No, it isn't waning. There are struggles, but that doesn't mean its waning. We're having massive progress in medicine, space, cosmology, environment, biology, food, transportation. Hell, the only thing that's waning is public perception of science and that seems to be a deliberate political attack.
I think it's obviously waning if you look at any field that deals with physical world: a car from 1940 looks totally different than one from 1980's, but the one from 2020 and 1980 looks almost the same. Space rockets are same as they were in 80's, where are nuclear engines, fusion propultion, etc? Its the same for airplanes, appliances, and everything execept computers. https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/145134227466…
In 1980 we weren’t landing self piloting rocket stages on drone ships and reusing them a month later. The engines powering our rockets were completely different chemistry and metallurgy. We weren’t building hyper efficient carbon fiber airframes with high bypass turbofans (Dreamliner). Even my washing machine is using about half the energy compared to a washing machine in 1989.
Composites, manufacturing, and design are all completely different to how things were in the 80s
Just because something has a similar form factor doesn’t mean it is the same. There is a strong argument that the past 40 years has seen some of the fastest progress in the history of the human race when it comes to making things.