[kiba]

The problem is not manned space exploration. The problem is a lack of focus on making space exploration cheaper, and a lack of investment.

Space Shuttle wasn't cheaper. It was ridiculously expensive, with designs decisions that shouldn't be made in the first place. If it was just a rocket that launched astronauts into space. That would be one thing. It's quite another to carry literal deadweight into space.

Look at SpaceX's starship program. It's much more ambitious than anything we have on the drawing board. It isn't just another super heavy lift rocket, but a mass manufacturable reusable launch system. Everyone else is still thinking about how they will make reusuable rockets. Meanwhile, SpaceX is making their own game, playing on their own level.

Manned flight isn't a burden. It has nothing to do with why we stagnated in rocket development. In fact, manned flight is the point of SpaceX, especially colonization.

[Spooky23]

Space Shuttle was a system designed around classified military requirements that disappeared and left the civilian program holding the bag.

[gibsonf1]

Can you image the government in charge of mobile phone design? The incredible innovation of Space X is primarily that it's a private company with accountability and incentives around it's customers, and of course run by someone who truly understands both the problem and the evolving technology.

[KozmoNau7]

Can you imagine mobile devices that are not built to extract the maximum possible profit from the systematic exploitation of people's private data and attention spans, leading to political manipulation and instability, all to further fill the coffers of the global elite, who already own most of the world?