Will China beat America in returning astronauts to the moon? We hear this question time and again. It is a perennial concern, both from a prestige and national security standpoint. But it is the wrong question. What we really need to assess is whether or not China is on track to dominate America in space. 

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Tim Hwang is general counsel and a senior fellow at the Foundation for American Innovation focused on emerging technologies and national security. He is also a Senior Technology Fellow at the Institute for Progress, where he runs Macroscience. Previously,...

Quade MacDonald is a nonresident fellow at the Foundation for American Innovation and a fellow at the Roots of Progress Institute, where he researches bottlenecks in space industrial policy and emerging space technologies.