I ran across an interesting tidbit in my research:
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, April 1958
Space Programs
The Anderson Space Bill. -- The Joint Congressional Committee on Atomic Energy has formed a subcommittee on outer space propulsion headed by Senator Clinton P. Anderson (Dem. N.M.). Hearings by the new group on Anderson's space control bill (S. 3117) began in February. The bill would establish within the AEC a Division of Outer Space Development to accelerate civilian development of outer space propulsion and energy-producing reactors, vehicles, and platforms, using existing laboratories and establishing a new national laboratory for space research. The bill directs the AEC, with guidance from the State Department, to try to negotiate an agreement for an "International Laboratory for Outer Space Propulsion." The AEC already has a nuclear rocket program -- Project Rover -- and there is ample evidence that nuclear energy offers the best hope for outer space propulsion. Representative Holifield, one of the sponsors of the bill, suggested Admiral Rickover for the job of developing a space vehicle.
FAS Recommends U.N. Agency for Space Research. -- The council of the Federation of American Scientists on February 5 urged Congress and the Administration to consider placing further research and development in the field of outer space under civilian control, and that all outer space research by all nations be placed under the aegis of a single U.N. agency. The FAS statement supported the principle embodied in the Anderson bill of giving the AEC the job of nonmilitary space research and urged the establishment of an international space laboratory.
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Project Rover was the overall term for the program (begun in 1946) that developed the NERVA nuclear rocket.
What if, instead of creating NASA based around the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics, Admiral Rickover had been given control over a US civilian space agency built around the Atomic Energy Commission? Admiral Rickover served on active duty until 1982, longer than any other US naval officer in history, and was widely known for integrity, perfectionism, and sheer bloody-minded determination.
I see an emphasis on deep space platforms over launch vehicles, a long-term coherent program of space exploration, and a landing on Mars in the late 1970's.
(If this somehow figures into the background of
Tales of the Solar Patrol, please be gentle: I haven't read it.)