New Space Race - Colaborative TL

2003 - China announced that first Chinese astronaut on the Moon will be sent until end 2016 and on Mars until 2030.

2009 - POTUS Barack Obama announced that United States of America must return to the lunar surface.

2011 - Indian un-manned lander landed on the Moon and released small rover.

2010 - Vulkan-Hercules rocket development started.

2014 - ESA launched lunar mission that confirmed existence of frozen water. Landing at the lunar north pole.

2015 - first Iranian astrunaut was launched into Low Earth Orbit and successfuly returned to Earth.

2016 - first Chinese astronaut landed on the Moon.
 
The issue here is that such an announcement is likely to see major butterflies well before 2009. Such an announcement, in 2003, would come with China having a grand total of one manned flight under their belt, and no rocket active with a capacity for more than about 9.5 metric tons. Admittedly, this is about the same state as the US and USSR at the start of the space race...but the US, Russia, and even ESA have a lot more than that ITTL. If China does start a dedicated play for the Moon, with a firm date like 2016 as a goal pubically announced, then it has major butterflies on the American Vision for Space Exploration )Jan 2004 announcement by Bush) and the Constellation Program that resulted from it. Likely, you see one of two reactions:

(1) The Chinese declaration gives enough weight to Constellation that NASA gets the additional $3b/year that was estimated to be necessary to keep Constellation on track, in which case you see a lunar landing by the US for two weeks or more with a crew of four on the original schedule if not well before. 2015 or so might (might) be doable.
(2) The pressure as noted causes Constellation to not be allowed to be Mike Griffin's personal exercise in compensating for something. Ares V is not chosen as the LV, and Ares I is never suggested. Instead, the LV of choice is a more directly-related Shuttle-Derived heavy lifter, something like Shuttle-X or Jupiter 246, either of which would offer a 1.5-stage payload of about 80 metric tons, and a two-stage payload of about 120--plenty for a moon mission ,and plenty to accomplish even Constellation's bloated moon mission in two launches with EOR or LOR. This launcher, either way, would be much faster and cheaper to develop, and could move the earliest moon launch up to 2015 or so even on the OTL funding profile. Adding some crash pirority funds, like the $3b mentioned in (1), and it could be more like 2012.

Either way, the US response would be coming in 2004, as an intensified version of what happened around then IOTL, not waiting until 2009--and the Chiense are going to have to take the time to develop at the very least something like Long March 5 (25 metric tons) and a lot of EOR assembly, or something like the planned Long March 9. Either is a long putt, compared to the US which just has to rationalize its program it already did around then IOTL, or simply sink a little extra money into it.

Also, what was your intent behind the "Vulkan-Hercules" rocket? If you mean the Energia variant...where the heck are the Russians getting money to restart production of a type that's a decade dead, much less a massive larger variant they never completed work on IOTL?
 
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