[hartror]

Starting with near zero space capability in 1961, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) put men on our companion world in eight years.

The whole premise of this article, that we can't send people beyond LEO any more because of risk aversion, is based on this line and it is wrong. There are several differences between today and the 1960s that make manned space flight less feasible. This can be summarised as political and manufacturing, with the former driving the latter.

Politically the world and the US are different places, the cold war is over so the need for grand gestures for moral building and propaganda has gone.

However the OP's line of near zero space capability is wrong, ICBMs were being designed and tested at a furious rate throughout the 1950s. This created a massive pool of people with first hand knowledge, and a massive manufacturing base from which to draw upon.