19th century British moon landing
In the aftermath of the <PERSON> doctrine, the British empire decided to expand heavenward. As the nobles, captains, empiricists, electricians, and mechanics explained to the Majesty, technological advances now opened the way to new heights of colonization (literally). For example: - The first manned flight of a balloon in America occurred January 9, 1793 - Diving apparatuses had been in use for centuries, and by 1836, proto-standardized diving suits were successfully being used to recover undersea wreckage - By 1856, commercial methods for refining pure aluminum existed - The first commercially successful internal combustion engine was created by <PERSON> around 1860 - Solid fuel rockets were already being used in warfare, notably the war of 1812 and the Napoleanic wars ... Accuracy greatly improved in 1844 when <PERSON> modified the rocket design so that thrust was slightly vectored - <PERSON> began to construct a small difference engine in c. 1819 and had completed it by 1822 - The first wireless telephone conversation occurred in 1880, when <PERSON> and <PERSON> invented the photophone, a telephone that sent audio over a beam of light.
Drawing on these advances, the Crown's personal backing, and 49 years of hard R&D (spanning 1850-1899), the British rocketeers developed 5 Shooting Stars: massive rockets capable of landing 1000 kg each on the moon. As efficient liquid fuel engines were yet to be developed, the boosters employed gunpowder-based engines which were 'gimbaled' by sliding inhibitory rods between fuel pellets to tune their reaction rates -- not too differently than would be employed in nuclear reactors decades later. Inefficient hydrogen-oxygen combustion thrusters performed finer correction maneuvers. 308
The entire ascent sequence and translunar orbit injection was governed by a collection of clocks, tabulating machines, and tilt-sensitive governers. However, since it would be until 1935 that radar was discovered, humans were needed to pilot the lander stage -- there was no room for unmanned tests.
The Shooting Stars were quite heavy in comparison to modern rockets: with an exhaust velocity of only 800 m/s, the overall launch vehicle weighed in on the order of billions of pounds and thus required a mass ratio in the 10000's. To compensate, all 5 Shooting Stars were launched within a few hours of each other, and landed within a 100 yard neighborhood on the surface of the moon. While each of the landers carried some fuel needed for the return ascent, only one was specially equipped with the balloons, air-tanks, and food that would be needed for the return journey and reentry.
The launch day finally came on December 1st, 1899. Rushing to launch what they had yet produced in time for the turn of the century, all 5 Shooting Stars took off from the Port of London. Most ended in disaster: the first rocket's gunpowder fuel pellets had inhomogeneities that caused an explosion early in takeoff; the third rocket made it through ascent, but had a compressed gas leak that irreversibly steered it off course until the captain noticed it too late, thankfully, this was the space-vessel with reentry and landing equipment, so it simply reentered and landed in Fiji, where the captain started a cargo cult after himself; residual turbulence fields from rockets 3 and 4 steered rocket 5 off-course, ultimately crashing in Berlin and triggering an early World War I; rockets 2 and 4 successfully landed on the moon, but as the ascent lander never made it, all they could do was photophone their feat home and ask for help. Given the new war on their hands, Britain was not able to help.
Sticking to hard science, could such an alternate history of space exploration be possible? 99