The man whose idea did put men on the moon was John Houbolt
Third-party evidence for Apollo Moon landings
Man has been to the moon, and returned, so spare us your shit-stirring, anti-intellectual claptrap.
No, Von Braun’s theories weren’t “wrong” per se, not in the slightest, what was at issue was how to _meet the deadline_ of putting a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth.
Lunar orbit rendezvous was controversial, but it greatly decreased the size of the rocket needed to effect a landing.
Ironically enough the strategy they used, advocated by Houbolt meant that Apollo was kind of a dead end, they succeeded in the quest to get there firstest, but that was the end of it.
Even so NASA had built the infrastructure needed and had plans for over 100 Saturn V launches, and a crewed Mars landing by circa 1986, the soonest reasonable launch/landing window.
Then Congress threw it all away in favor of the (sometimes) flying brick.