I think the space race ended because we got all the benefit available, which wasn’t really in space anyway, it was the ancillary technical developments like computers, navigation, simulation, incredible tolerances in machining, material science, etc.

We’re seeing a resurgence in space because there is actually value in space itself, in a way that scales beyond just telecom satellites. Suddenly there are good reasons to want to launch 500 times a year.

There was just a 50-year discontinuity between the two phases.

> I think the space race ended because we got all the benefit available

We did get all the things that you listed but you missed the main reason it was started: military superiority. All of the other benefits came into existence in service of this goal.