Put politics aside?

Nationalism is all we've got to push forward space exploration; While there were initially subtexts involving spy satellites and nuclear weapons, the tech has been there for forty years, and forty years ago we stopped making progress and settled into a holding pattern involving the Shuttle and a modest space station in some sort of 'spirit of cooperation' that is earmark- rather than goal-oriented.

I can only hope China's national inferiority complex is intense enough to propel human beings beyond low earth orbit once more, and shame us out of our hyperpower exceptionalism. Yes, shame - Russia can send someone to the ISS and the US cannot - and without the US feeling ashamed of that, there is no Dragon, no Dream Chaser, no Orion.

Without a political space race, there's no resources for this sort of thing except for the passing billionaire.

"Nationalism is all we've got to push forward space exploration"

What about the Google X-Prize for the moon lander? Several teams are competing. There are certainly other ways to push technologies forward. X-Prizes help. Finding other ways to tap into the $15 trillion US economy would help too.

All true but a "political space race" can have a bad ending as well.

I think another space race would be a good thing actually.

In fact I think it's how we should solve all our international disputes: First country to put a man on mars gets the South China Sea.

Can non-nations apply?

(Thinking of the South Musk Sea)

But... putting a man on Mars takes a good chunk of his life for no gain to anyone. Why not "first country to build a 700-foot traditional stone pyramid"? "First country to paint 30% of its land area blue"?

I'd be more excited about getting people to Mars, and so would presumably many other - and it'd provide much more advances and gains than building a pyramid.

Alive or dead?

They are going to die anyway.