I do stand corrected on the specific space-race "urban legend", though I would point out that even Snopes.com itself does say that "the lesson of this anecdote is a valid one, that we sometimes expend a great deal of time, effort, and money to create a 'high-tech' solution to a problem, when a perfectly good, cheap, and simple solution is right before our eyes."

And, yes, of course it would have cost huge sums to catch-up on years of deferred maintenance, not to speak of expansion and modernization, to bring the Key System into the latter half of the 20th Century and beyond, if it had survived that long. But I strongly doubt it would have been the same as starting from scratch.

San Francisco MUNI's costs to maintain and expand its streetcar and Muni Metro (LRV) system over the years has not been cheap by any means. But, if you compare the costs and the system SF now has, to the relative costs to build (from scratch) new light-rail systems in & around San Jose and Sacramento (to name just 2 Northern California cities which once had streetcar systems), and the systems those cities got for the money, I think it is clear that keeping and improving the "old" got a lot more "bang for the buck" compared to abandoning and the starting all over from scratch. But maybe someone should do a study!