>>16945153
>curiosity 2012
completely ignoring the viking missions or the earlier soviet & american venusian missions lol

but yea, it's all pretty sad. The space race was really good for progress in space, even if most of the reason they had unlimited budgets was military in nature.

also, the nasa program was like, pretty socialist in nature. It wasn't set up to make profit, but just to achieve objectives. This profit-oriented spacex and blue origin shit is so fucking cringe, it's just phallic vanity projects for sociopathic billionaires.

>>16945153
In the grand scheme of history, like 200 years from now, this 50 year gap may not even be all that significant. It's like in the European Middle Ages when the Vikings stopped exploring the oceans and there was a 400 year pause (far longer than 50 years!) and we jump to Iberian exploration. People understand that exploration tends to halt for a variety of reasons.
>>16945188
>This profit-oriented spacex and blue origin shit is so fucking cringe, it's just phallic vanity projects for sociopathic billionaires.
DESU they're the reason why progress has been made in Space in the 21st century (mostly SpaceX though). Without them we would still be using space shuttles and wasting tons of resources.

What more do you want? A mars mission? Just doesn't really seem worthwhile.
Also we made a ton of progress in telescopes.

>>16945212
>People understand that exploration tends to halt for a variety of reasons.
We should neither understand nor tolerate it. If we have to march engineers and technicians into assembly buildings at gunpoint and force them to work for sandwiches and juice, so be it.

>>16945153
Global literacy went from <60% to ~90% in that time which is probably the most significant growth of understanding in human history

>>16945217
Mars mission of course