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I wasn't going as extreme with utopian bliss when I suggested that working towards a common goal will cause people to set aside differences. I was merely suggesting that since you have a group of countries all with a vested interest in one thing they will be more likely to work together in other things as well.
For example, we rely heavily on the Russians in the ISS program. After the Shuttle retires this year they are our only ride to the space station. They also are the only ones who are able to regularly and reliable fly up new supplies to the space station. Since we've invested $100 billion in this space station I really doubt we'll do anything stupid to jeopardize our relations with Russian for fear they increase the cost of flying us to the station or worse yet cut us off entirely. In all honesty the Russians could detach their portion of the ISS and probably be perfectly fine (until their money runs out). The US segment would be left abandoned with no way of getting people or supplies there.
Hell one of the goals of the Shuttle-Mir missions and partnering with the Russians for ISS was to ensure they had some stable income to their country after fall of the Soviet Union. The fear was they would sell off their nuclear arsenal and other military technologies to form Soviet Republics and by essentially buying their services to build some modules for ISS as well as pay them "rent" to allow our astronauts to live on Mir we helped keep them solvent while also learning a little about operating in space long term.
All I'm trying to say is there are real tangible changes that have taken place due to our partnering with other countries for space exploration.
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