This poem summarizes my feeling on your question.

A rat done bit my sister Nell. (with Whitey on the moon) Her face and arms began to swell. (and Whitey's on the moon) I can't pay no doctor bill. (but Whitey's on the moon) Ten years from now I'll be payin' still. (while Whitey's on the moon) The man jus' upped my rent las' night. ('cause Whitey's on the moon) No hot water, no toilets, no lights. (but Whitey's on the moon) I wonder why he's uppi' me? ('cause Whitey's on the moon?) I was already payin' 'im fifty a week. (with Whitey on the moon) Taxes takin' my whole damn check, Junkies makin' me a nervous wreck, The price of food is goin' up, An' as if all that shit wasn't enough A rat done bit my sister Nell. (with Whitey on the moon) Her face an' arm began to swell. (but Whitey's on the moon) Was all that money I made las' year (for Whitey on the moon?) How come there ain't no money here? (Hm! Whitey's on the moon) Y'know I jus' 'bout had my fill (of Whitey on the moon) I think I'll sen' these doctor bills, Airmail special (to Whitey on the moon)

The space race during the cold war was much like the first industrial revolution, while it did advance technology and some of the good stuff trickled down to us like GPS and satellites. It also created ICBM’s. Most people, especially those in the global south gained nothing from the space race. It was essentially a dick measuring contest between the two biggest superpowers. The USSR got a lot of firsts, first object in orbit, first man in space, first probes on a couple of planets. These are huge accomplishments and I’m not saying these are bad, just not important if you’re a third world subsistence farmer and your main concern is not starving to death. And the USA beating the USSR to the moon was unexpected but nevertheless impressive, but you got to separate science from politics. A scientific breakthrough might not be good from a political standpoint, seriously do you know how many nazis were involved with the space race on both sides? None of this would have been possible without the slave labor those guys had at their disposal during WW2 to refine their methods and become the leading rocket scientists in the world. The material conditions to create a rocket scientist required a lot of human suffering.

I think the space race died down after the moon landings because the rivalry aspect died down enough for both sides to realize how expensive the space program actually was, they may have had the technology to go to the moon but there was nothing on the moon worth mining to continue going there. If anyone won the space race it was humanity because it didn’t result in us nuking ourselves and we got some stuff out of it. Nowadays the space race is heating up again because the capitalists have a commercial interest in going up there again, and smaller countries like China and India are poking their noses into it so the USA has to show it got big dick energy, the Artemis program is basically the USA taking a bunch of viagra to show that its still virile, here’s hoping the erection lasts for more than four hours and the old fuck croaks.