No, it's written like a thought on how we as a species would have evolved given the possibility of visiting a close planet instead of the moon at the same age o

No, it's written like a thought on how we as a species would have evolved given the possibility of visiting a close planet instead of the moon at the same age of technology. I mean with closer proximity it would have been a race to a neighboring planet rather than touching down on the moon, and where we are now we could have feasibly accomplished interplanetary travel without issue already. His comment doesn't even bring up our current situation, but would could have been if we had closer neighboring planets.