The Economist (4/10) reported, "A report by Futron, a technology consultancy, confirms America's dominance of space. On its space-competitiveness index -- which comprises 40 measures, including government spending, numbers of spacecraft built, numbers of spaceports and corporate revenue from space ventures -- America is light years ahead of its closest rivals in Europe." The ranking has Russia in third and China in fourth, although the latter is "an emerging space power with ambitious goals backed by heavy government investment."

Editorial: Reinvigorated space program would reflect American global leadership. In an op-ed for the Washington Times (4/11), Eric R. Sterner, former associate deputy administrator for policy and planning at NASA, writes, "This year, during its 50th anniversary," NASA "finds itself at a crossroads." Since 2004, the goal of the agency has been to "return Americans to the moon and send them to Mars, " but NASA now "finds itself under-funded, over-constrained, and subjected to programmatic second-guessing." Sterner points out that "the space program is intimately tied to the reality and perceptions of America's global leadership. To ignore this...is to underestimate the importance of space exploration." Sterner explains that NASA "has long contributed to the development of new technologies and created opportunities for scientific research," and a "reinvigorated space program" would stimulate "professional education in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics -- critical to the long-term competitiveness and national security of the United States. " Sterner concludes that "the high visibility of returning to the moon offers an opportunity to build the kind of 'soft-power' that serves America's long-term national interests."