Thread by @YNot_1989

Here's one for ya: #WhatIf the Soviets landed on Mars, but basically nothing else changed? (1/10)

POD: Same as all of them - Sergei Korolev lives long enough to work out the bugs on the N-1. (2/10)

The Soviets beat the US to the moon with a functioning LK Lander just a few months before Apollo 11's launch. (3/10)

With a working N-1, the Soviets continue Lunar missions in parallel with the US and proceed to develop the TMK spacecraft for a flight to Mars. (Check out @voyager212's interpretation, its great). (4/10) artstation.com/artwork/qQGJP

The Soviet TMK mission is greenlit and in 1973 the spacecraft is launched shortly after the US deploys Skylab. The mission leaves for the 1974 launch window and returns in 1976. (5/10)

From 1974 to 1982, 4 TMK flights are conducted. Like the OTL Salyut program (cancelled in this TL to pay for TMK), they are essentially crewed imaging satellites. (6/10)

The final mission, TMK-4 in 1982 achieves the first and only successful landing on the Martian surface. The mission is a complete shock to the US, as the Soviets had been promising a Mars landing for years, but it was believed to have been scrubbed by OKB-52. (7/10)

Back in the US, the Nixon administration largely scrubs the space program after 1972, believing that human exploration doesn't actually provide any real benefits. (8/10)

NASA's budget is severely reduced, and Nixon and later Reagan place far greater emphasis on military space applications. The Space Shuttle is made an all Air Force (and NRO) program. (9/10)

The Cold War ends much as it did in OTL. Nixon was kinda right: flags and footprints don't really benefit the country making them. The last place the flag of the USSR still flies is on Mars, and while that bothers Americans, it doesn't change global power dynamics. (10/10)

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