X-20 Dyna-Soar is produced.

WI Instead of cancelling the X-20 in December 1963 it goes into production. By 1965 the US has a functioning space plane. What are the effects? I think the Gemini program would continue as in OTL and since the Apollo program was our moonshot that wouldn't change.
 

thorr97

Banned
As with the operational Valkyrie ATL, this one also presupposes that Robert McNamara never gets hold of any Federal power.

An operational Dyna-Soar would scare the bejezus out of the Soviets and put them hard to work making one of their own.

It'd quickly lead to the Air Force fielding its MOL - Manned Orbiting "Laboratory" - to further boost the X-20's capabilities. And that'd soon lead to lofting much bigger and much more functional space stations than that little tube thing. By the late 60s NASA had plans for permanent stations housing 200+ people. This would've required a vast space launch infrastructure and a fleet of fully reusable space shuttles.

All of which would've flowed one into the other if the Dyna-Soar had the backing to have taken flight.
 
I'm trying to imagine the economic effects of all that through the 1970s & 80s.

McNamarra the only villian in this story Senator Proxmire illustrates the sort of fiscal conservatives who had their hand in trashing the space program & lots of other Federally sponsored research.
 
Another result would be space enthusiasts deploring and denouncing it. Some would argue that an expanded Gemini Program would be better. Others would be all for Apollo Applications. Others would speak movingly of the prospects of Direct Ascent, or of Lunar Orbit Rendezvous.

There would be learned explanations of the clever Soviet deception plan, which diverted the U.S. space effort into expensive byways, while they forged ahead with their simple but effective disposable launchers.

And then there would be the "Kings of the High Frontier", denouncing government space as a monopoly set up to shut out far more effective private entrepreneurs.
 
One of the reasons for X-20's cancellation was its relation to the Aerospaceplane project--when the latter was cancelled, it knocked out a big justification for the former (technology demos for Aerospaceplane).

So a surviving X-20 means that the general hypersonic/orbital lobby at the USAF is stronger. Might keep some of the more exotic propulsion technologies (air-breathing, mostly) in active development. If/when the Shuttle comes along, it might make use of these--imagine a Shuttle with Liquid Air Cycle boosters!

Conversely, though, X-20 might erode USAF interest in the Shuttle, as the USAF would already have their own vehicle to use for testing the utility of Man in Space. Does that mean Shuttle doesn't get the go-ahead at all? Or that it's more along the lines of NASA's original plan for a much smaller Orbiter, optimized for space station re supply (but then, there was only Skylab up there to resupply anyway--if Shuttle can't launch every satellite, does it happen at all?).
 
Conversely, though, X-20 might erode USAF interest in the Shuttle, as the USAF would already have their own vehicle to use for testing the utility of Man in Space. Does that mean Shuttle doesn't get the go-ahead at all? Or that it's more along the lines of NASA's original plan for a much smaller Orbiter, optimized for space station re supply (but then, there was only Skylab up there to resupply anyway--if Shuttle can't launch every satellite, does it happen at all?).

That might not be such a bad thing. As I recall it, many of the problems with the Shuttle stemmed from its size. It had to be large to launch things like the KH-11 satellite (which in the end were launched entirely by Titan III rockets) and that meant other compromises, such as the use of the infamous thermal tiles.

I would think that an in-place reusable space vehicle would hardly delay the Shuttle.
 
It'd quickly lead to the Air Force fielding its MOL - Manned Orbiting "Laboratory" - to further boost the X-20's capabilities.
If anything, exactly the opposite is the case, with an operational X-20 leading to MOL dying sooner and with even less done. Leaving aside the fact that the "blue astronaut" lobby inside the Air Force was never particularly strong and would struggle to get enough funding to fly X-20 and develop MOL at the same time, the fundamental fact is that there is just not anything militarily useful that astronauts can do in space. The Air Force realized this before it actually launched anyone into space; the Soviets did from experience on their Almaz stations; and the Chinese seem to have tried (again) and failed (again) to get anything out of having astronauts up there instead of just machines.

If the Air Force does have an operational space program launching Air Force astronauts in Air Force spaceplanes, it probably just realizes this fact sooner, and cans MOL before it even gets to the point of mock-up flight testing, let alone actually launching it. Even if it does somehow manage to build and operate MOL, it will certainly be canceled after a few missions when its lack of utility becomes apparent, just like Almaz.
 
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