WI: Soviets took Moon Race Seriously Earlier?

In the OTL, the USSR only took American efforts to land a man on the moon seriously and undertook efforts for a Manned Lunar program seriously in 1964. By then, it looked too late, and the Americans landed a man on the moon in 1969 while the USSR was still working on their N-1 in the early 1970s, before the program was canceled for lack of success and lack of perceived need given NASA's success in landing on the moon.

But what if the Soviet Union took US plans to land on the moon seriously before 1964, and therefore seriously undertook an effort to land on the moon earlier than they did?
 
They did. If you want the Soviets to be able to compete in Moon Race, you need to butterfly the conflict between Korolev and Glushko over cryogenic versus hypergolic fuels. You also need to do something about the fact that they aboslutely hated each other.
 
I'm not an expert on space exploration history by any means, but so far as I know, the USSR didn't put any special effort into manned moon landings until 1964. Such comes from the astronautix site, as well as other.

Quote from one source on this
The Soviets did not have a vibrant lunar landing program in the fall of 1963 because they did not take the American Apollo program seriously. They thought that the Americans were not going to follow through. It was not until summer 1964 that the Soviets determined that the Americans were serious about going to the Moon and they formally approved their own lunar landing goal. By then they were substantially behind. Even after this decision they failed to allocate the necessary resources, squabbled over control of the program, and deluded themselves that their program was on track long after it had slipped its schedule.
 
The Soviets developing the means of advanced metallurgy would help. Something they didn't have until nearly the end of the Cold War. (1) The inability of the USSR to duplicate the large scale exhaust nozzles of the Saturn V, frex, precluded making a reliable N1. Too many moving parts. Competition with the SRF for resources was another killer. Losing Kruschev and his direct support was another. Also, you have to handwave the Nedelin Catastrophe. Commit the USSR's Space Program to a NASA-like program ala Mercury-Gemini-Apollo even as Sputnik is still in the works. Above all, put in a measure of national dedication to match that of America's efforts, before the Space Age even begins. Begin a national program for educating engineers (aerospace, especially).(2)

OTL, IIRC, the US had more aerospace engineers working on the Space Program than the USSR had in their whole country.

1) Same reason the USN for so many years had ultra-quiet subs (giant single screw propellors), while the Soviets had loud, small twin screws.

2) No way in HELL does the Soviet military ever allow all this. Shooting down the U-2 alone would have torpedoed such a massive undertaking. The US missile gap was another reason. The Cuban Missile Crisis, a third.
 
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