US space supremacy slipping

Europe, China, India make gains

In this March photo, a European Space Agency technician inspects a satellite being prepared for orbit later this year. (MAARTJE BLIJDENSTEIN/AFP/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON - China plans to conduct its first spacewalk in October. The European Space Agency is building a roving robot to land on Mars. India recently launched a record 10 satellites into space on a single rocket.

Space, like Earth below, is globalizing. And as it does, America's long-held superiority in exploring, exploiting, and commercializing "the final frontier" is slipping away, many believe.

Although the United States remains dominant in most space-related fields and owns half the military satellites orbiting Earth, analysts say the nation's superiority is diminishing, and many other nations are expanding their civilian and commercial space capabilities at a far faster pace.

"We spent many tens of billions of dollars during the Apollo era to purchase a commanding lead in space over all nations on Earth," said NASA Administrator Michael D. Griffin, who said his agency's budget is down by 20 percent in inflation-adjusted terms since 1992. "We've been living off the fruit of that purchase for 40 years and have not . . . chosen to invest at a level that would preserve that commanding lead."

In a recent in-depth study of international space competitiveness, the technology consulting firm Futron of Bethesda, Md., found that the globalizing of space is unfolding more broadly and quickly than most Americans realize. "Systemic and competitive forces threaten US space leadership," company president Joseph Fuller Jr. concluded.

Six separate nations and the European Space Agency are now capable of sending sophisticated satellites and spacecraft into orbit - and more are on the way. New rockets, satellites, and spacecraft are being planned to carry Chinese, Russian, European, and Indian astronauts to the moon, to turn Israel into a center for launching minuscule "nanosatellites," and to allow Japan and the Europeans to explore the solar system and beyond with unmanned probes as sophisticated as NASA's.

While the United States has been making incremental progress in space, its global rivals have been taking the giant steps that once defined NASA:

South Korea, Taiwan, and Brazil plan to quickly develop their space programs and possibly become low-cost satellite launchers. South Korea and Brazil are both developing rocket and satellite-making capacities.

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