I believe that the area of disbelief would be that we just… stopped.
Unmanned space exploration is amazing, and we’ve done a ton in LEO, but we haven’t put a person out past the Hubble telescope since Apollo 17, which was 1972 if I remember correctly.
“Yeah, we went there a few times, there was nothing there besides a bunch of rocks. We brought some back for study, and spent the next few decades on more obviously productive pursuits. Like putting robots on Mars!”
That we’ve been to the moon - in there 60s - but haven’t been back or been out further. I think it would just be against all their expectations.
There were several places in the media that had stories of landing on the moon as a real possibility. Almost a forgone conclusion.
I believe that the area of disbelief would be that we just… stopped.
Unmanned space exploration is amazing, and we’ve done a ton in LEO, but we haven’t put a person out past the Hubble telescope since Apollo 17, which was 1972 if I remember correctly.
“Yeah, we went there a few times, there was nothing there besides a bunch of rocks. We brought some back for study, and spent the next few decades on more obviously productive pursuits. Like putting robots on Mars!”