China on the moon

The Canton Rep features an op-ed piece by James Pinkerton and the international competition that tends to drive manned space exploration. In his piece, he posits that we will get serious about manned space travel again as the Chinese leap ahead of us in manned space exploration. I don't doubt that he is right. In fact, this leads into one of my irritations with our national character. Instead maintaning our leads in various things, we have a tendency to let our leads slide until, *gasp*, somebody else threatens our national character by doing that particular thing better. Then nothing can stand in our way. With space travel, I get the feeling that we will not get back on the band wagon until we watch a Chinese astronaut removing the American flag from the moon and replace it with a Chinese flag. Once we see that, we'll be on Mars faster than you can say "Buzz Aldrin." I can't substantiate it, but it seems these leaps and bounds would cost us more than steady, dogged progress.