> The fact that humanity sent people back to the moon barely even registered.

Are you sure that people would have cared much even in better times?

Although I'm just as subject to the fatigue as everyone else, this just isn't a pursuit that I see as important.

TBH I think dealing with global warming, cancer, homelessness, AI impact on human cognitive development, and the loneliness epidemic are far higher priorities.

I think nobody cares about the moon thing because 1) they aren't landing, and (this one's more for people who are paying some attention to this stuff to begin with) 2) it's basically the same mission they already ran on auto-pilot, but with people on board, so... I dunno, hard to get excited about some very-expensive passengers on an automated ride.

I mean, part of why they cut the Apollo program short was because nobody cared back then either, after the first ~2 landings, so they muddled on a while longer but support simply vanished in a hurry. It'd be surprising if people started caring more now. I suppose if we land people on the moon it'll be a bit more of an event than this one (the landing, not the launch) but I'd expect interest to plummet again after that. Hopefully they have better-selected video feeds for the landing than they did for this launch, I had my kids watch it and it was bad enough I think I'll have trouble getting them to sit down for another NASA launch stream.

"Amusing ourselves to death" was eerily prescient. Now that the amusement stopped, what might happen next? Not the metaverse, that's for sure.