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Comment by ghighi7878 | Hacker News Reader

A big difference from 1960s and 70s in US is that 60s and 70s were a time of hope. Today that hope is not there. I am a scientist and I am stoked about moon missions. But I can see why todays people won't care about it much. Today mesaaging around space feels like rich peoples hobby and war weapns more than science.

Just see how stoked people were about JWST

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The 1960s and 70s were extremely turbulent, chaotic times in the US - the Civil Rights era, the Vietnam War, the Cold War, multiple high-profile assassinations, etc. Apollo 8 launched at the end of 1968, which was a famously challenging year with many disruptive events.

Of course we have many challenges today as well, but I don't think the political environment is unprecedented. One could easily have argued in the 60s that we should be focusing on civil rights, ending the Vietnam War, etc. instead of going to the moon. In fact, much of the messaging around space in the 60s that allowed those missions to happen was based around "war weapons" and the Space Race with the Soviets.

One could argue the Apollo program itself was responsible for creating a lot of the hope you mention.

> A big difference from 1960s and 70s in US is that 60s and 70s were a time of hope.

That’s… not true at all. You’re not a history guy, are you?

There's no scientific reason to go back to the moon though.

It's just American chest thumping. I am interested in space, I would prefer we are spamming drones to explore the solar system. But science is boring.

Artemis is chest thumping. Sending robots on the other hand, very cool and interesting.

I thought the same thing. School kids would be interested if there were a space drone they could see and control from the classroom. This is definitely possible and far cheaper than Artemis. If we wanted kids to embrace STEM, you could have these available to every classroom year round.

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