Soviet Manned Lunar Landing happens a month after Apollo 11?

[TheKennedyMachine.]

I've been rewatching For All Mankind, an alternate history show that explores what would've happened if the Soviets got to the Moon first and the Space Race never ended?

I thought I'd try something out here, and say... let's say somehow, someway... a mere month after Apollo 11, the Soviets become the second to land on the Moon alongside the Americans. Does the Space Race continue? Or does it still end mostly the same?

 

[SpaceOrbisGaming]

I've been rewatching For All Mankind, an alternate history show that explores what would've happened if the Soviets got to the Moon first and the Space Race never ended?

I thought I'd try something out here, and say... let's say somehow, someway... a mere month after Apollo 11, the Soviets become the second to land on the Moon alongside the Americans. Does the Space Race continue? Or does it still end mostly the same?

For me the Space Race ended when we landed on the Moon. Even if the Soviets did this they would always be second. What would be the newest goal? Mars. If so I would say you would need them to make moves to have a Moonbase. Otherwise, we call it a day take our W and go home.

 

[Dr Dee]

I’ve wondered about this - a TL that preserves America’s ‘win’ but keeps the Soviets a very close second with a similar POD to the tv series ie the survival of Sergei Korolev.

Perhaps if the Russians approached their moon programme as a longer term thing - a Salyut style approach to creating moonbases and using the moon as a stepping stone to Mars, at least in their publicity - the resilience and continuation and long termism of the Soviet programme might encourage/panic the US to really push the Apollo Applications Programme far more than they did IOTL. I’m not talking about Sea Dragons and marines on the moon by 1983...but something far more significant than OTL.

 

[e of pi]

I've sketched out my thoughts on this as an outline for a timeline called "Fires of Mercury" a few times, but generally I suspect the impact is that the pace of Apollo missions doesn't "let off the gas" after Apollo 11. Apollo 9, 10, and 11 were flown at 2 month intervals. 12 was flown within 12 months of Apollo 8. Only with 13 (and particularly the safety stand-down after its incident) and it becoming clear that no further Saturn V production would be allocated were Apollo 15 and 17 cancelled (with the former Apollo 16 renumbered to 15, and so on) and the remaining missions formally spaced out. It's likely ITTL that a second run of Saturn Vs is approved with at least 2/year production (possibly just incorporating the J-2S, not the F-1A since adding that needed a first stage stretch to avoid T/W issues) and Apollo continues on a ~2/year pace possibly including longer-duration (~1 month) lunar orbital polar mapping flights and dual-launch LM Shelter/Taxi long-stay lunar surface missions. It seems quite likely at some point the ongoing moon race becomes untenable for both sides, and some kind of lunar ASTP "ends" the race in a handshake on the surface.

The big butterfly is the effect on Shuttle--in the current Fires outline, the need for anticipated ongoing Saturn production means that a reusable S-IC first stage of some kind is selected, along with a Bono-style reusable S-IVB. This gives reusable 40 ton capability as two stages for a small glider or commercial GTO missions, as well as a cost-reduced three-stage Saturn V capability retained for the back half of the decade and beyond, depending on S-II production.

 

[Riain]

I think if the Soviet Union made it to the moon the US would do more in case the USSR 'claimed ' it, a bit like Antarctica. Whether this is just going to Apollo 20 while working on a treaty or something else but I doubt that the US would do so little in space in the 70s.

 

[Athelstane]

What would be the newest goal? Mars. If so I would say you would need them to make moves to have a Moonbase.

Yes, if it's just a one off landing, there might not be much impact on Apollo and its wind down.

But one suspects the Soviets would feel the need to "one-up" the U.S.. A moon base of some kind is the obvious trick. There are other possibilities, too: first landing on the Far Side. First woman on the Moon. Or, in the alternative, they could really play roullette and try for manned Venus and/or Mars flybys. Maybe they try for all of them (though it will cost them).

As @e of pi says, this almost certainly forces Nixon to re-open Saturn V production, which is certainly still possible in 1969.

The Soviets were always the drivers in the Space Race. That would be true of any post-Apollo 11 extension of the Race, too.

it becoming clear that no further Saturn V production would be allocated were Apollo 15 and 17 cancelled (with the former Apollo 16 renumbered to 15, and so on)

Actually, it was Apollo 15 and 19 that Paine cancelled in September 1970, with (as you say) renumbering of the remaining missions as necessary.

Apollo continues on a ~2/year pace possibly including longer-duration (~1 month) lunar orbital polar mapping flights and dual-launch LM Shelter/Taxi long-stay lunar surface missions. It seems quite likely at some point the ongoing moon race becomes untenable for both sides, and some kind of lunar ASTP "ends" the race in a handshake on the surface.

Yeah, the more I think about it, I think this is highly plausible. A lunar program was always going to absorb a much larger share of Soviet resources than it did for America. Brezhnev never had the appetite for it that Khrushchev did. The handshake probably just comes a few years later than ASTP did in OTL (though hopefully not so late it runs into Afghanistan!).

The wild card is whether either side (or both!) lose a crew on this extended lunar race, and what impact that has. The odds were uncomfortably high for that. Something like 1 in 15 for Apollo.

 

[Johnrankins]

How? The USSR was not even close to pulling off a moon landing. It pretty much gave up after JFK made the moon landing a priority and money was poured into rocket research. There was no way they could have matched the US dollar for dollar and they knew it so they basically folded.

 

[Athelstane]

How? The USSR was not even close to pulling off a moon landing. It pretty much gave up after JFK made the moon landing a priority and money was poured into rocket research. There was no way they could have matched the US dollar for dollar and they knew it so they basically folded.

I think it's possible, but you need a pretty early point of departure - Khrushchev committing to a lunar program in 1961 rather than 1964, say. The Soviets just started too late.

 

[TheKennedyMachine.]

How? The USSR was not even close to pulling off a moon landing. It pretty much gave up after JFK made the moon landing a priority and money was poured into rocket research. There was no way they could have matched the US dollar for dollar and they knew it so they basically folded.

It's possible if Khruschev commits earlier.

 

[Johnrankins]

I think it's possible, but you need a pretty early point of departure - Khrushchev committing to a lunar program in 1961 rather than 1964, say. The Soviets just started too late.

Doubt it, the difference in GDP between the US and USSR was too great.

 

[SpaceOrbisGaming]

I think it's possible, but you need a pretty early point of departure - Khrushchev committing to a lunar program in 1961 rather than 1964, say. The Soviets just started too late.

The only way I could see them landing on the Moon and then putting a Moonbase on it is if they go in with that from the start. I would also think this would have to be given the top spot in terms of value. If this is just to one-up the US they are doomed. I'm not saying a landed isn't possible but a month later. I think you're being a tidbit optimistic about the Soviet Union's space capabilities.

I would take a page out of For All Mankind and have that one guy live. That should help them.

 

[pattersonautobody]

First, how do the Soviets get the computer technology to make a Lunar Rover? This was a big reason why the US chose to land on the moon (which was otherwise a pretty random idea). They wanted to pick something that was highly technical in many respects so as to overwhelm Soviet scientific capabilities. So, I'd be REALLY interested in any plausible way the Soviets can actually make a working Lunar Rover.

As for the actual rocket, the Soviets with a WW2 era POD could have got it done. As is, by 1974 The Soviets perfected the Rocket Booster which is now TODAY the premier on Earth. The Energeia (decades later) is still today the best rocket for bringing cargo into space and it has not been flown since 1991. The russian rockets are more efficient and powerful by far. A POD which significantly saves Soviet GDP and perhaps gets Von Braun captured=the capaibility to go to the moon no problem. The real issue is landing on it.

But presuming the PODs work where Russian lands one month later, the result is the Soviet Union gets to Mars first, without a doubt, by the mid 1980s. I do not doubt this. The Soviets had superior space stations and rockets, they'd be able to get far more cargo to the moon faster and into orbit. The American approach to rockets was fundamentally misguided and they would not be able to catch up to the Russians without substantial espionage. Ironically, the Soviet system worked for the same reason the Sputnik V is probably the best Coronavirus vaccine today. Russian science is ruthless. It operates based upon catastrophic failure. Watching something blow up and fail is more efficient, and dangerous, than using a dyno. The Soviets did not have rocket booster dynos. They had to watch their crap blow up. They also had to build their rocket boosters to fit on a train on the transiberian railroad. The US used dynos and used boats to transport components. Long story short, necessity is the mother of invention and Soviet rocketry punched way above its weight and it was the only thing the Soviets developed that was all around superior to the United States during the Cold War.

 

[Athelstane]

Doubt it, the difference in GDP between the US and USSR was too great.

Oh, the U.S. economy was considerably bigger, no doubt about it. And more robust in critical leading edge tech like electronics, too.

That said, I think the more you look at the 1960's Soviet space program, the more you can be persuaded it was just *possible*, with a reasonable political will to do it, early enough. "Reasonable," as in, they don't have to dismantle the Strategic Rocket Forces or give up the Sayano-Shushenskaya Dam to pay for it, though it would cost them a pretty penny. As it was....the Soviets came closer to beating Apollo 8 to cislunar space in 1968 than is generally realized.

Notwithstanding that, it must also be acknowledged that Soviet difficulties were as much structural as financial: a commitment to the program would also have required consolidating all Soviet space efforts under singular leadership, for starters. Also, whichever architecture the Soviets settled on (N1 or Podsadka L1) would have lots of difficult technical problems on their critical paths, and would have been riskier and less robust architectures than Apollo was. Also, it would have been more difficult for the Soviets to sustain than Apollo would have been for the U.S..

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[e of pi]

First, how do the Soviets get the computer technology to make a Lunar Rover? This was a big reason why the US chose to land on the moon (which was otherwise a pretty random idea). They wanted to pick something that was highly technical in many respects so as to overwhelm Soviet scientific capabilities. So, I'd be REALLY interested in any plausible way the Soviets can actually make a working Lunar Rover.

They...built the first lunar rover? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunokhod_1

Did you mean something else?

 

[Athelstane]

They...built the first lunar rover? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunokhod_1

Did you mean something else?

I thought about that...

Could the Soviets have brought a crew rover? I don't think they could have thrown together something as slick on as short a timescale as Boeing did with the Lunar Rover in 1969-71, but then, maybe they wouldn't have to, if they have enough time to work on it.

The more fundamental problem is that they have to come up with some other way to get a rover to the Moon, bcause the LK lander is just too damned small to bring one. Some of their larger follow-on lander concepts (like the LEK) could have, but then you're talking about a considerably bigger investment... They could land it in advance, of course, but that would have required a high degree of precision in landing ellipse for all landers question that might have been a tough hill to climb for the Soviets circa 1970. Your poor cosmonaut can't be walking 20 km to go retrieve it.

More likely, they might just bring along a Lunakhod. Set up, do the system checks, have it ready for Moscow to start operating remotely once the mission ends. That would certainly be doable.

 

[pattersonautobody]

They...built the first lunar rover? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunokhod_1

Did you mean something else?

how good did it work on the moon with people in it...how would they land it on the moon...how would the cosmonauts get off the moon?

 

[Athelstane]

how good did it work on the moon..

10 kilometers in 11 days! 😲

 

[e of pi]

how good did it work on the moon with people in it...how would they land it on the moon...how would the cosmonauts get off the moon?

They landed it with a Proton rocket and special landing platform. It covered a good distance, and Lunakhod 2 also succeeded and drove a total of 39 km in 72 days spent driving--the benefits of teleoperation from closer distances. The thought was that a Lunakhod would be landed separately ahead of a crew landing (possibly fitted with seats) and serve as a landing beacon, transport during a stay, and then operate remotely after the crew left.

 

[Sanderford]

Public perception is the Soviets have lost the Lunar portion of the space race.

Everybody knows who Yuri Gagarin was, even if they don't have much interest in history. Next to nobody remembers Alan Shepard.

 

[pattersonautobody]

10 kilometers in 11 days! 😲

that thing doesnt look big enough to hold people