I think it says much that hard sci-fi isn’t popular to modern science and or the economy or government. Ie modern society lacks some sort of gee whiz goal on the horizon to push interest. Electric cars are cool, for instance, but they’re here and they’re not practical for apartment renters and distance drivers. Space discoveries are cool, but they take a long time to pull off and the results aren’t very compelling - with the exception of anything ET life related.
I feel like modern science may somehow be restricting or restricted from ground breaking, compelling discoveries.
Like, imagine if the world had a big-budget moonshot research project? Mining and colonizing asteroids, a space elevator, novel thruster technology, colonizing the seas even.