[mlindner]

> "why don't we use the same spirit when we were building these back then?".

Isn't that just personal opinion? If anything, the current era of spaceflight has finally restored the Apollo ethos that had been dead for decades. So the answer to your question is "we're already doing it". Lots of people seem to be going nuts and saying "but not like that!" as they seem to have some alternative weird vision for what Apollo was. My dad grew up watching Apollo launches, he even got to work on the Apollo-Soyuz mission in a small part. He's one of the people more hyped for SpaceX's mission/goal and Starship than anyone I know.