Managed a moon landing before the historical date!

[Sabratha]

Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this is a first in the BASPM community. I managed a sucessfull landing in quarter 2.1969.

Did it through Gemini direct Ascent. Had some luck, but I believe that there were a few key strategic decisions I made that made it possible.


1) Open the Lunar missions as soon as possible. Concentrate on your manned missions, those probes should be given only secondary priority. Avoid maned suborbital flights, go directly from uncrewed suborbital to uncrewed orbitals.

2) Have 4 SET people who have very high "manned rocket" skills. I can't stress this enough - the Saturn V research is going to be the weakest link in your program, takes very long to reach satisfying levels. Make sure you have 4 SET people with a manned rocket skill of 90 at the very least, preferably 95 or so.

3) Keep your funds up as to be able to purhase your chosen manned lunar program as soon as its possible, since you really DO need to start researching that Saturn V quickly.

4) Launch the first lunar missions no later than early 1968.

5) If you go the gemini path, make sure you make as many gemini short missions in 1966-1967 as possible. Do repeated "uncrewed suborbitals" if needed - thing is to get the Gemini capsule thoroughly tested so that it reaches some 95% reliability before its maiden lunar flight. At this point in the game developpement, I do suggest you go the gemini direct ascent path, since it requires less missions before the actual moon landing.
I don't think its very realistic to hope for an Apollo mission within the historical date as of now with the current mission balance (though I think this will change in the future versions).

6) Train some of your astronauts early and do it constantly. One has to have high leadership, the other high pilotng. Both need to have passable (85% at least) science, EVA and fitness.

7) Train your mission control people as much as possible.

That's it. You will need some luck either way, since your first Saturn V launch will probably be with the Saturn V having some 81-84% reliability.

[nats]

Well done! I am trying to do this myself at the moment before the whole game system changes to allow this to happen more easily. At the moment its certainly a challenge - but I am going for the bigger challenge of getting on the moon via Apollo before the end of 1969!! I very nearly managed it last game but had a series of critical mission failures at the end of Apollo that ruined the game for me. I dont believe in going back to old saves so I am trying again from fresh.

So far things are going quite well and I have started Mercury. But I welcome a competition so if you think you are up to it you can try and beat me to it lol. Seriously though I dont even know if its possible but I will it a damned good try!

[N_Molson]

Congratulations, this is certainly not easy !

But don't worry, with the game balance still to come, that strategy probably won't be valid for very long !