Slashdot Mirror
Rescue Mission For European Space Industry
metz2000 writes "The New Scientist reports that the European Space Agency (ESA) has pledged hundreds of millions of Euros to guarantee its independent access to space. Europe also looks set to co-operate with the Russian Space Agency. Looks like the space industry is hotting up again. How will NASA react to this news after being the dominant space agency over the past three decades? A lot of money is going into rocket technology also; with this and the 'European version' of GPS are we heading towards a future conflict across the Atlantic?"
Um, so what you're saying is that when America does space stuff, it's good for the world, but when Europe does space stuff, that's "conflict across the Atlantic?" How's that work then?
Not intending to troll but that "conflict" thing does seem like an odd conclusion. Are Europeans now terrorists? How about a bit more reasoning, rather than just saying "Europe? Space? WAR!!!!!"
Yes and no. The idea behind the shuttle was to save on having to build an entirely new launch vehicle every time you wanted to put a payload into orbit.
Unfortuanately, the shuttle program was based on some incorrect assumptions. First, it was assumed that their cost predictions for the shuttle would be accurate (they weren't, it costs far more per launch than predicted) and secondly, the increase in payloads wanting taking to orbit wasn't predicted (there was a massive increase, IIRC)
In theory, reusables are cheaper, but in the short term the throw away option works better.
What would make throw away rockets even cheaper is a dual use philosophy of design, allowing the entire rocket (or a lot of it at least) to reach orbit, where it could be reused to form parts for orbiting storage or some such (after all, these are generally allready presurized tanks, so they will be airtight in orbit)
An infinite number of monkeys will eventually come up with the complete works of
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> "...are we heading towards a future conflict across the Atlantic?"
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What kind of conflict do you mean, and what might cause it because Europe develops some tehcnological abilities of it's own?
Does the US feel somehow threatened when it doesn't have a monopoly on many kinds of stuff anymore? Does it have a reason to be afraid in that case?
"Hey, i'm growing potatoes, you must not research the hoe technology (because then i would lose the monopoly on producing and selling these artificially degraded and overpriced potatoes to whom i wish, whenever it might suit my needs).."
It's not true that ESA is primarily a French project with some British involvement. The ESA funding comes from most of the primary participants, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Denmark etc. The French contribute a large chunk of the funding but they also have a large role with their government funded labs working on research which compliments the ESA work which enhances their role in european space science. The British on the other hand pay propotionally much less than the other european partners (do you see a pattern here). British institutions will bid for research areas much like other european institutes but they don't contribute as much to the centralised european fund (ESA).
The lander on the current mars mission is British built - but not really as a ESA project. It was cobbled together from research funding from various british university and research labs for an obscenly small sum of money. (relative to the other lander projects) - an will be a real coupe if the scientific payload pays off.
A single Ariane 5 launch costs around $150 M which is roughly $140 MEuros, so this is good for around ten launches. Proton and Soyuz are cheaper - $80M and $40M respectively. (a table of launch vehicles costs). But of course this money won't be spent directly on launches, you have to have something to launch first.
ESA have just announced that they intend to offer Soyuz launch vehicals from the european launch site in south america. This is partly intended to bring the cost of launch down and partly to provide a small load, reliable launch vehical which fills a gap for payloads smaller than the Ariane lifters. Ariane is designed for much larger payloads - taking 2 or 3 instruments up at a time. The newest Ariane (before it's recent suspension) could lift nearly 10 tons - making the largest active lifter.
I don't think that europe is or will want a european space race. Europe should be able instigate and push some interesting projects in the next 10 years (venus express, rossetta etc) but most of these missions (if not all) are hugely collaborative and involve US, Canadian, European, Japanese, Russian and Chinese participants. The time when any individual agency wanted to go it alone are long gone.