The Apollo Program set a clear goal (“landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth”) and a clear timeline (“before this decade is out”). The

The Apollo Program set a clear goal (“landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth”) and a clear timeline (“before this decade is out”). The US was strongly motivated to execute on this since it was losing the Space Race at the time. Right now, no nation really has a clear goal (e.g. the US can’t even decide if it wants to send people back to the moon or go straight to Mars), a clear timeline (a manned mission to Mars is perpetually 20 years away for the US; a similar phenomenon also seems to be going on for anyone returning to the moon), or a clear motive. The US beat every other country to the moon by at least ~50 years, so all China doing a manned lunar mission proves at this point is that their technology and space capabilities are no more than 50 or 60 years behind the US’s. I think the US (either NASA or a private company) will be the first nation to land a person on Mars, although it might be a while before it happens; if at some point it looks like another nation is going to beat us, we might actually develop some motivation at that point.