Far too often people fail to see the world for what it is. The use of space is expanding so much and that if anything people are tuning out accomplishments because they are not eventful anymore.

For some the end of the shuttle program was a downer but it was probably the single best thing to have happened to NASA in decades. the Shuttle program if anything held NASA back. The investment alone made it near impossible to not use it and the cost of using it doomed money for other development.

Now we have Space X with a record number of launches, China going to the dark side of the moon, and even more private corporations reaching for space. We still have cooperation with Russia not withstanding all the political strife caused by their leadership. The EU has had great missions recently and even India is moving forward.