Last year Barack Obama outlined his plans for the future of America's space programme.
Concorde was also eating up funds that would have gone to the space programme.
Western nations have expressed concern that Iran's space programme is being used to develop long-range missiles.
He flew Navy fighter jets during the Korean War in the 1950s, and joined the US space programme in 1962.
Worries in America are likely to grow if China's space programme keeps up its steady pace of development.
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RPSs are ultra-long life batteries for use in the Esa's deep space programme.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has volunteered to become the first person sent into space by his country's fledgling space programme.
South Korea wants to develop an advanced space programme to compete with other Asian space-faring nations - China, Japan and India.
Conservative Lord Tugendhat questioned why the UK continued to give aid to India when it can afford its "own space programme".
It was seen as having more commercial potential, and the British space programme was relegated to the status of a museum piece.
The satellite is the first step in a rather ambitious space programme.
After the war he was a medical consultant for America's space programme.
Mr Nelson has conducted extensive interviews with members of the Apollo space programme and combed through NASA archives, newly declassified CIA documents and oral histories.
"I thank the men and women of Nasa who have dedicated themselves to putting our space programme back on track, " he said in a statement.
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But it has been the pride of the Soviet, and later the Russian, manned space programme, because the Americans have never managed to emulate it.
For them, a major haul of medals is as sure a sign of great power status as their space programme or having an aircraft carrier.
The problem with the manned space programme is not so much that it is an expensive waste of money as that it lacks a serious goal.
But the Jinghua Times says Wang Xianmin, an official with China's space programme, has insisted that there is no requirement that female astronauts must already be mothers.
Today's job numbers from the US are a reminder that the space programme isn't the only feature of postwar America that seems to have gone into reverse.
And though the Russians may promise special treatment for the space programme, they have already made and broken such promises more times than anyone cares to remember.
India has said its 2, 000-2, 500km-range Agni missile is now ready for deployment, and it may be developing an intercontinental-range missile under cover of its Russian-assisted space programme.
China is investing billions of dollars in its space programme.
The German physicist drove most of the US space programme's achievements until his death in 1977, and made three popular space films for Disney TV between 1955 and 1957.
The Shenzhou themselves are based on Russia's Soyuz craft but, according to Phillip Clark, a British-based consultant and expert on the Chinese space programme, they are not a straight knock-off.
"It's a long way to go, and is like a combination of playing three-dimensional chess and bridge and trying to run a NASA space programme, all at the same time, " he added.
Japan's commercial space programme is under similar pressure.
"We now have leapt up a step to become a space-power nation, " he said, adding that South Korea would use this "overwhelming moment as a strong, dynamic force" to help drive an independent space programme.
But the UK's support for India, one of the world's fastest-growing economies, has been a cause of concern among Conservative MPs, many of whom believed that the UK should not be giving money to a country which has a multi-million pound space programme.
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