Apollo 11 (canon event)
| Written for | A Nixon presidency starting in January 1969, in the seventh month of the term (July 1969) |
|---|---|
| Era it was written for | The Sixties |
| Status | Does not currently occur in the game |
Apollo 11 is a scripted event: it is written to happen in a specific month of the term rather than being drawn at random. As written, it takes place in July 1969, the seventh month of a Nixon presidency beginning in January of that year.
The event
The briefing reports that Neil Armstrong has become the first human to walk on the Moon, that more than six hundred million people watched the broadcast, that the United States has won the space race, and that NASA is asking for continued funding. It frames the landing as a triumph that goes beyond ordinary politics, and says that what the President does with the moment, and whether the space programme continues, will shape the country's ambitions for decades. Three responses are offered. One is a call to the astronauts paired with an ambitious plan for further lunar missions and a space station. Another is a celebration followed by a redirection of NASA's budget toward domestic priorities. The third is an offer of joint missions with the Soviet Union as a step towards détente.
Why it does not appear
Nixon presidencies play in The Seventies. This event was written for The Sixties, and the two eras do not share events, so a Nixon game never draws it. A custom president based on Nixon is affected the same way. The Seventies era does not have a scripted Moon-landing event of its own to replace it. Instead, the space programme appears there through ordinary events that can come up at random, including the Apollo 13 emergency and a debate over what the space programme is for after the Moon has already been reached.