Just for clarification, why is him pocketing the American public funds supposed to go to nasa an accomplishment? he took something that every American shared in, even the whole world shared in during the space race, and made it his private plaything he can exploit for profit in the future m.
Wouldn’t you say the second season was a take on bringing real world problems into Star Trek context? The dystopia reality is an authoritarian regime founded on racism, and the planet is dying from ignored climate change, only barely being held together by essentially giant force fields in the sky.
If anything I found it a bit too on the nose for Trek, though that impression might be colored by this being the first real life issue of my time that is a topic in Trek. When old Trek shows aired the first time I was just a little kid and missed most of those; so I can’t relate as much.