If the space race hadn't ended

[KJbushway]

I hadn't put that much thought into it.

 

[robtclements]

The problem there is that the Soviet Union, between the space race and the unremitting military brinksmanship of keeping up with the Unitied States, bankrupted itself, which was the real reason the Cold War ended in the first place. Any plausible AU exploring the possibilities of an extended space race would have to A) get around the economic factor, showing how such a race could have possibly continued to be financed, consuming a significant portion of a nation's GDP without tipping it over the brink and still providing material and political benefit and B: Getting around the incessant military pressure to begin reallocating those resources toward bigger and better weapons whose principles were refined and discovered due to the explosion of technical capability that the space race resulted in.

Completely agreed; although there may have been one scenario that could have changed the financial & political equations

Missions plans were drawn up for (at least) Apollos 18-20; & in some of these plans, a polar landing site was considered. If a mission to the South pole had been flown & the ice now known to be hidden there was discovered, its conceivable that a streamlined Lunar exploration programme may have been considered more attractive to the paymasters. It may not have developed further than a small, Antarctic-style base; but it might created a practical rationale to continue to develop deep-space technology. I'm not saying that we would been on Mars (or beyond) now or even that we would still be on the Moon; but our capacity to conduct any of these missions would be greatly advanced

One of the subsidiary reasons why the space race ended was than the 6 Apollo landings suggested that the Moon was a samey, unpromising foothold in space & that Mars was at least technology leaps beyond our capacity. What is now the most promising next new target-the large number of low delta v near Earth asteroids-were barely acknowledged in those far off days

With regards
Robert