Yet there is a downside to the LOR story that speaks to NASA’s post-Apollo descent into bureaucratic irrelevance. The adoption of LOR came at the expense of an alternative possibility with far greater potential: Earth-orbit rendezvous. This approach was von Braun’s preference and underpinned his master plan for interstellar travel. LOR was more efficient for the lunar mission specifically, but the Earth-orbit equivalent placed no constraints on where a rocket could travel. In other words, in service of a successful Moon landing and a few uninspiring follow-up trips, we abandoned the best path
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