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Depending on your mission profile, there are more ways how to get to the Moon and possibly back - the Surveyor space probes did direct ascent without entering lunar orbit & massive burn with an embedded solid rocket engine just before landing.

The soviet plan (if they actually managed to get the N1 to work) was to take the upper stage of that rocket all they way to the Moon (fueled by kerolox BTW) and use it for the final braking burn of the LK lander[1], before eecting the stage to crash on the surface while the lander used its engine for soft landing.

And then the lander would launch directly to lunar orbit using the same (or backup) engine, not dropping any stages, just the landing legs. This was forced by the much lower carrying capacity of the N1. There was just one cosmonaut landing as a result, with another one in the "lunar Souyuz" staying in lunar orbit. So just 2 people versus 3 in Apollo. And there was not even a hatch between the two modules & the cosmonaut was supposed to spacewalk (!) between the two before landing and after meeting back with the Soyuz spacecraft.

So if you can realistically do a single stage to landing & orbit on a body, I'm sure it will be the preferred option going forward, it has a significant benefits.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LK_(spacecraft) [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_7K-LOK


The more fuel economic way long term is break the mission into parts and reuse vehicles; single ship from surface to Lunar orbit, dock and transfer to a staged lander at a station and take the up and down. Taking Starship all the way to the surface wastes a tremendous amount of fuel hauling around the mass to get back home and through to landing safely.
m4rtink OP
Long term definitely like this! BTW, this exact sequence can be seen at the start of the Space Odyssey movie, with the main character traveling from Earth to Moon.
That's the long term NASA plan under the Gateway name. A little lunar orbit permanent station to replace the ISS.

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