NASA and its astronaut and official spokesman, Donald Pettit, Ph.D., may well have felt forced to claim that they had "lost the tech" to go to the moon, despite the arguable absurdity of the claim. The tech we had throughout the Apollo project has long since still existed in leftover hardware, software, printouts, drawings, design notes and manpower expertise. Unlike the vicious destruction by WJB Clinton's White House employees of all things that would aid in the transition to the incoming George W Bush presidency, down to the removal of the the 'W's on computer keyboards, NASA experienced no such purposeful damage as or after the Apollo project wound down.
Although Ford hasn't and doesn't find it advantageous to revitalize the assembly line for a 1970-era Mustang, such would be technically possible. This was proved by Volkswagen's 1970s recreation of "Super Beetles" as they saw fit to modernize the 1940's era design originals.
Yet, it would be incredibly daunting currently to recreate the thousands of third-party parts to make a 1970s-era Ford Mustang, as most of the subordinate parts are not being made and Ford would have little influence to get them all remade from many and varied manufacturers, many of whom no longer exist. Ford wouldn't have rights to remake many of those possibly-essential parts. If it were ultimately deemed a worthwhile venture, most parts would probably do better to be recast in modern ways through more current technology that has been advanced in the intevening half century. There would be so many glitches encountered in the recreation of a truly 1970s-era Mustang that it would almost certainly preclude such a project's, feasibility, cost-effectiveness and ultimate success.
I believe it's to this kind of thinking that Pettit and NASA blusteringly distracted our attention.
Additionally, I point the reader to a related, more indepth discussion of all that at https://www.aulis.com/deception.htm
What NASA is actually hiding in that explanation toward a remake of an Apollo-style moon mission, is all the sleights of hand that NASA perpetrated with Apollo and its later cover-ups. To make a new moon mission work, NASA would not be able to foist their phoney explations onto a no-longer-as gullible scientific community and a relatively more technologically-aware populace.
We may continue by visiting https://www.aulis.com/traj_craft.htm, but let me summarize and encapsulate:
Many, even here, twist the necessary shielding requirements for survivability discussion to imply that the only danger is "getting through the Van Allen Belts (VAB)," or that it would merely depend on clever, optimal exit and re-entry trajectories. If one could only find an acceptably safe path toward and return from the moon! But were such known, assessed, scheduled, and calculated for the actual Apollo missions? Absolutely not! What NASA has blathered and lied about is just so much BS!
All such machinations are full-blown attempts at cover-up! The danger from radiation is everywhere beyond the protection of [what God providentially foresaw in] the VAB. Even if a manned 1968-72 Apollo mission hypothetically could have traversed the VAB unscathed, no such mission could have returned healthy astronauts from the moon. By the time they were recovered from under their parachutes in the sea, almost certainly all life in those capsules would have already been extinguished and moldering.
Former NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe: "We don’t have [..] the means to provide shielding sufficient to preserve human life" [anywhere beyond Low Earth Orbit]. "As it stands, the radioactivity is so extraordinary you wouldn’t make it, much less get back."
Beyond LEO, both within and without the VAB, in what is commonly considered space, O'Keefe says, "The radiation is everywhere.
No amount of exposure to radiation can be considered safe."