Michael Gallagher wrote:
I was thinking about NASA's Moon plan, and it occurs to me the heavy
lifter's
SRBs and first stage should be powerful enough to orbit a deaprture stage
that doesn't have any fuel in it, so it could be oribtted as a dry workshop,
just as the original Skylab was a modified S-IVB stage orbitted by the first
two stages of a Saturn V.

But what to do with it? Two possibilities spring to mind:

It would be nice to put a space station into a Highly elliptical Earth
orbit. Then a CEV could launch form Earth and dock with the station at
perigee. Its apogee would pass near the moon. A lunar tug (fueled on
the surface of the moon) would rendezvous, bringing a returning CEV and
leaving with the CEV.

This way 8 people cold be put into the CEV for a short flight of a few
hours.

The orbital period of this "cycler" station could be lunar period / 3.
Once per month it would enable a crew of 8 to transfer to the moon. The
other 2 missions could be used for tourists.