Comments by "Kevin Street" (@Kevin_Street) on "NASA's Original Post-Apollo Plans Were INSANE | Answers With Joe" video.

Thanks for this video! There's a whole sub-genre of science fiction devoted to exploring what might have happened if NASA had kept going after Apollo. "The Tranquility Alternative" by Allen Steele is a great example of this kind of alternate history. Although he goes even further, and imagines a timeline where the first manned spaceflight happens during WWII in 1944. I'm not certain they could have landed on Mars by 1981, because the technical challenges of building self-sustaining enclosed biospheres that can support human life for 6-12 months at a time are considerable. It's something we're still working on now, despite all those years of living on the ISS. When there's absolutely no resupply coming, just living in space becomes a very difficult challenge. Still, they had the right approach, starting with space stations and using the same components in later space ships. Each step teaches you how to make the next one.
20