AHC: Kill the Space Race

Exactly as it says on the tin. With a POD no earlier than May 8th 1945 (ie., the final defeat of Nazi Germany), figure out a way to prevent the space race from happening at all, although human spaceflight of some sort (at least equal in capability to Gemini) must take place.
 
Kill Stalin on May 9th 1945 and replace him with someone who wants to coexist with the West. Beria is the obvious choice, but arguably not the best. He was so hated by the other elites that his rule would be unstable without further purges, and in the process might discredit "Berianist" coexistence the way Stalin discredited, well, Stalinism.

The new leadership, whoever they are, avoids the provocations in Iran and Berlin. When the US makes its proposal for atomic disarmament under the UN, the US and the USSR cut a deal. The outline of the US plan was phased introduction of international inspections and control, with all atomic energy to be controlled by an international corporation owned by the member states, after which the US would dismantle our own stockpile. The Soviet Union, understandably, wanted the US to dismantle our bombs first before they agreed to inspections, but I've been wondering if they couldn't find a compromise.

Even without Stalin, it would be a slim chance, but it might be possible. For example, the US could agree to stop building new weapons during the phase-in, or to dismantle our bombs but keep the plutonium so we could rebuild them quickly. The USSR, at least publicly, always claimed to be in favor of the overall scheme but wanted a guarantee so that the US couldn't use the phase-in as a chance to arm themselves, and then break their promises when they came due.

With international control of atomic energy and a US-USSR relationship that may be chilly but is not openly hostile, there's no incentive to build ICBMs. Without ICBMs, early space exploration is a more leisurely affair, but it still occurs because both the powers and the international control authority will want reconnaissance satellites to look for violations. But it isn't a race, and with cooperative butterflies, the first moon landing is a joint US-USSR venture.
 
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Korolev dies? Without Sputnik there would be an underfunded and halfhearted American space program, and without Korolev there would be no Sputnik. That said, if and when the Russians do launch a satellite, maybe sometime in the '60s, the space race will start, so all that would do is delay it.
 
The thing to remember that the "space race" does not kick off until Sputnik in October, 1957. The real exercise is to kill the cold war and make space a joint effort.
 
You can strangle it in its cradle by having the Cuban Missile Crisis go hot. With America left and the USSR glassed, I have a feeling Space Exploration would be set back decades.
 
Most likely way is to prevent the creation of nuclear weapons, perhaps Einstein gets run over by a tram before he comes up with E=MC2, without the need for massive rockets to hurl the heavy early type of nuclear warheads over the North Pole there will be less impetus behind the development of rockets or for a space race to divert attention from what all that effort is primarily about developing. There will still be the dreamers like Von Braun, Goddard and Korolev but governments won't take their plans as seriously.
 
The easiest way...

Simply convince (probably through hypnosis - grin) Eisenhower that the various service programs to put objects into space (and their various commercial courtiers) should be encouraged, rather than discouraged. Stories about the Redstone boys and what they might have done vis a vis Sputnik notwithstanding there was plenty of reason to believe that the US could and would have beaten the Russians to space and to manned flight, particularly if the idocy of the civilian space bigots had been overcome.

No Sputnik (first), no Gagarin (first), no Space Race....the intensity and urgency would simply be gone.
 
You can strangle it in its cradle by having the Cuban Missile Crisis go hot. With America left and the USSR glassed, I have a feeling Space Exploration would be set back decades.

Well yes, but that's no fun. My real goal is to have a nice, leisurely program of space exploration; think the cut-rate version of the pre-Saturn von Braun proposals. You know, develop cheap lift rockets, build a space station, and only maybe then go to the Moon.
 
I agree that the best way to avoid a space race is for the US to win the first few rounds; first sattelite, first man in space, first multi-person spacecraft, first spacewalk.
 
I agree that the best way to avoid a space race is for the US to win the first few rounds; first sattelite, first man in space, first multi-person spacecraft, first spacewalk.

But the Soviets would try to catch up with them, just as the opposite happened in OTL.
 
I don't think they could surpass the US in any way and they'd know it, so would would not race but do something different in space instead.
 

Tovarich

Banned
Simply convince (probably through hypnosis - grin) Eisenhower that the various service programs to put objects into space (and their various commercial courtiers) should be encouraged, rather than discouraged. Stories about the Redstone boys and what they might have done vis a vis Sputnik notwithstanding there was plenty of reason to believe that the US could and would have beaten the Russians to space and to manned flight, particularly if the idocy of the civilian space bigots had been overcome.

No Sputnik (first), no Gagarin (first), no Space Race....the intensity and urgency would simply be gone.

I admit my knowledge of US history is not that great, but President Eisenhower and General Eisenhower are the same person, aren't they?
 
Have Von Braun get his wish and have the US orbit a satellite in Aug 1956. The US had the launch vehicle but Eisenhower wanted a civilian launch and didn't really understand the US reaction to the Soviets being first.
 
Have Von Braun get his wish and have the US orbit a satellite in Aug 1956. The US had the launch vehicle but Eisenhower wanted a civilian launch and didn't really understand the US reaction to the Soviets being first.

But there's still going to be competition. Even if the US wins the first round the Soviets will still try, and try hard. They're not going to say "OK, you beat us, so we'll start doing space stuff together."

I don't think there's any way that you could have the US and the Soviets cooperating in space in the '60s without significantly toning down the Cold War. No space programs? Possible. Cooperative space programs? Highly unlikely.
 
I'm not so sure the Soviets thought sending up Sputnik was a big risk. And having been beaten handily by the US they may just decide to leave it at that and not risk further embarrassment.
 
But there's still going to be competition. Even if the US wins the first round the Soviets will still try, and try hard. They're not going to say "OK, you beat us, so we'll start doing space stuff together."

I actually think that they will try a lot less hard. Khrushchev in particular was mostly interested in stunts and spectaculars; if the US gets an early lead and holds it, there aren't any there, and he may just try to get something else going, or try to use US spending on rockets instead of welfare to score points. Brezhnev didn't really care ever.

I don't think there's any way that you could have the US and the Soviets cooperating in space in the '60s without significantly toning down the Cold War. No space programs? Possible. Cooperative space programs? Highly unlikely.

Kennedy actually proposed it IOTL, it's just that Khrushchev didn't believe him and then they both left. Johnson wasn't as interested. It's certainly in the realm of possible.
 
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