John Fredrick Parker wrote:
With no PoDs prior to the Apollo 11 mission in 1969, how can we have a manned base on the moon, or the start of one, within the next 50 years or as soon as possible?
Have Apollo 11 find evidence of ET’s visiting the Moon? Seriously by the time Apollo 11 took off, (let alone landed and returned) political and financial support for NASA was dropping. Public support outside some generalities of ‘beating the Soviets’ was low from the start with only ‘blips’ of higher interest when something ‘exciting’ happened. (Public interest was in fact very similar for both Apollo 11 and Apollo 13 for obviously different reasons)
Within the next 50 years? Note we’ve still got almost 9 months to make that ‘start’ to meet the deadline
But yes, doubtful to happen OTL at any rate.
Arguably the Soviets could have put the effort in to be ‘second’ to the Moon and done so with a possibly more sustainable program but really you’d need a POD pre-landing or some reason for the USSR to decide that being second is worth the effort. But keep in mind the “Space Race” for the Soviets was never more than an effort to gain what propaganda they could from the easiest and simplest applications of what they had or were developing for the military. The one ‘exception’ to this practice was the N1 which turned out to be a failure and its closest ‘competitor’ the UR500/Proton was specifically supposed to be a “Super-ICBM” project with some application for space lift but for heavy military satellites and payloads. Once it was clear the USSR was not going to beat the US to the Moon or even produce a viable heavy lift launch vehicle the whole program was swept under the rug and forgotten.
Find a plausible ‘military’ mission for a Soviet Moon-base and they might try it but frankly there is no such plausible mission. OTL the Soviets “choose” to continue building up firsts and records with orbital missions but those were themselves predicated on possible, (and occasionally actual) military missions and purposes.
Getting the USSR to beat America to the Moon I’ll note goes against the challenge of a POD AFTER the US reaches the Moon. Even if Apollo-11 had been a failure NASA and the US had the program in place whereas the USSR did not and they could not have managed a landing prior to the US doing so by that point.
Bourbonic Plague wrote:
Or the USA could claim sovereignty over parts of space, that'll get other powers to do something
The US had already signed and ratified the Outer Space Treaty in 1967 giving up all claims of sovereignty to Outer Space or the planets. Even assuming they decided to not abide by the treaty the ability to do so it of doubtful legality. Since no one else could at the time visit the Moon with people the US claim would be ignored rather than competed with. And in fact to establish an actual ‘claim’ would require a continued presence and therefor a US Lunar Outpost would have to have been planned and in the works prior to the initial landing to support such a claim. And the US gets nothing out of the deal so it would be hard to find a justification or supporting argument to do so. A primary reason for the OST was so that the US (Or USSR as it was unknown at the time which nation might get there first) could not ‘claim’ the Moon as territory even as a propaganda stunt. The requirement of establishment and/or occupation in fact has been part of international law for many decades prior to the Space Race. Trying to ‘claim’ the Moon or part of “Space” just makes the US look foolish.
Colonel Zoidburg wrote:
Well if that’s the case, one step would be to avert Nixon getting elected. Maybe if JFK survives and winds down Vietnam so people can enjoy things like space exploration more, it could be a step in the right direction.
Er, JFK initiated the buildup in Vietnam as was specifically supportive and adamant about opposing “Communist” aggression in South East Asia. LBJ was also supportive as were most Democrats and Republican’s at the time. Nixon would have done the same likely since it was an obvious hot-spot in the Cold War and while Europe was always the ‘main’ stage both sides were looking to test the borders. Especially China.
Neil Armstrong and Buzz “Don’t Call Me Edwin” Aldrin reach the moon in 1969 under the Johnson administration since JFK dies of Addison’s in, say, 1967. Johnson, sensing that the space program is gaining in popularity, needs both a boost to his numbers and a fuck-you to the Soviets and proposes a moon base. A limited one, of course, for astronauts and military folks and researchers, no different from what we have now in Greenland, Antarctica, the ISS, etc.
LBJ supported the Apollo Applications Program but keep in mind that public support was never that high and political support had been waning since the Apollo 1 fire and fallout. NASA’s budget had been steadily cut since 1965 and was to fall faster once the “goal” had been reached. Further even JFK was having ‘second-thoughts’ about the Lunar goal and had begun discussions and feeling out political support for either approaching the Soviets on a cooperative mission or scaling back the timetable. (
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/735/1,
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/739/1) He’d never been comfortable with the overall cost and focus of the Apollo program and was pretty clear that given ANY other choice than making the Moon the goal he’d have taken it. By the time he was killed it was no secret he felt that US space efforts were going to be able to keep pace if not out-class Soviet efforts so that the “waste-anything-but-time” efforts of Apollo were no longer needed. Had he not been killed, and the Moon landing become part of his “martyrdom-complex” legacy it is VERY likely he would have slowed Apollo an reduced funding himself. JFK was NOT a 'space fan' as he's thought of, he probably would have focused swiftly (and had the clout to do it since it was HIS suggestion to go to the Moon in the first place) on more domestic and Earthly defense issues had he lived.
Keep in mind that when he made the goal statement the US had been on the ‘loosing’ end of Soviet propaganda for several years already. He was very straight forward on wanting a ‘space’ goal that the US could clearly win. It was thought the Soviets were ahead in booster power, (and they were at the time) and so any more ‘near-term’ goal was likely to be eclipsed by them if they decided to make the effort. The size of the Vostok was clearly capable of handling two men and if a goal of a ‘space station’ was announced they could easily put up a small ‘cabin’ capable of being called a ‘station’ just as easily. It was not until the Saturn-1 booster flew in late 1961 and early 1962 that the US finally had a booster that clearly was capable of payloads the size of the Soviet ones. Kennedy could not be sure that the Saturn-1 would be any more successful than previous ‘new’ US rockets and so he choose the Lunar goal in spring 1961 and Congress granted it in May.
Again though I’ll point out it takes a POD PRIOR to Apollo-11 to even get close to this
Thekingsguard wrote:
Start by killing the shuttle. Do this, and we won't spend decades puttering around Earth's lower atmosphere.
From there, and hopefully with a viable alternative, say, around the Reagan era, rather than Star Wars or the proposed orbital station, have somebody pitch a lunar base. Make it one of Reagan's "spend money to show up the commies pet projects".
You could likely get a small lunar base by the end of the Millennium.
The “shuttle” initially was directed at reducing the cost of orbital access. It actually “did” somewhat but not anywhere near where it was intended. And I believe you mean “Earth’s UPPER atmosphere” if we’re being generous. One can argue that a smaller and more robust “shuttle” and a reusable booster/launch vehicle would have been a better way to go but at the time that was far less obvious. I’ve argued before that had we gone with the initial idea of recovering the Saturn-1B first stage even if only for examination at first we’d have been on our way to a reusable booster in the early 60s.
The problem with ‘killing’ the shuttle is you probably do a very good job of killing NASA manned spaceflight along with it. Keep in mind they had NOTHING to go with after the Space Station proposal was taken off the table. The choice was do the Shuttle (and a severely compromised and limited vehicle even so compared to what they wanted) or do pretty much nothing but studies and reports and focus on the ‘other’ “A” in the name. Pretty much what they ended up doing AFTER they got the Shuttle mind you…
Now supposing that Nixon allows BOTH the shuttle and Space Station, (note the capitalization there as it is how NASA pitched it) things could get interesting. (As long as someone holds NASA down to keeping things in perspective)
Someone, (in fact SEVERAL someone’s including the Air Force) did in fact suggest a Lunar Base as part of the Star Wars program. One of which was a “shuttle” based Trans-Lunar flying command post I might add. But it was far too expensive to consider for little gain. In fact one of the things pointed out by the Star Wars program was in fact the need for vastly cheaper access to orbit, (with a significant payload which was one of the BIG things the SSTO advocates never understood) for ANY of the program to be viable.
Glamourous glennis wrote:
what
@thekingsguard said !! not too hard otl the soviet L3M continued until 1974 and even 1978 with glushko. they hated the shuttle and did not wanted buran... harder is the u.s side...
Glushko wasn’t really ‘happy’ about being told to work on LH2/LOX engines either but he turned out to be better than he thought. (He was arguably rather 'lazy' and avoided working on complex or advanced engines if he could) Granted you could make the N1 be successful after the Apollo landing but remember as much as he disliked Buran he outright HATED the N1 and canceled it the moment he was put in charge over Mishin. He started the “Vulkan” (another version of the UR700 with toxic storeable propellants later switched to Syntin/LOX and then LH2/LOX) program which later morphed into Energia and Buran.
And the L3M program was dependent on a usable heavy lift launch vehicle which it wasn’t clear the N1 was even going to be. Worse it still needs a ‘reason’ to proceed which OTL and TTL aren’t really apparent. Again find a valid military reason and the USSR might proceed but absent that and being “second” isn’t enough.
John Fredrick Parker wrote:
FTR, this is what got me thinking about this idea; if we could indeed start on a base fairly inexpensively today, and if it is indeed the perfect first step for things like going to Mars, and even has potential for exploiting Lunar resources for Earth at a profit with enough time, than it would stand to reason that it might have come sooner had it been a priority for NASA or other space organization.
“Inexpensive” is your key component and you need to start with the first and hardest step; Earth’s surface to Low Earth Orbit. Arguably THAT should have been the number one priority for any space program but sadly being ‘first’ tended to mean they went with the “quick-and-dirty” rather than cheap or sustainable. Apollo as we know it would never have led to a “base” and at best might have had a series of “long-stay” outposts, it just wasn’t set up to deliver such a result. (Now “Apollo” as originally envisioned before the “Lunar Goal” was set that’s another story)
Metalinvader665 wrote:
It's more a stepping stone to more and better space science, at least for the first 50 years after we build one.
The Moon is where we'd practice in-situ resource utilization for the goal of making space science and the satellite industry cheaper. Unfortunately, the tech and facilities won't be there for really good satellites, but eventually you'd want to be able to slap something together with as few Earth parts as possible.
Unfortunately getting the most out of your moon base for the understandably limited budgets means you need a huge initial investment. Perhaps cut the ISS down big time and build a ship that can do a lot of science to and from the moon. Refining a lot of materials needed on the moon is too hard with the limited number of people with limited specialties and limited facilities. Automation and computers 20+ years ago are nowhere near as good which will present further problems. The good news is that we'll know a lot more about what we'll want and need for robots, automation, etc on a moon base.
Telescopes are probably the best part, since it will reduce the cost of a space telescope big time. Hubble would still happen, but I'd expect the JWST never would be made, since lunar telescopes combined with counting on the HST would make serious arguments against the JWST. A military argument can be made too since Earth satellites are vulnerable to ASAT weapons while striking a lunar target is much harder and more expensive.
It also will make the perfect lab for studying low gravity and it's long term effects on humans and Earth life.
Long term effect of a moon base by 1990 is we're probably 25-30 years ahead in space science and exploitation by 2018, and we have a much clearer path toward the future of space. There's probably a few dozen people on the moon at any given time, rotating out every so often.
Unfortunately the justification is questionable in most cases. You can do most things in Low Earth Orbit with the right Space Station at a fraction of the cost. ISRU costs a LOT to get working and more so on the Moon where you can’t simply ‘drill’ for water and resources. (You can GET water from the regolith but you have to process a lot of it to do so. We’ve found ‘water-rich’ areas but nothing you can drill and hit water or ice outside the poles) Note that a ‘space telescope’ on the Moon suffers from some issues that a ‘space’ borne one would not. Luna shakes, just like Earth does. It also has a tenuous atmosphere which would cause issues. Militarily Earth orbiting satellites are always going to be better to watch the Earth than ones based on the Moon. You just can’t get the resolution or real-time feedback from the Moon.
Getting a Moon-base requires you have an agenda/plan and stick to it with all the support and resources that implies. Neither the US nor USSR ever had such a "plan" and especially Apollo was exactly the opposite of such a plan since it was entirely based on getting to the Moon and back at least once and then... Nothing.
Apollo shortcut the assumed process, (Disney's "Man In Space" series, seriously Von Braun was simply putting out the 'plan' that had been assumed since the mid-30s) of access to orbit on a regular and economic basis, then a space station from which probes to the Moon and planets would be launched also regularly and economically. Apollo went directly to the Moon, no Earth orbit infrastructure, no assured or economic access to Earth orbit, just brute force and lots of money. The Soviets were no better even though they arguably had the head start and it seems the right idea. (Seriously, put a set of delta wings and tail on the "Soyuz" complex on top the N1 and what does it look like?

)
If you want a Moon-base after Apollo-11, (or even before) you need a pretty compelling reason and frankly the majority are simply ASB to the extreme. Sadly...
Randy