1991 VG

"It turns out that during the entire mission, the crew would never venture farther from Earth than about 4.5 lunar distances. The Earth would never appear smaller in the sky than the full Moon appears to us from here on Earth! That's not such a daunting trip at all," Durda remarked." I was surprised by the quick travel times, but this was the remark that really took me by surprise. And to think there are space advocates who consider "the next logical step" after the moon to be a trip to a planet so distant that the Earth would appear as a tiny blue-white star. Any who consider Mars the obvious next stop are simply suffering from a bad case of planetary chauvinism.