Should bes are tricky. At least historically, competitiveness & national pride have been good drivers. That usually meant big money national projects for the US

Should bes are tricky. At least historically, competitiveness & national pride have been good drivers. That usually meant big money national projects for the US and Russia. More recently it has meant affordable projects can be sold to smaller national governments. Israel & India both went this way recently. Both crashed their landers, but that might not be such a terrible thing. There are also international efforts and private ones. I like having multiple tools in the toolbox. They all seem to operate quite differently. ESA/NASA can do long horizon boundary projects and hard science. ISS can do hard science, and expand/internationalize the knowledge base. These small, one-off national projects can try out new (often low cost) designs and a "just because" rationales for missions. Private space is making great progress commodifying launches... Roscosmos has more room to play (currently, they sell seats on their vehicles), without having to support white elephant projects that compete with NASA's budget. I'd say we're doing well, better than 10-20 years ago when the ISS had more of the "space pie," because space explorations is dispersed. I definitely agree with the spirit of "earthlings unite" but I also like the plurality of space agencies. Hopefully, India is hooked and we'll see more from them. No hate on international (or non national) projects though. Maybe Israel & India can combine forces for a 3rd mission. Both attempted a moon mission for around $100m. Both crashed their first attempt. If a 3rd mission succeeds we'll have a win for cooperation and we'll also have a proof of concept for affordable moon missions.