During the early 2010s did society stop being excited for space travel and the future?

[RitzyCinnamonRoll]

I remember during the 2009-2014 time period barely anyone I knew was excited for space travel and the future but now a lot of people I know seem excited for what Musk is doing.

I remember back during that time period there was nothing on TV with space travel in it. I guess "Game of Thrones" and zombies as well as superheroes sucked out all the hot air out of the room.

Did we become too materialistic to be excited for a futuristic world as evidenced by the reality show boom? Hey life on Earth is good enough already, so why dream?

I remember coming across this video where Neil Degrasse Tyson proclaimed that we "Stopped Dreaming".

https://practicalfreespirit.com/2011/09/06/to-infinity-and-beyond/

"Sometime in the last few months, I read someone's Tweet about space travel. I don't remember who it was, but they said something to the effect of how science fiction set in space felt irrelevant or dated to them. Like it was nostalgia and nothing more."

Did the Space Shuttle disasters as well as 9/11 and the 2008 financial crash made American society more risk averse?

Now excitement around space and sci fi is making a big comeback.

 

 

[Tweety, BSN, RN]

I think a segment of our society is still excited about space and it's frontiers but as a society we've grown inward.  It's hard to get excited about space when the price of eggs is what it is, and the price of gas it what it is.  

We've also entered a time of tax cuts and cuts in spending expect massive military spending.  

We've also entered a time when science is questioned by conspiracy theorists and there are people that think we never landed on the moon, covid is a hoax, and the world is flat.

We've dumped down and have hard times.

I sometimes wonder will we ever be great enough to build something like the Hoover Dam?  The Golden Gate Bridge or will we just bicker among ourselves fighting about drag queens and critical race theory and get nothing done.