What I found pretty interesting about this article is really how, historically speaking, space hasn't been a unipolar area. Before the fall of the USSR, America was in constant competition with the Soviets, and this pushed both sides to the limits and unlocked a crazy amount of data that to this day we are still learning from. If we compare percent of GDP spent on space, yes, NASA and the whole federal apparatus are dramatically lower. Instead, though, we have companies now that are picking up the slack, and federal, state, and local governments are offering tax breaks to have these companies operate in their areas.

The US has been extremely successful in transitioning from only being able to do this via federal spending to having a booming space industry that is on the cutting edge of innovation.