Yeah, and as soon as a U.S. Senator makes a floor speech lamenting that "the Chinese are beating us at our own game!", I expect that the pork will start to roll and U.S. Aerospace industry will be thanking the Chinese as well.

I would take even odds against you on that bet. While the US would like to be seen as gearing up to take on China, most policy is driven in the direction of symbolism and a desire to have China step up so the US can step down in international affairs (a much more likely scenario is a renewed emphasis on North Korea as China's most potent regional security threat).

The American space program has been doomed for so long that it's hard to imagine a single speech would turn anyone around.

More generally, this outlook is part of why the TTP is staggeringly unpopular -- developing a soft power base in Asia, independent of China, simply isn't worth sacrificing _anything_, no matter how small, in the eyes of both the American public and it's current major party nominees.

Except it's going to go hand in hand with nationalism and fear-mongering. It won't bring people together and that ultimately a lot more sad.

> Except it's going to go hand in hand with nationalism and fear-mongering.

So did the first space race, and it went pretty well, and cooperation between the US and Russia still took place eventually.

uhhh, well I'm sure the space race didn't help in reducing tensions.. but you know all the proxy wars and thousands of soldiers dieing prolly played a bigger role.

There really shouldn't be an use vs. them with China. That's incredibly toxic thinking (trying to create an new Cold War)

> There really shouldn't be an use vs. them with China.

I never said there should be. All I said is that nationalism and fearmongering did not prevent the first space race from going well, and did not prevent eventual easing of tensions.