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.
There's no major financial incentive go to the moon or mars, other than would-be space tourists or colonists that are willing and able to pay for their own trip.
The only way spacefaring could be commercialised is with asteroid mining, and that's a long way away still. The eye-popping "this asteroid could be worth a hundred trillian dollars!!1" kind of headlines are sensationalised to attract investors to fund exploration missions to figure out if the theory matches the practice, but even if it was worth that amount, getting any material back to Earth is currently cost- and engineering-prohibitive. It may become viable in our lifetime, for example if they can get a Starship sized craft there, fill the hold with titanium and return all of it to Earth, but that's a long way away still.
> There's no major financial incentive go to the moon or mars, other than would-be space tourists or colonists that are willing and able to pay for their own trip.
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.
We're not talking about a vanity Mars visit, we're talking about building an X-ray observatory. The JWST has already been phenomenal, it feels like it's delivering an almost daily barrage of discoveries, many of which are already affecting long standing understandings of the universe. The benefit of these projects is that they actually help us to answer the basic questions of existence in a way nothing else does.
While I mostly agree with what you've said in respect to a Mars base -- I think you are leaving out a critical benefit of these types of endeavors.
The technology invented and/or adapted to facilitate these enormous space projects is very often applicable in other fields or daily life.
Some examples from the past include metallic glass (now used in power plants), translucent polycrystalline alumina (now used in invisible braces), water purification technologies, the coatings used on launch pads was adapted for use in coating steel for high-rise building projects, etc. The list is quite long.
There are hundreds of spin-off technologies, many of which are used daily, which originated from various ambitious space projects.
It didn't end just at the ICBM of course or even the nuclear submarine. Satellite warfare became and is still a huge focus. Of course the public was pitched the maintenance bay of the space shuttle was to repair a peaceful satellite only. However, you can imagine how supremely useful it would be for a modern military to have the capability of deploying sappers and a workshop on any object in earth's orbit as well, which is what the space shuttle system also allowed for.
> 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.
Quite a few things have been done since then, including the JWST, all the other space telescopes, helicopters on Mars, visits to every planet in our solar system system, ...
There's no major financial incentive go to the moon or mars, other than would-be space tourists or colonists that are willing and able to pay for their own trip.
The only way spacefaring could be commercialised is with asteroid mining, and that's a long way away still. The eye-popping "this asteroid could be worth a hundred trillian dollars!!1" kind of headlines are sensationalised to attract investors to fund exploration missions to figure out if the theory matches the practice, but even if it was worth that amount, getting any material back to Earth is currently cost- and engineering-prohibitive. It may become viable in our lifetime, for example if they can get a Starship sized craft there, fill the hold with titanium and return all of it to Earth, but that's a long way away still.