A lot of the space effort was only done because it was important to US politicians to be seen to be proactive in the face of Soviet efforts.

ISS, as one of the later examples, was Reagan's answer to Mir. And we're still stuck with it.

I've been hoping that the Chinese effort would spark a bit of the old competitive pride, and I think it will.

I can't imagine, for instance, the Chinese saying they are intending a Moon colony without 14,000 Christian radio broadcasters pointing out how they could just about push a nuclear weapon off the Moon and have it land in the middle of their sanctuary without anyone being able to do anything about it.

Therefore the US would have to have that same man-powered launch system on the Moon to counter the Chinese, and off we go, into the wild blue yonder, flying high, etc.

Maybe someone could point out how easy it would be to launch a missile against our Moon colony from Mars. Nothing the Moon colony could do, so we'd better get to Mars and claim it.

(It doesn't have to make sense. Remember the ISS.)

Arf