Suppose that Apollo 11 had suffered a catastrophic failure on liftoff, exploding into a million pieces and killing Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins? Would the United States abandon the goal of landing a man on the Moon, or would they press on? Would the Soviets have been able to get their act together and beat the Americans to the goal? If so, would the Americans have accepted defeat, or raised the stakes by planning a Mars mission?