So They Put A Man On The Moon - Now What?

One of the buzz stories now is the 40th anniversary of the landing on the moon, which was the culmination of almost a decade of enormous efforts. In my humble opinion this is probably the most ambitious and important combination of scientific and engineering efforts. However, since the last landing on the moon, Humanity has not been able to achieve it again. It's a shame that we - a group of more than 6 billion people - cannot join our forces in space exploration. The biggest achievement we have had came as a result of the cold war, rather than a result of cooperation. If necessity is the mother of all invention, war is its illegitimate dad.
Since the beginning of the 1970s space exploration has deteriorated gradually. First, only repeated landings on the moon with subsequent Apollo launches were made. Then, most missions became unmanned, and nowadays the only space flights are to Low Earth Orbits. Hardly 1/1000 of the distance to the moon. Even the International Space Station, Humanity's biggest cooperation to this date, is a small habitat of barely 6 astronauts (after increasing its size lately), who have to be relieved from their station every few month lest their bones decompose to the point of no return. If that's what we can achieve when all of Humanity cooperate, perhaps a war is in order.
But seriously, since the cold war has ended, in the late 1980s, and American companies have turned to manufacture their products in foreign lands, mostly in Asia, America as a nation has become more and more dependent on other nations. In the last decade things have deteriorated even further and now Asian companies also design many of the "American" products. The Harvard Business Review writes that American companies have lost their ability to manufacture and design many of the small and simple things they used to be able to manufacture in the past. They even lost their ability to manufacture cutting-edge technology stuff, like the Kindle or the Boeing 787's carbon-fiber components. The last nuclear reactor to start development (i.e. be designed) was in the 1970s. If this is the case, how can we expect America to lead the world technologically?
In my humble opinion, space exploration is not an option: it's a mandatory thing. It's something that we need to give to prosperity. This planet is already overcrowded, and it's getting worse. Climate changes will kill millions in the coming decades, yet we do nothing. For example, rocketry for instance, which is the only way we have to escape Earth's gravity at the moment, has not changed much since the Chinese invented the gun powder. At some time in the future a meteor will strike Earth and make it inhabitable for centuries, yet we do nothing. We need to save our lives and that can be done only by exploring other options. I am afraid the only hope is that the Chinese will start a new race against the USA, because this is our only chance to another big effort that may drive all of Humanity forward. Let it be soon, in our lifetime.