WI: Soviet Landing on the Moon

In the Spuniks game I run annually (two teams of five, semi-annual turns), we've made it to 1973. In our universe, the Americans landed in July 1969 (using EOR, no less!) while the Soviets managed to roll incredibly well and land a cosmonaut in October '69.

The Russians, by the way, knew that their success had been a fluke, and having won the propaganda victory, shelved their lunar project and have been focused on space stations. The Americans were flush with funds for a few months, but then Congress cracked down. The Americans will have to make some hard choices re: priorities. I'm hoping there's enough momentum to get the Saturn II built, because that will make the exploitation of space a bit cheaper.

I'd love to see both sides decide to team up on lunar exploration, sort of an ASTP writ large.

You are going to have to show me this game. I am a fan of BARIS (Race Into Space) but I have often found it lacking in that you really can only land on the moon and then game over. I believe I had once seen a summary of the game, but nothing beyond that.​
 
You are going to have to show me this game. I am a fan of BARIS (Race Into Space) but I have often found it lacking in that you really can only land on the moon and then game over. I believe I had once seen a summary of the game, but nothing beyond that.​

I'd like that as well actually.
 
I'd love that too. But the 1960's are when the Vietnam crisis would come to a head one way or another; that pretty much wrecks any US/Soviet cooperation.

Now if there were an alien threat to deal with, that might pull both nations together.

Ah, not necessarily. Kennedy, as the Kexperts here on the board will remind you, was very much not in favor of escalating Vietnam; without Johnson's actions, it would remain a minor sort of sideshow. Critically, Kennedy was (apparently) also serious about a joint Moon mission--he actually publicly proposed this at least once, to Khrushchev, but he thought he wasn't being serious, and then he got overthrown anyways (and Kennedy got shot). If he took it seriously, though...or Kennedy had lived...

Polish Eagle said:
The radiation isn't a huge issue. The Americans IOTL had plans to send an Apollo capsule (with a 'wet workshop' space station similar to an early Skylab design) around Venus and back. Given that the fastest (least space-time) possible Mars flyby missions involve a Venus flyby themselves, perhaps they'd try to combine the two.

Be fair, Polish Eagle; back then, they really, really didn't care about radiation risks wrt human space flight. Modern days, Apollo could never fly due to the lack of radiation protection.
 
Critically, Kennedy was (apparently) also serious about a joint Moon mission--he actually publicly proposed this at least once, to Khrushchev, but he thought he wasn't being serious, and then he got overthrown anyways (and Kennedy got shot). If he took it seriously, though...or Kennedy had lived...

Congress had passed a resolution due to Kennedy's proposal whereby funding for NASA would be reneged if the US joined the USSR in a joint Lunar mission.
 
Congress had passed a resolution due to Kennedy's proposal whereby funding for NASA would be reneged if the US joined the USSR in a joint Lunar mission.

Ah, well, that would be a problem. Still, you could work around, especially in a game.

Brings to mind good old Arthur C. Clarke, actually. He had a set of stories once where there was a sort of joint expedition to the Moon (in my mind, at least, on the von Braun pattern) by the US, USSR, and...UK, of course. Anyways, that's the first thing that springs to mind when I think of joint US-USSR lunar expeditions. Aside from Kennedy actually proposing it.
 
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