ASUKIRIK wrote:
Let's have this hypothetical scenario discussed. That instead of Soviet Union landed first man on the moon at 1970, US actually won the first base of Space race somewhat earlier.
We all knew that US end up saying "We're aiming for Mars anyway", landed their own at the moon in 1971 and landed first man on Mars in 1993, beating Soviet Union who only able to do that in 1995...
But said that US win the race to the moon instead, will the Soviets end up focusing on Mars first instead. And what is your best guess for the Mars landing to happen?
And 3... 2... 1...
Rudebadger wrote:
OMG!. Are we back on this Yankwank AGAIN?!? Mods, can't we drop this into the Sealion thread zone and all get on with our lives?
So easy to get to some people
Seriously Rude I've only see a couple of these as "Yankwanks" by my count most end up with WWIII, the collapse of BOTH Superpowers or China conquering the Earth while the US/USSR are off gallivanting in space. Or all the above
At least this one is asking instead of assuming.
What's next? JFK didn't live though Dallas? C'mon people!
Well I'll point out that being incompetent enough to fall out the window (ref
) after only taking a single shot and STILL missing rather badly when he was supposed to be a trained Marine rifleman pretty much shows Oswald wasn't really 'President-assassinating' material don't you think? (Almost like he got startled and tripped over a curtain pull or something) Now HAD he been at least semi-competent... But like "Kennedy BD/AD" that's not for this thread.
Well to the OP the POD is pretty obvious: Sheppard doesn't fly on-schedule and the Soviets put a man in space first. As it was the US public and officials were still reeling over the amount of propaganda the USSR had reaped from Sputnik and as Kennedy noted in later years the pressure to "do something" about it was immense. If Von Braun hadn't been over-ridden about his concerns over the anomalies (loss of cabin pressure and higher than expected G-loading for example) in "Ham's" suborbital test flight he would have pushed Shepard's flight back and done another test flight which would have pushed his flight back till at best early 1961. Considering some of the delays in OTL his flight could have easily been pushed back to the point where he would have flown after Gagarin did and therefore the USSR would have had ANOTHER 'first' against the US. As it was scrubs and technical difficulties made getting the flight off by March 6th 'barely' possible and even though it was only 'suborbital' the US was able to 'parley' that into a major propaganda victory.
If Kennedy hadn't had that "out" he was already well aware that he'd have to do 'something drastic' to counter another Soviet first and his options were so limited anything LESS than getting to the Moon before the Soviets wasn't really an option. So it would have been full-bore, "waste-anything-but-time" mode to get the first man on the Moon before the Russians. Unlike a lot of people my study of the subject tells me that the US probably could have done it too with such a focus but my take is that would have been a mistake.
As it was the US pushed the Mercury spacecraft far beyond its design capabilities and pushed faster than they should have to 'keep' in the race. Gus Grissom's capsule hatch malfunction that ended up sinking his capsule and drowning him should have been a warning but instead the program kept pushing forward and Gordon Cooper almost died when his capsule failed on-orbit. Luck and guts got him down but at least it made NASA step back and take the time to plan out the Apollo system. Even so the AS-204 fire showed there were serious flaws that had to be corrected before Apollo could fly men and do you think for a moment a more 'rushed' program wouldn't have pushed for the earliest possible manned flight?
Still all and all I think if the US had been 'insulted' again over the first manned space flight they probably WOULD have pushed that hard and despite the setbacks such a commitment, (and it would take that kind of commitment) might have put an American on the Moon before the Soviets.
I agree with ANTIcarrot that the F1 and Saturn-V wasn't the way to go but keep in mind that it was planned that those weren't even going to be the actual "Lunar" systems! They were going to build an even bigger LV called NOVA to get to the Moon as initially they planned to land directly on the Moon with the whole Lunar Transfer Vehicle! The F1 issues could have been fixed given enough money and time, (and time wasn't on their side so take that with a grain of salt) and the NOVA could have been ready by the late 60s but this all depended on a VERY tight focus and time schedule. I'd have been VERY surprised if they didn't kill at least a couple more crews in the process.
As it was the Soviets still managed to snag a couple more firsts, (first spacewalk, first woman in space) but the US came right back with first three man crew, first all-woman crew and first rendezvous docking in space among others. The much 'closer' nature (and unstated Lunar goal) made swallowing the Soviet Lunar first a bit easier. In the end we weren't that far behind, putting two men on the surface to their one man and then bringing the transfer ship and lander back to LEO, refueling it and sending it out again later that same year for another trip while they had to put up a whole new rocket for every landing was a bonus. And our approach put enough infrastructure in place so going to Mars was that much easier.
Randy
