Suppose that something goes wrong on the Moon. For the purposes of this exercise, let's assume that the Eagle landed safely on the lunar surface, but due to an irreparable technical failure, return to orbit is impossible. What would the effects have been on the space program, and the country as a whole?
WI: Armstrong and Aldrin perish on the Moon?
- Thread starter DStecks
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Suppose that something goes wrong on the Moon. For the purposes of this exercise, let's assume that the Eagle landed safely on the lunar surface, but due to an irreparable technical failure, return to orbit is impossible. What would the effects have been on the space program, and the country as a whole?
Tallest Skil
Banned
What like the one in OTL that was solved because they happened to have a highlighter on board?
Let's say that while out on a moonwalk a micrometeroid punctures the fuel tank, and by the time they're aware of this all the fuel has sublimated. You can't MacGyver your way out of that. It doesn't matter what it is specifically, the point is that it's irreparable and there's no way home.
That was actually Apollo 11 - Aldrin accidentally broke the circuit breaker that armed the ascent engine. He used a felt tip pen, not a highlighter, to jury rig a switch.
Ball-point pen, IIRC.
But this is essentially a worst-case scenario for the Apollo Program. Two of the most widely-publicized deaths in American history--this is going to result in a congressional circus as NASA and Grumman officials are fed to the lions. Heads will roll in Washington, Houston, Canaveral, and Bethpage.
How will it be followed up? The LM issue will be addressed--if it's a meteorite, then Grumman will add additional armor to the propellant tanks. A follow-up mission is almost certain (if only as a desperate effort to save face), but past that, manned spaceflight in the United States is shot. I can see the extended Apollo missions (15-17 IOTL) cancelled for the risk, and Apollo 12 or 13 being the last. To quote From the Earth to the Moon, Congress would have a field day about "NASA wasting not just taxpayer dollars but human lives." It's possible a well-phrased, Grissom-esque urging from Armstrong in his last breaths to continue the program would strengthen public support through his and Aldrin's martyrdom, but it's uncertain.
Dayton Kitchens
Banned
Pete Conrad would've gone down in history as the first man on the moon.
Michael Collins would be more famous than he is as the first man to circle the moon and solo to Earth.
No major changes.
Michael Collins would be more famous than he is as the first man to circle the moon and solo to Earth.
No major changes.
Doctor What recently put something into the Writer's Forum based on this very premise. I shall attempt to drag it up...
EDIT: Here you go
EDIT: Here you go
Maybe, a very strong argument could be made that the manned space program was so risk adverse that when problems happened they were considered disasters. Having something like a micro-meteor hit them or land on a really bad spot and be unable to take back off would bring home that it is dangerous out there and would give some bite to the "they are heroes" call. After all heroes risk everything, that's part of what makes them heroes.
Your last bit:
I suspect would be the most likely impact, people want heroes, and as ugly as it sometimes is, having them die trying makes very good heroes.
It would be Apollo 1 all over again - times three.
Yet, while there would be pressure to halt the program from the usual suspects (Mondale, Proxmire, etc.), as there was in 1967, the pressure to redeem that tragedy would be too great. Whatever ambivalent feelings Nixon would have had about Apollo as Kennedy's legacy would be offset by the keen need for a success, something to distract from Vietnam, racial discord, etc. Nixon needed happy, healthy astronauts holding moon rocks on endless goodwill tours.
There would be a delay to examine the cause of the failure, as there would be with Apollo 13 - it would be nine months before Apollo 14 would launch. Depending on what the failure is, I would expect a 9-12 month lag while the investigation is completed and modifications made...and NASA tries once again with Conrad, Bean and Gordon on Apollo 12 sometime in 1970. Obviously, Kennedy's goal would not be met, save for pedants who'd argue that "the decade" includes 1970.
What would be more interesting would be what impact this would have on the Soviet lunar program. The Soviets might give a renewed push to their own program, in desperate hopes of beating the Americans to the Moon (and back). As it was they sent two unmanned Zond spacecraft on circumlunar flights in August 1969 and October 1970 (both would have been safely survived by any cosmonauts on board). The Soviets had actually tried a desperation heave of a mission in December, 1968, and again the following summer, to beat out Apollo 8 and 11 respectively -a two launch "podsadka" mission, where the cosmonauts would fly up in a Soyuz, and transfer to a Zond L1 via spacewalk, then make a circumlunar flight that might involve the dispatch and remote landing of a robotic lander that could return a soil sample.
While such a profile is not the home run that a manned landing would be, it would be a Soviet success (albeit a very high risk one) that would steal thunder from NASA, and even best it slightly if it could, in fact, return a soil sample. The problems with the giant N1 launcher were very unlikely to be solved by early 1970, however, so a landing might be more than the Soviets could muster. But the longer that NASA took to try again with Apollo 12, the more incentive they would have to try a manned mission, at least to lunar orbit.
If in fact the result of such a tragedy was renewed, and successful, Soviet moon program, it could be a real irony in that it might actually result in the extension of Apollo, even to the point of a man-tended base, if the Soviets continued to push forward the ambition of their lunar efforts. Because Apollo had such a head start on them, all they could manage were desperation missions to lunar space that never came off in time. But in a world where Apollo has a lunar disaster, that could change.
It's worth noting that several Apollo missions had incidents that were very likely mission-killers, and possibly crew killers. Apollo 10 had violent rolls in lunar orbit that were close to making the Ascent module and its crew unrecoverable. Apollo 11 famously nearly ran out of fuel on descent, and had radar problems. Apollo 12 was nearly aborted after being struck by lightning. Apollo 13 famously had one of its oxygen tanks explode, nearly resulting in loss of crew. Apollo 14 had its LM computer receive false abort signals that had to be worked around through am improvised software patch. The truth is that Apollo was a skin-of-the-teeth program, technologically, and it came very close to disaster more times than is commonly realized.
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I'm not so sure about that.
Especially if it becomes clear that the Soviets are renewing their own efforts as NASA sorts through the mission investigation and hearings.
The 60's were turning darker and more cynical, but there was enough "New Frontier" mentality left that I just don't think that the U.S. would give up that easily.
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I think you are being a bit pessimistic. Unlike the Space Shuttles, which were supposed to be safe, predictable, proven technologies manned largely by non-pilot specialists, the Apollo system and especially its lander were known to be unproven, experimental, and potentially dangerous experiments featuring a few trained test pilots. Nobody had landed on (or perhaps more to the point sucessfully taken off) from the moon before and nobody really knew for sure what could go wrong, from micrometeors to radiation bursts to sinking in the lunar soil. Remember, the deaths of three Apollo astronauts in a training accident a few years previously didn't cause an outcry. It just caused redesigns.
If Aldrin and Armstrong died as described, the next launch would definitely be pushed back while known or suspected fixes to the return rocket systems were implemented, but if anything I believe the lunar effort would be redoubled. No other planned missions would be cancelled because of the accident, even if the technicians couldn't pinpoint what went wrong and make any definite fix. Thoughts might even include the possibility of planning a later mission to the Tranquility base site to retreive Aldrin's and Armstrong's remains.
Now, if the followup second Lunar Mission ended in disaster, what had been a horrible accident would become a frightening pattern and administrators and politicians would now be looking for scapegoats. That would create the political firestorm. But not Apollo 11.
I recall reading that a speech was written, I never actually checked to see what it was like.
The BBC did an AH afternoon play on Radio 4 about this. It wasn't hugely good, it was focused on the Cold War and the Soviets secretly getting to the moon between Apollo 11 and the mission which brought Buzz and Neil's bodies home - they had left a cosmonaut behind and he ended up travelling back to earth with the 'body-collecting' Americans. Seemed a bit of a missed opportunity.