I am pretty sure that is completely false, from what I have read of the early space program, it sounds like it had a way of devouring lives.
"The Apollo 11 crew calculated they spent 2000 hours in simulators between their selection in January and their flight in July 1969."
http://history.nasa.gov/SP-350/ch-8-3.html
And the book makes numerous references to others at NASA working long hours too.
"Apollo had become intimately interwoven in the fabric of the waking hours of my life and often caused the remaining hours to be fewer than they should have been."
http://history.nasa.gov/SP-350/ch-7-1.html
"I'd be checking on alertness, especially among men who had been working long hours. Were they fatigued? Were they concentrating on the dials? Was there any unnecessary chit-chat going on?"
http://history.nasa.gov/SP-350/ch-6-3.html
That is approximately 10 hours of simulator work a day, plus other regular work.
Agreed that you need work very hard for success. But at what cost? There is a balance. If a person can't be there for their newly born child, one might as well not have a kid at the first place.
All of us have been in situations where we had to put our head down and work marathon hours straight for days to get things done. We've also had days when we had nothing to do. We are not bots to clock $x amount of time of time everyday.
There is always time to accomodate family and other commitments.
"The Apollo 11 crew calculated they spent 2000 hours in simulators between their selection in January and their flight in July 1969." http://history.nasa.gov/SP-350/ch-8-3.html
And the book makes numerous references to others at NASA working long hours too.
"Apollo had become intimately interwoven in the fabric of the waking hours of my life and often caused the remaining hours to be fewer than they should have been." http://history.nasa.gov/SP-350/ch-7-1.html
"I'd be checking on alertness, especially among men who had been working long hours. Were they fatigued? Were they concentrating on the dials? Was there any unnecessary chit-chat going on?" http://history.nasa.gov/SP-350/ch-6-3.html