In the historical figures section on the wiki, a long quote is given from Winship, where he delivers a scathing review of his contemporary astronomers in 1899.
I tried reading further, but theres not a lot of discussion about the motives or reasons for the doubt of the shape of the earth and findings of astronomers until the space flight era. These more modern reasons I can totally understand. There is a valid argument that having dominance in space provides geopolitical power (the US has absolutely achieved that).
I'll stay completely out of the thread after this question, I'm just trying to understand more about the origins of the skepticism surrounding pre-NASA astronomy and the shape of the earth.