The correct answer to this open question is the following.
I consider the United States space race of the 1950s-1969 against the Soviet Union as a failure?
Here is why.
In the times of the so-called Cold War, the Soviet Union had been the first to sent an artificial satellite into space, called "Sputnik." The date: October 4, 1957.
They had a clear advantage over the United States in the space race to the degree that this issue obsessed US President John F. Kennedy who ordered to invest millions of dollars to equal and pass the Soviet feat.
The federal government created a special agency, NASA, and spent millions of dollars trying to win the space race.
Under those conditions, it was not worth the cause.
Something totally different could have been if the US government had decided to invest and develop its space industry at its own pace. The problem here is that in thos Cold War days, the United States feared that this space advantage could represent a "war" advantage that had favored the Soviets.
