posted 03-12-2014 10:23 AM               

At the end of the book the author David Harland makes an interesting comment. Quoting from the book (pg. 281):

If NASA had managed to launch Al Shepard a few weeks before the Soviet Union flew Yuri Gagarin, Kennedy may well not have challenged America to land a man on the Moon before the decade was out. The fact that Shepard's flight had been only suborbital would probably not have mattered, as the world's first 'spaceman' would have been an American. ... The early months of 1961 therefore serve to illustrate that history is not an irresistible tide, it is extremely sensitive to the outcome of regular events.

posted 03-12-2014 11:00 AM            

If NASA had managed to launch Al Shepard a few weeks before the Soviet Union flew Yuri Gagarin, Kennedy may well not have challenged America to land a man on the Moon before the decade was out.

posted 03-12-2014 11:16 AM               

We now know that Khrushchev wasn't sold on Korolev's space efforts and only entertained the program in so much as it continued development of the R-7 Semyorka ICBM. It was the worldwide attention paid to Sputnik that changed Khrushchev's mind and had him embrace the space race as a point of Soviet pride.

Without Sputnik launching first, the entire space race may have ceased to be, among other concerns. (How would the Soviets respond to the overflight of a satellite if the U.S. was first?)

posted 03-12-2014 04:34 PM               

Likewise, Shepard's flight would have occurred earlier if not for teething problems with, ironically, the Redstone booster that caused an extra test launch to be made; a manned flight could therefore not be launched before April 25th at the earliest. But if even both the first beep-beep or words from a capsule would have been American, Kennedy would have seized both successes to push for more, in order not to cede ground to the Soviets in the new arena of space.

posted 03-12-2014 04:55 PM               

Taking this one step further, another fair question to pose would be: If there had been no Bay of Pigs fiasco at all, or had the invasion succeeded, would Kennedy have championed what would become Project Apollo?

posted 03-12-2014 04:55 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by onesmallstep:
...in 1962, after Glenn's flight, or even more dramatic, a few months later after the Cuban missile crisis...

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The objective is to provide irrevocable proof that, should the MERCURY manned orbit flight fail, the fault lies with the Communists et al. Cuba... This to be accomplished by manufacturing various pieces of evidence which would prove electronic interference on the part of the Cubans.

posted 03-13-2014 01:31 AM               

Sergei Korolyov was a man who went for the firsts and was ready to take the risks. I am pretty sure he would do anything to beat America even if Shepard would fly earlier.

The same happened with Gemini 4 where the original plan for Ed White was just to open the hatch and wave the hand out of the capsule. The Soviets came quickly with the Voskhod 2 full spacewalk, which of course was planned and prepared, but they managed to be first again. The real Gemini 4 EVA was added to the plan only after that, if I remember well.

Another skillful usage of the American plans was the flight of Svetlana Savitskaya to Salyut in July 1984. I am not far from the truth when I say this flight was driven by the planned STS-41G mission with Sally Ride and Kathy Sullivan, where Sally Ride was to become the first woman to fly into space the second time and Kathy Sullivan was to become the first woman to perform the EVA. Sending Savitskaya into space before this could happen robbed the US from these two firsts — she was the first twice in space and she was the first to perform the EVA.