Editing Direct ascent (section)

==Apollo program==
[[Image:Apollo Direct Ascent Concept.jpg|thumb|right|190px|Artist's conception of an early Apollo spacecraft that would have used direct ascent]]
The [[Apollo program]] was initially planned based on the assumption that direct ascent would be used.<ref name=apollo>{{cite web|url=http://www.nasa.gov/centers/langley/news/factsheets/Rendezvous.html|title=NASA - Lunar Orbit Rendezvous and the Apollo Program|publisher=NASA|date=April 22, 2008|access-date=March 27, 2011|archive-date=April 6, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130406180052/http://www.nasa.gov/centers/langley/news/factsheets/Rendezvous.html|url-status=dead}}</ref> This would have required developing an enormous [[launch vehicle]], either the [[Saturn C-8]] or [[Nova rocket]], to launch the three-man [[Apollo Command/Service Module|Apollo spacecraft]], with an attached landing module, directly to the Moon, where it would land tail-first and then launch off the Moon for the return to Earth. The other two options that [[NASA]] considered required a somewhat smaller launch vehicle, either the [[Saturn C-4]] or [[Saturn V|C-5]]. These were [[Earth Orbit Rendezvous#Apollo|Earth Orbit Rendezvous]], which would have involved at least two launches to assemble the direct-landing and return vehicle in orbit; and [[Lunar Orbit Rendezvous]] (LOR), which carried a smaller two-man [[Apollo Lunar Module|lunar lander]] spacecraft for flight between lunar orbit and the surface. LOR was the strategy used successfully in Apollo.<ref name=apollo/>

The [[Soviet Union]] also considered several direct ascent strategies, though in the end they settled on an approach similar to NASA's: two men in a [[Soyuz spacecraft]] with a one-man [[LK (spacecraft)|LK]] lander. The Soviets attempted to launch the [[N1 (rocket)|N1 rocket]] on 21 February and 3 July 1969, both of which failed, before NASA's [[Apollo 11]] lifted off and made the first crewed [[lunar landing]] on 20 July 1969. The Soviets would make two more attempts to launch the N1, in 1972 and 1974, but neither was successful. The Soviet engineering firm [[OKB-52]] continued to develop the [[UR-700]] modular booster for the direct ascent [[LK-700]] ship.

[[Science fiction]] movies such as ''[[Rocketship X-M]]'' and ''[[Destination Moon (film)|Destination Moon]]'' have frequently depicted direct ascent missions, although the first was a two-stage vehicle which accidentally, and successfully landed on Mars, but failed to successfully return to Earth (crashed in Nova Scotia), and the second was a single-stage vehicle which successfully landed on the Moon, and speculatively returned to Earth (return not shown).