I think we'll get back there, but recent things really make me wonder what's changed so much. When Elon literally put a roadster into space on the experimental, and successful, debut launch of the most powerful rocket ever built since the space race, to say nothing of the crazy design and autonomous landings, I thought that we might see some sort of wider reawakening and wonder as to what we can actually do now a days if we actually just decided to do it. Literally gave me goosebumps seeing those boosters do their dance and land in such beautiful harmony.

Instead, it received relatively little coverage in the media, and a fair bit that of what coverage it did receive managed to somehow spin it into a negative. The media is in general just so incredibly disappointing now a days. So much time is wasted trying to ignite outrage when so many amazingly great things are happening at this very moment.

The biggest change is that the Space Race era was, at least by perception, happening in the public sphere. In the US, NASA and the fairly new Air Force were the face of it and the whole thing seemed like a scientific pursuit which would benefit all of mankind.

Now, it's about the self-indulgence of one very wealthy guy with a lot of federal tax breaks. The luster has worn off.

I think that what's changed is that people have lost faith that these advances, however spectacular, are going to benefit them in any compelling way. At most maybe we'll get a new method of soulless consumerism, but I don't think anyone believes in the sense of optimism and adventure that NASA or old sci-fi used to represent.

I think there's a clear argument against this. Let's assume people were both aware of, and believed, that e.g. SpaceX would achieve its goals. The immediate, and monumental, benefit there is quite self evident. Starting a new civilization would be akin to having something like expanding into a western frontier that never ended. Of course there will be immense room for scientists, entrepreneurs, engineers of all sorts, physicists, computer scientists, and the like. But you'll also need everything from janitors to system administrators to athletes in the longrun. Imagine the potential for 1/3rd g sports -- livestreamed (at the speed of light) from another planet. Even 'small' things like asteroid mining will signal the end of any sort of significant mineral scarcity on Earth and will almost certainly lead directly to the construction of sophisticated development and construction facilities in space to more efficiently utilize these resources. Again, think about the vast numbers of people and opportunities available there.

And of course this is all just scratching the surface in the most superficial way possible. Yet we're talking about a practically limitless number of new jobs and opportunities for people of all sorts of backgrounds. Of course most people don't think any of this will happen. And given that I'm certain similar statements were put forth following the moon landing, it's not entirely illogical to suggest this is all pie in the sky. But I think most people aren't even to the point of knowing what's actually happening, let alone deciding one way or another what will happen in the future.

If you are very interested in this subject, I would recommend reading "No Requiem for the Space Age", by Matthew Tribbe.

> Instead, it [Falcon Heavy] received relatively little coverage in the media

Huh? It was covered world-wide by essentially all media.

US, China, Japan, South Korea, Russia, Britain, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Canada, Australia, Latin America, Turkey. At the time I dug through a lot of media to see how it was covered, there hardly seemed to be any exceptions that didn't cover it.

Maybe North Korea didn't cover it.

All the talk show hosts talked about it. Even Trump tweeted the synchronized landings. It lit up social media and forums everywhere.

We are, at this very moment, living through what will likely be seen as one of the most important and keystone eras in humankind. We are finally taking the steps to move, as a people -- as a species, into space. This is something that will completely transform our species, forever. People millennia from now will wonder how this came to be - how the time that we're living through played out, how people responded to such change. The reality that most people are completely unaware would probably be quite disappointing.

One-off bursts of coverage are forgotten as quickly as they emerge. For instance, if we were to poll Americans on our recent achievements in space, what percent of Americans do you think would have any clue about what's going on? Even just of the Falcon Heavy in particular? I think a fair over/under would be 20%. In my experience it's a fair bit lower than that. And the biggest shame here is that people are just jaw dropped at seeing what we're achieving - which makes that ignorance all the more of a shame! Heck, YouTube is home of some the most negative and trollish commenting on the internet. See how people responded to this [1] video of the Falcon Heavy test flight. That a 'mere' technological achievement somehow brought out such strong and positive emotion from so many people, on YouTube of all places. Why aren't the media more actively tapping into that?

The media plays a very large role in deciding the zeitgeist of a time. And I think it's a shame that they've chosen to obsess primarily on divisive topics rather than on topics that unify people and let them see what we're actually doing. There are a good deal of people that formulate their world views based primarily on the news. But if you were to do that now a days you'd see nothing but negativity, divisiveness, and general nastiness. Yet in reality we live in amazing times when we're doing amazing things, but instead of focusing on that -- the media are taking the worst of the worst, and spending all of their time focusing on that to the point that the glimpses of what really is (and will) define this era are lost to the never-ending tidal wave of divisive or outrage driven news.

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbSwFU6tY1c

Remember, Falcon Heavy is far from the biggest rocket since Saturn. Even if you discount Space Shuttles - which still were quite a significant achievement even for our time - you still have to remember two flights of Energiya. That puts SpaceX work in perspective - yes, it's important and FH (when it flies) can lift the most, but don't expect comparison on the level of Apollo-11 or Vostok.