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With a POD no earlier than 66 years before the new timeline’s lunar landing, what is the earliest that a successful lunar landing could be achieved. (Successful means that at least one astronaut lands on the moon, gets out of the lander, plants a flag, scoops some moon rocks, and returns to Earth. He (or she) must live long enough to give a good report on the flight.

(For example, if the POD is 1800, the lunar landing must happen by 1863.)

I chose 66 years, since that’s the time from the first manned heavier than air flight until we all heard, “Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.” That is a moment that I will never forget.

How much would that change if, for some reason, a major nation got infected with a desire to do the impossible, and go to the moon? I’m actually thinking of a strange POD that gets the United States obsessed with a moon landing at what might be considered implausibly early. Obsessed as in, the government gets behind it by popular demand in a time when getting a single battleship funded was a challenge. People know it’s a long term goal, as much a part of the national psychge as Manifest Destiny--perhspa even an expansion of Manifest Destiny, taking it to the sky.
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