>>16008406>to land a person on the moon with no loss of life when computers were floppy disks and giant manual switchesComputers weren't great back then, which is of course why the moon landing nearly went disastrously wrong and Armstrong had to eyeball the landing
Which he could do because he had already experienced and successfully solved an even bigger computer fuckup in his career, which in turn was why he was the commander on the mission because they literally sent the best person they had up there in case it went wrong, which it did
Astronauts were the hardcore of the hardcore back then, ace fighter pilots or test pilots used to thinking under pressure, all put in a room together, and then out of a group of the hundred best of them, just a scant few were chosen
Same with their engineers, this weren't fresh out of uni people, at least not in the way you think about it
The people who worked for NASA back then, even the younger ones, were all the best of the god damn best, there were no charity or affirmative action cases back then, it was pure 100% merit, you either got recommended by a dozen renowned professors or you weren't even considered
hell look at who was in charge, fucking Von Braun, the person on the planet with the most rocketry seniority of our entire species back then, they guy they had to pardon an endless series of war crimes JUST because it would have been THAT big a waste to execute him
