posted 01-10-2005 11:43 PM               

On September 20, 1963, Kennedy suggested a joint U.S./U.S.S.R. moon landing during a speech before the UN General Assembly.

From a SpaceDaily article by "New Moon Rising" co-author Frank Sietzen:

Soviet Premiere Nikita S. Khrushchev reversed himself in early November, 1963 and had at the time, decided to accept U.S. President John F. Kennedy's offer to convert the Apollo lunar landing program into a joint project to explore the Moon with Soviet and U.S. astronauts, SpaceCast learned Wednesday from one of the last remaining participants in the decision still alive.

If these newest revelations are correct, the prospects of a visit to the Soviet Union by President Kennedy during the 1964 Presidential campaign, suggested by several former Kennedy administration staffers or a visit to Russia early in a Kennedy second term might well have cemented the joint lunar plan. And such a Kennedy/Khrushchev initiative might have staved off the planning of a coup that eventually removed Khrushchev from office in October, 1964.

"I think," Sergei Khrushchev said, "if Kennedy had lived, we would be living in a completely different world." But a week after the reversal decision was allegedly made, Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas and the decision was dropped.

Some have also suggested that, given the political atmosphere of the time, the U.S. Congress of 1963/64 would not have looked too favorably on dropping a space program sold primarily as "beating the Russians to the Moon" for one that would, in essence, bring them along on a spacecraft and booster paid for by the U.S. taxpayer.

But Kennedy fretted over the cost of the Apollo program almost literally until the day he died. A joint plan would have preserved the project while reducing the cost, further shifting its rationale onto foreign relations and superpower stability - goals now identified with the current US-Russian space partnership and a reason often given today for continuing the program. And had the President lived to conduct a 1964 campaign, U.S.-Soviet cooperation following years of tension may well have been a central element to the foreign policy espoused during that election effort. The available documentary evidence suggests that Kennedy was moving towards a new cooperative relationship with the Soviet government that he hoped to expand following a reelection in 1964.

posted 01-11-2005 10:11 AM               

As for a joint mission, what would have been the advantages? At the time Kennedy was talking about a joint mission, it was assumed the Moon race was pretty evenly matched, but in the end it proved much less so than believed at the time.

Unlike the ISS today, I'm not sure what equipment or expertise the Soviets had that would have been better than the Apollo technology the U.S. had; certainly I would have rather ridden atop a Saturn than an N1.

The only advantage you get is that of teamwork and split costs. I question how much of an advantage the teamwork would have been. Trying to integrate the two foreign systems would have slowed things down; very possibly more than they would have sped things up. The Soviet program was run with a much higher degree of secrecy than the U.S. program; I strongly question whether entering into a joint operation would have eliminated the Soviet desire for secrecy, and thus dealing with those issues would have also slowed things down.

As for funding issues, one has to question whether the advantages of splitting the costs with the Soviets would have outweighed the increased costs from doing so. And, had their been any financial benefit, one has to question whether it would have done the U.S. space program any good, or whether Congress would have pocketed the difference for other programs.