YES! The space race sent technology screaming ahead! Not to mention huge boosts to a wide variety of the sciences. Those boosts translated directly into commerce and economy boosts as well and I'm not just talking about Tang.
We have so much we could be doing. Some of it has come back in the last 20 years but very slowly and only based on the very creative use of tiny budgets compared to what went into the moon race.
And we were way behind on that race until about half way through the Gemini project. And Apollo 1 almost killed the whole thing. I remember as a kid begging to stay up to see launches and telecasts from the capsules and moon landings. I was very young but I could still tell this was major stuff not to mention that it really fired my imagination!!!
Unfortunately, to get beyond the moon and especially beyond our solar system will take more than just a single nation. We have a start with the international space station but it is such a mess as far as consistent commitment and agreement from a number of nations that it can be a bit depressing. I think we will have to deal with our own crap right here on tiny Earth before we get much farther than the moon.
I just want to live long enough to get a chance to get into space personally. I don't happen to have $20 million laying around right now so I'll have to wait for some more progress. Bummer!
