What if the United States Launched the First Satellite?

[Kerbalsaurus]

It sounds crazy, but there was a proposal that would later come into fruition- albeit after Sputnik 1. This proposal was made by none other than Wernher Von Braun himself, and it said that if they used the Redstone Rockets the United States already had available, then they could have a satellite up by '56. The satellite designed by Von Braun and his team was the Explorer satellite. However, when proposed to U.S., they said "Nah man, the Navy's got this. Vanguard's doing just fine!"

Explorer would later be built, and became America's first satellite on January 1^st, 1958, but the U.S. would still remain second behind the Soviets. But what if Von Braun did succeed in getting his proposal through? What if Explorer 1 became the first satellite to orbit the Earth? Would the U.S. have an advantageous position, and land men on the Moon earlier than Apollo? Or would America soon toss it to the side, and the Soviets would prevail?

Edited November 26, 2023 by Kerbalsaurus

[kerbiloid]

Based on the fact that Redstone was derived from A-4 (V-2), the first Von Braun satellite could be launched even in 1946, from Peenemuende, if the events were developing differently, lol.
Looks like since 1940 till 1956 the Americans were focused on stopping von Braun from launching something into space, then on letting him quickly get to the Moon, get happy, and retire. Then, finally, since the mid-1970s, they got able of calmly doing what they need.

 

Added to the list.

Sputnik

Stayputnik

8 hours ago, Kerbalsaurus said: Sptunik

 

[SunlitZelkova]

The US launching the first satellite into space might have had major effects on world history.

Historically, the launch of Sputnik caused a crisis within the US defence establishment, causing a rise in defence spending due to the “missile gap” scare.

If the US launched the first satellite, there would probably be no missile gap crisis. This would result in reduced funding for the Atlas and Titan ICBM programs. In addition, there would probably be no Space Race, which was largely only feasible because of the fear Sputnik inspired in the West. Eisenhower grudgingly supported Project Mercury due to public pressure for a response to supposed Soviet success.

However, that’s not say a man might never fly into space. The USAF and Army were exploring a sort of proto-Mercury program called Project Man Very High, and it might have gotten funding.

But a major consequence of there being no missile gap scare is that the Cold War nuclear arms race might come to a conclusion much earlier than in our timeline. Historically the Sputnik scare caused the USAF to propose a force of 2,500 Minuteman ICBMs, while Congress demanded a force of 1,000. This in turn forced the USSR to undertaken its own massive missile buildup.

Without Sputnik being first, this probably wouldn’t happen. Thus both the US and Soviet ICBM arsenals would remain frozen at about 200-300 missiles, which is what each side was contemplating prior to the Sputnik crisis.

Another dire consequence of the US winning the satellite race would be that with no missile gap issue to help propel him to the Presidency, John F. Kennedy might barely lose the election to Nixon in 1960.

A combination of no Kennedy and no race to put the first man in space which the Soviets win would likely mean there would never be a project Apollo. The notion that the US- or anybody for that matter- was not going to fly to the Moon until the late 20th century (1980s or 1990s) or even after 2000 might remain the prevailing view.

I haven’t refreshed my knowledge of the early Soviet space programs recently, but I am pretty sure that no propaganda victory with the launch of the first satellite would mean Khrushchev would not fund further satellites or spacecraft after Sputnik 1. The military was very reluctant to allow Korolev to do that in the first place, and if it didn’t have propaganda value he wouldn’t have gotten more funding. At best, reconnaissance satellites might be built, but there would probably not be any extra money for a man in space like Vostok given Khrushchev’s desire to cut costs.

On a much wider note, given that the nuclear arms race of the 60s is part of what doomed the USSR, that might change the entire history of the Cold War. Same with Nixon being president during the pivotal years of 1960-1965 too.

[kerbiloid]

1 hour ago, SunlitZelkova said:

Historically, the launch of Sputnik caused a crisis within the US defence establishment, causing a rise in defence spending due to the “missile gap” scare.

If the US launched the first satellite, there would probably be no missile gap crisis. This would result in reduced funding for the Atlas and Titan ICBM programs. In addition, there would probably be no Space Race, which was largely only feasible because of the fear Sputnik inspired in the West. Eisenhower grudgingly supported Project Mercury due to public pressure for a response to supposed Soviet success.

R-7 was already flying for several months, and its capability was obvious for everyone in the US establishment, to whom it may concern.
U-2 was flying since 1955, and it revealed the Baikonur in Aug 1957.

So, the whole fear of Sputnik was a promo-action to get more gold from budget.

1 hour ago, SunlitZelkova said:

Historically the Sputnik scare caused the USAF to propose a force of 2,500 Minuteman ICBMs

When https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missile_gap#Discrepancy_between_intelligence_and_information_made_public

Quote

National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) 11-10-57, issued in December 1957, predicted that the Soviets would "probably have a first operational capability with up to 10 prototype ICBMs" at "some time during the period from mid-1958 to mid-1959." The numbers started to inflate.

A similar report gathered only a few months later, NIE 11-5-58, released in August 1958, concluded that the USSR had "the technical and industrial capability... to have an operational capability with 100 ICBMs" some time in 1960 and perhaps 500 ICBMs "some time in 1961, or at the latest in 1962."^[1]

However, senior U.S. leadership knew these estimates of existing Soviet missile capabilities were completely inaccurate. Beginning with the collection of photo-intelligence by high-altitude U-2 overflights of the Soviet Union in 1956, the Eisenhower administration had increasingly-hard evidence that strategic weapons estimates favoring the Soviets were false. The CIA placed the number of ICBMs to be closer to a dozen. Continued sporadic flights failed to turn up any evidence of additional missiles. But the White House and the CIA wished to protect the secrecy of the source of the information--the photographs captured by the U-2 flying in illegal violation of Soviet airspace--and so they continued to hide the more accurate information that there were nearly zero Soviet ICBMs deployed.^[3] They kept the American public in the dark even though they knew from the start that the Soviets were monitoring the U-2 overflights. On the very day of the first U-2 overflight the Soviet ambassador to Washington protested the high-altitude violation of Soviet airspace, a fact denied by Washington and reported on by the press.^[4]

, so 2 500 Minutemans against estimated dozens of R-7, R-9, and R-16 were ordered from the Reds fear, rather than from pumping more gold by Thiokol  et al. lobby.

1 hour ago, SunlitZelkova said:

that no propaganda victory with the launch of the first satellite would mean Khrushchev would not fund further satellites or spacecraft after Sputnik 1

The Sputnik-1 was a by-product of the ICBM program, and its further payload was a Vostok/Zenith spysat, which would be developed regardless of planting flag in orbit.
And the role of the propaganda among the Soviet people is overestimated, they had enough daily problems, to care a lot about the space. Just it would be declared that the American capitalists have sneakily launched a satellite, to cowardly threaten the Country of Soviets from sky, so all of us must understand the hardness of the situation, and work twice as good.

 

1 hour ago, SunlitZelkova said:

Another dire consequence of the US winning the satellite race would be that with no missile gap issue to help propel him to the Presidency, John F. Kennedy might barely lose the election to Nixon in 1960.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennedy_family

Since 1885 near the throne.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1960_United_States_presidential_election

Presidential candidate	Party	Home state	Popular vote		Electoral vote	Running mate
			Count	Percentage		Vice-presidential candidate	Home state	Electoral vote
John Fitzgerald Kennedy	Democratic	Massachusetts	34,220,984(a)	49.72%	303	Lyndon Baines Johnson	Texas	303
Richard Milhous Nixon	Republican	California	34,108,157	49.55%	219	Henry Cabot Lodge Jr.	Massachusetts	219

= "the situation was being kept hanged till the last moment, when the establishment got to consensus, which one to prefer without shocking the public by quick flip."

Spoiler

Others are statistically cheerleaders:

Electoral results

Presidential candidate	Party	Home state	Popular vote		Electoral vote	Running mate
			Count	Percentage		Vice-presidential candidate	Home state	Electoral vote
Harry Flood Byrd Sr.	Democratic	Virginia	—(b)	—(b)	15	James Strom Thurmond Sr.	South Carolina	14
						Barry Morris Goldwater(c)	Arizona	1(c)
(unpledged electors)	Democratic	(n/a)	286,359	0.42%	—(d)	(n/a)	(n/a)	—(d)
Eric Hass	Socialist Labor	New York	47,522	0.07%	0	Georgia Olive Cozzini	Wisconsin	0
Rutherford Losey Decker	Prohibition	Missouri	46,203	0.07%	0	Earle Harold Munn	Michigan	0
Orval Eugene Faubus	States' Rights	Arkansas	44,984	0.07%	0	John Geraerdt Crommelin Jr.	Alabama	0
Farrell Dobbs	Socialist Workers	New York	40,175	0.06%	0	Myra Tanner Weiss	New York	0
Charles L. Sullivan	Constitution	Mississippi	(TX) 18,162	0.03%	0	Merritt Barton Curtis	California	0
Joseph Bracken Lee	Conservative	Utah	(NJ) 8,708	0.01%	0	Kent Courtney	Louisiana	0
Other			11,128	0.02%	—	Other		—
Total			68,832,482	100%	537			537
Needed to win					269			269

 

***

So, the only effects of the PS-1 launched first were:
some capitalists got richer by redistributing some money from other capitalists; 
the native developers have crapped their pants, so let the freaking former pedants do their work.

 

Edited November 26, 2023 by kerbiloid