Some respectable thinkers feel that the Apollo Project was something of a fluke, that it happened only because conditions were just right.
In 1961 the U.S. was enjoying huge prosperity and confidence. The country was relatively harmonious compared with the rancorous partisan divisions of the 1930’s or of the post-rational era. Competition with the Soviets dominated large-scale political thinking. And America had one of its most charismatic and widely-admired Presidents, a man eager to tout big ideas. Despite all this, many top advisers thought the project was ridiculously expensive and difficult; even Kennedy had misgivings and may have regretted his public proposal.
It might be interesting to start a IMHO thread: What are the biggest projects Man has ever attempted? I think the Great Pyramids of Giza and the Apollo Moon Landings would be somewhere near the top of the list. The difficulty of placing a man on the Moon and bringing him safely back to Earth is suggested by the fact that, despite the successful demonstration and despite China striving to demonstrate its own greatness, no human has landed on the Moon for almost 46 years.
Having said all that, the fact remains that Nazi Germany was dominated by charismatic thinking and a quest for glory. Perhaps, like Kennedy, a Nazi leader would also have made the “conquest of space” a priority.
We’re Nazis on the moon!
We came in a balloon!
Now there are no Jews
And that’s good news,
So we sing a happy tune!
(Fans of Futurama, I apologize profusely…)
IANAAEOS (I am not an aerospace engineer or scientist,) but I suspect the reason nobody’s landed a man on the Moon since the Apollos ended isn’t so much because of the difficulty of it as it is that there was and is almost no incentive or reason to do so. It has already been “done” and for a nation like China to spend many billions to get a man to the Moon would be great cost for almost nothing - they would gain relatively little prestige, spend a lot, and the Moon has almost nothing useful to offer. For China to be the first to send a man to Mars, however, would be a huge boost to national prestige (but not enough that they have seriously pursued it to date.)
It’s not just nitpicking to say that it was the Germans who could have won or lost that war, not the Nazis. Unless you want to rename all of the other countries in that war according to which political parties they had elected. US soldiers in Vietnam were not all called “the Democrats” at some times and then switched to being all called “the Republicans” after an election. They were called “the Americans”, because that’s who they were. Lots of German soldiers in the war hadn’t voted for Hitler.
While you’re technically correct, Germany left themselves one hell of a hole to dig out on that one. When you start a world war, with a huge helping of genocide on the side, you get the moniker you get.
