The current US administration’s plans were to send astronauts to Mars. That’s now been dropped, and the emphasis will now be to compete with China and try to build a base before them. Who starts a lunar base first matters. Although the Outer Space Treaty prohibits anyone from claiming lunar territory, whoever sets up a base can claim some sort of rights to the site and its vicinity.
The best site will be somewhere on the south pole (this means almost continuous sunlight) with access to frozen water at the bottom of craters. It’s possible that extensive lava tubes for radiation protection will be important, too. China’s plans envision its base being built inside these. The number of places with easy access to water and lots of lava tubes may be very small, and some much better than others. Presumably whoever gets there first will get the best spot.
Who will get there first? It remains to be seen. The US’s weakness is that it is relying on SpaceX’s Starship to first achieve a huge number of technical goals, and so far, SpaceX is far behind schedule on those.
Ironically, the two examples you listed are cases where the US did benefit immensely from winning the race. The US also benefited hugely from the Apollo space race, even if that wasn’t the intention.
As I understand, chasing a measurement of GDP is an effort to show work capacity. This capacity can be utilized in wartime to produce weapons and bolster security. Increasing work for the sake of increasing work does not benefit workers- it does not provide fair wages or safe workplace environments. It does not make citizens lives better. Similarly, there is an amount which must be spent on military for protection and to act as a deterrent, but engaging in a spending race is not beneficial to people. Those efforts could be used towards education, health, transportation and quality of life. I don’t see how you can argue that the US’s goals should be to work the hardest and spend the most on military.
I’m not making the argument that it should be chasing those specific goals, or that they benefited the citizens. I’m drawing a distinction between the country and the people - as far as the leaders of the country are concerned, winning those races gave them exactly what they wanted, and the country (the aspects of it they care about) benefited.
So when you say that the US benefited immensely, you really mean that a few people (politicians and the ultra rich) benefited. I can understand that you’re saying that the US was successful in achieving it’s goals i just don’t agree that the result was beneficial compared to a more strategic focused approach