 The technologies NASA develops in exploring the universe impact our lives in ways we don't even realize, which means if you change one moment in space history, you change the world. We're going to do a little bit of a fun thought experiment today on Vintage Space. If you guys are total history nerds like me and love thinking about how one change in the past has massive implications for the future, check out NBC's new show Timeless. So there are plenty of amazing what-if moments in the course of space history, but we're going to look at one of my personal favorites today, and that is the launch of the RS-27 Redstone rocket in 1956. So here's what happened. In September of 1956, Werner von Braun and his team from the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville were down at Cape Canaveral in Florida. They stacked the RS-27 Redstone rocket on a launch pad and readied it for a test. The rocket was also called a Jupiter-C because it was a launch designed to test new materials for nose cones to put on warheads so they wouldn't explode re-entering the atmosphere. This Redstone was a four-stage rocket, however the fourth stage was a dummy stage. It was full of instrumentation and sand as ballast. But had it been live, it would have had the ability to put a small, three-pound satellite into orbit, something along the lines of Explorer 1. Werner von Braun was dying to use this rocket to put a satellite into orbit. The problem for von Braun was that President Eisenhower said that only the US Navy's Vanguard program, which was derived from peaceful sounding rockets for exploration, would be the first to put an American satellite into orbit within the confines of the International Geophysical Year. Von Braun, on the other hand, was using an Army rocket, was a former Nazi scientist, and also this was before the International Geophysical Year started. So a satellite now could be an international disaster, whereas a satellite on a peaceful rocket during the IGY would have just been all about science and exploration. But what if von Braun had launched a satellite in 1956? I'm not saying he would have ignored authority. I'm saying what if the US government had actually sanctioned this satellite launch? Had Explorer 1 gone into orbit in 1956, it's possible the Soviets would have responded with the same fear that the Americans did after the launch of Sputnik in 1957. The Soviets might have fast-tracked their own satellite program to try to get something into orbit to match the Americans as quickly as possible. And because it might not have been ready to fly, this might have ended in a massive disaster. Sputnik might have crashed and burned on the launch pad, much like the American Vanguard 1 TV3 launch did in December of 1957. This failure on the Soviet Union's end would probably have delayed the satellite program because the Soviet system wasn't set up with multiple offices developing similar technologies the way the United States had different military branches also developing different rockets. So it's unlikely the Soviets would have then almost immediately tried launching a biological payload like Leica. So the Americans would have been developing technologies and satellites and launches while the Soviets were unable to keep up. With the Americans leading in space, not only would there not have been that moment of we need to do something drastic to match the Soviet accomplishment, we probably wouldn't have a space agency. Because NASA came out of this need to unify all the space programs in America to match the Soviet accomplishment. So if Explorer 1 had gone into orbit in 1956, we might not have a space agency. And without a space agency, we wouldn't have any of the space race programs like Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo. It's likely that space would have stayed with the military. Spaceflight might have continued along the lines of the X-15 and the dinosaur, piloted aircraft inspired vehicles that would orbit the earth and eventually land on a runway. But it would also mean that there wouldn't be a push to develop new technologies in the 1960s. And this comes back to satellites in an interesting way. Even before the space age, people were starting to think about using satellites for communication. And it was AT&T that pioneered the idea in the United States in 1960. It approached the Federal Communications Commission with permission to launch, and that permission ultimately ended up with NASA launching the Telstar Satellites. At the time, the Department of Defense didn't really have an interest in a commercial use of satellites. The Department of Defense was interested in developing its own technology for its own use. That's why all the early communication satellites ended up with NASA, the civilian space agency. But without a NASA, we might not have had any interest in communication satellites for the general public. It might have been left purely with the military. So we would not have had satellite communications as early as we did. The Department of Defense in the U.S. military would probably have continued developing its own satellite communication system, and they would have been left purely from military usage for at least a couple of decades. But say satellite communications was purely a military endeavor in the 1960s. It probably still would have developed some of the same technologies, things like giant satellite dishes to receive the signal, and also technologies that clean up the signals removing noise for very clean video and audio transferred around the world. The military might have come up with these technologies, but we, the public, might not have had access to them, because what ultimately drove the need for really strong global communications and near real-time live television was landing on the moon. It was NASA who drove the innovation behind clear satellite signals, and the high-frequency communications that allowed the agency to speak to astronauts on the moon is also the same technology that allowed the world to watch Neil Armstrong walk on the moon live in 1969. And this isn't just about landing on the moon, this is the same technology that allowed global communications. This planted the seed for this global village of international communications where we know what's going on around the world all the time because we have access to technologies that allow that signals to be broadcast everywhere. Had satellite communications stayed a military endeavor throughout the 60s, possibly into the 70s, we wouldn't have this global communication that we do now, which probably would have changed socially the way we interact with our world. The global communication network that allowed us to watch the moon landing live ultimately led to domestic communications network that allowed broadcast television to function without cable. This was the dawn of the satellite TV era, which is still something many people enjoy today. So without the innovation of having to get a very clear signal from the moon to the world in the 1960s, we might not have our favorite TV programs now. We might have a completely different experience of the world we live in because we wouldn't have this strong connection. So America launching the first satellite in 1956 could have changed the early space age enough that America wouldn't have responded so strongly by creating a civilian space agency that works with commercial partners that took on something as big as going to the moon, which drove the innovation to create satellite technology and communications technology as early as it did in the mid-century that has ultimately spun off into giving us a world that is so hyper-connected today. And of course there are tons of other things we wouldn't have had America not gone to the moon. We wouldn't have dustbusters or memory foam mattresses created without Apollo ending and the shuttle era beginning. We wouldn't have things like Lasik. All of these technologies might not come directly from NASA, but NASA provides the need that drives the innovation from commercial partners and because it's a government civilian agency, it can do that. The military just doesn't have the same relationship with commercial partners. So without a civilian agency, because of the fear of Sputnik, if America had gotten the first satellite into orbit, our world would be completely different. But on the other hand, maybe with America taking the lead in space super early, we would have had some kind of fun brownie and wonderful space exploration. Maybe we would have developed dinosaurs to the point of being the shuttle that builds his giant toroidal space station orbit and we'd be on Pluto right now. It's really hard to tell, but it's fun to think about. Check out NBC's new show Timeless. It's all about going back to poignant moments in history, making one change and then trying to figure out just how much the world has changed and ultimately asking the questions, would you want to change history? Shout out to NBC and Timeless for sponsoring and helping make this episode possible. Alright, I know a lot of you guys are space history nerds or just plain history nerds. Let me know in the comments what your favorite what-if moments from history, moments where something could have changed a little bit and had a massive, massive effect on the future and the world we live in today because these things are super fun to think about. And of course, leave me any of your questions about space history or alternate space histories in the comments below as well. Be sure to follow me on Twitter and Instagram for daily vintage space content and with new videos going up every single week. Subscribe right here so you never miss an episode.