So what you are proposing is a space race to the moon in the 50s instead of the 60s? Sounds super epic! I dig the athetics of the 40s and 50s. We should expand on this idea much more.
Red Moon: What if the Space Race continued?
- Thread starter aoisnwiwij the gpuser
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Well it would continue on into the 60s and 70s with similar athletics, but like Randy said, we need to sometimes take some risks, after all this is Alternate Hisotry, it would be boring if everything is similar to OTL
I don't want to deviate too far from the main timeline. Obviously I'm going to deviate, but not a lot. Only after the Soviet Moon landing will the serious deviating commence.As noted you need the USSR's space program to be more than it ever was OTL to start with. Keep in mind it was essentially run by the military which saw no real advantage to having a Lunar program. You also have to avoid 'embarrassing' the US into spending whatever it takes to 'beat' the Russians because in the end the US can always afford to do just that whereas the USSR can not.
The main issue is to try and keep the 'race' as even as possible within the means of the various players so that the Soviets landing on the Moon is "just" another step with the US close behind. In most cases the 'race' being closer and being less in need of a 'big' step which OTL was the Lunar landings. In such a case you'd see initially more LEO efforts with the first 'space station' being the goal followed by slowly extending effort towards the Moon.
NASA wasn't inevitable but it was highly likely as even without having Eisenhower's (justified) worry about the military opening of another 'front' in the Cold War, (note how the USSR didn't reciprocate the gesture and retained military control of their space program) there were many other factors that drove the creation of a single unifying "space program" in the US. (Unlike the USSR the US "military" space program was being attempted by ALL the branches initially with the main players ending up being the Air Force, Army and Navy in a distant third place) This would likely mean keeping the US space effort under the umbrella of an expanded ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency) though to be fair that's also contingent on who puts up the first satellite.
As for avoiding Von Braun and having Wiley Ley remain the main 'spokesperson' for the US one needs to keep in mind VB almost died several times during the war, (the "easiest" is probably have his car accident prior to capture being fatal instead of just 'almost' fatal) but his contribution OTL was initially being far more charismatic and persuasive than Ley or any of the other 'homegrown' Space flight advocates. No WVB and we likely don't see the "Colliers" series or the Disney adaptation there of and so the US is a lot less 'space minded' during the late 50s and probably even MORE shocked by Sputnik TTL.
Of course if you have no WVB then the US Army "Project Orbiter" (if it still happens TTL) is less likely to be opposed (as Ike can't complain about the "damn Nazi" in charge) so you have a much better chance that the US will either orbit a satellite first, (same issues as OTL still apply so letting the Soviets go first is still possible) or doing so very soon after with a 'better' chance of success unlike OTL's "Vanguard" program.
Which in all means the US program could be slower due to the REAL "space race" rivalry between the USAF and the US Army taking funds from each other and slowing US progress.
Welcome to Alternate History
It may "feel" wrong but it's not actually that much of a stretch because of course 'factors' are different. As I noted above the 'original' purpose for creating "ARPA" was to coordinate the US military space program and try to draw together the various efforts but this was still rife with inter-service rivalry and other issues. The creation of NASA was specifically aimed at taking the MANNED effort away from the military while leaving most of the unmanned effort to the services so it's not really a stretch to see something like ARPA re-organized to fulfill the same function.
Randy
Well once the Soviet Moon landing happens, it won't be similar to OTL
I still want to change it more but I respect your decision. All I ask is that you consider Randy's interesting ideas. After all this can't just be a slightly different For All Mankind
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It was still quite redundant that you said it in the first place.
The former depends on your definitions in that while it might be a 'race' it will be a rather 'slow' one
And in the latter case you probably won't see a landing before the end of the 70s just because there's less "pressure" to do so. See the 'race' is the US's to 'win' at any point they feel threatened while the USSR is 'racing' simple to stay even from the start.The USSR managed to get 'ahead' OTL only due to the side-effect of their booster size which was needed to loft their over-size atomic weapons. The US on the other hand had much better rockets but smaller warheads so they didn't have the initial lift capacity. Further the US was initially hampered by literal 'politics' when the initial US satellite program was proposed. (The US government literally blocked WVB from launching a satellite around 1964 and the same technology could have launched a satellite before the Soviets' but Ike let it be known that he didn't LIKE the Army plan, {because of that "Nazi" in charge} and he was against using an actual military missile {the Air Force plan, and Atlas wasn't even ready to fly yet} so the 'default' option was a questionable Navy plan to radically upgrade a sounding rocket into an orbital rocket with a few pounds of payload. And even THAT was underfunded and under-supported)
But that brings up the issue with the USSR which is why should they 'play' the race-game at all? Sure if they get the first satellite then the US responds so where do they go from there? Sure in OTL they kept going but they had an obvious and decisive advantage in booster payload and maybe they get the first man into space, maybe they don't. (OTL is was a close thing as Sheppard SHOULD have gone up first. Sure it's 'suborbital' but in context that would not have mattered as much as one might think, it just accelerates the US orbital effort a bit. There's no OTL double embarrassment that lead to the Kennedy Lunar goal so the US effort does not go into overdrive and shoot straight past orbital work which we did OTL)
By the early to mid 60s the USSR is going to be in the same position they were in OTL where continuing the 'keep pace' with the Americans means they have to commit to the same economic and technological efforts the Americans are which is not going to have any real 'draw' for the military and even less for the political side. (OTL they didn't even take the American "Moon shot" seriously till the late 60s by which time it was far to late)
In the context of an ongoing but 'less driven' race then by the mid-60s we're seeing a concentrated effort to build a viable space station by both sides using pretty near similar launch systems with something like the Alas-Centaur on the US side and the R7 on the Soviet side. (A lot depends on WVB's status as well since if he still exists and still gets to pitch the Saturn 1 then the Soviets have to respond with the Proton, without that the likely 'big' booster are the Titan for the US and a similar size launcher for the USSR. Of course if we can get the "Big Atlas" as originally proposed then even better
) By the mid-70s both sides have up and running 'space stations' and are reaching out towards the Moon and we'll say the Soviets manage to pull off a first landing. Then the US does one as well and both side MAY (a lot depends on the economics of the time as well as the politics as either side can call it quits at any time) slowly build up capability with a move towards cooperation probably happening in the late 70s and early 80s. (If Reagan or any ultra-conservative leaders get elected around that period then you can forget any cooperation)By the late 80s and early 90s (assuming a still existing USSR) then the cooperative effort might expand to a possible Mars mission but you may only get more effort on resource extraction and space 'utilization' efforts (such as space manufacturing or development) as those will have more direct impact on Earth which is arguably the only thing either side "really" care about anyway. Anyway both sides will be pushing into more economic access to space which means some type of reusability and some sort of 'transport system' rather than expendable launchers and looking to expand the use of and economic benefits of space.
Here's the problem though; To get to that point you need the have the USSR "win" the race to the Moon which they arguably can't do unless the premises the entire race is based on change. Either the US is like "meh, so what" over every Soviet space first or somehow the USSR suddenly decides in the late 50's/early 60s that they want to go to the Moon and therefore devote as MUCH money and effort to doing so at the US did OTL. Neither of which is likely. That's the biggest problem with a Soviet lunar landing, it costs a LOT and needs a VAST amount of internal support neither of which was available OTL.
To be honest I've talked about this in other threads but probably the BEST thing (from a space advocate stance anyway
) that could have happened was that the Soviets had decided to go to the Moon 'anyway' after the US did so. They arguably had the technology and capability by using some of the 'existing' Soyuz and Salyut hardware and that would have forced the US to keep going as well. (Though the US would have had to find another way to go given the general shut-down of the space program after Apollo it was still possible to continue without the Saturn V) The problem was as I've noted the Soviet space program was essentially run by the military and they saw no good reason to waste money on going to the Moon once the Americans had already been there. The only reason the N1 got as far as it did was the initial promise of a "Super-ICBM" that looked like it might allow a 'short-cut' to the Moon but even that would have been marginal at best. From and American perspective the Soviets reaching the Moon 'first' with the ability they had by 1969 stings but it's not going to materially effect the eventual outcome. (One person on the Moon for a few hours versus two persons for up to several days, there's no point that that every looks feasible or worth the risk since the Americans can 'best' it right out of the box) However find an incentive (always the hardest part of a alt-history to be sure
) and the will and by the mid-70s the Soviets can be putting multiple people on the Moon and possibly even in multiple places on each mission and of course the US has to respond.Randy
Keep it civil people I want this thread to continue
Repeating again on a different tangent:
For a more competitive race with an earlier start I'll bring up that had funding been restored relatively 'soon' (aka about 1948) then the US would have likely built the "Big Atlas" (five engines instead of just three) though over a bit longer development timeframe (or about par with OTL Atlas for deployment) but more on-par with the Soviet R7 in terms of both payload and capability. This would likely lead to TTL's "Mercury" not being the vastly oversimplified (and far less capable) spacecraft it was OTL and leading to a more 'even' series of firsts being traded back and forth between the US and USSR.
(As an added bonus if there's no WVB then the US is at least closer to boost capability than OTL and can therefore 'afford' to wait a bit to get a larger launch vehicle. You might likely see TTL's "Titan" being a super-sized booster that is also originally proposed as a "Super-ICBM" the same as the OTL Proton that instead becomes the 'big' {and toxic} US counterpart)
This continually (but rather gently) keep the USSR upping their game which in turn keeps the pressure on the US. Once the US adds the Centaur upper stage the USSR will have to hop to keep relevant and given the utility such a stage might add they likely will do so pretty quickly.
The main issue with the 'aesthetics' of the 40s and 50s compared to the 60s and 70s was the simple issue of now knowing what you didn't know
The spacecraft from the 40s and 50s were underpowered and overbuilt compared to those of the 60s and 70s but that's because they didn't know exactly what they were doing earlier. On the converse side once both sides are up and running they WILL know more and at the same time be forced to innovate and improvise to keep things going which can lead to all sorts of interesting lines that OTL got dropped due to the rush to the Moon.
As an example inflatable spacecraft technology was investigated for a possible space station in the late 50s but went by the wayside again due to that laser focus on getting the Moon. There were many other technologies and concepts that got a similar treatment due to (as the NASA history says) "Skipping the Next Logical Step" that was OTL's rush to the Moon.
Randy
Repeating again on a different tangent:
For a more competitive race with an earlier start I'll bring up that had funding been restored relatively 'soon' (aka about 1948) then the US would have likely built the "Big Atlas" (five engines instead of just three) though over a bit longer development timeframe (or about par with OTL Atlas for deployment) but more on-par with the Soviet R7 in terms of both payload and capability. This would likely lead to TTL's "Mercury" not being the vastly oversimplified (and far less capable) spacecraft it was OTL and leading to a more 'even' series of firsts being traded back and forth between the US and USSR.
(As an added bonus if there's no WVB then the US is at least closer to boost capability than OTL and can therefore 'afford' to wait a bit to get a larger launch vehicle. You might likely see TTL's "Titan" being a super-sized booster that is also originally proposed as a "Super-ICBM" the same as the OTL Proton that instead becomes the 'big' {and toxic} US counterpart)
This continually (but rather gently) keep the USSR upping their game which in turn keeps the pressure on the US. Once the US adds the Centaur upper stage the USSR will have to hop to keep relevant and given the utility such a stage might add they likely will do so pretty quickly.
The main issue with the 'aesthetics' of the 40s and 50s compared to the 60s and 70s was the simple issue of now knowing what you didn't know
The spacecraft from the 40s and 50s were underpowered and overbuilt compared to those of the 60s and 70s but that's because they didn't know exactly what they were doing earlier. On the converse side once both sides are up and running they WILL know more and at the same time be forced to innovate and improvise to keep things going which can lead to all sorts of interesting lines that OTL got dropped due to the rush to the Moon.
As an example inflatable spacecraft technology was investigated for a possible space station in the late 50s but went by the wayside again due to that laser focus on getting the Moon. There were many other technologies and concepts that got a similar treatment due to (as the NASA history says) "Skipping the Next Logical Step" that was OTL's rush to the Moon.
Randy
Great analysis Randy! We still have to delve a bit into why the Soviet program is more competent.
If it even works (wich is a big if) it would be amazing and reducing costs for a space station and Big Atlas launches.
So I've been thinking about this senario, could a possible P.O.D be that Stalin dies in the last days of WW2, and after much politics Zhukov takes over, and while he keeps many aspects of Leninisim, he reforms the military and establishes an inpendednt space agency, fixing many of the problems the OTL Societ space effort faced
Oddly I made a reply but it never showed up but;
The technology did in fact work but was set-aside in the rush to the Moon. As NASA itself says in it's own Apollo history, "Skipping The Next Logical Step" a LOT got set aside in order to laser focus on landing men on the Moon and we've spent the last half century 'catching up' again.
Keep in mind that simply "going into space" is NOT the goal here (the US literally 'invented' that idea to justify NASA) but what military advantages and capability did rockets, and later space as as location, provide? In the suggested context Zhukov still backs rocket development for the same reason Khrushchev did OTL in that the Soviets are "behind" the US in long range bomber development so they need another way to deliver nuclear warheads to the US. (IIRC Zhukov wasn't that impressed with early rocket research so he might actually have gone with bomber development as aircraft were more 'useful' direct to Army operations. Just a thought)
Satellite and people launch to space was a 'side-effect' not a direct cause in either case. OTL Eisenhower was responding to the Soviet claim to want to launch an Earth satellite for the IGY, not that he we really supportive of the idea itself. Neither were the Soviets but since they were already developing the rocket then 'boasting' about it would be good propaganda. How 'effective' that propaganda in fact was surprised everyone and once they started the Soviets found it both difficult to stop AND to keep going since they were essentially pushing their technological capabilities to the ragged edge.
The US on the other hand was 'shocked' that a nation of "tractor builders" could not only match them but essentially 'steal' what everyone saw as an obvious US 'victory'. That was 'strike one' of the Race and OTL it caused the US to throw a lot or resources and money at getting back to even but it was then assumed that the US would be the Soviets to space with the first man. Gagarin happened and that was "Strike Two" and the new Kennedy administration could not afford to allow a "Strike Three" so we got the Lunar landing goal.
Don't get me wrong "space" was 'important' in the right circles but in general it really was still "Science Fiction" to most people and seen as something that would happen "sometime in the future". (Von Braun's Colliers and Disney series predicted a man in space by the early 70s and a landing on the Moon by the year 2000 with Mars in the next Century and most other advocates and supporters of the time thought he was being wildly optimistic) The Iron Curtain had come down across Europe and Asia and the US and west were having great difficulty getting reliable information out of the area so or course for reconnaissance purposes "space" could be a way to access those areas but the ramifications were yet unknown and just as unexplored as space itself at that point. Meanwhile there was the military's general acceptance of the need to control the "High Ground" (which many, including Eisenhower saw as an over-extension of the Cold War battlefield and another military money sink) with science and utility very much in question at the time.
The basic idea might perhaps be for such an early scenario that instead of 'fixing' the Soviet space program you instead 'break' the US one
After all the US without an overarching space program (NASA) is going to have many of the same issues that the Soviets did with competing factions (both military and civilian) and limited budgets and waning and waxing political and public interest to deal with. As hard as it is today to believe, both the US Army and Air Force were directly competing to be the primary "space" (and missile) service in the late 50s. Despite some very high level effort the Army managed a close 'also ran' right into the early 60s before they had to give up and the for it's part the Air Force was very scatter-shot and disorganized when it came to "space" related plans and designs early on. Both had very grandiose "plans" but neither the budget nor really the political support to carry anything 'solid' out but at the same time they used what they had to undercut and sabotage the other players as much as possible.Randy
Maybe the roles are switched between America and the Soviets with the Soviets being the ones playing catch up after a surprise defeat with the Americans launching the first satellite and the Americans eventually succumbing to infighting
Yes, I agree with you on this. Maybe also with a singular Soviet space agency separate from the military due to Zhukov to give the Soviets a bit of an advantage.The basic idea might perhaps be for such an early scenario that instead of 'fixing' the Soviet space program you instead 'break' the US one
They all START that way anyway
Were you still looking to have things remain the same about to the Moon landing point? There's been a couple threads that might help with some background if so but (as usual
) the main 'issue' is what drives the Soviets to 'play' this game as the chances of loosing 'face' with not beating the US are still very high unless you really cripple the US effort.Don't disagree at all with either though I'll point out a big issue with the Soviets is they (literally) don't have the same drivers and in that context they don't really have an incentive to 'play' the game without being first
And OTL once they started to run behind they simply claimed they were never in any "race" and the whole idea was rather ridiculous since they were simply "exploring space" and not in some dangerous and silly "game" of one-up-manship with the US. (And frankly a lot of the world 'bought' it when there was no obvious Soviet response to the US going to the Moon)In direct context I'd still give the first satellite to the Soviets as in the politics of the time it still makes sense, (the Soviets can't complain about US satellite overflights if they did it first after all, the reasoning still holds) but say the US puts the first man into space (suborbital or orbital, though probably the later as it gives room for a Soviet orbital flight which allows a mutual argument of which was the 'better' first to have) and after that it is a slow but steady exchange of 'firsts' leading to the Soviets landing first.
Randy
Prologue
The prologue will be coming out soon in 3 days! I'm still working on a POD, so all suggestions are welcome. You will see in 3 days which one I have chosen. I will credit the suggester. You have 3 days to suggest them.
Image is Sergei Korolev sitting in the cockpit of a glider (called Koktebel), as it is based on the premise about the POD being Korolev not dying. Like I said, I do not know what the actual and final POD will be. There is also a possibility that the next post will be a Post 1 instead of a Prologue.
Image is Sergei Korolev sitting in the cockpit of a glider (called Koktebel), as it is based on the premise about the POD being Korolev not dying. Like I said, I do not know what the actual and final POD will be. There is also a possibility that the next post will be a Post 1 instead of a Prologue.