People still do embrace and care! It's probably not the way you got used to it! That's why you think there has been anything like that anymore.
During the late 1960s and into the early 1970s this country usa was together on the space program.everyone cheered and loved what are space program was doing. Why has their not been anything like that for americans to cheer for to embrace?
We come together as citizens to celebrate great achievements and pull tightly together after a catastrophe. After the headlines diminish, we all go back to our little worlds and start to ignore each other again, we put the flags away, no more celebratory parades.........until the next time.
Also ... During the 60's and 70's, we were in the "Cold War" against the Soviet Union.
Have you been paying attention?
I don't know, a good part of America these days care more about bathrooms, guns, Obama-bashing, and religion than actual academic achievement. You think I'm lying?
Front page of FOX this afternoon. 
These things hold their attention more than actual intellectual achievements. That's why the regions where these people reside are so economically depressed.
As to answer your question, you should have been there a month ago. The crowds were astronomical and everyone was chanting USA USA USA USA USA after the successful landing of the CRS-8 Dragon.
In fact, there's something HUGE going on tomorrow being live stream from the International Space Station.
We're beginning to test expandable habitats that could be used to enter deep space and set up colonies.
💰
Back then we were in a global race and in the middle of a "cold war". Gradually over time things and people change. No one cares much because caring was eliminated by parental apathy and the demise of our overall "values". Right now few people speak of the Chinese space program and how it is beyond anything the US or any other country has.