> If the Apollo mission did not involve a command module (If the lunar lander was the craft that would come back to Earth), then all of this becomes irrelevant.

> If the Apollo mission did not involve a command module (If the lunar lander was the craft that would come back to Earth), then all of this becomes irrelevant. You could then land at whatever latitude, and return to Earth, via a wide range of possible trajectories. (Except that, as another poster pointed out, you miss out on a part of, or all of the free-return trajectory boost, that you get from exiting the Moon's orbit in the opposite direction of its travel - which is ~1,000 m/s of delta-v saved.) Yup. Another downside would be that the fuel needed to break lunar orbit and head back to Earth, enter Earth orbit, and then deorbit for Earth landing would have to be landed on the moon and lifted off from it again, requiring exponentially more fuel for lunar landing and liftoff. Do you have any idea what orbit the linked story was talking about and what the launch timing of that would be?