The History of the European Space Program (original) (raw)

European space research in support of international partnership

The envisaged future space research programmes, whether in the field of space exploration or Earth observation are becoming more and more technically complicated and so costly that a single nation can hardly afford to realize them. Major non-European space-faring nations, China and India will progressively play an important role besides US, Russia and Japan. The Space Advisory Group of the European Commission recommended that the European Commission supports within Horizon 2020 a comprehensive Robotic Mars-Exploration Programme under European leadership that should become an essential element of a coordinated international space research programme. The International Space Station (ISS) experience shows that cooperative space programmes build links between industries and laboratories from around the world, which then further develop in non-space related activities, with positive impact on the economy and scientific research. Strategies need to be developed to mitigate the gradual increasing risks incurred by climate change. In order to lower their entry barrier to engage in space emerging and developing space nations need to be included in cooperative space programmes. We present the recommendations of the Space Advisory Group of the European Commission concerning Europe's participation to global space endeavours.

The Development of the European Space Policy and the Role of the European Parliament

uaces.org

The paper studies the role of the European Parliament in the development of European space policy (ESP), an important EU policy area that has been neglected in the political science and EU studies literature. ESP started as a purely intergovernmental affair, but it gradually acquired a supranational dimension. Although the EP did little to initiate this process, it was always a supporter of the ESP, and it used both its formal and informal powers to affect and promote its development. Under the consultation procedure the EP managed to become a conditional agenda-setter, and under co-decision an influential legislation-maker. The changes it introduced in the European global navigation satellite and Earth observation programmes relate not only to the inter-institutional balance and its controlling powers, but to a series of substantive issues also. Consequently, the activism of the EP played an important part in the development of the ESP, even if it was not the main force behind its inception.

The European Union and Space Defence

2019

Since Sputnik was launched into orbit in 1957, space technology has evolved rapidly. Because of the connected world we live in, space-based technologies have become vital to our everyday lives for ensuring communication networks, navigation, and internet connexion, amongst others.

Hermes and the Problems of the French and European Space Efforts Thirty Years on

Politics, 1993

The Granada ESA Summit November 1992-Hermi% h z e n Thirty years aRer the creation of the F'rench national space agency and a year aRer the publication of a French parliamentary report on the h c h and European space effort critical of ambitiom for a manned space pq*ect, the European Space Agency meeting in Granada effectively h z e the development of the Hw&s space plane because of its d t i n g costa (Defait, 1992). For reasons of prestige and technology F'rance has always been the prime mover behind the European Space Agency (ESA)a non-Community intergovernmental oqganisation entrusted with the encouragement of the space industries of its member statesand Her&s is an ESA programme over 40 per cent of which is funded by the F'rench. Tensions over the benefita of a 'man-rated' H e r d s programme had arisen particularly since German reunification and Bonn's consequent reluctance to fund expensive 'prestige' activitiesviatheESA,andalsosinceagradualreappraisalinParisofthe~o~ of the French space sector. Herrds forms part of a trio of programmes proposed during the mid-19809, the motivation for which was to maintain and improve Europe's launcher autonomy from the US with an improved version of the Ariune rocket (Ariune V), and to provide Europe with the capability of putting people in space viaAriane V, He&s and a European laboratory named Cdumbus to,work with the US space station * agreement on Europe's long term space plan, the cost of the programmes has increasingly become the subject of disagreement between the F'rench space agency (CNES), which supports the decisions of 1987 and is the principal contributor to funding, Italy and Germany. While the cost of the Ariane V programme has remained relatively stable, and the major partners in ESA are agreed on its commercial viability, the cost ofHerds has been subject to constant increases (Augereau, 1992). This apparent conflict of priorities between France and Germany reflects F'rance's vision of the special importance of an autonomous space capability for Europe, and for F'rance in particular, despite the ever increasing costa of the space effort. The 1960s: The Creation of the Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales CNE!3) Under the influence of de Gaulle, prime Minister Michel Debre and Pierre Guillaumat1theprojectofcreatingCNESwasappravedbyParliamentinDecember 1961. CNES was the institutional fruit ofthe growingrealisation ofthe importance

Legitimizing European Space Policy

Outer space is dark, expensive and dangerous. As a result, the development of a European Space Policy needs all the political support it can get, especially because it involves the transfer of national sovereignty at the EU level. The European Parliament has played an instrumental role in this respect. By analyzing all the space resolutions since 1979, I show that the EP has always promoted the cause of a European Space Policy, and that if has adjusted its argumentation over time to maintain the momentum.

Europe in the Future and the Contributions of Space

2016

Rights reserved-No part of this report may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or for any purpose without permission from ESPI. Citations and extracts to be published by other means are subject to mentioning "Source: ESPI Report 55; January 2016. All rights reserved" and sample transmission to ESPI before publishing. ESPI is not responsible for any losses, injury or damage caused to any person or property (including under contract, by negligence, product liability or otherwise) whether they may be direct or indirect, special, incidental or consequential, resulting from the information contained in this publication.

Futuring the Stars: Europe in the Age of Space

Freie Universität Berlin, 18–19 March 2016 Over the course of the twentieth century, outer space has developed into a predominant site of utopian thought and futuristic expansion scenarios. Arguing that space transformed into a place where competing visions of the future were projected, posited and played out by experts and the public alike, the final conference of the Emmy Noether Research Group “The Future in the Stars: European Astroculture and Extraterrestrial Life in the Twentieth Century” at Freie Universität Berlin will examine the rise and fall of the European Space Age from the interwar years through the Post-Apollo period. Featuring presentations by group members and invited guests, the symposium pursues a double aim. As the project's closing event, it will take stock of individual and collective contributions to the concerted historicization of outer space undertaken since the group's establishment in 2010. It will evaluate to what extent 'astroculture' as a concept, research agenda and a new field of historical research has been successfully integrated into mainstream twentieth-century historiography. Addressing political, cultural, technological and transcendental aspects of space thought and spaceflight, the symposium also examines the existence and potential characteristics of a particularly West-European variant of the global Space Age. Focusing on the role outer space played in the making of the past century's polymorphic and protean futures, it will discuss the transformation of these past planetary futures into today's planetized present. Conference speakers include Paul Ceruzzi (Washington, DC), Martin Collins (Washington, DC), Martina Heßler (Hamburg), Dirk van Laak (Gießen), Michael Neufeld (Washington, DC), Helmuth Trischler (Munich) and Helmut Zander (Fribourg).