A curious feature of American life is the belief that putting a man on the moon in 1969 was not merely a thing we did, but a thing that defined who we are. The moon landing became the fixed point in a national narrative of progress, the ultimate rebuttal to any subsequent doubt. If we can put a man on the moon, the refrain went, we can do any lesser thing. It was a statement of faith in a particular kind of American power, the fusion of technological genius and free-enterprise grit that could, it seemed, bend the arc of history. The phrase has since acquired a certain nostalgic patina, a relic from an era when the country could still muster that kind of singular, massive effort.

Now, the proposition is being tested.

The question of whether China will beat the United States back to the

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