The Space Race delayed

Could the race to go to the moon could have been delayed by a decade or two and if so what would have been the effect
 
Could the race to go to the moon could have been delayed by a decade or two and if so what would have been the effect
I have suspicions that if JFK hadn't picked the moon, then no president would have. Look at the troubles we've had since!

In other words. If it had been delayed a decade, we'd likely never have gone. IMO.
 
I have suspicions that if JFK hadn't picked the moon, then no president would have. Look at the troubles we've had since!

In other words. If it had been delayed a decade, we'd likely never have gone. IMO.
No, there was a sort of persistent focus on the moon as a benchmark for space (just as there is now for Mars; PS: I'm trying to hold back on being pissed off about Constellation right now). Though it may have been delayed many years later than 1969. I'll make a note here that the film "Things to Come" put the landing date at something like 2036.

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I've read that had there been no space race, satellite technology key to developments like internet and long range communications would be delayed or more primitive, and various other technologies would have never developed or would be less advanced, so right now our technology would be similar to the 1980's of the OTL. So if it's delayed, that could well make technological developments elsewhere more primitive.
 
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No, there was a sort of persistent focus on the moon as a benchmark for space (just as there is now for Mars; PS: I'm trying to hold back on being pissed off about Constellation right now). Though it may have been delayed many years later than 1969. I'll make a note here that the film "Things to Come" put the landing date at something like 2036.
Umm... My point exactly. We are HOW close to getting to Mars? Similarly, I suspect that people would be TALKING about the moon, both sides would have Lunakhods, etc., but no people there.
 
Umm... My point exactly. We are HOW close to getting to Mars? Similarly, I suspect that people would be TALKING about the moon, both sides would have Lunakhods, etc., but no people there.
It's many times more difficult to land a manned mission on Mars than the Moon. The Moon is close enough to ensure that a mission is not too time intensive, and lack of an atmosphere and lack of various adverse things such as hostile weather make it relatively easy to land on. For Mars, the trip (not taking into account a flyby of Venus to get a gravitational thrust behind a vehicle or atomic-based propulsion) takes perhaps a year or more from things I've heard, and the environment can be extremely hostile so it takes modification to the manned mission formula we have for moon landings.

I think a moon landing would come by the 1980's at the earliest sans space race, frankly, delayed some decades later at most, but not near the 30th century or anything like that.
 
It's many times more difficult to land a manned mission on Mars than the Moon. The Moon is close enough to ensure that a mission is not too time intensive, and lack of an atmosphere and lack of various adverse things such as hostile weather make it relatively easy to land on. For Mars, the trip (not taking into account a flyby of Venus to get a gravitational thrust behind a vehicle or atomic-based propulsion) takes perhaps a year or more from things I've heard, and the environment can be extremely hostile so it takes modification to the manned mission formula we have for moon landings.
But we've never gone back, and now we know a) it can be done and b) how to do it.

If it was never done as (an incredibly expensive) show-off project, would it ever have been done? We are struggling desperately to keep the ISS going today, and its science return is probably not worth the cost.
 
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I've read that had there been no space race, satellite technology key to developments like internet and long range communications would be delayed or more primitive, and various other technologies would have never developed or would be less advanced, so right now our technology would be similar to the 1980's of the OTL. So if it's delayed, that could well make technological developments elsewhere more primitive.

Where was satellite technology key to development of the internet? References?

Satellites were going to be big regardless (communications, spying) and are rather cheaper than putting people on the moon. And if even a fraction of what was spent on Apollo had been spent on primary research, we might be more technologically advanced than we are now.

Personally, I suspect that if the US had got a satellite into orbit first, the space race would never have taken off - the propaganda benefits of being "number two" wouldn't have been that great for the USSR, and it takes two to make a race. Once it was clear the US was going to get to the Moon first, the USSR pretty much dropped out.

Bruce
 
But we've never gone back, and now we know a) it can be done and b) how to do it.

If it was never done as (an incredibly expensive) show-off project, would it ever have been done? We are struggling desperately to keep the ISS going today, and its science return is probably not worth the cost.
I know I'll lose my train of thought in what is to follow, but try to extrapolate from the rambling.

What I like to label "The Death of the Future", which is that whole no vision, have a probe do it NASA which hasn't returned to the Moon and will give up on manned space ventures at all if the current budget passes (anyway...), came about largely due to a number of outside factors playing on Space ventures. Most importantly, you had Johnson break the camel's back with trying to spend on both Vietnam and the Great Society simultaneously, which killed the economy. Because of that, future Saturn V production was canceled, and Nixon went for the Shuttle rather than anything like a Mars mission or Venusian/Martian manned flybys or what have you. The shuttle basically set NASA on the course away from the great adventurous frontiers, so to speak. Space activities which were manned (the ones people actually care about) stayed in LEO since that's all the shuttle was capable of really, and everything else was done by probes and robots. So manned spaceflight was stifled, and the great things that came really were done by probes (problem is, that's really damn boring and doesn't inspire. It's in our nature to need to go places ourselves. Think if the Europeans, in a hypothetical, had been able to and did send probes to the Americas rather than going there and exploring themselves).
So the modern malaise with Space has come about due to Shuttle age lack of vision and grand direction, and I will fight tooth and nail for those who say space exploration was a fluke. It wasn't. While the race with the Soviets may have sparked it, there was a lot, and still is a lot, to keep it going. The NASA of the past had grand visions, which included a second run of the Saturn V, continued exploration of the Moon and lunar bases in the 1970's, Venusian and Martian manned flybys, space stations (there were to be far, far more Spacelabs before it was limited down to just the one), and a Mars landing, all of which would have inspired the public and rightly so. The NASA that came to be due to a broken economy and cut backs was one limited to probes and LEO, all of which don't inspire and rightly so.

It doesn't need to be a show off project to be done. It was, and still is, a frontier of science, a potential source of habitation, and a hot bed of resources (many of which are not on earth in high levels as on the Moon; helium-3, for example).

And we actually have forgotten how to do it, which is why we need new rockets. Through the spectre of time, we have pretty much forgotten how to build Saturn V's due to changing technology. The rocket may have had a computer as advanced as a modern calculator, but it could get things done. The problem is that modern engineers know so much that they're "too smart" to know how to build a rocket based on the old blueprints, so we have to reinvent the wheel.

Anyway, there is a need to go do these things, both in the need to science to know and of man to go where he has not yet gone. So whether in 1980, 1990, 2000 or 2030, man will land on the moon.

Now, in a delayed space race environment, I suspect space innovations to still come into being, but more slowly, with a Space Race sparking off rapid innovation and development when it comes along later, by which point the moon (if not already landed upon) will see a manned mission at some point shortly after.

Where was satellite technology key to development of the internet? References?

Satellites were going to be big regardless (communications, spying) and are rather cheaper than putting people on the moon. And if even a fraction of what was spent on Apollo had been spent on primary research, we might be more technologically advanced than we are now.

Personally, I suspect that if the US had got a satellite into orbit first, the space race would never have taken off - the propaganda benefits of being "number two" wouldn't have been that great for the USSR, and it takes two to make a race. Once it was clear the US was going to get to the Moon first, the USSR pretty much dropped out.

Bruce
I don't recall the article. Look up "What if no space race" in google and you may run across it, but you'll run into a wall of reports about Constellation in the way.
 
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And we actually have forgotten how to do it, which is why we need new rockets. Through the spectre of time, we have pretty much forgotten how to build Saturn V's due to changing technology. The rocket may have had a computer as advanced as a modern calculator, but it could get things done. The problem is that modern engineers know so much that they're "too smart" to know how to build a rocket based on the old blueprints, so we have to reinvent the wheel.

Beyond your other points (which I don't really have the energy to either agree with or refute right now), this is misleading. While we have the blueprints, it would be nearly impossible to actually fabricate all of the parts now. For example, that control computer didn't even use microchips, maybe not even integrated circuits--how much luck are you going to have digging those up outside of flea market? And I suspect dozens or hundreds of the other parts are in roughly the same boat--they're just too obsolete. Beyond that, there's a ton of non-blueprint "lost knowledge," things like how the machinists machined different bits, how the engineers made the F-1s resistant to thrust instabilities, and so on. All of it was only in the heads of some guys who are now dead or in retirement homes. It would be impossible to build a Saturn V nowadays and (in my estimation) it has been since the early '80s.
 
Beyond your other points (which I don't really have the energy to either agree with or refute right now), this is misleading. While we have the blueprints, it would be nearly impossible to actually fabricate all of the parts now. For example, that control computer didn't even use microchips, maybe not even integrated circuits--how much luck are you going to have digging those up outside of flea market? And I suspect dozens or hundreds of the other parts are in roughly the same boat--they're just too obsolete. Beyond that, there's a ton of non-blueprint "lost knowledge," things like how the machinists machined different bits, how the engineers made the F-1s resistant to thrust instabilities, and so on. All of it was only in the heads of some guys who are now dead or in retirement homes. It would be impossible to build a Saturn V nowadays and (in my estimation) it has been since the early '80s.
That's what I meant.

Heh. I did, and the ONLY hit was your post.:)
Try "What If No Sputnik" then. It might be under that.

That reminds me, though, on the topic of the Space Race, before Sputnik, there was a school of thought I can't recall the name of where nations would claim that their sovereignty extended into the space above their nation into the atmosphere ad infinitum. The USSR would frequently claim this. When they launched Sputnik, they shattered this claim, and allowed Eisenhower to go into space (BTW, I've Eisenhower wanted a much more muted Space race, but LBJ pushed him into making it the major and highly publicized venture it became). I believe that idea, if not shattered by sputnik, would continue until the space race starts.

EDIT: I think I found it. If not, it's likely somewhere on this site anyway.
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/396/1
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/401/1
 
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That's what I meant.

Well, it didn't come across that way :) I was pointing out that the suppliers and supplies had been obsoleted or merged out of existence by the mid-80s, and a lot of the 'special experience' was missing by that point since the guys who had it were starting to die. There really hasn't been a choice since then about designing and building a new heavy-lift rocket or just using the Saturn V--we can't build Saturn Vs. But a lot of people really do seriously wonder why we don't, and it sounded like you were one of them due to the third sentence (seemingly criticizing engineers for not building Saturn Vs).
 
No disrespect to the Pioneers of Space, but the Saturn & Apollo was the Quick and Easy solution.
Without the distraction of "The Space Race" whe would have developed the SSTO Space Plane by now.
 
No disrespect to the Pioneers of Space, but the Saturn & Apollo was the Quick and Easy solution.
Without the distraction of "The Space Race" whe would have developed the SSTO Space Plane by now.
TSTO, surely. SSTO is really, really hard, and quite probably not economical even if you did. Especially if you demand it be a plane.
 
TSTO, surely. SSTO is really, really hard, and quite probably not economical even if you did. Especially if you demand it be a plane.

Any method of getting into orbit not used OTL is by definition cooler and more effective than what was actually used. :D

Frankly, I am wondering about the lack of Giant Cannon advocates.

Bruce
 
Any method of getting into orbit not used OTL is by definition cooler and more effective than what was actually used. :D

Frankly, I am wondering about the lack of Giant Cannon advocates.

Bruce

You know what, NASA should have listened to Jules Verne and built a giant cannon to launch the astronauts! It would surely have been cheaper and more effective than the Saturn V!!!!

:)D :D :D)
 

mowque

Banned
Any method of getting into orbit not used OTL is by definition cooler and more effective than what was actually used. :D

Frankly, I am wondering about the lack of Giant Cannon advocates.

Bruce

I did alot of research into launching by nuclear weapons for my TL.
 
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