Comment by GMoromisato

The US will land astronauts on the moon, probably this decade but maybe early in the 2030s. That's my bet. Compared to previous human spaceflight efforts, Artemis has the support of both major parties and the NASA community (scientists, engineers, and administrators). That was not always the case, which is why the Constellation Program failed.

Moreover, the Artemis program, unlike the "flags and footprints" goal of Apollo, has a plausible path for a sustainable human presence on the moon and an evolutionary path to a human Mars landing. If they can pull that off, with a budget smaller than Apollo, then I think NASA will deserve all the praise they get.

Will China land humans on the moon before us? No, because we already did that in 1969. But they might land humans before Artemis does. In that case, I suspect we'll see a real-live version of "For All Mankind" and we'll dump extra funding on NASA. Maybe. Or maybe we'll do what the Soviets did when we beat them and shift to something else, like Mars.