Free markets lead to wealth and who in their right mind thinks wealth would lead to democracy? This article is nonsense. If you inflation adjust what was spent then and spend that amount again, within the same set of laws and regulations existing then, you could repeat the moonnshot easily.
Today’s 787 is far more complex then Apollo. Another moonshot is a matter of will not technology and industry.
But we have chosen welfare and government business cronyism and not free markets. We have chosen democracy over the rule of law and a Republic. Therefore we cannot afford a government run and financed moonshot.
We also learned by 1970 that — in retrospect — a manned lunar mission was an enormous waste of money and was a luxury that no normal civilization would ever embark on.