It’s tempting to view the moon race as a straight line, but the 1962 propulsion...

https://bizzmarkblog.com/the-tyranny-of-the-scale-why-mass-is-the-only-metric-that-actually-matters/

It’s tempting to view the moon race as a straight line, but the 1962 propulsion debate was a messy tug-of-war. Engineers fought over whether to trust nuclear, chemical, or electric engines, and nobody wanted to yield