An arguable frailty with latterday capitalism is its focus on short term revenues.
It has been known since the early 1970s that industrial development of the near solar system contains the guarantee for great profit. The problem is the investment hurdle, the limitations in imaginations of (often aged and unimaginative) investors, as well as the ponderously long time for returns and profits to mature.
Now China has clearly started early exploration with the immediate end goal of colonization. US Scientists are sounding an alarm, and with good reason.
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/leag/DestinationMoon.pdf
This is the time for rational government intervention and heavy subidizing of a space industrialization initiative. If the US does not act quickly, the US may face irrelevance.