content: Tech isn't some catch-all stat. Rocketry is an extremely specialized technology, and one that was practically forgotten. In the 60s 4% of the US budget was dedicated to NASA and that was almost entirely focused on getting to the moon. But once we won the space race, all government funding for space was dramatically cut. For comparison NASA now gets less than half of one percent of the budgeting, and that half percent is split among a half dozen different mandatory programs. As there was no immediate money in space after we landed on the moon, capitalism meant it was a dead industry without government support. And so it remained for decades. Technology does not just magically move forward. Without people pushing it forward it can, and does, regress. We absolutely moved backwards from where we were in the 60s. It's possible that without SpaceX practically unilaterally rebooting the space industry that today we'd still be regressing.