Space "race"

Large projects must be broken up into pieces and the work distributed among many cooperating specialists. For these specialists to coordinate with one another there have to be schedules.

Work can be done either too fast or too slowly. Attempts to work fast push up costs and lower safety. The death on the first soviet manned Soyuz flight is an example. Work can also be done too slowly. The fixed overhead that must be covered year after year is one issue. Low launch rate also unfavorably impacts worker skill levels.

But it seems to me that the U.S. has no need to "race" at the current moment.

If the soviets had been first to land a crew vehicle on the moon that might well have led to a stronger American post-apollo effort. Similarly, today, if the Chinese land a crew on the moon before the U.S. that might lead to a stronger U.S. program going forward.

I also think that the payback from space telescopes and other unmanned space assets has exceeded that of the manned programs. Crew should only be included when they are actually needed for the mission. Also, see my blog of 3 November 2010.