I really enjoyed your post. I met an engineer who worked under Von Braun at Kennedy Space center several years ago and have great awe for the tradition of immense labor and the old science that got us into space the first time around. I can remember a statistic being batted around at the time that one Saturn V launch was estimated to have the work of 400,000 people involved in it.

Its a shame about the old designs not being preserved. Nasa should kick up the budget in that area and do what they can to photograph the rest of this stuff before its too late.