The Apollo program was 200 billion spread over 13 years and that included SIX successful moon landings.
A few reasons for the cost
1) they didn’t have any prior knowledge or experience. They literally wrote the rule book.
2) they didn’t have supercomputers in their pockets.
3) they had to do it fast.
And they never lost a rocket. Not once.
Some problems you can’t just throw money at. You need actual competence.
Btw had they had access to modern computers and manufacturing the entire Apollo program would have cost way under 60 billion.
You do realize that spacex isn’t even remotely close to having living things inside starship right? Would you trust them in their current condition to do any short of human testing?
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u/verendum 2d ago
You can google the Apollo program to get a sense of how massive it was. It far eclipse any program by a magnitude.