This is the world of “what if”. What if we had continued the space race, what would our space footprint look like? What if we had invested heavily in a transportation infrastructure around the globe, how would that change how we get from point A to point B today? What if we decided as a species that world hunger was not acceptable, how would we have solved it with technology? What if we had solved the autonomous car problem 50 years ago, how would that have changed how we worked and played today? What if sustainable energy was standard practice for a generation, how would that change how we interacted in our world today?

How would our world be better? How would it be worse? How would it be, just different? Belitopia is this world, this world where the what if’s come true, and the world is a better place, a worse place, a different place.

In season one of Belitopia, we look at the space program. What if the space race had continued after Apollo? What if we continued to invest in the space program at the same or greater levels than we did previously? Many experts believe that every dollar we invest in the space program, returns 8-10 dollars in improved technologies to our world. What if we truly recognized that and invested significantly greater amounts of money in the space program? What if we discovered that there are natural resources in space that are worth pursuing. Resources that can solve our energy problems, our food problems. Resources that were economically viable to pursue.

It’s not utopia, it’s not dystopia. It’s believable science fiction. This is Belitopia.

What if…things were different…

What if…different decisions were made, important decisions, in our world…

What if…our leaders made different choices?

What if…different political and social climates existed in our world, with different priorities and different expectations?

What would be changed and what would be the same?

Welcome to the world of what if…

Much of science fiction is based either on a utopian view of the world, or, as happens in much of modern science fiction, on a dystopian view of the world:

• a natural disaster
• the zombie apocalypse
• disease, suffering

The world is either unbelievably great…or unbelievably bad.

There doesn’t seem to be much in the middle.

But what if we looked at science fiction with neither a negative nor a positive bias?

What if we instead looked at…a realistic world.

...a believable world.

This is that world…the world of Belitopia.

In season one of Belitopia, we look at the space program.

What if the space race had continued after Apollo?

What if we continued to invest in the space program at the same or greater levels than we did previously?

Many experts believe that every dollar we invest in the space program, returns 8-10 dollars in improved technologies to our world. What if we truly recognized that and invested significantly greater amounts of money in the space program?

What if we discovered that there are natural resources in space that are worth pursuing. Resources that can solve our energy problems, our food problems. Resources that were economically viable to pursue.

Bottom line, what if we believed it was worth our while investing in space and space technology?

We’ll explore what happens to the Apollo space program with continued funding.

What happens to our long term plans for exploring the lunar surface?

What about space stations? Skylab? And what about the space station Freedom?

We’ll talk about the Apollo Applications Program, an ill-fated and under funded program with vast plans for continued space exploration. In this new world, these programs are carried thru, fully funded, enhanced, and expanded.

What is this Venus Flyby mission? How does that change the excitement of space? How did that...

The Apollo space program. The quintessential peak of human kinds manned space program. The funding that went into this program was astronomical, around $120 **billion** dollars, adjusted for inflation.

But once we landed on the moon, we lost interest in space. With the reduced interest in space came reduced funding...and our future in space suffered.

But, what if funding didn’t stop suddenly…

This is “Apollo Plus”.

For more information, please see belitopia.com/apollo.

What if the world was different? Science fiction is usually utopian or dystopian, either unrealistically good or unbelievably bad. There doesn’t seem to be much in the middle. But what if we looked at science fiction differently? What if we instead looked at a realistic world? A believable world.

This is the world of Belitopia.

…

In this episode of Belitopia. The Apollo space program.

The quintessential peak of human kinds manned presence in space.

The funding that went into this program was astronomical, around $120 **billion** dollars, adjusted for inflation.

But once we established John F. Kennedy’s dream of putting a man on the moon, we lost interest in space. Our society moved on, and the will and drive to do more and more in space went away. With the reduced interest in space came reduced funding. Like having whiplash, the Apollo program was stopped suddenly.

But, what if it didn’t stop suddenly…

This … is … Apollo Plus. Welcome to Belitopia.

…

From the space program to high speed trains, from bridges to artificial intelligence, from pop culture to politics, and war to religion. Belitopia is about the world of what if. What if, different decisions were made in our history? Different priorities held by our leaders? Different politics involved? Let’s see the world as it could have been, perhaps should have been, and might still become.

Welcome to Belitopia.

Hello everybody, and welcome to Apollo +.

Apollo, the United States space program that put a man on the moon.

The Apollo program ended after Apollo 17 returned to earth on December 19, 1972. The Apollo program stopped … abruptly.

By some people’s thinking, this was the end of the real manned space program. Everything else that came after Apollo 17 was a shadow of what went on before.

The reason? Well, people lost interest in space. There was enough other things going on in the late 60’s and early 70’s to keep people’s interest. Who cared about going to the moon anymore? It was old news. After losing interest in space, the space program lost funding…no more big Apollo-type programs…nothing. NASA spent the next 50+ years squeaking by on as little money as they could squeeze out of the government budget…it was, really, a national embarrassment.

The halting of the Apollo program was so sudden that many people believe the whole entire program must have been faked. We never landed on the moon, it was a fake. And so there wasn’t any more “there” there… So went the conspiracy theories.

But, it did happen. We did land on the moon…and we did so five additional times. Six times in total, human-kind landed on the moon.

Each flight had accomplished more and more important space objectives. Each flight did something new and different.

Apollo accomplished many space objectives, including:

First time we left the vicinity of the earth and entered into the gravitational pull of another object, namely the moon.

First time we docked two ships together in orbit around an object that was not the earth. A task that was essential if we wanted to eventually complete our mission to land on the moon, and continue our expiration into space.

First time humans landed on an object that wasn’t earth…namely the moon.

We left the safety of our ship

The Apollo space program was much more than a set of missions to the moon. It was also a technology platform that provided the basis for future space programs. A technology platform that the Apollo Applications Program was created to leverage and enhance. In real life, not much came of the Apollo Applications Program. Very little funding was given to the program, and the program suffered. A stunted Skylab space station, and a Apollo-Soyuz joint docking in space were all that came out of the Apollo Applications Program. At least, that’s what happened in real life. But this is not the real world… This is the “Apollo Applications Program”.

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