What if some other flag were on the moon?

Alternate Histories of Space Travel.

Ministry of Space, written by Warren Ellis, illustrated by Chris Weston and Laura Martin.

What If? Vol 1: Russians on the Moon!, written by Fred Duval, Jean-Pierre Pécau and Fred Blanchard, illustrated by Philippe Buchet and Walter.

Graphic Novel Reviews by Kerey McKenna.

So with the anniversary of the first Apollo Moon Landing tomorrow and all this talk of new American space travel projects under a militarized “Space Force,” I started to think, what if America didn’t land on the moon on July 20th 1969? No, I’m not saying Americans never actually went to the moon—I don’t want to get punched by a national hero. What I mean to say is what if America hadn’t been the ones to take those first small steps into the cosmos, but another nation? What might that mean about the politics and technology of space travel?

Well, if you, like me, enjoy exploring a little bit of contra-history, two graphic novellas, What If?: Russians on the Moon! and Ministry of Space, play with the idea of manned space travel in the twentieth century that wasn’t dictated by America’s on again off again love affair with space.

What If?: Russians on the Moon! starts with the premise of a tragedy befalling the brave crew of Apollo 11. America’s moonshot is thwarted when a micro-meteor ruptures the hull of the lunar lander during descent to the moon, killing crew members Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin. However moon exploration doesn’t end there: a Russian Cosmonaut lands on the moon successfully, putting another tally on the board for the USSR in the space race.

Presumably because the US cannot afford a Moon Gap, they in turn send more successful missions to the moon. After about ten years of Cold War tit for tat, the USSR and America each have functioning moon bases just a moon rock’s throw away from each other. The men and women of the moon bases (the US adopts the Russian practice of sending men and women into space together, presumably fearing a Moon Gender Gap) are actually quite cordial with each other. In the harsh barren moonscape the astronauts and cosmonauts have come to value each other’s company more than ideological purity. However when the Soviet Political Officer and an American Military operative discover a pair of star-crossed lovers among the space travelers, Cold War tensions escalate and the love farce may lead to nuclear apocalypse.

In the second book, Ministry of Space, we see space travel driven not by national rivalries, but by near-unrivaled supremacy by a single nation. Neither the USSR nor the USA leads the post-World War II space race, but rather a dark horse candidate: the UK. According to this alternative history, during the closing days of the war, Britain's RAF snatches up all the German scientists and rocket prototypes they can smuggle back from the continent, and leave scorched earth behind for their American and Russian “allies.” Led by the fictional flying ace Air Commodore John Dashwood and a former German rocket scientist (unnamed but presumably Wernher von Braun), the Ministry of Space pushes Britain to the stars, reaching every milestone of space travel (artificial object launched into space, man launched into and returned safely from space, manned mission to the moon, man mission to Mars) years or decades ahead of the real-world schedule. While The UK’s earthly empire dwindles and dissolves much as it did in our timeline, by 2001 this alternate Britain has become a gleaming futurist’s dream of jet packs, space stations, (relatively) safe colonization of the solar system, and the preservation of the “British” way of life.

However, aside from the evolution of the technology and the triumphs and disasters along the way to claiming the stars, there is a lingering mystery about how the RAF managed to get the funds to launch its first satellite in 1948 and its first astronaut in 1950, amid a post-war UK economy in such a state that wartime rationing didn’t end until 1954. Among all the crisp science fiction art it’s easy to overlook that niggling question and assume it’s just the brilliance and drive of the RAF fighter pilot and German mad scientist. The fictional Doctor Wernher von Braun (presumed) is unconstrained by a risk-averse US government that kept the real-life Wernher from realizing his plans for space stations and off world colonies (not-Wernher at one point muses that the Americans lack a sense of “Opera” and that their space program would be a plodding cautious affair). Dashwood races into space under the ethos that if throwing wave after wave of men into dangerous machines that had just been invented was good enough to save England in the Battle of Britain in 1940, then that ethos will get them to Mars by 1969. However at the end of the story the Original Sin of the Ministry is laid bare, and in one final gut punch of a panel it is revealed that while their nation took giant leaps in the development of technology, they also made steps backward in their humanity.

So if you’ve ever wondered what it would be like if the Stars and Stripes wasn’t the only flag "flapping" up on the moon (or was never planted in the first place), here are two graphic novellas you should look at. Aside from wonderful space age art, they both have a different feel and scope to them. What If? is a more traditional tale with clear heroes and villains, while Ministry of Space seems more like a pretense for an illustrated guide to the space program the twentieth century promised but didn’t deliver.

And I’m going to say this again, we totally did go to the moon. USA! USA!

Kerey McKenna is a contributing reviewer to Nerds who Read and SMOF for the annual Watch City Steampunk Festival. Check it out at www.watchcityfestival.com.

For more alternate history starring Wernher von Braun (and Hedy Lamarr!), check out this Nerds who Read review of Brad Linaweaver and J. Kent Hastings’s 2004 novel, Anarquía.