Lets see 2010 - 45 = 1965 after becoming operational in Oct 1958, by 1965 the Project Mercury in 1961 put Alan Sheppard in space, and then Project Gemini in 1965 had put Gus Grissom and John Young into prolonged earth orbit, by 1962 Mariner 2 space probe had ventured beyond earth orbit and was this first to visit another planet Venus. The Apollo program began planning before 1961 and had its first testing of the Saturn 1 in 1961 and continued thru 1964, development of the Saturn V, the Lunar lander, the Command module, and the reentry vehicle where all commenced prior to 1965. To say that NASA barley existed four years prior to landing men on the moon and safely returning them to earth is false.

The reality is, the NASA endeavor for the moon landing was arguably one if not the single largest technological leaps forward mankind has ever made. The technology sector prior to NASA was almost exclusively military driven and technology since NASA's hey day one can easily argue is almost entirely driven by transfer of NASA/DOD technology to civilian purposes. The entire spectrum of information technology is a direct outgrowth of technologies developed in response to space applications. Virtually all the advancement of every other technology is facilitated by information technology.

The fundamental issue is we will benefit from the technological advancements yet to occur that are required to achieve the goals we will set in the future.