Slashdot Mirror
To the Moon and Beyond
isorox writes "The BBC is reporting that 'Europe is considering sending humans to the Moon, Mars and beyond within the next few decades', although the UK government 'does not support human space flight and will not fund UK citizens to go through the official European astronaut training programme'. However while plans are made for the next 30 years, Rosetta is due to launch in 2 weeks time, ready to rendevous and land on a comet in 2011. Assuming it doesn't blow up on launch."
the UK government 'does not support human space flight and will not fund UK citizens to go through the official European astronaut training programme'.
This is the same UK Goverment that scrapped subsidies on University Tutor fees so that the load on the students doubled, the same UK government that doesnt support our athletes, all athletes have to get private sponsorship. This is the same UK Government which supports illegal asylum seekers better than its OAPs or people who really need the money! No wonder the UK is going down in the world.
It is supposed to be launched by a "classic" Ariane 5G which, rumor says, is not affected by whatever broke the last one (main stage nozzle cooling system, according to said rumor; this was supposed to increase the Vulcain's thrust by 20%).
But then, I'm the one who predicted this new Ariane 5 would send both the Atlas 5 and the Delta 4 back into the starting-block--and submitted the story right after its failure :-(.
As for this Aurora project, as long as the funding isn't there, I don't see how anything else than noise could come out, apart from a very cool logo--unfortunately I can't find a link: from left to right, da Vinci's "corkscrew" flying machine, a clipper sailboat, and some figurative solar sail spaceship; and the background fades also from left to right, from an old sailing map below a sky chart, to a satellite view of the Earth below the stars, the Moon and Mars.
Your article dates from September. A more recent one reports that Beagle 2 is about to be delivered. OK, that doesn't mean the bugs have actually been ironed out, but at least it should launch.
Troll? Seems a perfectly reasonable question. Stupid moderators....
Anyway, a bit of googling tells me:
The ESA's space programme has been going on since the 70's, with some input from the French space programme about a decade before. It appears to bepretty much based on the pilotless Ariane 4 and Ariane 5 rockets which can carry about 5 tonnes into space. These are not as powerful as the shuttle (which manages about 22 tonnes I think), and have had the occasional problem, but are being developed at a leisurely pace. They are designed in a highly adaptable component manner, and also aim for low cost and adaptability.
Many European countries have been producing satellites for some time. I think these often have to be launched by the US or Russia.
Actually there is pretty reliable evidence that there is at least frozen water on Mars. Large quantites of it, too.
e m/ odyssey_update_020301.html
What is unclear is whether or not it ever turns liquid. I say that the best policy is to be prepared and buy those bridges.
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/solarsyst
> To some extent, everything is politics, but the scientists of the ESA-SPC have generally been well focused on scientific merits, and on consensus within the scientific community
It is all about politics. Why else was the scientific budget frozen for much of the latter half of the 90's, while the launchers budget bloomed, or the massive amount of funds on the table for Galileo?
The ESA's budget is practically set by the European space ministers, who are usually ministers of science of the european governments. The science ministers are influenced much more by industrialists (who supposedly build European space capabilities and labor force) than by scientists.
As a general rule, you should ignore any statements about multi-billion dollar multi-decade programs made by individual scientists, ESA members, and departments, and focus more on the proceedings and commentaries of the actual each ESA Minister meetings which occur once every couple of years. That's where the real committments are made. Since most major programs require committment from all ESA members, a pork-barrel policy supported by France might not neccesarily be supported by Germany or England.
> if this is to be a Euro deal, well then I see your point, why does the article mention GB?
Because the ESA can't force its members to follow and pay for a program. The ESA merely coordinates the national space policies of its member states.
Some background: the ESA has 2 budgets, a mandatory budget and a discretionary budget. The mandatory budget is set in proportion roughly to each member's GDP. The discretionary budget is made up of each member's additional funding.
Projects funded under the mandatory budget have to have very broad-based benefits (and no, "mankind" doesn't count) because they take money from every member and therefore require the vote of every member. Usually, this is made possible by dividing up the industrial support base into every ESA member country, so that Germany makes control systems, France makes engines, Italy makes SW, etc. If a country's Space Minister doesn't think that his/her country will receive direct (scientific) or indirect (industrial) benefit from a project, he won't vote the the budget allocation.
If all the Space Ministers won't vote for a program, individual Ministers can do a project anyway, but pay for it themselves. Thus Italy, which has a vested industrial interest in getting its small-launcher program off the ground, is paying for the entire program on its own, using its discretionary budget. France, which has a major vested industrial interest in launchers, is fighting hard to get major launch programs on the mandatory budget, but will probably go through the discretionary budget if the other members veto.
It'll be very difficult for a ESA human-spaceflight program to be supported by all ESA members. That is why this article, which highlights England's valid objections, is so important.
But on the subject of the euro; the problem with adding the euro is much more subtle than it appears.
If the UK gets the euro, then that means that there has to be a single bank throughout europe that controls the number of euros in distribution.
It also means that central control of interest rates is essential. That means that the interest rates are controlled centrally for the good of europe (i.e. probably by the Bundesbank; which constitutionally has to act for the good of Germany, rather than the good of Britain, or even Europe; since it is by far the biggest bank).
Since the economies of Germany and UK tend to do move in rather different ways, tying them together is going to cause some issues; as well as benefits. But it is honestly unclear to most people who have studied it in detail whether the benefits or the issues are going to dominate.
And this is putting issues of sovereignty to one side... there are lots of people with very firm opinions on that, to say the least.
Personally, I think we need to go for the euro, but I'm fairly nervous about it.
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"