Alternate Moon landing story.

[edvader]

There is an Alternate History story in Jan/Feb 2009 Analog called To Leap the highest Wall.Occurs in 1969.Apollo ran to a serious fatal problem and the Soviets are in orbit around the moon ready to land on anniversary of Lenin's Birth.BUT there is one problem .The Soviet orbiter sends a message to the Americans asked for possibly landing in the West for an emergency.The thing is once the Soviets walk on the moon they take the Soviet flag and throw it down and declare they want political asylum and show an American flag.Well, it looks like the Americans did end on Luna.Is this a plausible scenario?

[Geekhis Khan]

It'd take some sort of POD in the Soviet program to make the Luna progam viable, say Korolev surviving his ass-surgery, but it's plausible...and a damned fun idea! Good luck.

[simonbp]

"Luna" was the unmanned orbiter/lander program. LOK would be the lunar Soyuz, and LK the (one-man) lunar lander. Presumably the PoD is that an N-1 actually puts an LOK/LK complex in LEO, and then a two-man crew ferries to it on a standard Soyuz...

Simon

[Geekhis Khan]

Thanks, Simon. Going by my not-so-good memory here.

[Volksgrenadier2006]

Originally Posted by simonbp

"Luna" was the unmanned orbiter/lander program. LOK would be the lunar Soyuz, and LK the (one-man) lunar lander. Presumably the PoD is that an N-1 actually puts an LOK/LK complex in LEO, and then a two-man crew ferries to it on a standard Soyuz...

Simon

True first the soviets had a lot of problems to overcome, for instance with the firering all 30 engines for the first stage flawlessly and on the same time.
But eventually the soviets could overcome these problems I am sure of it.
I dont think it is very likely that the cosmonauts would want to deflect to the USA and they certainly wouldnt desecrate the soviet flag like that, after all there families are still in Russia and they know they will have to face the consecuences for the deeds of their suns.
It is just as likely as seeing Neil Armstong plant the soviet flag.

[edvader]

Thanks ,volksgrenadier.However, I believe the question or families was not touched on.Possibly it was implied these were single men with no relatives around on the Soviet mission.