Why out of all the countries (besides the United States) is Russia the only ones that have a serious.?

actually russia is the ONLY country with a serious space program. the u.s. hasn't returned to the moon for forty years and doesn't even launch astronauts anymore. china seems to be serious about developing a manned space program. they're making plans to setup a permanent lunar base within ten years or less.

1/3rd of the Space Station was built in Italy. The biggest module is from Japan. The biggest Venus orbiter and only craft to land on Titan are European. Japan has landed on an asteroid and taken off again. China is putting people into space. Canada is the lead in space robotics.

Your forgetting about China and Japan and the European Union ..

They all have a very active space program.

Why don't others.

Expensive. NASA's budget is bigger than some countries national Treasury.

The European Space Agency does, in fact, they are going to build part of the Orion project which will return the U.S. to manned space flight.

http://www.space.com/18680-nasa-orion-capsule-euro...

Also, China has a space program and has put people in space and returned them safely. Japan has put a lot of satellites in orbit, and South Korea recently put a satellite in orbit. India has done the same.

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-South-Central/...

Well there is this thing that happened in 2008 that is the reason why Europe has put a temporary hold on it.

China seems interested and has enough money for it though.

How about China. Europe has a joint space program, so there is something wrong with your supposition.