Appreciation post: The sheer audacity of the Apollo missions makes today's incremental progress feel underwhelming.

We used to aim for the moon in a decade, but now we're arguing over which billionaire's rocket looks cooler.

3 comments

3 Comments

Look at the way the Apollo missions required massive public investment and political will. Nowadays, space exploration feels hijacked by private interests competing for market share. In my experience, this shift reflects a broader societal move away from collective ambition towards individual profit. Your mileage may vary, but it seems like we've traded awe-inspiring national projects for incremental commercial upgrades. That constant debate over rocket aesthetics is just a symptom of a culture that prioritizes branding over breakthrough. We're stuck arguing about cosmetics while the real frontier waits for another unified push.

drewr672d ago

What would it take to reignite that kind of collective ambition?

hannahm902d ago

Feel your frustration, @haydent69. Watching those grainy Apollo videos always gave me chills because it felt like humanity winning together... now we’re just comparing SpaceX’s stainless steel to Blue Origin’s paint job. That transition from planting flags for all of us to racing for patent portfolios really stings, like we’ve swapped inspiration for IPOs. Even the debate over rocket aesthetics boils down to marketing budgets, not monumental leaps. Sometimes I worry we’ll need another Sputnik moment to remember what unified purpose feels like.