Soviet Union gets to Moon First

Say Apollo 11 crashed or something, followed by a successful reach there by the Soviet Union. What would've occurred? Would the space race have lurched forwards, racing to other planets now, with a USA desperate to be first with something? Would it cause tensions to escalate? Considering how easily Apollo 11 could've failed...
 
Even if 11 fails 12 or 13 would still be launched after a massive safety review and probably still beat the Soviets. If not and a complete redesign is needed NERVA is probably used. In any case without butterflying the beginning of the Apollo program the Soviets will not beat the US to the moon
 
Say Apollo 11 crashed or something, followed by a successful reach there by the Soviet Union. What would've occurred? Would the space race have lurched forwards, racing to other planets now, with a USA desperate to be first with something? Would it cause tensions to escalate? Considering how easily Apollo 11 could've failed...

Your POD would have to be a lot sooner than that. The Soviet moonshot program had long-standing issues with the N-1 booster (which never had a successful flight IOTL) and had a smaller budget than the Apollo program (not to mention far less political support than NASA had). The Soviets also suffered from rock-bottom morale after Korolev perished, and morale suffered even harder with Gagarin's death. Their organization skills left quite a bit to be desired, too.

If you want a successful Soviet moonshot, killing three astronauts isn't going to do it. You'd need a POD in the early 1960s.
 
If you want a successful Soviet moonshot, killing three astronauts isn't going to do it. You'd need a POD in the early 1960s.

Personally I think it would need to be in the 1930's, namely Glushko not denouncing Korolev resulting in him ending up in the Gulag. I still think the Americans would have been first anyway but the USSR would have had a better chance had those two been working in unison.
 
Hmm. Okay, this could take the Cold War in an interesting direction, which would be out into space instead of on Earth. This could have... interesting consequences. Now, I'm sure this has been done to death already, but basically, time to have a POD in the 30s with no purges, among numerous other things, and for the space program to be focused on in order to make up for issues with nuclear weapon supply.
 
Personally I think it would need to be in the 1930's, namely Glushko not denouncing Korolev resulting in him ending up in the Gulag. I still think the Americans would have been first anyway but the USSR would have had a better chance had those two been working in unison.

They actually did work together, and quite well, during the 1950s (forgive and forget, apparently; and in any case Glushko ended up in the GULAG as well). However, there were some incidents related to the choice of propellant for the N-1 that led to their splitting. You can't forget that there were other important designers like Chelomei and Yangel as well, they were not just two-bit players next to Korolev and Glushko.

Fundamentally, though, the problem was one of management, not technical capability; unlike the US, there was no top-level control of the space program. Imagine you had Boeing, McDonnell Douglas, Lockheed, and so on competing not just for contracts for the vehicles, but for whose space program would actually be adopted, with no actual NASA. It would be total chaos! That was pretty much how the Soviet program was being "run". Add on a lack of top-level support for the program (Khrushchev just wanted spectaculars, Brezhnev didn't give a damn, the whole shebang was being run as part of the military, and a part that (unlike in the US) didn't care about space), and the seeds of failure were sown in the 1950s. It's probably possible for the Soviets to beat the US to the Moon, but a lot of the changes you would have to make would have undesirable knock-on effects.

EDIT: So it would go from a "more successful Soviet space program" TL to a "different Soviet politics (with a more successful Soviet space program" TL. Which would still be fairly novel--most of the political TLs we see around here are US-centric, like RogueBeaver's--but perhaps requires a different focus.
 
The only way there are important long term changes is if the Soviets follow it up with Moon bases and the like. Otherwise it is mostly a short lived propaganda coup for the USSR like it was for the US.
 
The only way there are important long term changes is if the Soviets follow it up with Moon bases and the like. Otherwise it is mostly a short lived propaganda coup for the USSR like it was for the US.

Well, the Moon landing thing was chosen in the US as something that the Reds *definitely* couldn't beat us to doing. So, now that they *have*, clearly the US would have to do something even more spectacular to show that we're on top of this technology stuff. Moon bases and/or Mars, probably. The Paine plan wouldn't be dead on arrival, here.
 
Considering the glut of US focused political TLs, perhaps we should do a Soviet focused one. As for the Space Program, perhaps it will have longer applications. As a way to beat the US, when you can't compete with them in nuclear weapons(which they couldn't in the 50s and 60s.) Therefore... that could be quite the direction to take.
 
Try using the search function next time before posting a thread on an already thoroughly discussed subject, okay?
 
It seems as well that SU shot itself in the foot in the long term because of their less than humanitarian treatment of prisoners. Von Braun would be a decent boost to their space program if they got to him first.

Wiki quote: "The Soviet Army was about 160 km from Peenemünde in the spring of 1945 when von Braun assembled his planning staff and asked them to decide how and to whom they should surrender. Afraid of the well known Soviet cruelty to prisoners of war, von Braun and his staff decided to try to surrender to the Americans. Kammler had ordered relocation of von Braun's team to central Germany; however, a conflicting order from an army chief ordered them to join the army and fight. Deciding that Kammler's order was their best bet to defect to the Americans, von Braun fabricated documents and transported 500 of his affiliates to the area around Mittelwerk, where they resumed their work. For fear of their documents being destroyed by the SS, von Braun ordered the blueprints to be hidden in an abandoned mine shaft in the Harz mountain range"

500, wow...
 
Hmm. Yes, perhaps. Again though, a whole new POD is needed for the Soviet Union. Anyone, this has been burned into the ground.
 
Top