Some awfully interesting developments over the past month or so. First we had this:

Spacewalk Taikonauts Receive Heroes’ Welcome

Cheering crowds in Beijing greeted the three returning Chinese taikonauts who fulfilled China's third manned space mission over the weekend.

The Shenzhou-7 spacecraft landed in Inner Mongolia on Saturday afternoon and the taikonauts – including Zhai Zhigang, who conducted China’s first spacewalk while wearing a Chinese-made space suit and carrying a Chinese flag in one hand – have now returned to headquarters.

The mission “opened a new chapter of the Chinese nation in exploring and peacefully utilising space," said General Guo Boxiong, Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission.

The last week it was this:

India Celebrates Launch of First Moon Probe

India's first space mission beyond Earth orbit was launched successfully Wednesday (Local Time) when an upgraded version of India's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) placed the Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter into an elliptical transfer orbit, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) announced.

The 3,042-pound (1,380-kg) Chandrayaan-1, carrying 11 experiments including three from the European Space Agency, two from NASA and one from Bulgaria, is expected to fire its onboard liquid motor in a series of maneuvers intended to place it into a 62-mile (100-km) altitude orbit above the Moon's surface by Nov. 8.

Then over the weekend we saw this:

Armadillo Aerospace Wins Level One of the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge

Armadillo Aerospace team leader John Carmack wore a big smile yesterday as the team earned $350,000 in prize money for winning Level One of the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge in Las Cruces, New Mexico. In addition to officials from NASA and other space-industry organizations, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson was on hand to witness the victory and to show his support for the private spaceflight industry. Armadillo made an attempt at Level Two of the Challenge today, but experienced technical problems that prevented them from accomplishing a successful flight.

The Chinese are now at roughly at Project Gemini stage on their way to their own Apollo program. The Indians are in the game with their new lunar probe. And in the US, private developers are leading the way to a new era in space exploration. Exciting times!

Is it a new Space Race with China n the lead? Or is this a whole new ball game. I tend to think it's the latter, but what does that mean, exactly? Next one to the moon wins? But we've already been...that ought to count for something. The real race might be to see who can put together a lunar exploration program that isn't a dead end.

Now that would be exciting.