One of the key trades made in the Apollo program was the decision of where to do a rendezvous in preparation for the lunar surface mission. Many credit the decision to do it in earth orbit as a key contributor toward achieving the goal of doing it by the end of the decade. But the quickest way to get the job done wasn’t necessarily the best. It looks like NASA is now considering one of the other options originally considered–a lunar orbit rendezvous. And it may be that the Ares IV vehicle described will eliminate the need for the Ares V. This is a step in the right direction, but still much more expensive than it need be, and offering much too little for the money.

[Update in the afternoon]

D’oh!

As is pointed out in comments, in fact lunar orbit rendezvous was the method chosen in Apollo. I was thinking of the reconfiguration in LEO prior to lunar injection, but that didn’t involve rendezvous.