What technology is dependent on Satellites/space program lessons?

[iterantunicorn93]

I'm working on a story that takes place in a sci fi world that was disinterested in space travel. So while in some ways it has things we could only dream of its also missing many things that we take for granted.

I'm just as happy to get obvious answers as I am obscure ones, since I might not have thought of them yet.

Comments

[redsixwing]

GPS. :)

That's the big one people forget about all the time.

Edit: GPS affects everything from airplane and container ship navigation, to the convenient maps in cars and smartphones, to the entire sport of geocaching (much more difficult without coordinates) to agriculture (automated tractors are fully reliant on GPS) to search and rescue.

It's almost easier to find domains GPS *hasn't* touched.

[beatrice_otter]

A quick google pulled up this article: https://www.howtogeek.com/831363/these-nasa-innovations-are-all-around-us-everyday/

But it's not anything like definitive. Here's a link to the wikipedia list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spin-off_technologies

Every time I look at this list, I see some other crucial technology that transforms everyday life.

[octahedrite]

Weather monitoring and prediction

[ffutures]

Intercontinental TV - TV is very difficult to transmit over really long distances. You can use cables, but they have very limited bandwidth compared to satellite, and are a lot more expensive, especially if anything goes wrong. With satellite everything but the satellite itself is readily accessible for repairs etc., and that's a big factor in how reliable TV is now. So probably no real-time coverage of wars, sports, and other events, if they aren't happening fairly close to the TV transmitter.

[conuly]

This has come up in multiple fics recently and annoyed me every time: With no space race, nobody will use the expression "Earth to X!" to get another person's attention if their mind is wandering.

That's not a tech answer, but....

[lilacsigil]

Other people have covered some big ones!

Intercontinental broadcasting. Rural/remote internet. Remote area communications at all (no satellite phones). Emergency communications when mobile/cell phone network is overloaded. International phone calls will remain more expensive.

[fred_mouse]

some thoughts

• Weather data will be less reliable, and less current. Lots of the weather data modelling has benefited greatly from satellite data. Having said that, in terms of incoming rain, a lot of that is done with radar. But 'how hot was it everywhere' is done with automated weather stations reliant on telecommunications, so reduced telecommunications --> reduced easy access.
• stock (animal) monitoring - the more remote the actual movements are hard to track, but there is a thing called 'pastures from space' which gives people a heads up when there are going to be issues
• lightning strikes and resultant bushfires / wildfires are monitored using satellites. Monitoring for hot spots, and thus 'go check here' is also done with satellites.
• available water sources are monitored with satellites - in Australia that is 'how full are the dams' but I gather elsewhere they also keep track of glaciers.
• any communications that requires line of sight (eg radio) that doesn't have a satellite to bounce off will have much restricted range. Which means more on the ground repeater stations.

Having said that, radio, radar, and lidar aren't necessarily technology related to space travel, and alternative methods of speeding communications would presumably have been developed. And even now, lots of weather monitoring stations are along major roads, because those are easy to get tech crews to, so that aspect wouldn't change.

[armiphlage]

Smuggling and invasions by land and sea would be easier without satellite surveillance to see past the horizon.

Depending on whether or not the planet's atmosphere allowed bouncing radio signals, continents separated by oceans wouldn't have real-time communication without laying underseal telecommunication cables.

[voidampersand]

A big question is whether there was a missile program. In our timeline, the space program started as a "peaceful" missile capability demonstration. Similarly, was there a Manhattan Project? A Cold War? A WW II with jet engine development? They are the roots of the space programs in both the CCCP and USA.

Besides NASA, a lot of the early R&D for micro-electronics happened at AT&T Bell Labs and IBM, or was funded by DARPA. Does the other timeline have a telephone monopoly and effective computer monopoly? Does it have a defense-industrial complex? I would expect that any timeline will eventually have micro-electronics, but the path to it could be completely different, and it could be decades behind ours.

[ffutures]

A lot of astronomy is much less detailed, and some parts of it e.g. most infra-red and x-ray astronomy probably doesn't exist. Probably no knowledge of exoplanets, much less knowledge of asteroids etc., much less warning of approaching asteroids and other potential problems. This may also impact some aspects of geology and paleontology, e.g. they may not be aware of the causes of some extinction-level events.

[full_metal_ox]

Don’t forget to consider what shape the in-universe speculative fiction is going to take; are they going to focus on terrestrial Lost Civilizations? What’s the attitude toward undersea exploration?

Atomic Rockets

[(Anonymous)]

Check out Atomic Rockets: https://projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/prelimnotes.php

"The point of this website is to allow a science fiction writer or game designer to get the scientific details more accurate. It is also to help science fiction readers and game players to notice when the media they are enjoying diverges from scientific reality. Because sometimes it is hard to tell."

[silveradept]

Warfare-at-great-distance elements like missiles will be missing, as will a significant amount of nuclear research, battlefield communication, and precisely-targeted attacks, so it's entirely possible this sci-fi world never has their equivalent of the Cold War and all of the research and development that arms race spawned. It probably also had less proxy war fighting and potentially less jingoism all around.

GPS/GLONASS is definitely one of the big ones, though.