But no one questions why we are working with decades long development timelines. Even Apollo was conceived in 1960 and landed in 1969, under one decade let alon

But no one questions why we are working with decades long development timelines. Even Apollo was conceived in 1960 and landed in 1969, under one decade let alone multiple decades. SpaceX went from 0 launches to orbit in a decade, then from 0 reusable to world first in a decade and now looks like they are gunning for Mars within a decade. I agree with the other poster that the only thing that will light a fire under the US' butt is having a peer country clown them in a space milestone. I don't like the CCP and I abhor their practices but I do root for their space program since seeing that bright red commie flag on the moon is the only egg big enough to cover all the faces necessary in the usgov in order to actually get something done. I also really hope that India gets in the game in a serious way so we can have even more competition, an India-China space race would be fun to watch and would have the US scrambling to catch up.