Re: Now that's more like it...
"Large scale integration was VERY expensive at first. ONLY NASA had a budget and a need for it."
That was Small Scale Integration, or SSI .... in the early 1960s defense and aerospace used all that could be produced, a couple million dollars worth. By the mid 1960s, space and defense only used a third of production (a total of over a third of a billion dollars/year worth already!), and SSI had been joined by MSI (Medium Scale). By the time LSI came about with things like 1K RAM chips and early microprocessors (call it 1971ish), the vast bulk of production was for commercial projects.
They built the AGC "that way" because that was the only way they could be certain it would survive what little we knew about radiation in space. By the time Apollo flew, we had vastly better computer capability on the ground. Hell, some people already had better computers on (or under, or next to) their desks!