I am 63, so I know now that it will not happen in my lifetime, but when I was 15, watching that first step on the moon while sitting in the living room at noontime (it was in Japan) just as the landlord came for an invited lunch, I knew then that we belonged there, and would certainly be building outposts if not colonies there by the time I was, well, 63. It is one of my greatest disappointments in my country that it is not so, but if it took 100 years from Columbus to Roanoke, maybe it will take 100 years from Apollo XI to the inhabited moon base.
I’m with you. The ftuure seemed so bright in those days, and it seemed there was nothing America couldn’t do.
Then Liberalism happened ...
I was 9. I was convinced that by 2001 , like the movie "2001: A Space Odyssey", mankind would be living and working upon the moon. What a disappointment! 2001 is now remembered for savage attacks from evil throwbacks from the dark ages who should have died out in the 7th century. Mad Moe's Mafia made an awful comeback that year and continues to hog the spotlight of history when we could have been reaching for the stars!
At this time we should be having moon bases, a manned mission to Mars, etc. At least that’s what I thought would turn out when I was in high school at the time. Instead, in the seventies I saw navel gazing and heavy head trip bovine scat.