In "Tomorrow is Yesterday" air date 1/26/67 it was said "This is the five thirty news summary. Cape Kennedy. The first manned Moon shot is scheduled for Wednesday". Kirk said "Manned Moon shot? That was in the late 1960s" , so a correct statement. What happened if Apollo 11 didn't launch in 1969, say in 1970, then the Trek writers (written in 1966) history fact would be in error (they probably based that on President Kennedy's proclamation to land a man on the moon before the end of the decade,) and you know what, they got it correct! Apollo 11 launched on 7/16/69 and guess what, on a WEDNESDAY!
I always thought "first manned moon shot" better described Apollo 8 than 11.
I looked it up, Apollo 8 launched on a Saturday.
Perhaps they didn't fly Apollo 8 to the Moon in the Trek universe? I mean, NASA didn't intend to in ours, either, until the Russkies got their Zond act together and gave them a scare. Perhaps there was no around-the-Moon shot before the one where they actually tested the LM. And perhaps that is when they panicked, and landed the LM so that the Soviets wouldn't get there first. So, the first-ever Moon test shot, analogous to Apollo 10 but done one flight later, was also the landing.
Timo Saloniemi
The last revision of the script of "Tomorrow is Yesterday" are listed as on 22 November and 1 December 1966, while the bridge scenes in the episode were filmed on November 28 & 29, 1966.
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Tomorrow_is_Yesterday_(episode)
Could NASA have planned the Apollo program two and a half years into the future and know the exact date when the first Moon landing would launch from Earth, and would they make that date public so that the Soviet space program would know the deadline to beat NASA to the Moon?
I think it would have been impossible for the writers to find the exact date of the first manned Moon mission two and a half years before it actually happened.
Furthermore, it would have been possible to find the dates of the good launch windows to the Moon, but then the writers would have had to have chosen one specific date out of dozens, since the month and year of the first Moon landing could not have been predicted accurately by the writers.
In any case, the fatal fire in the Apollo capsule during a test on January 27,1967 for the planned Apollo 1 mission on February 21, 1967 was a big setback for NASA's schedule.
Manned Apollo flights were suspended for 20 months while the command module's hazards were addressed. However, the development and uncrewed testing of the
lunar module (LM) and
Saturn V rocket continued. The
Saturn IB launch vehicle for Apollo 1, SA-204, was used for the first LM test flight,
Apollo 5. The first successful crewed Apollo mission was flown by Apollo 1's backup crew on
Apollo 7 in October 1968.
.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_1
The first manned Moon landing would have happened months earlier, possibly even in 1968, if the Apollo one fire and the delays it caused had been prevented.
The first manned Apollo mission, Apollo 7, which remained in Earth orbit, launched on 11 October 1968, which was a Friday.
The first manned Apollo mission to the Moon was Apollo 8, which made 10 orbits around the Moon, and launched on 21 December 1968, which was a Saturday.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Apollo_missions
http://luirig.altervista.org/calendar/index.php?year=1968
The next manned Apollo mission, Apollo 9, remained in Earth orbit testing rendezvous maneuvers, and launched on 3 March 1969, which was a Monday.
The next manned Apollo mission, Apollo 10, returned to lunar orbit and tested maneuvers with the LEM, and launched on 18 May 1969, which was a Friday.
The next manned Apollo mission, Apollo 11, was the first manned Moon landing, and launched on 16 July 1969, which was a Wednesday.
The next manned Apollo mission, Apollo 12, was the second manned Moon landing, and launched on 14 November 1969, which was a Friday.. In an alternate universe where something had prevented Apollo 11 from landing it mighthave been the first manned moon landing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Apollo_missions
http://luirig.altervista.org/calendar/index.php?year=1969
Note that the only candidate for "the first manned Moon shot" that launched on a Wednesday, Apollo 11, launched at 13:332 GMT, which was 9:32 AM Eastern Daylight Time.
And what did the radio announcement say?
MAN [OC]: This is the five thirty news summary. Cape Kennedy. The first manned Moon shot is scheduled for Wednesday, six am Eastern Standard Time. All three astronauts who are to make this historic
So the first manned moon shot was scheduled for 6 AM Eastern Standard Time. Which I think would be 7 AM Eastern Daylight Time. So either Apollo 11 was scheduled to take off at 7 AM EDT and something delayed the countdown by 2 hours and 32 minutes, something which can be checked, or "Tomorrow is Yesterday" had the launched scheduled for an inaccurate time of day.
Anyway, the eastern time zone of the USA would be using Eastern Daylight Time when Apollo 11 launched on July 16, 1969. So why would the radio announcement give the time in Eastern Standard Time?
This seems to prove that the "first manned moon shot" in "Tomorrow is Yesterday" must have launched when the eastern USA was not using Eastern Daylight Time, and thus not within a few months of July 16, 1969.
Thus
Star Trek happens in an alternate universe with a different Apollo program and a different date for "the first manned moon shot" than in our reality.
