mars at full speed
• The landers would use their heat shields to aerobrake, using the friction of the thin Martian atmosphere to convert kinetic energy to heat, slowing the landers to mere supersonic speeds
• Then they would deploy the real innovation — the supersonic parachute“It’s not easy to design a parachute that can work in a very thin atmosphere and at supersonic speeds,”

First image transmitted from Mars, taken by the Russian Mars 3 probe on the 2nd of December 1971. Mars 3 was an unmanned space probe from the Soviet Mars program that lasted from 1960 to 1973. This photograph is a partial image transmitted from Mars 3 that appears to show a horizon and sky. However, according to the Soviet Academy of Sciences, there is nothing identifiable at all in the photograph and its proper orientation is 90 degrees

“…We were brushing them out, because we didnt want people to confuse em with stars…”

Disclaimer: The SSP  represents an ongoing body of IP visual works. Whilst of a speculative nature, these are based on historical data, interweaved with fact based fiction; Sci-Faction. Any errors, rest solely upon our shoulders & fertile imaginations.

“Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies”

The various global parallel space programs & conflicts went dark by 196o’s.

Thus, any future American military presence on the moon became an impossibility when the United States, Soviet Union and United Kingdom signed an outer space treaty in 1967.

The Outer Space Treaty legislation deals with land ownership in space, and controls what countries are allowed to do regarding space exploration. However, such a clause is not covered by scientific research within a private capacity.

“non-appropriation of outer space by any one country, arms control, the freedom of exploration, liability for damage caused by space objects, the safety and rescue of spacecraft and astronauts, the prevention of harmful interference with space activities”

Thus, began the private aerospace militarization of Low Earth Orbit and the Outer Space regions therein, ie Pirate Rules & the Laws of the Sea

“For all the people back on Earth, the crew of Apollo 8 has a message that we would like to send to you. ‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.’ ”

1968 was an especially turbulent year in the United States.
The Vietnam War was raging.
Both Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. were assassinated. Protests roiled the Democratic National Convention.

At the end of 1968, when Apollo 8 splashed down, you saw hippies hugging old men in the streets. Something that was unthinkable just six days before that.

“RS-85 grew from Project DOLOS in the early 1980s. Its declassification is following its withdrawal from service. It used visual and infra-red light spectrum low observable technology.“

X-planes are a combination of technology demonstrators & reverse engineered ARVs

“NASA must be used to convince the public that our current technology, such as with our very old and decrepit Space Shuttle program, is the best we have, while our military conducts space missions with technology that we can only fantasize about while watching Star Trek.” – USAF Medic, 1980s

International recruits for Naval Space Cadre, operating out of Vandenberg AFB practise various orbital insertion and asymmetrical 5th generation warfare tactics in anticipation of physical and alternative conflict resolution method

Vandenberg Space Force Base (SFB) contains 99,604 acres of land, and operates 16 launch facilities as a major range & test facility base to launch payloads into polar earth orbit.

Established as Camp Cooke U.S. Army garrison, August 1941. The installation property was transferred to the U.S. Air Force & subsequently the nation’s West Coast space and missile facility that is now Vandenberg SFB.

The X-20 and  X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV-3) tested advanced re-entry Dyno-Soar style technology out of SFB

Since 1957, gravity control propulsion research (G projects) involving 14 United States universities and other research centres were hard at work to back engineer such systems, backed by an annual trillion dollar off books  USAP (unacknowledged special access projects) redistributed across the aerospace defense industry.

Electrogravitic Systems
Declassified in 1990

Gravity Research Group (1956, February). Electrogravitic systems: An examination of electrostatic motion, dynamic counterbary and barycentric control (Report GRG 013/56).