Oh, back when we were smart, and had the technology...
One of the really cool things about Science is that it helps us accomplish heretofore unimagined tasks, and in the process, we discover even more stuff that needs to be explained, and then done- ever more affordably. Saturn-V rockets were way cool, but not cost effective. Prestige for its own sake can be extremely expensive, especially when there's a missile gap to be abated. Nostalgia is even worse; if our goals are behind us, then we have no future. It seems that the older I get, the less I know. Not because I'm getting feeble, or that humanity is getting dumber, it's because in absolute terms, the pool of new stuff to consider is expanding at a hyperbolic rate. Too much for my pea brain to process- even Wernher Von Braun would crack if he didn't specialize to a "T".
I've noticed that over the last decade or so the Universe appears finer and more elegant by the day. That ain't no accident.