The left has already done enough damage to NASA with the Muslim Outreach Program and by redirecting their focus to climate change. I hope we still have the will to explore.
We would have to fix the damage done and have a country interested in backing this type exploration.
Education in America is so bad that I fear for the future regarding programs like space exploration.
I can see it now. “Dummies in Space”. The chimps we sent were less ignorant than many humans now.
Right there. What I intended to post, but you did first.
Growing up in the 60s, NASA was the place where things got done. Big things. Exciting things. Inspiring things. There were rockets and space walks and if you were an astronaut, you not only went into space, but you might just find an insanely beautiful genie while you were waiting to be retrieved on your return.
We currently have a rover wandering around Mars on the surface with a helicopter that wanders around Mars in the air. Beyond that, we have probes wandering around the solar system and beyond long past when they were supposed to be working. They continue expanding what we know and expanding what we can do because the people working on them—at this point they've become what we've been told would be required to leave the solar system, multi-generational missions—are finding all manner of clever ways to keep them operating.
And we've got these private companies doing the amazing things they do. SpaceX doesn't just reuse its first stages, it sends out a drone ship to retrieve them and while they're at it, the first stage doesn't drop down and go splash, but instead lands on the drone ship. Sorry, unlike Major Nelson, there's no insanely beautiful genie in any of that retrieval. At least that we know of.
So we do still have the right stuff, but like too many other things, a lot of our younger generations have been disaffected—by design—and are sucking their thumbs, not in wonder, but in fear and loathing.
When we watch a Saturn 5 takeoff we see it admiration and pride. When a Gen Z sees it they are horrified at what it is doing to Mother Earth.