You mention the expansion of space in a lot of threads. I think you misunderstand its implications. The expansion happens everywhere, but it is only RELEVANT on longer distances because of the difference in scale.

An exampe: suppose you have two objects 1m apart. If the space between them doubles in size, now they are 2m apart. But what if there was another object 100m away from one of those objects? How far is it after the expansion? 200m? No: 2^100 m. As a result, it was not long at all after the big bang before the expansion was completely irrelevant on the scale of atoms.

One caveat, since the universe is 3 (4...5...6....?) dimensional, you may have to cube,etc that. But you get the idea: The size of the universe makes the expansion relevant only on very long distances.

Now clearly if stars had formed very early in the universe and were still around today, that would have a big impact - but they didn't.