U.S. Finds It's Getting Crowded Out There (U.S. Dominance in Space Slips)

[onehandle]

Source: Washington Post

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 experts believe.

Although the United States remains dominant in most space-related fields -- and owns half the military satellites currently orbiting Earth -- experts 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."

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/08/AR2008070803185.html

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Is there anything we do best other than bomb the fuck out of the poor?

[soothsayer]

1. well, seeing as how space is a strategic battlefield, i reckon we'll be back

in front.

[Pavulon]

2. Global GPS(big deal), telecom , weather, etc

NASA deserves more money but we are not inept. This is like the articles where India whips the USAF, RIGHT BEFORE BUDGET TIME.

[SpiralHawk]

3. Yet another Bush-Republicon FAILURE

They screw up everything...

[freedomnorth]

11. Clinton was president during nineties. nt.

[SpiralHawk]

13. Yeah, and Commander AWOL Bush & his corrupt republicon cronies have...

been in 'command' for the last, god-awful long 8 years. And have done NOTHING.

So blame Clinton's penis if you must, but understand that NO ONE who is paying attention will believe you. They will quietly suspect you of having a kool aid habit, and a congenital right-wing Clenis fetish.

The American people know -- for an indisputable fact -- that the BushCo republicon cabal has been a colossal FAIL in economics, in energy, in environment, in war, in care of our veterans, in agriculture, in education, in massive stinking national debt, in morals, in basic truthfulness, and also in - ta da - SPACE.

A Big total republicon fail.

[Zorro]

4. Consequences of hysterical overreaction

Brought to you by the Republican congresses of the late 1990s.

Their hatred of anything Clinton led to them passing legislation making it more difficult for US commercial satellite companies to do business with foreign countries. This was targeted against two corporations that presumably leaned Democratic, Hughes (now part of Boeing) and Loral, after they reportedly assisted in the investigation of a Chinese Long March failure.

[Crowman1979]

5. Space is the domain of the entire world, not one country!

Maybe if we cut most of this defense and covert operations money, then we can work with other nations in order to create a better world. Use asteroids and uninhabital moons and planets for mining, instead of destroying our own planets forest and farmland to find it. Using the Sun as an incinerator for our most toxic and radioactive waste, instead of our own backyard.

Am I the only one who believes this?

[Ghost Dog]

7. You are not the only one. As a realist-pacifist-ecologist

I'm with you there. :hi:

[Baclava]

8. Still too expensive to get payloads into orbit - it's the killer.

Unless you have a self-supporting base on the moon, it won't be profitable from earth.

Time to terraform Mars, give it a real atmosphere and move half our population there.

That's my solution.

[Crowman1979]

9. I think it would be better to save this planet, instead of moving half of earth's population to mars

It would be best to send robots to mine and have a small team of technicians perform maintenance.

[Phoonzang]

10. Forget mining Mars, asteroids are where its at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_mining

"In 2004, the world production of iron ore exceeded 1,000 million metric tons<1>. In comparison, a comparatively small M-type asteroid with a mean diameter of 1 km could contain more than 2,000 million metric tons of iron-nickel ore<2>, or two to three times the annual production for 2004. The asteroid 16 Psyche is believed to contain 1.7×1019 kg of iron-nickel, which could supply the 2004 world production requirement for several million years."

People don't realize that space has all the resources we'll ever need...unlimited solar energy, unlimited metals from near-earth asteroids. The initial investment in space flight will be very high, but the payback will be exponentially higher.

[Baclava]

12. Better yet - send "generation ships" to seed the stars.

Time to get off this mudball - this solar system has nothing for us....time to spread our sperm&eggs throughout the galaxy.

[Nihil]

14. Just like dandelions ... (n/t)

[bemildred]

6. Hey, dominating space is "hard work". nt