美国富创公司发布第五份航天竞争力指数报告 Futron_2012_Space_Competitiveness_Index_Executive_Summary.pdfVIP

FUTRON’S 2012 SPACE COMPETITIVENESS INDEX A Comparative Analysis of How Countries Invest In and Benefit from Space Industry 5th Anniversary Edition Executive Summary Copyright © 2012 Futron Corporation · FUTRON’s 2012 SPACE COMPETITIVENESS INDEX (SCI) A Comparative Analysis of How Countries Invest in and Benefit from Space Industry Fifth Anniversary Edition EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Exploring the vast unknowns of space is an ancient human aspiration. The same impulse that led nomadic tribes to seek out what was beyond the next mountaintop, and civilizations to traverse the oceans in search of new lands, today animates governments, enterprises, entrepreneurs, scientists, and citizens alike to pursue frontiers beyond our planet. Relentless curiosity, the quest for resources, the desire for knowledge, and an instinctive drive to push outward toward new horizons all combine to inspire space activity. Alongside these, of course, are the motivations of the modern nation-state: competitive advantage, technological development, scientific understanding, economic growth, global prestige, and security enabled by command and control of the strategic environment offered by space. At the national level, space has always represented simultaneously a competitive and collaborative endeavor. Countries accrue tangible benefits from space activity—benefits that can set them apart from their peers. At the same time, space by its very nature reinforces the notion that people across separate societies are more united in their similarities than divided by their distinctions. Just as the Earth appears small when viewed against the enormity of outer space, human differences can seem trivial alongside the promise of combined space exploration efforts. Accordingly, since th