In some ways this is what has happened with the transfer of manufacturing to China. Building things requires building components, and their components, and their components, and so on down. That whole stack is withering in western democracies, so it’s incredibly difficult to “bring back” something like iPhone manufacturing without retaining a deep dependency on China anyway.
This is the answer to the question "Why not build more Saturn Vs". We no longer have the tools to build the tools to build the machines to build the parts of the Saturn V.
Because "unused muscle atrophy" applies very much to our technology as well. A lot of knowledge surrounding technological processes isn't really captured beyond institutional culture and individual memory. So if there isn't demand for some specific technology, the capacity and knowledge to build it will wither and die with the organizations and people who built it.
We can't do a Saturn V today. We might be able to do a Saturn V equivalent, though, as both NASA and SpaceX are retracing the steps towards heavy lifters.
This. And if one still struggles to understand the importance of institutional culture + individual memory, I would like into invite you to the following thought experiment.
“Imagine waking up the next morning and the world totally forgot all knowledge on Linux Kernel, and you are now tasked to release the next major version with major changes / improvements”
And remember the documentation and tests we have on Saturn V is certainly not as great as what we have on Linux kernel.
