To the Moon using Gemini

[pmn1]

http://www.astronautix.com/articles/bygemoon.htm<br /><br />The Astonautix site suggests that using Gemini the US could have been on the moon sooner and at less cost. <br /><br />'Such a program could have achieved a manned lunar landing two years earlier than Apollo at half the cost, a savings of $ 9 billion. ' <br /><br />What do people think of this suggestion and if it had been used and was successful, would you expect any changes to what happened to the moon programme afterwards? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[qso1]

At this point I'd have to say it does not really matter since we got to the moon and did so rather economically and certainly successfully in any case. And all the could haves, would haves that might have happened on a Gemini to the moon...we will never know for certain. The plan itself is sound enough, doable.<br /><br />It was mentioned that we could have gotten to the moon much sooner than we did...well, with Apollo, the same holds true except that the Apollo delay was due to the Apollo fire.<br /><br />As for post Gemini or Apollo...as long as public will had been lost the way it actually happened...I don't think the outcome would have been any different. In fact, the only way to have continued a lunar program post Apollo would have been if the cost of going into space would have dropped dramatically, dropped well below the cost of using Gemini or Apollo hardware. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>

 

[gunsandrockets]

I think the case for an early Gemini circumlunar flight makes more technical sense than an early moon landing.<br /><br />An early Gemini moon landing looks to only shave about a year off of the Apollo program landing in July 1969, and for much greater risk than Apollo. And the Apollo lunar sorties could conduct some real exploration, a Gemini landing would have just been a stunt.<br /><br />The Apollo program also had the potential for extended-stay lunar exploration, a potential which the budget cutbacks of 1967 onwards doomed.<br /><br />The combination of the expense of the Vietnam War and the Great Society welfare programs doomed American space exploration. Congress gutted the space program starting in 1967. The accomplishments of Apollo up to and including Skylab were mere coasting on the tremendous momentum the program had gained by 1967. An early Gemini lunar landing would not have made any difference, I think.

 

[holmec]

Its a pretty cool old archival documentation. I like those old ideas, even if they didn't get implemented. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#0000ff"><em>"SCE to AUX" - John Aaron, curiosity pays off</em></font></p> </div>

 

[qso1]

I like em too and Astronautix.com is one of the very best if not the best archive of human spaceflight ideas not implemented including ideas from overseas. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>