United Interplanetary States of America

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The United Interplanetary States of America added the 'I' to its acronym in 2148 after the colonisation of New Iowa in the Griffin system.

History

Return to Isolationism

Less than total victory in the Second World War meant that the US was left with a massive casualty list and no successful war aims to show for it. Germany still stood, if anything stronger than before, and France and Britain were ruined. Soviet Russia's refusal to pay for Lend-Lease equipment left a massive deficit in the US's forecast war profits. Japan may have fallen, but it was never the real threat. Concerned with these inexcusable mistakes, the Truman Administration chose to re-establish an isolationist foreign policy. America retreated across the Atlantic once more. This isolationism meant that subsequent administrations concentrated on domestic policies rather than paying attention as closely as they might have to the Space Race.

Unlike Germany, with its system of pre-war Autobahnen, the US states were far more provincial just after the Second World War. The east coast had been modernised by Roosevelt, centering around New York, but the rest of the country's infrastructure was in a state of disrepair. It was not until the mid 1950s that the US finally threw off the last shackles of the Depression, by constructing public works on a grand scale, thus removing the last impediments to modernisation of internal trade. This program caused a boom that allowed America to once again lift its gaze to the wider world.

Failure to Compete

Whilst the Americans tried to regain parity in the Space Race with the creation of NASA in 1958, their program was much slower than the Germans and Soviets. The increased competition made the rewards much harder to reach for the slowly developing Space power. Responding to these perceived failures, Government spending slowly declined after the 1960s, the country focusing more on economic development programs. It was thus a Soviet cosmonaut who first set foot on the moon, and the Germans who developed it into a colony. The Russians bypassed the Moon after that, and shot for Mars. The US and Britain seemingly stood still. Their research programs were just not as well developed as their rivals'. Their low spending meant that by the 1990s they were effectively out of the race altogether.

The American 21st Century: Terrestrial Concerns

This lack of spending did allow the US to maintain Arms parity with the USSR, and far exceed Germany's military abilities, thanks in the main to an extremely powerful economy designed to support it. The US was not afraid to use this massive army, either, with Johnson and Nixon sending it to Vietnam to fight off the Soviet-backed Viet Cong, and a number of wars in the Middle East in the 1980s and 90s to contest control of oil with the Soviet Union.

America finally shoots for the Stars

By the time the US managed to reach parity in the Space Race, it was competing with its closest ally for the last slim pickings of Sol, and had to satisfy itself with a small outpost on Titan in 2096, and Ganymede in 2104. At least money was not a problem; American solar outposts were the best supplied and best-maintained in the system.

In the early 2100s, the Migration Crises once again kick-started the flagging American Space Program. Government spending on the space program - in the form of the Ark Ship - reached an all time high (as a percentage of GDP) in 2124, in the leadup to the preparation of the Ark Ship Liberty in 2127.

  • In 2084 NASA is replaced with the National Extra-Terrestrial Territories Administration (NETTA).
  • In 2127 the USA sent an Ark Ship to New Iowa in the Griffin system.
  • In 2147 the USA sent the then-largest FTL ship, the USSS Essex, to colonise New Iowa.
  • In 2148 the USA renames itself the UISA in honour of the establishing their first colony world New Iowa. NETTA split into the Department of Extra-Terrestrial Territories (DETT) and the National Extrasolar Exploration Administration (NEEA)

America Today

American Political Organisations

The American Military

American Territories

American Corporations

American Persons of Note

Current American Characters

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