Yeah I think you have something there. I don't know if you've seen that show on Apple TV but that's part of the basis of it that the Soviets actually got there first.

Given how valuable everything from the space program produced it's a shame that we let some ignorant politicians say oh we're launching all that money into space when every penny was spent on the ground.

As I've said elsewhere the second somebody gets a successful mining operation going in space or build some sort of orbiting factory the race will be on again and it won't be just governments this time. At this point it's not only governments at this time