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[PlaySegaWithHarrisonFord]

As some of you know, the Space Shuttle program, one of humanity's real life "megaprojects", is about to come to an end.  But what would it look like in a more dwarfy world?


Cape Canaveral, FL--NASA officially retired the space shuttle Discovery, citing framerate issues as the reason.  The shuttle program, which was originally conceived as a method for mining adamantine from space, ran into problems following the !!Challenger!! and !!Columbia!! accidents.  The fun was later blamed on gremlin saboteurs.  When questioned on the matter, NASA administrator Urist McZefram was quoted as saying, "more blood for the blood god!"

The shuttle's retirement marks the end of an era.  NASA officials assured the public that important beekeeping experiments would continue on the ISS.  Meanwhile, the agency will attempt to update to version 0.31.21 amid budget cuts.


EDIT: Fact-check thanks to rhinelander!  I've updated the lede.

[rhinelander]

As some of you know, the Space Shuttle program, one of humanity's real life "megaprojects", just came to an end.

Not yet, there are two more missions to come.

[woose1]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Yeah, that's a cigar. What of it?

[PlaySegaWithHarrisonFord]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Yeah, that's a cigar. What of it?

"Spacecraft Landing Cancelled: Interrupted by Damn Dirty Apes"

[JohnieRWilkins]

You enable the physics profession on all incoming soap makers. Then they spend their miserable existence deriving natural laws and inventing calculus. Once you have the necessary calculations, you order your legendary blacksmith, peasants and all of your engineers to construct space rocket bodies until they're all legendary rocket makers and turn out masterwork copper/iron rockets by the dozen. You might need multi-stage rockets. Then you do that step again with HFS. Finally, you take all of your brewers and alchemists and the rest of your useless dwarves to invent liquid fuel propellant and arm the rocket. Make sure to test your propulsion system first!

Then the goblin-seeking cruise missiles arrive. (war dog guidance system) Oh god the cruise missiles.

[Sphalerite]

The dwarven space program is just waiting for someone to figure out how to build a ballista that points upwards.  That will enable basic unmanned flights.  For manned flights, we need to figure out how to attach a cage to a ballista arrow.  The cage will of course protect its occupant from the vacuum of space (cages enable the occupants to breathe anywhere), the heat of reentry (use a magma-safe cage to be sure) and the impact of hitting the ground (since objects are indestructible).

The fact that the sky has a fixed maximum height will be a problem.  How high can the ceiling be set when you create the world?

Then again, the dwarven space program will have a great boost if they can find one of those adamantine space elevators that seem to exist naturally on some worlds.

[Greiger]

"Tragedy at The Capes of Canaveral today as the mayor's pet eagle was flying above the *Upright Ballista* During today's launch.   Limbs flew everywhere when the unfortunate bird was struck and the parts have clogged up the corpse stockpile.   Astronaut Urist was unharmed and claims 'I didn't even know I hit something mon.  I be blacked out the whole time I'm in that cage.'  The mayor refused to comment, being asleep.

Urist and his cargo of one Alder Log will be arriving at the orbital platform later today to add the final part to the dwarven water reactor that will power the platform.   The power is necessary for the waterfall that will allow dwarves to survive on the station for more than a few months without getting really depressed and jumping off."

[darkrider2]

"Tragedy at The Capes of Canaveral today as the mayor's pet eagle was flying above the *Upright Ballista* During today's launch.   Limbs flew everywhere when the unfortunate bird was struck and the parts have clogged up the corpse stockpile.   Astronaut Urist was unharmed and claims 'I didn't even know I hit something mon.  I be blacked out the whole time I'm in that cage.'  The mayor refused to comment, being asleep.

Urist and his cargo of one Alder Log will be arriving at the orbital platform later today to add the final part to the dwarven water reactor that will power the platform.   The power is necessary for the waterfall that will allow dwarves to survive on the station for more than a few months without getting really depressed and jumping off."

I want to know how dwarves built their interfort telecom system to broadcast all of this.

[Duke 2.0]

I want to know how dwarves built their interfort telecom system to broadcast all of this.

Urdol is really, really loud when shouting.

[varnish]

I'd think that dwarves would ignore shuttles altogether. They'd go the space elevator route. Now that's a megaproject.

[darkrider2]

I'd think that dwarves would ignore shuttles altogether. They'd go the space elevator route. Now that's a megaproject.

No its just an infinite number of up/down staircases.

We need moving fortress parts before the space program becomes fully realizable.

[Draco18s]

But what would it look like in a more dwarfy world?

[Itnetlolor]

Uh oh, now you've done it.

[Flying Carcass]

Strike the stars!

[darius]

Strike the stars!

Literally