NASA Revealed What Would've Happened If The Moon Landing Had Failed
On July 20, 1969, the world watched with bated breath as man walked on the Moon for the very first time. It was a historic achievement for the United States, one seen by 650 million people on television. What would have happened if this incredible moment hadn’t gone as planned, though? What would have happened to the astronauts in the event of a failed landing? There was so much that could have gone wrong, and now we know NASA’s plan if it had.
The Space Race is on
“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.” With these fateful words, uttered by President John F. Kennedy on May 25, 1961, America had officially upped the stakes in its Space Race with the Soviet Union.
A little over eight years later — on July 20, 1969, to be exact — Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first and second men to set foot on the lunar surface.
What if the worst-case scenario had come to pass?
We all know this story of triumph, but what we don’t often consider is the sheer uncertainty of it all. For instance, even though NASA successfully landed their astronauts on the Moon, there was no guarantee they’d be able to get them home.
This was uncharted territory, and if something went wrong, there wasn’t a lot that could be done back on Earth to mount a rescue. This is why a contingency plan was put in place should the worst happen.
A fateful call
A few weeks before the Apollo 11 mission was scheduled to blast off into the stratosphere, White House senior speechwriter William Safire received a phone call from Frank Borman, the commander of Apollo 8.
Borman was a decorated astronaut and the man tasked with being the President’s NASA liaison. On this particular day, though, he wasn’t simply calling to update Safire on NASA’s progress.
“In the event of mishaps”
In a 1999 essay in The New York Times entitled “Disaster Never Came,” Safire revealed that Borman actually wanted to speak about something uncomfortable. The worried astronaut told him, “You want to be thinking of some alternative posture for the President in the event of mishaps.”
As Safire freely admitted, though, the true implications of Borman’s words didn’t quite register at first. What did he mean by “mishaps?” Was there something he wanted to say, but didn’t know how?
“Like what we do for the widows”
When Safire pushed for Borman to tell him what he was driving at in more plain English, the NASA man said, “Like what to do for the widows.” Then it hit Safire like a ton of bricks.
Borman was telling him he needed to prepare the President for the eventuality that no one wanted to consider. In essence, Nixon needed to know what to say if the Apollo 11 crew didn’t make it home from the Moon.
Getting back wasn’t guaranteed
According to Safire, “The most dangerous part of the trip was not landing the little module on the Moon, but in launching it back up to the mother ship. If that failed, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin could not be rescued.”
Indeed, it was a constant worry for NASA: all it would take would be a glitch in one of the module’s onboard computers, or for an ascent engine to sputter instead of igniting.
Potential calamities abounded
Indeed, the list of potentially fatal calamities the astronauts could face on the lunar surface was terrifying. What if they managed to get off the surface, but couldn’t dock with the command module piloted by Michael Collins?
Even more frightening, what if the lunar dust which had found its way onto their spacesuits ignited as soon as it came into contact with the oxygen inside the lunar module?
“We’ve chosen not to think about that”
In truth, for the astronauts themselves, it almost didn’t bear thinking about. At a Cape Canaveral press conference, Armstrong was asked what he would do if the ascent engine malfunctioned.
He replied, “That’s an unpleasant thing to think about. We’ve chosen not to think about that at the present time. We don’t think that’s a likely situation. It’s simply a possible one.”
In the back of everyone’s mind
At the core of it, Armstrong knew that if this awful scenario did play out, there would be absolutely nothing he or his colleagues could do. He admitted, “At the present time, we’re left with no recourse should that occur.”
He later added, “We were not distracted by the question of whether the ascent engine would light, but we were surely thinking about it.” In truth, how could they not think about it?
The Apollo 1 disaster
Of course, none of this was idle worry from NASA: the agency had already experienced tragedy in its efforts to put a man on the Moon. In 1967 a horrific cabin fire had broken out during an Apollo 1 training exercise on the launch pad.
It had resulted in the deaths of all three astronauts on board — Ed White, Virgil “Gus” Grissom, and Roger Chaffee — and had been a terrible black eye for the agency.
Concerns were raised
You see, all three astronauts had been worried about flammable Velcro and nylon being a part of the command module. They had raised those concerns with Apollo Spacecraft Program Office manager Joseph Shea, and he’d requested that the offending materials should be replaced.
Unforgivably, this never happened, and the flammable materials stayed put. In its relentless pursuit of reaching the Moon, and having experienced many successes by that point, perhaps NASA had become complacent.
An horrific outcome
White, Grissom, and Chaffee were likely killed instantly when the 1,000°F blaze erupted in their tiny module. It then took 5 minutes for rescuers to even get the module’s hatch open, due to an overly complicated latch system.
The interior had been so hot that the brave men’s bodies couldn’t even be removed for six long hours. Horrifyingly, they had become fused to the cabin’s nylon interior — the very material they had warned against.
The “defining moment” in the race for the Moon
In his book Failure Is Not an Option, Gene Kranz — NASA’s flight director at the time, and a man who admitted his team had been too gung-ho in their preparations — wrote, “It was perhaps the defining moment in our race to get to the Moon.”
The director, who must have felt tremendous guilt, continued, “The ultimate success of Apollo was made possible by the sacrifices of Grissom, White, and Chaffee. The accident profoundly affected everyone in the program.”
Is the conquest of space worth the risk of life?
Everyone at NASA knew there was a risk to the life of their astronauts in everything they did. In fact, only weeks before he died, Grissom had told the media, “If we die, we want people to accept it.
He’d continued, “We hope that if anything happens to us, it will not delay the program. The conquest of space is worth the risk of life.” But this attitude perhaps led to NASA cutting corners, and that could not be allowed to continue.
“Their deaths would not be in vain”
Spurred on by its tragic failure, NASA set about making alterations to its spacecraft: thousands of them. It took a full 20 months before the agency was prepared to try for the Moon again, and this time it knew it had to be better prepared.
Indeed, Kranz knew the agency had three men’s memories to honor, and he didn’t take that responsibility lightly. He wrote, “There was an unspoken promise on everyone’s part to the three astronauts that their deaths would not be in vain.”
Closing down communications
This worry — that tragedy could always be around the corner — meant NASA wanted the President prepared for how to address the nation. They also needed him to be aware of the grim realities of any potential situation, though.
This is why Borman told Safire that Mission Control would “close down communications” with Apollo 11 if the men became marooned — a thinly veiled euphemism for letting them choose to kill themselves or asphyxiate.
Would it be inviting bad luck?
Would it be inviting bad luck to write such a speech?
Nixon’s aides Peter Flanigan and H.R. Haldeman soon confirmed they did want Safire to compose a speech for the President to deliver to the American people in case this tragic situation arose.
Safire was reticent at first: he felt it might be inviting bad luck to acknowledge this horrible eventuality. But he soon realized he didn’t really have a choice, and so he got to work.
In the event of Moon disaster
On July 18, 1969, Safire turned in a draft of the speech, along with some other instructions. These read, In event of Moon disaster… the President should telephone each of the widows-to-be,” to give them his condolences.
Then, after NASA had severed contact with the men, “a clergyman should adopt the same procedure as a burial at sea, commending their souls to ‘the deepest of the deep,’ concluding with the Lord’s Prayer.”
Taking inspiration from Eisenhower
The speech itself was heavily inspired by one President Dwight D. Eisenhower had prepared during World War II in the eventuality that the D-Day landings on the beaches of Normandy had gone awry.
At that time, he was General of the U.S. Army, and he had reportedly scribbled a statement on a piece of paper on June 5, 1944. He’d then folded it up, put it in his wallet, and hoped against hope that he’d never need to read it publicly.
“Fate has ordained…”
Safire felt the exact same way as Eisenhower had back in 1944: he hoped his speech would never see the light of day. After all, if it did, it meant the worst had come to pass.
Still, he put everything he had into composing the text, and it’s a wonderfully poignant piece of writing. It began, “Fate has ordained that the men who went to the Moon to explore in peace will stay on the Moon to rest in peace.”
“Hope for mankind in their sacrifice”
The speech continued by spotlighting the two astronauts doomed to end their lives on a cold space rock, more than 200,000 miles away from home and everyone they’d ever known.
Safire wrote, “These brave men — Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin — know that there is no hope for their recovery. But they also know that there is hope for mankind in their sacrifice.”
“The search for truth and understanding”
Safire’s text continued, “These two men are laying down their lives in mankind’s most noble goal: the search for truth and understanding. They will be mourned by their families and friends.”
It went on, “They will be mourned by their nation; they will be mourned by the people of the world; they will be mourned by a Mother Earth that dared send two of her sons into the unknown.”
“Epic men of flesh and blood”
Next, Safire broadened the scope of the address to encompass the ancient human desire to explore the cosmos. He wrote, “In their exploration, they stirred the people of the world to feel as one; in their sacrifice, they bind more tightly the brotherhood of man.”
It continued, “In ancient days, men looked at stars and saw their heroes in the constellations. In modern times, we do much the same, but our heroes are epic men of flesh and blood.”
“Some corner of another world that is forever mankind”
“Others will follow, and surely find their way home,” Safire’s speech went on. “Man’s search will not be denied. But these men were the first, and they will remain the foremost in our hearts.”
The never-used oratory continued, “For every human being who looks up at the Moon in the nights to come will know that there is some corner of another world that is forever mankind.”
An homage to The Soldier
Fascinatingly, the speech’s evocative final line was Safire’s homage to Rupert Brooke’s classic poem The Soldier. The construction of the sentence, and its inherent meaning, was intentionally reminiscent of that poem’s closing line.
That had read,
“If I should die, think only this of me:
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England.”
All in all, it was certainly a fitting way to conclude this incredibly important speech.
Collins’ secret terror
To everyone’s relief, of course, Aldrin and Armstrong were able to return from the Moon safely. Post-mission, Collins wrote about how nerve-racking it truly had been as he hovered above the Moon in the command module.
He confessed, “My secret terror for the last six months has been leaving them on the Moon and returning to Earth alone… If they fail to rise from the surface, or if they crash back into it… I will be a marked man for life, and I know it.”
The public was none the wiser
In the end, Safire’s “worst possible scenario” speech wasn’t needed, and it wound up sitting in the National Archives for 30 years. For those three decades, the public had no idea how seriously the President had contemplated that terrible outcome.
Then in 1999 Los Angeles Times journalist Jim Mann accidentally laid eyes on a piece of history while conducting research for his book About Face. He couldn’t believe what he was reading.
Safire hadn’t thought about that macabre planning “for decades”
Naturally, the speech was published in full in the newspaper — on the week before the anniversary of the Moon landing, no less — and Safire was hit with a barrage of memories. As he admitted at the time, “I haven’t thought about that macabre planning for three decades.”
He had instead only allowed himself to think about the good memories. He noted, “Like most adults, I remembered the exhilarating ‘Men Walk On Moon’ headline, the phone call of congratulations to ‘Tranquility Base.’”
The Apollo program limped on
When the U.S. landed on the Moon — the moment Armstrong took one small step for man and one giant leap for mankind — the Space Race with the USSR came to an end. The Apollo program continued for three more years, though.
During this time, 12 more astronauts made it to the surface of the Moon. By then, though, the public had become weary of repeated Moon landings, and so had those in power. This ennui eventually led to the program being wound up.
Why did America give up on the Space Race so quickly?
America hasn’t sent a man to the Moon in the five decades since, instead focusing its efforts on low-Earth orbit targets. Why, though? Why would the country put so much time, money, and effort into the space program, only to lose interest once it achieved its goal?
Well, writer Piers Bizony — who penned an autobiography of legendary Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the first astronaut to ever go into space — has a theory. It’s all about the fundamental differences in each country’s philosophy.
“Once you think you’ve won it you tend to stop running”
In Starman, Bizony suggested, “The Russians were in the business of conquering space. The Americans felt they were in a race, and the nature of a race is that once you think you've won it, you tend to stop running.”
It’s a simple explanation, but it makes perfect sense: NASA’s goal had been to beat Russia to the Moon, and it did that. Going further simply wasn’t a priority for the country.
If the Soviets had won, the Space Race might still be going
Both Bizony and historian Christopher Riley firmly believe that, if the USSR had put the first man on the Moon, it wouldn’t have stopped there. The country at this time wasn’t a democracy: far from it.
This would have meant the government could have funnelled as much money and resources into furthering the space program as it wanted, regardless of what the public thought. Riley even thinks Russia would have constructed bases on the surface of the Moon.
Would the race have led to Mars?
Fascinatingly, Riley also believes the USSR’s efforts would have in turn spurred America on. He claimed to the BBC, “The history that followed in the decades afterwards would have been completely different.”
For starters, he thinks the U.S. would have attempted to send a spacecraft to Mars, to one-up Russia. This idea might sound far-fetched, until you find out what the Vice President had been saying in the ‘60s!
It was on the drawing board
You see, in that decade of infinite possibility, Spiro Agnew publicly stated the intention had been for NASA to go to Mars by 1980. Riley said, “They certainly had it in their minds and on their drawing boards.”
He was adamant that NASA had given it serious consideration, saying, “There were designs of methods to get to Mars that might have been put into action in response to a Soviet landing on the Moon.”
For All Mankind
In 2019 the vision of an alternate history in which the Space Race never ended found its way to prestige television. AppleTV+ series For All Mankind — created by Ronald D. Moore of Battlestar Galactica fame — was timed to air on the 50th anniversary of the Moon landing.
It played with many of the same theories the likes of Bizony and Riley have cited, with the show’s central question being, “How would NASA have reacted if the Soviet Union had landed a man on the Moon first?”
A show about the space program people thought they were getting
Moore had initially been approached about creating a drama featuring NASA in the ‘70s, but he’d felt that wouldn’t have been dramatically satisfying, given the agency’s “diminishing expectations and lowering ambitions” in that decade.
Instead, he pitched something else to Apple TV co-chief Zack Van Amburg. He suggested, “Why don’t we do a show that’s about the space program you and I thought we were going to get when we were kids?”
“I thought it was gonna go much bigger than it did”
You see, back when he was a child, Moore had been obsessed with NASA and the space program. He told Collider, “It was really the catalyst for inspiring me to become interested in science fiction, overall.”
He continued, “So, it was very important, in my personal life. And when I was growing up, watching the space program in the ‘70s, I thought it was gonna go places. I thought it was gonna go much bigger than it did.”
An aspirational alternate-history piece
Moore continued, “I had dreams of Moon bases and colonization, and all kinds of things that never came to pass. The idea of doing the history that I never got to see was personally really exciting and interesting to me.”
The TV auteur added that his vision for the show had been based in positivity. He said, “This particular piece is very aspirational. It’s a very positive idea of a better world that could come about from an alternate-history piece.”
Would the world have been a better place?
Ultimately, Moore’s thesis was that, if Russia hadn’t just put a man on the Moon, but a woman, then the possibilities for the Space Race would have been almost endless.
He explained, “It’s like, ‘Wow, by expanding the space-racing and stepping strongly into the universe, the world became a better place, and the nation became a better place.’ It’s a very optimistic sort of idea for an alternate-history piece.”