Hypothetical: What if there was no moon race

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Crossover_Maniac

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It's the year 1962 and JFK is suppose to give his Moon race speech, but instead, he says the following: "We as a nation, choose not to go to the Moon, and not because it's hard, but because we're a capitalist nation and it's not government's job to explore space. If there is any merit to space exploration, private enterprise, not big government will supply the means. The government will do its best to minimize the bureaucracy and to the bare requirements for safety, but apart from space activities directly related to the defense of the nation, that's all. The rest will be up to the individual, not the collective, to go out into space." How do you think the American space program would come out?

While there is space race, the military will still have its role in space launching satellites, etc.

Here's the question: would you support this if you were there in 1962?
 
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pathfinder_01

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Crossover_Maniac":28mnqaye said:
It's the year 1962 and JFK is suppose to give his Moon race speech, but instead, he says the following: "We as a nation, choose not to go to the Moon, and not because it's hard, but because we're a capitalist nation and it's not government's job to explore space. If there is any merit to space exploration, private enterprise, not big government will supply the means. The government will do its best to minimize the bureaucracy and to the bare requirements for safety, but apart from space activities directly related to the defense of the nation, that's all. The rest will be up to the individual, not the collective, to go out into space." How do you think the American space program would come out?

While there is space race, the military will still have its role in space launching satellites, etc.

Here's the question: would you support this if you were there in 1962?

Actually if the USSR had not launched Sputnik then there very likely would not have been a moon race and the odds of JFK being president in 1962 are reduced. His moon speech comes out of an reaction. America was beat on several fronts in the space race up till then. We were 2nd to launch a satellite, 2nd to land something on the moon, 2nd to send something too the moon, 2nd person in space and even then it was a 15 min. sub orbital flight to Yuri's 1 hour plus long orbit. We just kept coming up 2nd. The USSR has an inherit advantage in the early space race, their rockets were much bigger than ours. By challenging them to the moon, Kennedy leveled the playing field(if not tilled slightly in our favor). No one had a rocket big enough to go to the moon. Kennedy also offered to cooperate with the Russians in our goal to get to the moon, but back then the military aspects of space were closer to the civilian ones and the Russians refused.

It is not 1962 and the American people are no longer willing to spend large sums of money on an superiority program. We need a sustainable growing space program and I hate to say it but that means NASA has got to give up LEO operations to the private sector and needs to share existing rockets. This need not be the death of NASA, but if another politician gives NASA a hard goal without providing adequate funding it will indeed be the death of NASA as the American people rebel against the waste.
 
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Booban

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Why would American have gone into space at all? Did people really think to ditch radio and use telecommunication satellites back then? I wonder how far we'd be behind if it wasn't for the space race. 25yrs? Would we even have the space station if it was not for Soyuz?
 
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kelvinzero

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I think the moon race was fantastic, but it was terrible that this ability was thrown away after only a handful of days actually being there.

Some people say it was unsustainable and doomed, and perhaps set back more sensible progress. But really 5% of the federal budget would have been perfectly sustainable if people had seen it as necessary. Compare it to defense spending.

What if america had simply done a worse job initially, letting russia be the first to land on the moon, and then america had decided it needed to trump that? Maybe we would have a sizeable russian and american presence on the moon right now.

I dont think capitalism could have taken over back then. Nowdays computers and CAD make it much easier for smaller companies to get into the space business, and even now COTS is really based around the government being the only real client, in the hope it will provide a springboard from which real commercial activities such as space tourism can be reached.
 
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