What If the Apollo Program Had Continued? 389
proslack writes "The die had been cast years before Apollo 11 had even reached the moon. In the late 1960s, the Vietnam war was straining US finances. A fatal fire on the Apollo launch pad in January 1967 had blotted NASA's copybook. The Soviet moon effort seemed to be going nowhere. In the budget debates during the summer of 1967, Congress refused NASA's request to fund an extended moon programme.
What if things had been different that summer? Suppose Congress had granted NASA's wish, then fast-forward 40-odd years..." A nice little what-if sort of story that makes sorta nostalgic for a non-existent present.
Good News Wverybody! (Score:5, Funny)
We would be working with Zoidberg and be drinking Slurm.
Nice (Score:4, Funny)
Johnson City is a nice place... (Score:5, Funny)
...but it's got no atmosphere...
The Secret Studios in Nevada Would be Busy.... (Score:5, Funny)
The Secret studios in Nevada where they faked the moon landings would be really busy, they would be having to fake not only the moon bases, but the Mars landings and the bases there as well.
Because we never made it past low earth orbit.
The Above thread is sarcastic, if you hadn't noticed.
If the Apollo program had continued... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Johnson City is a nice place... (Score:3, Funny)
gasp!
Simularities Bizzaro World (Score:2, Funny)
We would still be driving around the planet in gasoline driven speedsters.
We would not have not cured world hunger.
We would have more than enough nuclear warheads to destroy the planet.
Wars would not have been abolished.
The 747 wouldn't still be the largest airliner.
Oh yeah.. wait a minute, where have I been?
Re:If Apollo program had continued (Score:3, Funny)
You forgot warp drive and space elevator.
Re:Bad news (Score:5, Funny)
If we'd continued the Apollo missions, we'd have found either:
1) That there was indeed a prehistoric alien civilization on the backside of the moon.
2) That it was almost impossible to hide the continued war between advanced US and Russian spaceships on the backside of the moon.
3) There was indeed a better alternative to space icecream.
Re:Bad news (Score:2, Funny)
3) There was indeed a better alternative to space icecream.
In Space No One Can Eat Ice Cream
Re:My guess (Score:3, Funny)
Re:If Apollo program had continued (Score:4, Funny)
NASA got out their abacuses
Pedantic nit: they used slide rules back then. Abacuses (the electronic ones that use bits for balls that you have on your desk) were for heavy-duty computations.
Re:we need a definitive goal (Score:1, Funny)
Look at the small one in Arizona - it is 3 miles across and a mile deep still after 50,000 years of erosion.
To be fair, erosion is sort of a myth in Arizona. We get just enough rain in a year to wash off about half of the dust that settled in between storms.
Apollo with more stamina? (Score:1, Funny)
He would have beaten Rocky in both movies. That's simple.
Re:If the Apollo Program would have continued . . (Score:4, Funny)
I was actually thinking more along the lines of "In a civil war re-enactment we need lots of Indians to shoot."
Ok, I'm more a child of the early 90s than the late 70s.
Re:Bad news (Score:3, Funny)
In Space No One Can Eat Ice Cream
In space no one can hear you scream for ice cream. We all do it, though.
Re:Good News Wverybody! (Score:2, Funny)