Space is Big Business

( DOLLARS AND SENSE I SPACE IS BIG BUSINESS FIFTY YEARS AGO, the space economy consisted almost entirely of a Soviet budget that paid for Sputnik and a second one for a newly formed U.S. agency, NASA. According to Space Report 2009, compiled by the Space Foundation, in Colorado Springs, 13 governments spent US $83 billion last year on space, with the United States accounting for four-fifths of that amount. By itself, NASA outspent the other 12 countries taken together, and the U.S. Department of Defense $0.04 BILLION Space commercial transportation services spent even more-quite a bit more, in fact. Yet for every dollar governments spent, corporations spent two. A little over half of that commercial spending was on satellite services, mainly direct-to-home television; most of the rest went to infrastructure. COMMERCIAL ORBITAL LAUNCHES $1.14 BILLION - Infrastructure support industries 2004-2008 RUSSIA: 45 $5.6 BILLION: $1.97 BILLION: None of that commercial activity would exist if we couldn't get the satellites up into space, though, and on that score, the Russians, as they were in the late 1950s, are the clear leaders. Of the 106 commercial launches made in the past five years, the erstwhile Soviets accounted for 45. -Steven Cherry & Jean Kumagal EUROPE: 22 Satellite manufacturing (commercial) Launch industry (commercial) U.S.: 18 CHINA: 1 INDIA: $74.4 BILLION: Ground stations MULTINATIONAL: 19 and equipment $16.79 BILLION: $2.4 BILLION: - $2.2 BILLION: Mobile satellite Fixed satellite Satellite radio services services 2008 COMMERCIAL SPENDING: US $174.15 BILLION $0.01 BILLION: INFRASTRUCTURE SPENDING Federal Aviation Administration -$0.03 BILLION: Department of Energy $69.61 BILLION: Direct-to-home television -$0.48 BILLION: National Science REVENUES FOR SATELLITE SERVICES NON-U.S. Foundation U.S. AGENCIES $0.95 BILLION: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration $17.31 BILLION: NASA - $3.0 BILLION: National Geospatial- Intelligence Agency $25.95 BILLION: Department of Defense L- $8.9 BILLION: Missile Defense Agency $1.54 BILLION: Russia $3.97 BILLION: 2008 GOVERNMENT SPENDING: $83.08 BILLION $10.0 BILLION: National Reconnaissance Office Other countries - $1.7 BILLION: China $4.27 BILLION European Space Agency $1.47 BILLION: Non-U.S. military space, excluding China $3.5 BILLION: Japan * Estimated SOURCES: Space Foundation, U.S. Federal Aviation Administration 76 INT · IEEE SPECTRUM· JUNE 2009 www.SPECTRUMJEEE.ORG