Let's say that all the circumstances needed for the Red Banner to be hoisted on the lunar surface as opposed to the Stars and Stripes occur. How the Sovs get there is not so important as what happens next. Assuming that like the OTL moon landings this takes place at the end of the sixties, what would happen next?
Soviets reach the moon first
- Thread starter BlackWave
- Start date
Blair152
Banned
Funny you should post this. Back in the '80s, it was discovered that the Soviets actually did have a manned moon program. The cosmonauts would have had to spacewalk to their lunar lander. So what happened? Even after
Apollo 11 landed, (or if you're a conspiracy theorist, pretended to land), on
the moon, the Soviets were trying to get there. The problem? Their carrier
rocket, which was bigger than the Saturn V, kept blowing up on the launch pad at Baikonaur. They finally gave up on the moon and concentrated on putting people on space stations. If the Soviets succeeded, and the Americans failed, you could bet that Pravada would be trumpeting it as a
great "Socialist achievement", and the crew of the first successful Soviet
moon landing would receive the Hero of the Soviet Union medal. As for the
United States? We'd probably cancel all Apollo moon missions and turn the
second stage into Sky Lab, our first space station, much sooner than OTL.
Thande
Donor
It couldn't happen without a pretty early POD: the USSR didn't seriously start their programme until 1964, even if you have them go with the UR-700 instead of the N-1 and therefore avoid that problem. The only way to do it is to have the American programme have serious disasters, like butterfly away the Apollo-1 fire (and therefore the safety measures taken) and instead have it happen to Apollo-8 to set back the whole affair.
Love it!There was a BBC documentary about the Russian space program in the 90s and they went into the warehouse where the capsule the Soviets built to land on the Moon was kept.
In the words of Luke Skywalker: 'What a piece of junk!'
It was a one-man capsule for a start. And he would have had to stand when he was operating it. Using levers, like the ones they have in railway stations for changing the points.
It was such a piece of rubbish!
If the Soviets had landed a man on the Moon, good luck getting him back
In terms of overall history, I don't think it makes much difference. The Cold War ended because Russia's economy collapsed.
Unless the Americans were so pissed off that the next time there was a crisis, they just refused to back down.
So how many spacecrafts have you designed?
Yes?
Yes?
Yes?
Did you do an in-depth analysis of the design?If the Soviets had landed a man on the Moon, good luck getting him back
What expertise do you have in this field to make such an assessment?
Your argument is rather indistinguishable from those of Apollo Hoax believers when they say about the LM "Look at that piece of junk, cardboard and aluminum-foil!!11!!! Who do they think they are fooling!1!!"*
*Imaging many spelling errors.
maybe it would've had a big impact on the cold war. The race to the moon put enormous amounts of morale and national pride at stake. Someone was going to win big, and someone was going to lose big. If it had been reversed and the Soviets had landed a man there first, maybe citizens in the eastern bloc would've been slightly less resentful of their authoritarian governments, and maybe the counter culture in the US and the west would've grown stronger and even more disillusioned with the US government and capitalism. These shifts in public opinion in both the first and second worlds, would have had reprecussions in formal international diplomacy and geopolitics as well probably. The thrid world too would've seen the USSR and socialism as more technologically advanced and turned away from the west more than it did IOTL. Its all speculation, but a Soviet moon landing, had it been possible to have actually been carried out, might have significantly altered the cold war, and possibly even the final results of the cold war.
Wolfpaw
Banned
I suppose it would force Americans to realize that they lost the Space Race, which frankly we did IOTL, we just think we won because we got to the moon first, which means we won the Lunar Race.
USSR: We launched the first satellite into space, the first animal into space, the first human into space, the first space station into—
USA: Aye! But we put a man on a hunk of rock first!
USSR: . . . So?
USA: So we win the Space Race!
USSR: But—
USA: WE WIN THE SPACE RACE!
*Long Pause*
USSR (to UK): Do they not understand how "races" work?
UK: We're really not ones to comment.
USSR: We launched the first satellite into space, the first animal into space, the first human into space, the first space station into—
USA: Aye! But we put a man on a hunk of rock first!
USSR: . . . So?
USA: So we win the Space Race!
USSR: But—
USA: WE WIN THE SPACE RACE!
*Long Pause*
USSR (to UK): Do they not understand how "races" work?
UK: We're really not ones to comment.
No, because the Apollo Hoaxers think the whole thing was faked. From what I saw, the Russians would have been better off faking it! It really did look like two bath tubs welded together. I know that the Apollo craft don't look that great to modern eyes but at least they looked like real spacecraft.
I do know that landing on the Moon was really difficult. Apollo 11 had such a hard time finding somewhere to land, that they only had about 15 seconds of fuel left when they touched down. I just don't see one man doing it. He would have been knackered by the end.
And my actual argument was that it doesn't really make much difference to the overall timeline if the Russians do get there first, apart from pissing the US off. Try reading the whole post next time before you start reacting to it.
I wasn't responding to your "actual argument" but to your claim: LK looks like junk therefor it can't do what it is supposed to do.
That is an argument from ignorance.
(I hate those.)
My post was meant to be a humourous remark about the fact that the Soviets didn't have the technical ability to get a man to the moon and back.
They beat the Americans at all the things that were relatively easy, ie go up and come down again. Getting to the Moon was much more of a challenge (yes I know they did it with unmanned capsules, but that's different) because you have to go up, go across, land, take off, come back and come back down to Earth. It is frankly a miracle that the US didn't lose anyone.
The LK lander was actually the only part of the program (besides the Soyuz) to function. They launched 3 unmanned test flights, each of which worked well. If they can ever fix the N-1, I don't see why they can't reach the moon.
If Nixon gets a lot of ridicule for "Failing to meet Kennedy's goal," we might see him, in a corner, say, "We see your moon landing, and raise you a Mars mission." So, Von Braun's boys get to go all out, building Super Saturns, NERVA, and other marvels. You know, they actually had a plan for a 500 tonne to orbit launcher in the late sixties. They lashed four Saturn Vs together. Perhaps the Mars flight is launched on that.
USSR: We got in space first.
USA (for some reason I'm thinking this in a French accent): That is not what we are racing for.
USSR: We got an animal in space first.
USA: That is not what we are racing for.
USSR: ... We got the first human in space.
USA: That is not what we are racing for.
USSR: We got the first man on the moon!
USA: That is not what we are racing for.
USSR: WELL WHAT ARE YOU RACING FOR?!
USA: Mars.
Cook
Banned
I think how they get there is still very important Blackwave.
If they used the brute force N1, Saturn V approach then maybe it’s as much of a dead end as Apollo was.
If instead they used a space station in orbit to assemble a Luna lander, Orbiter and Orbital Transfer Vehicle things may turn out differently. Especially if they’d put a small space station in orbit about the Moon.
Such infrastructure in place would be a strong prompt to maintaining and expanding operations into a Luna Base.
Bullshit.
Space stations for assembly make absolutely no sense. If you're launching all your materials straight up from the surface, what point building a space station just as a construction site? You may as well save time and launch all at once. And how is a Lunar Orbit space station any more productive than one in LEO?
Even Earth Orbit Rendezvous with Proton rockets would be better. Launch an LK on one, a Soyuz on the next, and fuel with some more, and you've got something to work with. Dock them in LEO (If you could do it with Mir, you can do it with this), and fire off. Mass-producing Protons would also reduce costs and give the Russians a booster that doesn't fail too often.
Then again this is the Soviet Union... Who knows how they think, Perhaps if the Primer and military likes the conceptual idea.
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Cook
Banned
Space Station for Assembly was the original plan. It requires development of a smaller launch vehicle to do it. Von Braun (and others) wanted to do it this way and develop the Saturn 1B further to do so.
The direct route was seen as quicker. And consequently what do we have afterwards; photos, rock samples and a couple of the largest and most expensive lawn ornaments in history.
Since this is Alternative history, let’s explore the alternatives.
As to a Luna Station; if they were going that to be going to the moon regularly then a station would be feasible. And yes I know it would need regular boosting to maintain orbit.
The direct route was seen as quicker. And consequently what do we have afterwards; photos, rock samples and a couple of the largest and most expensive lawn ornaments in history.
Since this is Alternative history, let’s explore the alternatives.
As to a Luna Station; if they were going that to be going to the moon regularly then a station would be feasible. And yes I know it would need regular boosting to maintain orbit.