Very successful Soviet space programme

Let's say that the US space programme was beset by so many problems--lack of funds, technology, etc--and the Soviet programme on the other hand went from strength to strength (perhaps a POD here could be Von Braun and other Nazi scientists being grubbed up by the reds ahead of the US, or early Soviet economic plans being successful enough for it having the capital strength to do all this), doing its OTL triumphs, US triumphs, and more. How would this affect things?
 
It would likely scare the yanks, look at the effect Sputnik had on them. I dont know what its practical effects might be, but itys psychological ones would be big
 
I don't know how much grabbing von Braun would help. Soviet space programs, like aesrospace designers, were de-facto set up as several competing shops and von Braun is yet another one in the midst.

If they gave them enough funds for all of them, then maybe...
 

Thande

Donor
The Soviet space programme was very successful, I'm not sure what you're getting at here. They won every first except the moon landing, largely because the US programme was starved of funds between 1946 and 1957.
 

mowque

Banned
The Soviet space programme was very successful, I'm not sure what you're getting at here. They won every first except the moon landing, largely because the US programme was starved of funds between 1946 and 1957.

Exactly, for much of the "Space Race', only the USSR was competing...
 
The Soviet space programme was very successful, I'm not sure what you're getting at here. They won every first except the moon landing, largely because the US programme was starved of funds between 1946 and 1957.

Depends on your point of view. United States had the first orbital rendezvous (Gemini VI and VII), first successful docking between space craft (Gemini VIII), and first visit to the moon with Apollo 8. All of those may be a little minor compared to "first satellite" or "first man in space," but they were all prerequisites for a successful moon landing. I would argue that with the exception of missing out on the first spacewalk, the US had pulled ahead of the Soviets by the mid-1960s.

As for the OP, does "very successful" mean a lead in the space race up to and including first man on the moon? I'm not sure the US would throw in the towel if they got beaten to the moon--I could see the Americans keep pushing and until they finally beat the Soviets at something, instead of settling for Skylab and the shuttle in the 70s and 80s. Apollo-Soyuz might be butterflied as well?
 
Depends on your point of view. United States had the first orbital rendezvous (Gemini VI and VII), first successful docking between space craft (Gemini VIII), and first visit to the moon with Apollo 8. All of those may be a little minor compared to "first satellite" or "first man in space," but they were all prerequisites for a successful moon landing. I would argue that with the exception of missing out on the first spacewalk, the US had pulled ahead of the Soviets by the mid-1960s.

As for the OP, does "very successful" mean a lead in the space race up to and including first man on the moon? I'm not sure the US would throw in the towel if they got beaten to the moon--I could see the Americans keep pushing and until they finally beat the Soviets at something, instead of settling for Skylab and the shuttle in the 70s and 80s. Apollo-Soyuz might be butterflied as well?

Well yes, of course the Soviets did do very well in OTL, but by this I mean that they don't stop there, and continue to trounce the Americans. I mean, most people think America 'won' the space race by getting to the moon first, but here the Reds continue to dominate.
 
I really want to say that if the Soviet Union had beaten Apollo 8 in a lunar circumnavigation mission and beaten Apollo 11 in a manned lunar landing that it would have launched a permanent moonbase race, a race for a Mars flyby mission, and/or a race for a manned Mars landing between the United States and the Soviet Union. But I really don't believe this would have happened.

Valentin Glushko, the head of NPO Energia, tried to generate interest in a permanent Soviet moonbase in the mid-1970s saying that the Soviets could win a moonbase race. He was told to give up this fantasy and work on projects in the national interest.

Even before Apollo 11 landed on the moon, the Congress was cutting NASA's budget that would lead to the cancellation of Apollo 18, 19, and 20.

The country was more concerned with the Vietnam War and Johnson's Great Society social programs. Some in congress began to view the manned space program as an expensive stunt that had very little return, scientific or otherwise, to justify the expense and there were those in NASA itself who believed that unmanned robotic missions had a greater scientific return and could be performed more cheaply. They believed that manned missions drained the majority of resources and got in the way of performing real science.

I believe that the Apollo missions would have flown and the United States would have launched Skylab.

The Soviet Union could congratulate itself on being the first to the moon. But on the whole, nothing would have changed.
 
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