>>13179906my rebooked for all mankind that doesn't suck goes like
-korolev doesn't die in 1966
-ussr doesn't sign the outer space treaty in 1967 because they're more confident in their moon program
-first n1 launch in march 1969, ends similar to OTL with a massive explosion
-second n1 launch in june 1969, cia station in iran monitors and infers from raucous celebrations that it actually reached orbit
-intelligence briefing in DC later that day explains that soviet protocol calls for at least 2 successful unmanned missions to lunar orbit and back before they'll send cosmonauts, so any soviet manned lunar landing is impossible before 1970 and any attempt will likely be delayed into 1971
-briefing is interrupted by news that a keyhole has captured an image showing a soyuz being rolled out to the pad and everyone has a massive OH SHIT moment
-cut to soyuz rendezvousing with the L3 spacecraft in orbit and transferring crew posadka-style over to the LOK
-next few days rumors fly in DC but nobody knows what's going on because the soviets are keeping everything a complete secret. officially they don't even have a mission going on.
-after a week radar tracks a spacecraft headed for reentry back to earth, soviet tv announces that leonov has landed on the moon and that by planting the soviet flag he has legitimately claimed the entire lunar surface as soviet territory
go crazy from there
