Yes, quite true... the fact that they managed to "get it all right the first time" with only slide rules and without the benefit of 50 years of experience in what works and what doesn't just boggles the mind. BUT, Apollo/Saturn didn't have an UNLIMITED budget... in fact, it was adequate for the job, but the idea that they somehow had a "blank check" is more urban myth than anything else... When you look at the spending as a percent of the federal budget back then, then yes, NASA was getting about 3X what it's getting now. But, it certainly wasn't a "blank check" that it's purported to be. Remember that NASA at the time was having to construct EVERYTHING-- Kennedy Space Center and the entire Space Launch Complex 39, including pads A and B, the VAB, the crawler and crawlerways, the center itself, EVERYTHING. Remember that the Mercury and Gemini missions were all flown on close derivatives of Air Force Missiles, and flew from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, and most of the work was done over there to that point, specifically in Hangar S (for Mercury). Johnson Space Center was a cow pasture at the beginning of the space age and Mission Control didn't come online until the second Gemini flight. Everything else at that point had been controlled from Mercury Mission Control at CCAFS. Similarly, Marshall Space Flight Center had undergone a massive transformation, with the building of vibration test facilities, firing test stands, etc... The early Saturn S-IC first stage tests of Saturn V were SO powerful that it was breaking windows in Huntsville, so the Mississippi Test Facility was built to test the Saturn V first stages and engines in a more remote location that was still accessible by barge from MSFC in Alabama shipping completed test stages downriver, and NASA also constructed the Michoud Assembly Facility just north of New Orleans to construct the massive first stages for the Saturn V as well. Basically, virtually ALL the primary facilities we connect with the human spaceflight program were constructed from the swamps and beaches and cow pastures and cotton fields in the southern US during the build up for Project Apollo... that's a LOT of infrastructure, and infrastructure costs a LOT of money! Given the fact that all that construction was going on, along with all the support systems development (the Deep Space Network was undergoing substantial improvement and increase in capabilities to allow communications with the Apollo vehicles in lunar orbit and on the surface of the Moon... Plus considerable development and support program funding was going at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, to develop the needed support roles of the unmanned space program's Ranger, Surveyor, and Lunar Orbiter projects in support of Project Apollo.
What does it all mean?? Well, considering the amount of development going on for facilities and infrastructure and support programs, even with 3X the current budget, the actual money being spent on the development of the actual Saturn flight vehicles in design and testing, probably was broadly on par with what is currently being spent on the development of NASA's SLS today... Remember that the entire Apollo project cost $26 billion dollars, estimated, in early 70's dollars... while inflation would probably make that number 3-4 times higher in today's devalued dollars, remember too that NASA spent 6 years and $9 BILLION dollars on primarily Ares I and Orion development alone, with a tiny fraction going to Ares V early research and development, along with Altair lunar lander before it was canceled (very early in its development). Also note that MOST of the existing infrastructure was to be reused with the Ares I/V and Orion... IOW, during Apollo, NASA was building the equivalent of four major space centers from scratch, and investing considerable money into support programs, suit development, engine development of the F-1 and J-2, development of the lunar lander, systems development, you name it... NONE of which was being done under Constellation... In fact, Constellation was siphoning off funding from aeronautical research and the unmanned program to support its own bloated expenses and schedule delays...
One other thing is RADICALLY different about today's NASA versus that during Apollo-- Apollo was done before NASA became a bloated bureaucracy that it is today... before the entrenched power bases that are present today got into the positions that they presently hold, which is where they're now actually dictating what technology gets "reused" on the new programs whether it makes sense for the long term or not... what centers and contractors get what jobs to keep the political players and their power bases happy... Oh, make no mistake-- there were plenty of political games going on back then as well... the choice of putting the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston, of all places, which at the time had basically ZERO ties to the aeronautical manufacturing and design establishment, but which happened to be located in the Space Program's biggest political powerhouse's state (that being, Lyndon Baines Johnson) was widely and correctly in no small part perceived as being a mostly politically motivated move, and one which the Manned Spaceflight Task Group charged with designing and overseeing Apollo was NOT thrilled with...) The choices of contractors also was coming under more scrutiny by the time the Apollo contracts were let and there were some pretty egregious decisions made that a lot of folks called into question, but basically it was all "child's play" compared to the present entrenched bureaucratic system of corporate lobbyists, mega-contractors, and political players...
The other thing is, it seems patently rediculous that it's going to cost, by most estimates, in the neighborhood of $36 BILLION dollars to take the EXISTING shuttle technology, engines, tankage, and boosters, and create a new "inline" design for the next heavy lift shuttle-derived vehicle which is supposed to fulfill that role for the next 30 years... While part of that is for "infrastructure CHANGES and SOME new equipment (like the Ares I MLP/tower, which was scheduled for demolition after the cancellation of Ares I, and is now going to be heavily modified at considerable cost for SLS) and some is for new tooling, neither the Constellation program NOR SLS had to bear the burden of infrastructure development costs that had to be borne during Project Apollo... quite apart from the actual Saturn Vehicle design, development, testing, and evaluation costs...
That is a BIG part of what's wrong with NASA... and sadly, fixing THAT problem is a lot more than even the brilliant engineers in NASA and industry are capable of fixing...
Later! OL JR
