How America almost lost the space race

"So where are we now, with Biden as our President? Without Musk and Bezos pushing the envelope, pretty much nowhere. I guess space exploration does not fall into the 'Build, Back Better' category. That being said, Musk is way out in front of everyone." 

Provocative title, heh? Yesterday, while it was frigid cold outside, I watched a news article made by some Canadians. Why is that important? No political venting. Just the facts as they saw them. They talked about the race to space, from the 1960's to present day. How America, went from being a dark horse, to the first on the Moon, building the space shuttle, and then - nothing.

Meanwhile, ever since the days of Mao, China has set its sights on outer space. Russia may have had the first satellite, but China was right behind them. Only problem was, their technology was not at that time. Many failures, but a strong determination. In fact, the Canadians laid the fault of letting China catch up with the United States, squarely on Obama. Their words - not mine, "Obama did not give a s**t about outer space. When asked about China wanting to go to the Moon, and we had nothing planned, his response was that we had already been to the Moon." That was a big problem.

But then came Donald Trump. And Elon Musk. And Jeff Bezos. All of a sudden, the interest in going back into space was high again. But by this time, China was already building a space station. Had two rovers on the Moon, one on Mars. They were building a space ship which looked like Musk's "super heavy", and their sights were also set on Mars. Plus, they had signed a joint agreement with Russia to put a base on the Moon to mine Helium 3. 

So where are we now, with Biden as our President? Without Musk and Bezos pushing the envelope, pretty much nowhere. I guess space exploration does not fall into the "Build, Back Better" category. That being said, Musk is way out in front of everyone. That is the benefit of being a visionary. As he is out is front, Bezos is trying to catch up, and NASA continues to stumble all over itself. What would I do, if I were in charge? Outsource the entire space program (with the budgeted dollars), to Elon Musk.

It will be interesting to keep an eye on this new space race. China is the dark horse, and we are even darker, with Musk calling the shots. As much of the space chasers in the world are playing checkers right now, Musk continues to play chess. Sometimes, four dimensional chess. 

Thank you Elon, for being on our side. Thank you, for picking up what NASA has dropped. You are a great American sir - and we appreciate you.