Were houses that much bigger in the 1970s, though? Families definitely were bigger, so there were more people per square meter. I think overall, it's a sociological change, not a financial one. People are just less into hosting parties; too much hassle of cleaning up & preparing food, too many online distractions, etc.
Inviting friends over for dinner is the ONLY way I can get my wife and daughter to clear their stuff from the common areas.
A party with 10 guests is even better.
All three of us are hoarders, to an extent, but I alone am able to go into a cleaning frenzy approximately once or twice a year and get rid of mega-junk. Unfortunately, they don't seem able to do so.
So, I consider dinners still to be a useful tradition, though perhaps the motivations have shifted a bit.
I think the '90s was a missed opportunity. The U.S. was (mostly) at peace, had a lot of tax revenue flowing in, and should have built a safer replacement for the Space Shuttle.
Instead, we continued to rely on a flawed, expensive, and dangerous system to build and supply the ISS. Then, we tragically lost another Shuttle and crew in early 2000s.
Typically, tunneling involves abandoning the tunneling machine underground because it's too difficult and expensive to retrieve. The Boring Company's innovation was to find a way to retrieve the machine inexpensively, thus significantly reducing the cost of tunneling.
They also operate the machines remotely, so that humans are not risking their lives underground.
Tunnels are a good thing. They cut across a city without paving over more greenery. They will reduce surface traffic.
About half of SpaceX revenue is Starlink subscriptions. Starlink is the one profitable division; the rest of the company operates at a loss, including xAI.
I don't know that's moving the goalpost, SpaceX's mission was not that originally. Some could say the original mission failed and they are pivoting, Elon will say it's a means to the end of the original mission still to save face. Some read it all as snake oil
