Author Topic: Humble beginnings: Tamora's space programme  (Read 4168 times)

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Offline Markus

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Humble beginnings: Tamora's space programme
« on: August 11, 2018, 12:36:42 AM »
OOC: The history of Tamora's space programme and how it got to where it is today. The events are recalled through the perspective of the Manager in charge of setting up the programme.

It was 1991 when it all started. I still remember that day as if it were yesterday. I got a call from Kadyrov Industries asking me if I want to manage their latest major project. They needn't tell what it was. It was all over the news. After decades of staying away from space and relying on third parties for services, the Emperor had decided the country needed to be independent and have its own satellite navigation system. Of course that meant the space programme would have to start from scratch as Tamora lacked anything resembling a space programme. So the imperial authorities organized a bidding contest where the authorities were to provide a grant for building the project and in return will be allowed to use the satellite system for free. Upon completion, the winning company will have sole ownership of the system. Few were surprised when they heard that Kadyrov industries had won the bidding process. They were the largest arms manufacturing company in the Empire with close connections to the Emperor. They won the bid with 500 mil dinars (USD) and so the dream of building space program began.

Two years later:

Three.

Two.

One.

Blastoff.


The Safir rocket, the first rocket ever developed by Tamora


And so the Safir rocket lifted towards the sky. It was an 100% Tamoran design, the product of innumerable hours of work from Tamora's best scientists. The feelings I got when looking at the rocket take off are hard to describe. And then, less the than 30 seconds after launch, the rocket blow up. A feeling of despair took hold of me and my team. Perhaps things would not have looked not so grim if this wasn't the third failure out of three attempts. Other than building the spaceport it was hard to see what part of the project was doing good: the grant monies were almost all spent, the satellites were not even close to testing phase and the whole project looked years behind schedule. At this rate it was hard to believe the project will ever reached its goal, never mind doing it on time or within budget. 

And then the guys from the intelligence service showed up to launch an investigation on possible sabotage. Sadly, they won't find anything just like they didn't on the previous two failures. Morale among my team was so poor that I think people  would actually be happier if they learnt it was sabotage. That would mean somebody believed we were actually making progress. Unfortunately, I doubt somebody would be that optimistic. In fact it was no secret that our constant failures had greatly displeased the Emperor. In Tamora, despite his immense power, people rarely hear about the opinions of the Emperor. So for us to be hearing about it meant that he had lost confidence in the project and would either pull the plug, hire another company to do the job or something else. None of the prospects looked good.   

Offline Markus

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A deal with the devil
« Reply #1 on: August 12, 2018, 12:30:21 AM »
Date: 1994 (a year later)


I don't watch politics, nothing changes in Tamora so there's little reason for me to do so. But the last year had been so stressful that I wouldn't have had the time even if I wanted to. So I was shocked when i saw the news:

"The Empire of Tamora signs cooperation treaty with the USR".

Even somebody like me who had little interest in politics knew that Tamora was always stuck between the two political blocks of Mundus: the USR and its allies on one side and the Free World on the other. The problem for Tamora was that it never got along with either of them. Tamora would have wanted to ally or at least have more friendly relations with the Free World but slavery always got in the way. The USR would have been willing to look the other way on the slavery issue but Tamora never wanted to look the other way when it came to the USR's state atheism. Only one thing makes us Tamorans more anxious than atheism: state enforced atheism. However, it seemed that Tamora finally gave in on the issue. So I was curious to see what we got from the deal:

"the new treaty stipulates that Tamora will pay 250 mil dinars (USD) per year to the USR in exchange for assistance in promoting science and research relating to space technology. Furthermore, Tamora agrees to enter into a barter system with the USR, selling at least 20 bln in oil and gas every year in exchange for various goods manufactured in the USR. The Imperial authorities have said the treaty signals a change in... "

The deal was even more astonishing. As far as I can remembered Tamora never paid other countries for assistance. So this could only mean Tamora was desperate to get the programme going at all costs, otherwise it would have never signed such an obviously humiliating deal.




Date: 1996

Finally progress was made. The Soviet assistance had proved invaluable. That wasn't necessary because they bent over backwards to help but mostly because we were so far behind that whatever assistance they provided was badly needed. We had to start from scratch on a new rocket model since the current had been deemed "irreversibly flawed" by the Soviets. So the Safir 2 was "born". Today it was the first attempt at launching it so everyone was excited. Everyone with security clearance gathered to see the big event. And the countdown started:     

Three.

Two.

One.

Blastoff.



The Safir 2 rocket, the second rocket design developed by Tamora


You could feel the tension in the room as everyone, expect for the Soviets of course, was praying for it to be a success. As minutes passed without any failures detected, you could feel the moral of the team surge to levels seen only at the start of the programme. It was clear then that we would be finishing our satellite navigation system, we had no idea when but for the first time in years the team was confident it could be achieved. Sure, there were immense hurdles ahead of us. Just as with the rocket , our plans for the first satellite had to be scrapped for a new design. However, unlike the rocket design, progress was much slower there. But now that we could shift our focus there, I was confident we could have a successful satellite within a reasonable timeframe. Finally, things were looking good for us.



OOC: Agreed with Libby.

Offline Markus

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A price too high to bear
« Reply #2 on: August 12, 2018, 07:57:14 PM »
Date: 1997

Another year had passed and despite our best efforts constructing a working satellite proved to be a much bigger challenge than expected. We had to abandon three designs for various reasons like not finding Tamoran companies that could meet the quality requirements for certain specific components, or were too expensive and took too long to manufacture. Designing and building from scratch an entire satellite without relying on foreign components greatly hampered the project. It also greatly annoyed our Soviet partners. Since they were from a communist country they couldn't understand why we couldn't commandeer other companies to build what we wanted since this was a project for the Tamoran government or why we kept a close attention to costs if such a project was vital for us. When we explained that in the free world you can't order people around they always retorted with "why do you then not trade for components with the other free world countries"? 

Date: 1998

It was eventually decided that our initial ambitions for designing and building from scratch  a satellite that could be used for our navigation system was too high of a challenge to start with. So we designed and built a small experimental weather satellite. This proved a much easier task to manage. Sina-1 our first Tamoran satellite was successfully lunched and operated within normal parameters. It was our hope that the satellite would also prove financially successful. The Soviets partners were completely puzzled by our change of strategy as were the Imperial authorities. One could be forgiven for thinking the change was just a way to make more money and that we had tricked the authorities, and had no intention of building a satellite navigation system (though that would have been a fatal mistake). The truth was we were trying to build a profitable space industry so that other companies in Tamora would invest in the field and thus create the expertise and the industrial capacity to eventual build our satellite navigation system. Explaining that to the authorities proved to be a difficult challenge. We didn't even bother trying to explain that to the Soviets.


The Sina-1: Tamora's first satellite


One Sunday evening I was watching the news which presented a fragment of our Supreme Ayatollah's sermon:

"... and have we stoop so low as to ally ourselves with the Atheist powers? We feed the Godless powers a quarter of a billion dinars every year. Our forefathers who fought to build this empire would be ashamed that we are now paying an yearly tribute like a defeated country. We must..."

It was no point in watching further. Any Tamoran that's not a total idiot knows that when the Supreme Ayatollah says something about politics it's to let people know a new Imperial policy is to implemented. The speech meant the agreement with the Soviets was to be terminated or at least fundamentally altered. Which meant we had to make best of the time we still had until the Soviets would pull the plug.

It didn't take long for the Soviets to figure out that Tamora was about to change course. Whether it was because they had learn to read how our society works or just had good intelligence services the fact was that they were no longer cooperating as they used to. For any assistance we asked for we now had to fill out paper work. That's the diplomatic way of burying something. Since we had no choice, we did the extra paper work slowing us down considerably and the Soviets answered by giving the minimum of assistance as to not be accused they have completely stopped cooperating.

So it came to no surprise when the following year, in 1999, Tamoran authorities unilaterally denounced the deal, stopped paying for the assistance and suspended the barter arrangement we had with the USR.