Huge difference is that Apollo had highly trained human beings on board to fix things that could not be planned for. There were also 10 previous missions to Apollo 11 to work out the kinks, with one failing with loss of life.

JW is not designed to be fixed or fail, nor are there training runs. It HAS to work first shot.

Regarding the 10 missions before Apollo 11: It's a little more complicated. Apollo 1 is the name that was given to honor the astronauts who died in the pad accident. Apollo 2 and 3 didn't exists. But a whole bunch of other tests did exist testing Saturn 5 before we got to the unmanned Apollo 4, 5 and 6 tests. And starting with Apollo 7 humans were included. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Apollo_missions for details.

I probably should have known this. I've read alot on Apollo, but never really internalized some of these facts.

People forget there was an entire series leading up to the Saturn V: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_V#Saturn_development

They've got a Saturn IB at an Alabama rest stop outside of Huntsville. Surprisingly small, but still towers above you!

> People forget there was an entire series leading up to the Saturn V

Well, sooorta. The Saturn V was the third in that series, after the Saturn I and Saturn IB. [0] While there were proposed intermediate Saturns (and ones past V, too) only two first stages were developed, and the V was the only launcher to fly with the F-1 engine.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_(rocket_family)

The really amazing thing is it took just over a year and a half to get from the first unmanned launch of a Saturn V to the moon landing.

Apollo is probably the wrong thing to compare with, but sky crane did work first shot.

You are right! Sky crane still blows my mind!

Wow, this video is mindblowing.