ESA

Strength: In numbers. Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

Gives: $3.83 billion for Columbus laboratory module, an automated transfer vehicle, two connector nodes, the electronic "brain" for Russia's Zvezda module, European robotic arm, launches, astronauts. In addition, ESA is selling 30 percent of lab space to business.

Gets: 50 percent of its lab and payload sites, 8.3 percent of power and crew time.

The Columbus laboratory, seen here under development, will become one of the main areas of human activity at the space station. Once launched, the lab will support up to 500 experiments every year of its more than 10-year operational life.