Commonly thought - as well as intuitive, but 100% untrue. The entire Apollo program, from start to finish, cost $178 billion (in 2022 dollars), over 11 years. [1] That's a bit more than $16 billion a year. NASA's budget has been greater than $16 billion/year (in 2022 dollars) every year since 1963. [2]
And that was going from absolutely nothing - having never even put a man in orbit, to putting a man on the Moon, all in 8 years.
And that was going from absolutely nothing - having never even put a man in orbit, to putting a man on the Moon, all in 8 years.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_program
[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA