DBWI: Space Race Never Intensifies

After the Soviet landing on the Moon, the US President accepted it as a lost, but challenged the USSR into landing on Mars. All the efforts of the Space Race resulted in the invention of products for the economy.

In the 80s, the United States set foot on Mars. By 2017, American, Soviet, Chinese, European, ASEAN, and South American efforts of colonizing the stars has yielded massive economic booms and exploration of outer space unparalled and impossible if attempted without their cooperation

What if a Moon Landing was seen as the final step to space exploration, and mever intensified to what it is today?
 
For starters, the lack of the prestige of the Space Race would probably mean the USSR wouldn't have had the reforms it had in the 1980s which ensured it's survival to the present-day

OOC: I'll leave it up to you folks whether said reforms are "Gorby's reforms done right" or are closer to the reforms the PRC had IOTL.
 
For starters, the lack of the prestige of the Space Race would probably mean the USSR wouldn't have had the reforms it had in the 1980s which ensured it's survival to the present-day

OOC: I'll leave it up to you folks whether said reforms are "Gorby's reforms done right" or are closer to the reforms the PRC had IOTL.
Gorbachev's reform was successful. we have to thank him.
 

Archibald

Banned
Gorbachev had no choice, the sheer cost of both lunar and Mars programs crushed the soviet economy. Gorbachev could not cancel the Mars plan Andropov (a former KGB chairman) had bequethed him before his death in 1981. What the KGB wants, even Gorbachev can't say no.

After Brehnev death in 1977, Andropov's KGB had decided the Soviet Union needed the morale and prestige boost of going to Mars, if possible before the Americans. Andropov and the KGB , however, recognized the cost of the programs might sink the economy, so something had to be given up - the military buildup, and nuclear weapons.
Hence the KGB, against the military, allowed Andropov (and later Gorbachev) to
a) reform the economy, get ride of Brezhnev stagnation and corruption
b) the SALT II and SALT III treaties that cut 90% of the nuclear stockpiles on both sides.

Gorbachev and KGB had no other choices, considering Reagan determination in going to Mars first (what he called Mars Wars).

Governor of California Reagan had seen the frustration of Aerospace workers in 1970, and blasted Nixon for the utter shame of the "Moon defeat".
As soon as he was President in 1976, "Mars Wars" could never be stopped. Andropov had no choice but to follow.
 
I think that Andropov's moves actually saved the Soviet economy more than Gorbachev's reforms. In fact he was a hardliner who realized that without cuts in military and reduction of nuclear stockpiles country would be bankrupt in ten years thus he increased development of thespace travel means. Heavy space launcher meant that the Sovie Union has capability to place bigger weapon platforms in space. Basically he told generals that he wants to change military focus on more powerful weapons than little ICBMs and masses of infantry. When Mars program ended and funding of the Energia Mars rocket ended, Mikhail Gorbachev was able to direct these money into consumer goods production and agriculture thus improving general quality of living and saving the Union.
 
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