Part 49: Spring 1969: Final Turn
As has been previously stated, it's go time boys. Backup plan is in full effect, even though it's most likely that if these fail that mission won't be able to be launched anyway.
Also, this happened.
SOMEWHERE ELSE WHERE IT IS ALSO GO TIME...
That's how I like my launches to be, stupidly risky.
No time to back down now, though. It's the Moon or bust! No backup is scheduled as I don't have the teams for it. Speaking of that, I do take a moment to hire up a third set of cosmonauts. Just in case, you know. Anyways, here we go!
Spring 1969 Launches
Yeesh, another 100. No Scrubbing won the day in the voting though and this doesn't look like it has any actual effect, so... lucky?
And there you have it, victory! With less problems than the original lunar landing mission had to boot, I believe.
Even with the Lunar Landing, it ended up being a very close race, with less than 20 points of prestige difference between both sides.
But what could have been, if things had gone a little differently...
Mirror World Spring 1969 Launch (You should really watch this for the cavalcade of failure.)
Holy shit, I know nobody will actually believe this, but it worked on the very first attempt. I was ready to have to run this like 20 times, but it only took one. Apparently if your launch had exploded somehow, the Soviets would've actually done it. Anyways, here's the alternate history for you to read over.
I like how this version is just needlessly evil and ominous. Coincidentally, there are also weak victories for both sides for finishing in the 70s, but I honestly don't have the time to spam Lunar Landings for both sides to get them, as I have to leave for work in about an hour as of this initial writing. If someone else wants to grab them and throw them up here for completeness sake, I'd be totally fine with it.
The USSR victory would've been a little more complete, I think. A few final notes
though...
Spring of 1971 would have brought this for the Soviets. If you're already in a bad spot, this particular event is basically a game killer.
Adding this one in just because it's funny... this is mandated in Fall of '73. What the heck. And one last thing to report...
Happy endings for everyone! Hope you all enjoyed the ride while it lasted, and I'm rather amused that it quite literally came out to being neck and neck, what with that incredibly unlikely Direct Ascent success in one try. Now all we need is for a Lift Off! LP to occur so everyone can see the wonderment of a 4 way Space Race... though I feel bad for whoever ends up having to throw all the dice behind the scenes.