Earlier quoted context omitted.
The post WW2 cold war is what pushed our understanding of space. So actually modern politics helped with that.
But once the space race to the moon was won - and all major powers had proven they are capable of producing ICBMs - it feels like the energy and financing just went out of it. There's no more political or military gain to be had from space exploration so governments only put in a token amount, and there's only limited commercial gain from e.g. telecom, mapping and navigation, but that's all focused on earth itself. T…
I don't think there's any incentive at all. What reason is there for anyone to go to Mars other than to say they did, at enormous expense and technical effort? Best case scenario, after spending tens of trillions of dollars, we're able to build a base that needs continual resupply from Earth and in which you're basically living in a box - you'll never be able to set foot outside except in a suit, worse even than our Antarctic bases. And even then, we can expect long-term health effects. Well, you can live in a box on Earth.
The reason there isn't major funding for space is because most people don't care all that much. It's a nice thing to have, and I wish more people did support increasing this sort of funding, but it's perfectly understandable why most people don't want to contribute significant percentages of GDP to a scifi dream.