/sci/ - Science & Math

>>12484832
Von Braun wanted to do multiple refuelings because he envisioned we would build a martian base quickly after arriving. There would had been multiple generations of people born on the moon by now if he had his way,

It's a lot easier to engineer a space craft to be topped up with fuel by a fuel tanker than to build a huge Saturn 5 type of rocket that has to send everything up in one launch.

My theory is that the contractors feared the possibility of opening up the door to smaller firms who could afford to engineer a smaller rocket solutions, so they pushed the government to go for all-or-nothing big rocket.