[Larrikin]

Meh, sounds like you are not American so telling people in the US to just give up on everything is boring and self serving.

If you do have a vote in the US, then you have options to try to make things better. Complaining about pedophiles and people on ketamine in the government is a valid (but extremely small) form of affecting change, but the doom and gloom of everyone should just give up helps no one.

[krapp]

I am an American, I do vote to make things better. I have a whole life outside of Hacker News. But if it's valid to express naive, wide-eyed optimism about how space travel will usher humanity into a utopian era of peace and love it's valid to express the opposite. This is an internet forum so neither the cynicism nor the optimism really helps anyone. Pointing out that that doing so doesn't lead to meaningful change is tautological. No one here is affecting change about anything. I'll get downvoted and flagged, the optimists will get upvoted and cheered, the invisible internet points will be tallied and our accounts weighed in the balance and everyone will move on to the next shiny thing.

But yes, for me, all of this is tainted as it must inevitably be seen against the backdrop of the current administration. American space travel, American science and technology, the "American spirit." I can't feel anything but disgust about it and pity for the astronauts and scientists trying to do real work in the context of an administration that only sees them as tools for propaganda.

There was plenty of (I think valid) cynicism about Apollo at the time and JFK had his faults God knows but he didn't rape children as far as I know.