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What If America Had Beaten the Soviets Into Space?

Posted by Roblimo on from the on-your-mark-get-set-go dept.

MarkWhittington writes "April 12 is the 50th anniversary of Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin's first space flight. Coming less than four years after Sputnik, Gagarin's orbital space voyage galvanized the United States and led to President Kennedy announcing the race to the Moon six weeks later. The question arises: what if America had beaten the Soviet Union into space instead?"

4 of 255 comments (clear)

  1. No faked moon landing by michaelmalak · · Score: 2, Funny

    No faked moon landing, and humans might have really visited the moon by now.

  2. Re:Hypotheticals... by Hognoxious · · Score: 2, Funny

    I dunno... If we hadn't been repeatedly beaten in the space race, would we have been willing to pour so much time/effort/money into a moon landing?

    You obviously didn't pour enough in. I mean the shadows are all wrong, and what's with the fluttering flag...

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  3. Re:if only the taliban had a space program... by risinganger · · Score: 4, Funny

    we would be on Mars by now getting groped by TSA guards.

    Fixed it for you :-P

  4. Re:Hypotheticals... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    then by the turn of the century we might've actually resembled arthur c. clarke's vision from 2001 space odyssey... and then about 2011 we would have started building x-wing fighters to defend our territories in space.

    star wars are inevitable regardless of when it actually happens, unless the male human population is wiped out by some selective genetic disease/weapon beforehand. at least then wars would be limited to bitchfights and backstabbing.