The "what ifs" of history?

Why am I laughing?

Because I'm rewriting a book [well..manuscript] that, though fictional,
uses many real characters from rocket/space history to create
what I feel would have been plausible events:

(1) like President Harry Truman being persuaded in 1948 to allow the army
to develop Redstone, instead of around 1950 as actually occurred.

(2) like the British developing a stretched & improved version
of the V2 after the war, and launching a test version from Woomera in 1949,
using ammonia/LOX for propellant, providing the British army with an atomic-weapon
delivery system to deal with the Red Army threat.

(3) like the British government being persuaded to develop such a missile
for dual military and satellite-launching purposes in 1950.

(4) ike the US government following that example that year [instead of 1955 as actually happened]
and allowing the 3 branches of the US military to compete against the British effort.

(5) like Sergei Korolev persuading Stalin that the R2 rocket [actually first-launched in 1949]
could launch a small balloon-satellite that culd have military purposes [reflecting microwave communications
between land and naval vessels thousands of miles away].

(6) like Sergei Korolev grudgingly not standing in the way of the German/Russian rocket team [Helmut Grottrup's]
in developing a clustered rocket-motor powered long-range rocket in 1949 of greater than 220,000 Ibs
thrust combined.... a fictional R4.

(7) like the Soviets launching that small [6 foot diameter] balloon-satellite in 1952, just before Eisenhower
gets elected, and beating the Americans and British into orbit. [The British launch a pair of small satellites
into orbit in May, 1953 from Woomera].

(8) like the US Navy becoming the first to launch an American satellite into orbit, instead of the Army,
in 1953, instead of 1958.

....To cut to the chase, in my book manuscript, Gagarin circles the moon successfully in April, 1961,
in a Lunar-Vostok, forcing President Kennedy to start Project Olympus; a manned mission to Mars
before the end of the decade.
Buzz, Neil and Mike succeed in being the first men to visit Mars in July, 1969, using a liquid-hydrogen
fueled atomic-rocket motor boosted spacecraft, having left Earth in January, 1969.