If our grandfathers could go to the moon in the age of transistors, slide rules, and adding machines

Which they did.

we would have gone back long before now.

Almost as though a certain outside force took control of the country around that time and redirected its efforts toward something else.

NAAAAAAAAH CAN’T HAVE HAPPENED, GOY, THAT’S A CONSPIRACY THEORY! I GUESS THE WHITE MAN IS JUST WORTHLESS AND PATHETIC, RIGHT?

It still represents the best we can do.

Not even remotely close.