I don’t give up that easily. Had we continued at the rate that took us to the moon I have no doubt we would have been at mars and beyond. Granted the stars are would still be well out of our reach but that doesn’t mean they would be forever.
The fact that we’ve been doing next to nothing is the reason there haven’t been big developments.
Undoubtedly. Even the very successful robotic missions to Mars and the outer planets have been largely discontinued. I would be thrilled with robot landers on the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, something it's safe to say I will not live to see.
And why not robotic exploration of the moon? If robotics were to advance to the point of fulfilling the most modest popular expectations, they could prepare a habitable moon base.