This year's 50th anniversary of America's victory in the space race is a good time to reflect on what we can do when we put forth our very best. But the thrill of watching SpaceX's spectacular, and now routine, Falcon rocket launches largely obscures much of America's antiquated space industry. At best, the government-funded space industry loiters, with NASA and national security space programs spending billions of unnecessary dollars on obsolete technologies while keeping outdated satellite architectures on life support. Over 20 years of this downward trend has left this part of our space industry unprepared to lead or even be competitive for the next 50 years. If we lose the second space race that is already underway, the consequences will be actually far worse than if we had lost the first.

Source: CNN July 17, 2019 20:03 UTC