Okay!
Good!
I would suggest then that you begin by looking into rocketry a little. Have a look at how it developed. Sure, you can have a look at the big names and all that, but I am strongly of the opinion that the beauty of world-building when it comes to science fiction is the ideas and concepts and how they developed. What made people think that rocketry was the way to go? After all, Jules Verne in his
From the Earth to the Moon had in mind that a massive cannon would be the way to go about it.
How did rocketry develop as a scientific discipline? Is the reason why rocketry has developed to the extent that it has developed in your timeline because we are looking at a particularly much more hawkish timeline, with never-ending wars? Has there perhaps been a long-going cold war throughout the 19th century between a British Empire and a continuing Napoleonic Empire and by the year 1901, the world is divided into one British sphere of influence and a French sphere of influence?
How does one go about building rockets in the first place anyway? What are the fuels, the designs, those things? You often learn things and hit upon ideas that you otherwise never would have hit upon when you start looking into the details and the nitty-gritty.
Why is there an interest in space exploration in particular? Why not deep sea exploration being the craze that captures the imaginations of the people of this alternate Victorian era? After all, why have a race to the moon when instead you can have a race to the bottom of the ocean? Governments building increasingly fanciful submarines
à la Captain Nemo, and setting up bases on the ocean floor?
Perhaps it has to do with military intelligence? Is there in particular an interest in
satellites as a means of communication? Why aren't deep sea cables good enough? Perhaps this has nothing to do with the military at all. Perhaps this is
cyberpunk-steampunk? The great big multinationals being the ones directing all the exploration and controlling everything, but in a 19th century setting? Perhaps the race is not between rivalling superpowers or blocs of great powers, but between cartels of multinationals?
How has
electricity developed in this timeline? Are there
computers or something similar to them? Difference engines? How do they work?
Why were they developed?
These are just some ideas from off the top of my head, and the sort of questions you should be looking into.