What is the biggest what-if in the space race?

Cancelled programmes, dead designers, rockets that never worked. Each one moved a deadline that is still moving.

1. 1
   The Cancelled Apollo 18, 19 and 20

   Three funded lunar landings were scrapped, and the hardware ended up in museums.
   1000pts
2. 2
   Apollo 8 Flying Without a Lunar Module

   The mission was rewritten months before launch into a risk NASA had never planned to take.
   927pts
3. 3
   The Cancellation of the Constellation Programme

   A planned return to the Moon was shut down in 2010, delaying the next crewed lunar flight by more than a decade.
   800pts
4. 4
   Apollo 13's Oxygen Tank

   A damaged tank ruptured 200,000 miles out, and the landing became a survival problem instead.
   600pts
5. 5
   Gagarin's Fatal Crash

   The first person in space died in a training flight in 1968 at 34, having been barred from flying again.
   466pts
6. 6
   The Space Shuttle Instead of a Moon Base

   NASA spent the 1970s building a reusable truck to low Earth orbit rather than staying at the Moon.
   466pts
7. 7
   Von Braun's Mars Plan

   A crewed Mars expedition was sketched for the early 1980s using Apollo-derived hardware, and never funded.
   466pts
8. 8
   Skylab's Re-entry

   America's first station was abandoned after three crews and burned up in 1979 with no replacement ready.
   466pts
9. 9
   The Soviet Moonsuit

   The Krechet suit was built and tested for a landing that was cancelled before anyone wore it beyond Earth.
   466pts
10. 10
    The Apollo 1 Fire

    A cabin fire during a launch rehearsal on 27 January 1967 killed Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee.
    0pts
11. 11
    Korolev's Death in 1966

    The Soviet chief designer died during routine surgery, and the lunar programme lost the only person able to hold it together.
    0pts

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