I don't know if they could have reduced costs as agressively in the 60's. The market was then smaller and making things more expensive (as the world population was smaller and productivity was lower than today). I don't know if this matters though. I'm sure soviet russia could have manufactured space tourist busses in stead of all the nukes and launchers they did as they played by a bit different economic rules. That would have been awesome. Instead we got just an opportunity for thousand megadeaths.