I think it's a pretty basic scenario, the U.S. has the money and industrialization to plant space bases on half a dozen planets and moons if we really made it a priority, especially with full military backing, and one thing that really motivates us is thinking that someone else is going to "take away" something we consider "ours".

ADDED: So it could be considered "good" overall for human spaceflight, even if it would be bad overall for international relations here on Earth.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort