Competition between the USA and the USSR produced the first orbiting satellite in Oct, 1957 and a man on the moon, twelve years later, in July, 1969. The USSR gave up on Space tech and so did the USA so that we couldn't land a man on the moon if we wanted to 50 years later. If the USSR had continued on to try and go to Mars we would have been there decades ago. Only with Elon Musk's vision for a Mars colony and his company SpaceX, is space technology advancing again. He also has stated that he hopes for some competition as he knows it can really push people to excel.