Members of the NASA team celebrate the successful Curiosity rover landing on Mars in August, but US budget constraints put its space exploration leadership at risk. Members of the NASA team celebrate the successful Curiosity rover landing on Mars in August, but US budget constraints put its space exploration leadership at risk. Photo: LA Times

Years of trying to do too many things with too little money have put NASA at risk of ceding its leadership in space exploration to other nations, according to a new report that calls on the space agency to make some wrenching decisions about its long-term strategy and future scope.

At a time when other countries — including some potential adversaries — are investing heavily in space, federal funding for NASA is essentially flat and is under constant threat of being cut. Without a clear vision, that fiscal uncertainty makes it all the more difficult for the agency to make progress on ambitious goals such as sending astronauts to an asteroid or Mars while executing big-ticket science missions, such as the $8.8 billion James Webb Space Telescope, says the analysis released this week by the National Research Council.