Yeah, first orbital docking was done 1966 on Gemini 8. The architecture for Apollo was decided much earlier already (it did include the lunar orbit rendezvous a

Yeah, first orbital docking was done 1966 on Gemini 8. The architecture for Apollo was decided much earlier already (it did include the lunar orbit rendezvous and docking which was indeed risky). We now have 54 years of repeated low earth orbit dockings so maybe the architecture designs could start taking that into account. Even SpaceX is planning on doing orbital refueling.