by Max Barry

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Countesian Ministry of Aerospace

The Countesian Ministry of Aerospace, Formerly the Countesian Aerospace Administration, is the branch of the Countesian Federal Government tasked with exploring, researching and colonising outer space. Founded by royal decree from Queen Ariadne I in 1956 in response to the international Space Race. Fuelled by considerable public and scientific interest in the solar system, the CFAA successfully launched its first Astronaut Elliot Verne into orbit in 1962 on board the VALKYRIE-IV rocket a mere six years later.

Capitalising on its success, the CFAA would go on to launch its first probe to Saturn in 1964, successfully capturing high definition images of the once hard to spot Saturnian moons. Further probes would go on to visit Jupiter, Mercury and Pluto, all providing the scientific community back on earth with decades of data to sift through. While unmanned exploration was the public focus of the CFAA and garnered incredible scientific results, incredibly classified work was simultaneously conducted on the ultimate goal; to put a Countesian on Earths closest orbiting body. The Moon. with almost limitless funding from the Countesian Monarchy, engineers, chemists and physicists poured thousands of man hours into dozens of projects and experiments. Day and night, dedicated teams tackled a myriad of specific issues related to the eventual launch of a rocket propelled, manned spacecraft into orbit, to the moon, and back again with its crew alive. The countless setbacks and successes of these projects eventually congealed into the construction of the ICARUS-I rocket. Theoretically capable of transporting a landing capsule and four astronauts to the moon and back, the ICARUS was at the time the most expensive object ever constructed in Countesian history by a gargantuan margin. In response to internal leaks and pressure from government whistle-blowers, the Countesian Monarchy would eventually announce the existence of the Countesian Moon Mission to the public in 1966. At this time the ICARUS-I rocket was nine months from completion.

In 1968, After a year and a half of safety tests and partial test launches, the hopes and dreams of thousands of men and women saw the successful launch of the ICARUS-I rocket. Although Countesia was far from the first nation to attempt a lunar landing, the entire nation watched in collective awe as the crew of the ICARUS-I entered Lunar orbit, and precisely four hours after making orbit successfully launched astronauts Travis Mallory, Alexander Hanlon and Clive Dalton onto the Lunar surface whilst astronaut George Flagstaff manned the return module several miles overhead. They returned home heroes, with immensely valuable data and lunar soil samples. In the subsequent decades, The Countesian Aerospace Administration made three more successful Lunar landings with the ICARUS-II, ICARUS-III and ICARUS-IV rockets. ICARUS-V further capitalised on these successes and made the first Mars landing. A sixth ICARUS rocket was built to re-visit Mars, but in 2009 economic depression and massive political upheaval in Countesia saw the Space Program funding cut by almost by ninety eight percent. In an attempt to make savings, the newly created Federal Government originally drew up plans to have the ICARUS-VI auctioned off to foreign space programs, but found itself swayed by the Ministry of Tourism to preserve the rocket for antiquity. To compensate, the Ministry of Aerospace began to take commercial contracts, launching telecommunication satellites to raise funding.

It would be another six years until the Countesian Federal Government decided to revitalise the space program in and restructured the withering Aerospace Administration into the Countesian Ministry of Aerospace. Pouring billions of credits worth of funding back into the program with the express goal of colonising the Solar System to further research into Earths neighbouring planetary bodies. Once again going back to its roots, The CMA announced to the public six months later that Countesia would be going back to the moon to establish a permanent lunar settlement.

In order to undertake such an endeavour, the CMA ordered the construction of a brand new series of heavy lift vehicles to replace the obsolete ICARUS series of rockets. Named the NAUTILUS series, and with an allocated budget of three billion credits these craft would come to includethe utmost cutting edge of technologies Countesia had available to its space program thanks to a combination of bidding to private contractors and from the hard work of its own scientists. Three years later, the NAUTILUS I and NAUTILUS II were christened. Aside from the considerable technological upgrade from its ICARUS predecessor, the NAUTILUS series of rockets were designed from conception to be a mostly reusable, modular craft capable of landing itself after releasing its payload into orbit.

The second smaller, yet equally important project untaken by the CMA was the Mobula Project. The goal was to create a multipurpose spacecraft that could be configured to carry people, cargo or a mixture of both for short or long range missions. The short range configuration of the Mobula would be intended for space station resupply, and the long range configuration would be capable of ferrying astronauts between earth and the moon.

Upon being completed, NAUTILUS I made almost a dozen successful test launches in which it carried the Mobula Craft into orbit, which in turn subsequently made numerous successful trips moon and back. Satisfied with their results, The Mobula would go on to ferry prefabricated habitation units and settlers to the moon to establish Homestead One, located in the Peary Crater within the borders of the Lunar North Pole. Two years later, the CNA would go on to successfully establish the settlement of Homestead Two in the Shackleton Crater in the Lunar South Pole. By this point, the NAUTILUS III, IV, V and VI had been constructed leaving Countesia with a total of seven NAUTILUS rockets at its disposal.

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