Besides “For All Mankind” what other books depict an alternate space program?
For All Mankind is a critically acclaimed TV series now airing on the Apple Plus streaming service. The premise is that the Soviets beat NASA to the moon. As a result, the space race continues at least through the 1990s, changing the world we know in a number of ways. Human beings are exploring Mars in the mid-1990s while a fusion energy revolution, powered by helium-3 mined from the Moon, has brought about limitless energy and has solved climate change before it became a problem.
In reality, we stopped going to the moon in 1972 and have not been back since. Recently, NASA has started the Artemis program that will return humans to the lunar surface and, in the fullness of time, send them to Mars, fulfilling the promise of For All Mankind, decades later than the TV series.
A number of books play with the space program going in other directions. Here are a few of them.
The Apollo Murders by Chris Hadfield
Part alternate history and part Tom Clancy-style techno thriller, the story involves the fictional mission of Apollo 18. It turns out that the final mission to the moon has a secret, military purpose that threatens to make the Cold War hot on the lunar surface. Written by a Canadian astronaut.
Back to the Moon by Homer Hickam
Jack Medaris hijacks the space shuttle Columbia and outfits it for a journey to the moon. On the lunar surface, Medaris plans to retrieve some of the most valuable substance in the solar system, which will change human civilization forever. Of course, he not only has to make it to the moon but back to Earth alive. Written by the world famous author of Rocket Boys.
Back to the Moon by Travis S. Taylor and Les Johnson
What if President Bush’s back to the moon program had not been cancelled. A crew of intrepid American astronauts are headed to the lunar surface for the first time in decades. Their voyage turns into a rescue mission when a Chinese expedition lands first and is trapped on the moon.
A Brother on the Moon by Mark R. Whittington\
Major Robert Henry Lawrence was America’s first black astronaut, but is little known since he was not a NASA employee but worked for the Air Force’s Manned Orbiting Laboratory program. He died in a plane crash in 1967. But what if Lawrence had survived the crash and joined an Apollo voyage to the moon?
Children of Apollo by Mark R. Whittington
After the flight of Apollo 11, President Richard Nixon decided to ramp up the space race, the theory being that he could spend the Soviets into the ground and extract arms control concessions. The story ends with the mission of Apollo 23, which contains the first woman astronaut. The lunar module is trapped on the moon after it is sabotaged. A privately developed spacecraft is used to rescue the crew and bring them home safely to Earth.
Voyage by Stephen Baxter
What if JFK had survived Dallas and lived to persuade President Richard Nixon to push for an expedition to Mars to take place in the 1980s?
V-S Day by Allen Steele
In the midst of World War II, Nazi Germany decides to build an orbiting rocket capable of attacking the United States. The United States starts its own space program, headed by Robert Goddard, to build a spaceship to stop the Nazis. A space race thus develops in the 1940s with the world as the prize.
Mark Whittington, who writes frequently about space policy, has published a political study of space exploration entitled Why is It So Hard to Go Back to the Moon? as well as The Moon, Mars and Beyond, and, most recently, Why is America Going Back to the Moon? He blogs at Curmudgeons Corner. He is published in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, The Hill, USA Today, the LA Times, and the Washington Post, among other venues.
