No, 1960s Apollo technology deserves the adjective "amazing", not this Elon Musk / Blue origin flying junk. And Apollo wasn't the result of an Ayn Rand free market fantasy.
wow, Apollo was a government initiative. That’s irrelevant as today’s government agencies and the cronies who run them lack incentive and ingenuity. Free market isn’t a fantasy and only entrepreneurs can step in where they continually FAIL.
Musk, Diamondis, and many others are at the very least thinking big where the stooges cannot. If they don’t eventually get to Mars, so what? All of the new technology and intellectual capital gained can be utilized in other ways.
If you hate Rand so, much try Marx, I think you’ll be happier.
Back in the 60's, the only rockets that returned to base and landed vertically were science fiction, the LEM being the only possible exception (out of necessity).
Both SpaceX and Blue Origin have accomplished what NASA could not.....developing recoverable booster stages, which is "the" fundamental missing part for economical access to LEO.
"And Apollo wasn't the result of an Ayn Rand free market fantasy."
We probably would have been better off if it had....
The 1960’s space race proved that our captured WWII German rocket scientists were better than the Soviet’s captured German rocket scientists.