Think of how much the concept of space travel captivated America for decades. It was one of the main frontiers of television, inspired numerous songs, and created generational defining media.
When America went for GDP and convenience over awe inspiring goals we lost the luster that inspired millions. The same way we look at historical buildings over brutalism and modern shit shows. Innovation died because of capitalism gone rogue min maxing fiat currency over actually building anything.
Institutional loss. They stopped making the Saturn V rocket, all the guys making it aged out, and all of a sudden all the little tricks and habits people just knew might as well be magical incantations when looked at from outside.
It doesn't help that the SLS was a kludged together rube-goldberg machine that's the literal equivalent of a flashy show pony that gets taken out behind the shed and shot after it's first showing. People are agog over the spectacle, I'm just thankful nothing fucked up.
That's also my thought, and why I still haven't fully bought onto the idea that the moonlanding was fake. It still seems like it could be plausible it happened, so in the end, I'm just not sure. And that's as much as I can say about it, and I don't expect to ever get any more information that could push me further in either direction on this subject.
Don't get me wrong, I get where you're coming from. I've enough of an understanding of history to be dangerous, so I've known for a while that modern understanding of a good chunk of history is complete and utter bullshit. But between the active, real-time gaslighting around the Covid/BLM bullshit, the whole Charlie Kirk stuff, and fucking Epstein, I've basically come to grips with the notion that roughly... oh, say 60 to 75% of so called 'history' is complete bullshit.
(Before, I would have been more gracious and said 20%, maybe 40% on a darker day.)