In article ,
John Savard wrote:
The original specs for what became the CSM called for missions in Earth
orbit and lunar orbit... but not a landing.

And, of course, that means that if the Saturn V could be pressed into
sending men to the Moon, the later rocket, had it been developed, would
have been, if not well suited to, at least capable of, sending men to
Mars.

Careful here. The Saturn V appeared *after* the goal changed to a landing.

Those original CSM specs envisioned flying on a Saturn I, and later on one
of various concepts for a Saturn II. Circumlunar flights were thought to
require orbital assembly, and any lunar landing would probably require
both orbital assembly and a larger launcher, plus perhaps a small space
station as an assembly base.

Only after the goal became more ambitious and the schedule was greatly
compressed did the rockets start to balloon in size. The Saturn V was
*enormous* by the standards of the early planning -- bigger than most of
the old Nova concepts for Saturn follow-ons -- and shared only the name
and a few odds and ends of hardware with the original Saturn concepts.
And at that, using two *Saturn Vs* with orbital assembly was the baseline
concept for a while.

As it is, though, we have Dr. Zubrin who came up with a way to make even
the mere Saturn V capable of sending men to Mars.

The Saturn V was perfectly capable of sending men to Mars, provided you
didn't insist on doing it with a single launch. Orbital assembly simply
would come back into the picture at that point. (Note that even Zubrin's
ideas need two launches -- he just does the assembly on Mars instead of
in Earth orbit. Not everyone agrees that this is the best approach.)
--
"Think outside the box -- the box isn't our friend." | Henry Spencer
-- George Herbert |