First, if NASA's history after 1972 is any indicator, they really can't get much done without a ten-year goal.
It can be argued (and I would be right there on the firing line) that that is largely a result of the Apollo/Saturn program. Due to that program and its inevitable "crash" nature, NASA found itself oriented towards that sort of thing, and due to the mythology of it (especially amongst the public), that sort of thing is expected of it. Not to mention the political pressures from Congresses which vary between fairly enthusiastic about the whole thing to being deep in the throes of budget-cutting (the latter of which simply cannot abide relatively cheap but long-term programs due to the high
total cost multiplied over that long timespan). Right now its in a weird hybrid where certain powerful members are the former (since their districts benefit), but the Congress as a whole is tending towards the latter. So NASA has chronic not-cool-enough/too-damn-expensive syndrome, leading it to throw away everything it has done for nothing. Someone has pointed out that the average 15-year budget of NASA has actually remained fairly constant (in real dollars, of course) since its foundation, so it seems clear the biggest problem is external to the agency, since NASA cannot itself decide what it is going to do; it has to work within the boundaries set by Congress and the President. If (as happened after 1969) Congress decides that it is not going to fund a mission to Mars, then NASA is not going to be developing the tech necessary to go to Mars, simple as that, even if they technically have the cash to do so.
A history that was less...well, short-sighted, to put it bluntly, would probably serve NASA well insofar that Congress would not expect NASA to get anything done particularly quickly, and hopefully would therefore be slightly more immune to fantastic long-term budget projections. At the same time, Presidents would not be so enamored of "the Kennedy speech" (see, especially, Bush I), which itself would help quite a bit.
After Apollo, they developed Shuttle, which, in its 30 years of existence, has given us no significant advantage in the plan for a Return to the Moon and Manned Mission to Mars.
That was mainly the fault of a series of poor management and design decisions starting with Shuttle's selection in 1972, not the ideas of a shuttle or space station themselves. While I will admit that argument feels a bit "No True Scotsman"-ish, its not hard to see that the flight rates proposed to get buy in were insane, budget cuts ordered by the Nixon administration crippled whatever small chance the Shuttle had of getting anywhere even vaguely in the same ballpark as those targets, and finally the military was forced to jump in and promptly screwed everything up. With all that going against it, it is kind of amazing anything even happened.
In addition, it makes no sense whatsoever to build space stations in High Orbit, Lagrange Points, or Lunar Orbit. Really, what do you gain by putting it higher up? You still need to use fuel from earth to get to the Moon, so why bother stopping halfway there?
The reason is to avoid having to develop the Saturn V, and instead being able to get along with the Titan III (and various proposed extensions, and similar sized rockets). Putting fuel into orbit means that you don't need the same massive rockets to launch a mission, and using a space station instead of empty orbit for the "OR" part of "EOR" means that you can benefit from a pressurized holding facility, more open launch windows, various infrastructure (eg., propellant cooling), and so on. High orbit offers distinctive advantages of its own, for example allowing the staging of personnel and equipment above the Van Allen belts (which would be a problem for a geostationary station). A lunar orbit station would offer similar benefits for LOR-type flights, and would allow the use of specialized and optimized spacecraft for the Earth-LLO transit and LLO-Lunar surface portions of the flight (for example, the latter would not need the radiation protection of the former, while conversely the former would not need the landing equipment of the latter). So together they can save costs for a large program, with the LEO stations offering the largest benefit. Additionally, some research can be performed, although the rapidly-advancing state of electronics through the decades will tend to make that less prominent.
But the Russians, with their Heavy-Lift Proton Rockets, would have assembled a space station sooner. They simply had better rocket tech. Good luck assembling a station with Atlas and early Titan. That was actually one of the motives for "Moon by 1970." It would give the Americans plenty of time to develop a Heavy Lift rocket, and the hardware necessary, whereas "We'll build a space station" leaves them vulnerable to further Russian development.
Not really true. The Titan IIIC actually had its maiden flight a month
earlier than the Proton, and was far more reliable early on; the latter went through a period in 1969, IIRC, where all but one or two launch attempts ended in failure (with the rocket blowing up, usually). It did not technically enter operational status until
1977! This would tend to put a damper on assembling a space station. While the Titan had a payload to LEO about 7,000 kg smaller than the Proton, there were a number of proposed (but never approved as unnecessary) extensions, such as having four stretched SRBs instead of two unstretched, that would have easily made up the gap. Had the Titan IIIC or a variant been needed for the space race, it could probably have been made available sooner, as its technical problems were nowhere close to those experienced during the Saturn V development. (All numbers are from the astronautix and wikipedia articles; the payload numbers for the Proton are a bit easier to find in the latter due to simpler organization and the wide variety of Protons produced over the years)
Of course, when Kennedy made his speech, the US didn't know any of that, which led them to your conclusion. But it should be relatively easy to avoid that happening, for example by having someone less influential than Webb as Administrator.
I think a Moon landing would be pushed sometime into the 70's if things moved out more gradually. A Space station would probably take up the bulk of activities in the latter 1960's, in my opinion, but would probably aid in getting man to the moon faster and easier depending on how advanced it is and if it is built, or later stations are built after initial ones, as a waypoint between Earth and the Moon (Truth is Life has brought up the smaller Apollo A).
I largely agree with this assessment. Should the moon landing not have been focused on, the most likely behavior from NASA was the construction of a space station and a few flights around the Moon, coupled with robotic probes to that body and many others. A moon landing would have followed later, probably with more grand initial goals than flags and footprints (think the first missions being roughly J-class, instead). It would not, of course, have been as ambitious as the von Braun plans, but something roughly along those lines (space station serves as staging ground for EOR spacecraft with relatively large crew and objectives).
But what if NASA, rather than doing that, followed a more "natural" route with a gradual build up to the moon and beyond? That evolution being something like putting a man into space, testing man in space, satellites and probes, a manned space station for long term duration and experimentation and likely some form of reusable space craft to go to the station (the space station would be an anchor keeping interest in space in a way), a mission around the moon, and a moon landing.
Well, I've intimated my feelings on the matter before, which are simply that spectaculars, a la Apollo/Saturn, were and are simply a waste of time and money that end up hurting more than helping. I feel that a more gradual buildup, focusing on developing infrastructure and cost-effective technology (for launch and space activities), would be far more effective in the medium to long run in ensuring a successful and active space program. Basically, striking just the right balance between stunts (but
cool stunts), and boring (but
useful) development.
).