what if the ussr had reached the moon first suppose the soviets had managed to get their moon rocket working and had made it first they could have beaten us if either their rocket hadn t blown up on the pad thus setting them back and or a saturn v went boom if they had beaten us i speculate that the us would have gone head and done some landings but we also would have been more determined to set up a base both in earth orbit and on the moon whether or not we would be on mars by now would depend upon whether the soviets tried to go setting up a lunar base would have stretched the budgets of both nations and i think that the military value of a lunar base would outweigh the value of going to mars at least in the short run thus we would have concentrated on the moon james t green jgreen oboe calpoly edu i believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal before this decade is out of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth john f kennedy may
