WHITFIELD: All right. Live pictures right now of Pope Francis there in Quito, Ecuador being greeted by the president Rafael Correa there. And then, soon after, we expect to actually hear from the Pope. This is his first stop in a three-South American nation tour. Ecuador, Bolivia, Paraguay on his itinerary over the next week. We'll have much more of our live coverage of the Pope in Ecuador. All right. Meantime, a Russian spaceship carrying over 6,000 pounds of food, water, and other supplies successfully docked with the International Space Station early today. This routine supply mission took on extra importance because three times over the last year, a rocket filled with supplies failed to make it to the space station. These problems may be a part of the reason why some say America is falling behind in the space race. CNN's Tom Foreman explains.</s>CHARLES LIU, ASTROPHYSICS PROFESSOR, CITY UNIV. OF NEW YORK: It's an exciting time but as always, it's a new and interesting and we're always crossing our fingers with every launch. FOREMAN</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's one small step for man...</s>MILES O'BRIEN, CNN AEROSPACE ANALYST: But as you drive the costs down and try to come up with new ways to building rockets in a way that hopefully is cheaper, you're ultimately going to find the outer edges of the envelope, as we say. They're pushing the envelope right now. FOREMAN</s>MIKE SUFFREDINI, MANAGER, INTL. SPACE STATION PROGRAM, NASA: We've always assumed that we would lose a vehicle every so often. Space flight is very hard. FOREMAN</s>LIU: And at the same time, we should feel very happy and very grateful to the fact that there are so many nations in the world, so many entities, international collaborations that are producing results that no single nation can achieve alone.</s>WHITFIELD: And that was CNN's Tom Foreman reporting. And we'll be right back.
Russian Cargo Supply Ship Docks at Space Station