Working Together in Space

EVEN AS WE SPEAK, China has sent a space probe to the moon, and their robot is prowling around on the lunar surface, collecting data. The Chinese moon rover has a decidedly different look than the one the United States is using to explore Mars,and is functioning brilliantly at last report. Speaking of Mars, India has its own explorer on its way to the red planet. Througout most of the history of human exploration of Mars, attempts to send space probes have failed miserably. Most of the early ones crashed and burned before ever having a chance to do their jobs. But that was then, this is now. Amazing to think that, back in the nineteen sixties, when the United States and the Soviet Union were competing ferociously to become the leader in space exploration, both China and India were overwhelmingly rural agrarian nations with absolutely no inclination or technological capability to reach into outer space. But that was then, and this is now. Millions of folks have moved into the cities, manufacturing has caught up with farming as a source of wealth, and both China and India, with excellent science and technology education systems, have joined the high tech out reaching into space parade. This begs a question; is it really in the best interests of the human race to have many different countries operating many different independent space programs? Or would we all be better off to pool our resources, and have one big, Earthling space program? The cost and danger of sending people into space is far greater than computers and robots; we seem to have decided to go the robot route for the time being. But we are curious, exploratory beings. We the people at length will want to go travel the universe in person. With all the money being spent in a somewhat redundant manner at present, would it be possible and preferrable to develop a human based space development project, with all the nations of the world working together?