A strong chance exists that, in the next few years, American astronauts will leave low-Earth orbit for the first time in half a century. There is a decent chance that, later this decade, they will return to the moon. A few years after that, they might even reach Mars. NASA is slowly emerging from its lengthy post-Apollo doldrums. A pair of billionaire-backed new entrants in the private sector are making significant technological breakthroughs. Even better, they are driving down costs.

It’s an exciting time for space travel—or it should be. The space industry’s second Golden Age has not captured the public imagination. As the rockets climb toward the heavens, in fact, much of the media and political commentary has been startlingly negative. Oligarchs and their toys! What about world hunger? We need a wealth tax. What about climate change? We need a wealth tax. What about universal health care? Time for a wealth tax!

Apathy, cynicism, bitterness: Why is this the way so many Americans, especially among the progressive elite, react to such stunning feats of imagination, perseverance, and ingenuity? The response suggests a stunted view of the human condition, and it raises an unsettling question: Does the United States still have what it takes to lead the world into space? Do we still have the right stuff?

[People may not recall that the spending on the original space program generated similar criticisms and debate. The Apollo I disaster prompted calls in Congress to end the program and focus more spending on LBJ’s Great Society programs. Eventually, the Apollo program got curtailed over spending concerns and the fact that we had accomplished the main goal of landing on the Moon, and the spending on further missions after the set NASA had already funded looked redundant. The miniseries “From the Earth to the Moon” did a good job of covering those issues, in fact, which have been lost in the legendary achievements of the first space programs.

As for still having “the right stuff,” that’s more a question of risk tolerance. We had a Cold War impetus for the space race in the 1960s-1980s that dissipated after the fall of the Berlin Wall. I don’t know that Americans still have the capacity for that kind of risk tolerance, but that’s why the space program is mainly advancing through the private sector now. — Ed]