[marron]

The country that learns to effectively operate in space is the only country that will matter in the coming century. Any country that wants to make a place for itself needs to skip over current technologies, and current rivalries and current competitions, and go for the gold ring.

Once that happens, the stuff we are scrapping about now won't matter anymore, and it won't matter who won or lost battles no one cares about anymore.

Who cares who has Taiwan, or the West Bank, or Chechnya, once you have planted your boots on Mars, and set your sights on the Asteroid Belt? Who will care who controls which oil fields?

If the Chinese are thinking in these terms, they are right to do so, and if we are not, we will wish we had. We should plan to have private contractors operating on the moon in 7 years, Mars in 12, and the Asteroids in 20, if we plan to matter at all in our grandchildren's time. We are headed down a blind alley, and the only way to save ourselves is to make the big jump, and make it now.

[RightWhale]

That's exactly how it looks to me, too. You can't win if you're not at the table, and America is not at the table.