AHC/WI: United Nations Space Program

There was a concept in Cold War speculative fiction that there would be an international effort in exploring and colonizing space. For example, in First Men in the Moon (1964) it was a UN mission (including the US and USSR) that first landed on the moon. This did not happen. Rather than being an area of international cooperation, space was an area of national competition. And it is easy enough to argue that the military element of it (winning the Cold War) was the driver, undercutting the realism of an international force to explore outer space for peaceful and purely scientific goals. However, what if? And how could this be made to happen?
 
There was a concept in Cold War speculative fiction that there would be an international effort in exploring and colonizing space. For example, in First Men in the Moon (1964) it was a UN mission (including the US and USSR) that first landed on the moon. This did not happen. Rather than being an area of international cooperation, space was an area of national competition. And it is easy enough to argue that the military element of it (winning the Cold War) was the driver, undercutting the realism of an international force to explore outer space for peaceful and purely scientific goals. However, what if? And how could this be made to happen?

I'm sure it would have orbited the first astronaut by now. Plans are in place for a second one to go up in 3 years or so, if funding can be found....:)

Seriously, the budget that anyone is going to allocate for this will be tiny. If (crewed) spaceflight is a UN thing, it won't happen for ages, probably.

OT3H, if UNMANNED spacecraft and ICBMs are a thing, in particular equivalents to the Soyuz and Atlas, then you've got the launch capability. Why the Great Powers would let the UN take over, I'm sure I don't know. But, I suppose that nominally the US Mercury and Soviet Vostok flights could be labelled 'UN' flights with the biggest change being the painting of a UN flag on the side of the rocket/capsule.
 

jahenders

Banned
I agree, if the UN's in charge it's going to be very slow for several reasons:
1) It'd be hard to get sustained support in the UN since they'd constantly get diverted with various crises

2) The UN has a long, strong history of mismanagement, embezzlement, etc so, even if some countries are willing to put in big $$$, some of that money will be wasted, and then those countries will be reluctant to give more

3) Countries are simply less willing to pay for things that don't benefit them as much

4) The UN would play politics with the thing, establishing/changing launch sites, control sites, crew, etc based on the changing balance in the UN. For instance, if they were launching a 6 person crew now, the UN would want 1 from every continent except Antarctica, but would want it funded 60-80% by Europe and the US.

5) Countries would be somewhat hesitant to contribute advanced technology because it would then be stolen.

I'm sure it would have orbited the first astronaut by now. Plans are in place for a second one to go up in 3 years or so, if funding can be found....:)

Seriously, the budget that anyone is going to allocate for this will be tiny. If (crewed) spaceflight is a UN thing, it won't happen for ages, probably.

OT3H, if UNMANNED spacecraft and ICBMs are a thing, in particular equivalents to the Soyuz and Atlas, then you've got the launch capability. Why the Great Powers would let the UN take over, I'm sure I don't know. But, I suppose that nominally the US Mercury and Soviet Vostok flights could be labelled 'UN' flights with the biggest change being the painting of a UN flag on the side of the rocket/capsule.
 
Why the Great Powers would let the UN take over, I'm sure I don't know. But, I suppose that nominally the US Mercury and Soviet Vostok flights could be labelled 'UN' flights with the biggest change being the painting of a UN flag on the side of the rocket/capsule.
Alternatively you paint your flag on the side as a demonstration of your technological prowess. :D
 
Take the total cost of the Apollo program, multiply it by five and double the program's timetable and that would be just to put a man into orbit...and with less than favorable odds that said man survives the mission.
 
You'd have to have some way that the US can have its mission to space then call it a UN mission, like they do with military intervention in other countries. Something like "bomb Syria now, let's get the UN mandate to do it later"
 
A UN-run problem would run into a lot of problems. I think a better WI is more cooperation between the US, USSR, and other nascent government space programs (ESA, etc.). Khrushchev was supposedly in favour of this, but it got nowhere after he was ousted.

So an international civilian scientific program, and national military ones. Perhaps if the US/USSR work out they can accomplish their military space goals without using astronauts. MOL never flew and Almaz didn't accomplish anything unmanned satellites would have.
 
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