Moon Economics
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In the end, the ride the astronauts took to the moon was designed to reduce costs. How to do that? Reduce weight.
Reducing weight meant designing the orbital path around both the earth and the moon in such a way that a big booster wasn't required to land on - and leave - the moon. Light weight required a rendezvous above the moon with the orbiting command and service module, something that wasn't assured initially.
Somehow having a space craft that you could put your foot through if, by chance, you stumbled seems a bit Rube Goldberg. That was the case. The lunar module descent stage was wrapped in Mylar wrapping. During construction, a dropped screwdriver went right through the floor (Hardesty, 217). It was lightweight, that's for sure.
Why bother? We probably wouldn't have gotten there at all unless everyone teamed up to reduce costs.
I like the team aspects of the process. I like the reduce costs part, as well, not only as a taxpayer, but aesthetically, as well. Simple seems always to be better. Designing the orbits took almost all the computing power we could marshall, so the analytical steps weren't ignored. The emphasis was on getting the job done, safely and successfully, nothing more.
Reference
Hardesty, Von and Gene Eisman. Epic Rivalry. The Inside Story of the Soviet and American Space Race. National Geographic. 2007.