We still have the tech, the government is full of parasites who stole all the money. Rockets are expensive, not actually that complicated. NASA spent the last several decades on the global warming people's leash not able to get anything productive done. There was a brief golden age when none of the parasites had figured out there was money to steal yet, then the organization started rotting fast.

It doesn't take that many "director of diversity/climate change" positions at any western institution to send us back to the stone age.