That's precisely my point, though: it wasn't "a win" at all. It was just getting shit done that in hindsight, was a pretty remarkable event not to be repeated f

That's precisely my point, though: it wasn't "a win" at all. It was just getting shit done that in hindsight, was a pretty remarkable event not to be repeated for decades. So much of the narrative of the space race is childish bragging for doing X first or biggest or farthest. Ultimately those trophies are worthless. "be right back, getting the stuff from the old space station" is the sort of thing that should have become commonplace by now. Making that progress would have been much more important than having landed on the moon 50 years ago.