>If you had Gemini/Titan IIIC equivalents (1966, 14+ tons to LEO)
>and was allowed to do in-orbit assembly and lunar rendezvous, I
>wouldn't need a Saturn V. AFAIKT, no one ever talked about the
>feasibility of a combined EOR/LOR approach in our timeline either
>despite the obvious advantages.

I suspect that might have been because rendezvous in orbit was still very much a Black Art in those early days. Just a handful of missions, only one of the astronaut corps at the time (not sure who - was it Grissom? or White?) with an instinctive feel for the technique, no more than basic assembly with the Agena docking missions. I think there was exactly one attempt - it worked, btw - at actual orbital manoeuvering of the docked Gemini/Agena. Anything more sophisticated than that had to wait until Apollo.

How long and how many more flights might it have taken before NASA were confident enough to try even an all-up A8 type mission? Remember the deadline they were working with.

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