> <i><font color="yellow">A race implies a finish line and Apollo definetely had a finish line.</font>/i><br /><br />I agree; I dislike the idea of a "finish line" because then the effort is, by definition, "finished". But there are lots of milestones people race to be first to reach, and I suspect these will include (1) high resolution and elevation data of the Moon, especially the far side, that compares with data we have received from Mars, (2) First rover on the Moon, (3) first comfirmation of water in the cold traps on the Moon, (4) first human landing in 40+ years, (5) first stay that exceeds a full lunar cycle, (6) first Lunar construction using Lunar material, (7) first products used off the Moon derived from Lunar material, etc.<br /><br />Having agreed that a race as conceived, implemented, and (most damaging of all) completed in the 1960s to early 1970s, is not advantageous, there is certainly some type of race.<br /><br />The following is from a story about a recent Congressional hearing; it is dripping with race metaphores:<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>When the House Appropriations subcommittee that oversees NASA met to review the agency’s 2007 budget request March 30, money talk quickly gave way to <font color="yellow">alarm at China’s ambitious</font>human spaceflight program.<br />...<br />But rather than devoting the next two and a half hours quizzing NASA Administrator Mike Griffin about the details of the agency’s $16.792 billion budget request, the Republicans on the panel, in particular, spent the majority of their time hashing out the <font color="yellow">threat China and other space-faring nations pose to U.S. <b><i>supremacy</i></b> in space.</font><br /><br />The next space race<br />Before all was said and done, Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas), the former House majority leader, declared the United States to be engaged in a space race with China.<br />“We have a <font color="yellow">space race</font></p></blockquote></i>