Look at how much was spent back then, and how few rules were imposed on how it could be spent.
Just look at this graph, it says it all: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA#/media/File%3...
Just look at this graph, it says it all: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA#/media/File%3...
Its a total misunderstanding of the problem. Budget as % of federal spending is totally meaningless measure. And it causes far more confusion then it explains anything.
Agencies don't send % of federal budget when they buy some aluminum sheets, they pay in $s.
Of course the % of federal budget goes down when you have vietnam, great society and so on and so on.
So this graph is just used to make excuses for NASA performance. In effect NASA budget now is actually not that different from the Apollo area. And in the last 5 years, NASA budget has gone up.
But I don't see this as excusing NASA/Congress. It's spending that money with the benefit of 50 years of technological advancement, but reusing technology from the 1980s to make a completely disposable rocket that will cost $4 billion per launch.[3] Meanwhile, SpaceX is spending an amount estimated in single-digit billions to develop a rapidly and completely reusable rocket of similar size, aiming at a launch cost two to three orders of magnitude lower.
[1] https://www.planetary.org/space-policy/cost-of-apollo
[2] https://www.planetary.org/space-policy/cost-of-sls-and-orion
[3] https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/332275-nasa-auditor-reve...
SLS since 2011 cost $20 billion, add $20 billion for Orion. Add to that 5-10$ billion in infrastructure. These 50 billion $, didn't pay for the development of a single engine.
Given how much technology has advanced and how much more technology and knowlage is available, it should be much cheaper to do the same.