Enlarge / Vice President Mike Pence speaks at Kennedy Space Center on Thursday.

NASA

If President Donald Trump has had one consistent message about space exploration both during his campaign and presidency, it's that America is doing badly in space. About a year ago during a campaign stop in Daytona Beach, Florida, Trump said, "Look what's happened with our whole history of space and leadership. Look what's going on, folks. We're like a third-world nation."

As Vice President Mike Pence has assumed duties over space policy, he has made a respectable effort to tour NASA and Air Force facilities around the country. But during these visits, he's also reiterated this Debbie Downer message. When he delivered a speech Thursday at Kennedy Space Center, Pence saidthat under the Trump administration, America will lead in space "once again" no less than eighttimes.

The subtext here is that America has fallen far behind in spaceand that it needs strong leadership to get back on its feet. While there are definitely significant problems with US space policystarting with the lack of a clear direction for human spaceflight and the funding to support those goalsno other nation can come close to the United States in space. Moreover, because of the long lead times baked into aerospace development, almost every "accomplishment" that demonstrates American leadership in space during the next 3.5 years will have startedlong before President Trump took office.

That said, here's a rundown of how America already leads in space.

With the retirement of the space shuttle in 2011, the most powerful rocket in the world is now the Delta IV Heavy, manufactured and flown by the Colorado-based United Launch Alliance. It can heft 28.8 tons to low Earth orbit. Almost everything about the rocket, from its payload fairing to engines, is American made. Since its first flight in 2003, the Delta IV Heavy has flown nine successful missions without a hitch. The world's next most powerful booster is China's Long March 5 rocket, with a capacity of 25 tons to low Earth orbit. It has flown just twice: once successfully and once with a catastrophic failure.

Soon, probably by the end of this year, California-based SpaceX will debut its Falcon Heavy rocket. According to the company, this rocket will have a lift capacity of up to 63.8 tons to low Earth orbit. By around 2019 or 2020, NASA should fly its Space Launch System rocket, with 70 tons of capacity. Around the same time, Washington-based Blue Origin intends to debut the New Glenn rocket with a lift capacity of 45 tons. No other rocket under development in another country will have close to this lift capacity.

NASA has successfully landed eight of nine missions sent to the surface of Mars, culminating with the 1-ton Curiosity lander in 2012. Only its Mars Polar Lander failed to safely reach the surfacein 1999. Two more landers will be launched by the end of the decade, and SpaceX may send one or two private, uncrewed missions to Mars as well.

No other country can remotely boast about such a record. Four of five Soviet Union landers failed to reachMars safely, and the one that did, Mars 3 in 1971, survived for only about 15 seconds. In addition, there have been a number of failed Soviet and Russian attempts to reach the Martian moon Phobos. Europe also tried to land a spacecraft on Mars twice, and both were lost during the process.

NASA has explored the outer Solar System with Pioneer 10 and 11, Voyager 1 and 2, the Galileo and now Juno missions to the Jupiter system, Cassini to Saturn, and New Horizons to Pluto and beyond. It's amazing to contemplate the fact thateverysingle probeNASA has sent into the outer Solar System has been a success. In this, NASA has a perfect record with missionsno other space agency has even sought to attempt. The US also has numerous other missions en route to their targets, or under development, including more asteroid probes and a lander for Jupiter's intriguing moon Europa.

By contrast, Russia hasnot had a successful interplanetary mission in more than three decades, since 1984s launch of Vega 2, a probe to Venus and Halleys Comet. The Soviet Union and Russia, moreover, have never flown beyond Mars.

The European Space Agency has participated in two NASA missions that have gone beyond the asteroid belt. The first, Ulysses, made two distant flybys of Jupiter during a mission that focused primarily on observing the Sun. NASA managed development of the second mission, Cassini, which has had a spectacular run of observing the Saturn system overthe last decade. As part of that mission, the European Space Agency's Titan lander was mostly successful.

Thanks to commercial investment, as well as support from NASA for SpaceX through commercial crew and cargo contracts, the United States has a definitive lead in what is probably the most exciting new technology in spaceflightvertical takeoff and vertical landing of rocket boosters. The promise of these reusable launch systems is low cost, high frequency access to space, and the opening of the frontier for commercialization, national security, and perhaps settlement.

An Air Force University study recently found that the United States has a definitive lead in these technologies thanks to SpaceX and Blue Origin, but the study warnedthat countries such as China could copy these ideas and surpass the United States if strategic government investments are not made.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, alone, is putting about $1 billion of his own money into his rocket company, Blue Origin. In 2015, Google invested $900 million in SpaceX. Factoring in venture capital, we can conservatively estimate that private investors arenow putting about $2 billion a year into the US space industry. Compare that to Russia's annual budget for all space activities, including the maintenance of decades-old rockets, which is about $2 billion per year.

This is the "secret sauce" of US success in space: billions of dollars flowing to new, innovative ideas for spaceflight and activities in space.Other countries have nationalized space programs, with large bureaucracies. America has that, too, with NASA (which is funded to a far greater degree than any other government program). But it also has unfettered capital chasing dreams like asteroid mining.

NASA has nurtured this process, too. It has opened up its segment of the International Space Station for research and as a platform to launch cubesats. It has helped Bigelow Aerospace test a new inflatable space habitat. NASA has supported companies like Made in Space to experiment with in-space manufacturing. Finally, through its commercial cargo and crew programs, NASA has enabled private companies like SpaceX, Orbital ATK, Boeing, and Sierra Nevada to develop a new, modern fleet of spacecraft.

NASA gets a bad name for the retirement of the space shuttle in 2011, and indeed it has been painful to rely on Russia for a ride to the International Space Station since then. However, this doesn't mean NASA has abdicated the lead in spaceflight. Within two years, the United States should have not one but two human-rated spacecraftSpaceX's Dragon and Boeing's Starliner. This will be thanks to a program originally conceived by the George W. Bush Administration and aggressively pursued by President Obama in the face of opposition from some congressional Republicans. Additionally, adeep space capsule, Orion, may be ready for humans by 2023.

Despiteall of its "America will lead in space once again" talk, the Trump administration has the potential to do some good with its revitalized National Space Council. When he wasn't saying America was behind in space, Pence on Thursday noted many of the accomplishments of the US commercial space industry.

If the new administration standardizes and simplifies regulations for these companies, allows NASA and the US military to make prudent investments, sets achievable goals for human spaceflight, embraces international partners rather than excludes them with an "America first" attitude, and continues to support planetary exploration without gutting Earth science, America's already considerable lead in space exploration can become insurmountable.

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Sorry Veep, America already leads the world in space by a large margin - Ars Technica