Neil deGrasse Tyson pushes exploration in Space Chronicles

I have not read this book, but I did hear him on NPR's "Science Friday" last week.

I think Tyson misses something huge. The USA actually had a large number of career engineers to do the Space Program with. From 1945 to 1960, a lot of WW2 vets went to college, and a lot of those college-goers went into engineering. Civil, mining and mechanical engineering were traditional "first-in-family-to-college" majors. They were a way for a farmer's son or a miner's son to become a professional without having to exhibit all the social graces.

From 1945 to 1960, the US military-industrial complex went from piston-driven props to jet turbines, from high subsonic aerodynamics to the X-15. A lot of engineering went into airplanes and rockets and missiles during that time.

The USA, indeed, the world, does not have a stock of engineers to do the design, nor does it have the scientists to make the spec the design meets.

I don't think the USA, or the world, can duplicate the 1960s "Space Race", much less surpass it.