At the end of a 90-minute panel discussion last night in Washington about international perspectives on space exploration, organized by Women in Aerospace, moderator Ian Pryke asked the panelists—representing China, the German space agency DLR, ESA, and JAXA—how their countries had reacted to the Vision for Space Exploration, both within their space communities and their nations in general. Some responses:
- Mengxing Sun, First Secretary for Science and Technology at the Chinese Embassy, said the VSE has not had any effect on his country’s space program. “My country… will carry out its space program as planned.”
- Juergen Drescher, head of DLR’s Washington office, said that the “common idea [of the VSE] was understood” in Germany when it was announced, and see it as a “promoting tool for the world space community.” However, “we had some concerns about what are the rules of the game, and how do we proceed.” A particular concern has Europe’s big investment in the ISS, and explaining to politicians the shift in priorities from the ISS. “For this reason it’s very necessary to make a clear road map, what we are doing in the near future… and what can we do in a long-term perspective.”
- Hitoshi Tsuruma, Deputy Director of JAXA’s Washington office, said the Japanese people were excited in general by the VSE concept, but their near-term concern is the ISS. “The first thing of the exploration vision is the completion of the ISS,” he said. Many people in JAXA and academia are concerned about making the most of their investment in the ISS.
- Frederic Nordlund, head of ESA’s Washington office, noted that things have changed considerably since international partners were first invited to join NASA’s space station program back in the mid-1980s. “Those agencies have grown in certain ways” and have much greater capabilities. Like his German and Japanese colleagues, “ISS is step one.” A broader issue, he said, is the need “to work on the justification of exploration, which will be based on different values” for different countries. “If you use the wording ‘back to the Moon’ in Europe, it’s a no go. No one will give a single euro to invest in these activities because it’s ‘back to the Moon’… Now we have to convince the public that there are European values and interests attached to human space activities on the Moon.” He said there needs to be a “general consensus” on the justification for the VSE, and then each nation can build up the case “based on our own values”.
Frederic Nordlund: “If you use the wording ‘back to the Moon’ in Europe, it’s a no go. No one will give a single euro to invest in these activities because it’s ‘back to the Moon’
This attitude is unfortunate, but will ultimately hurt Europe far more than it hurts anyone else. Nobody knows today if there is anything on the moon worth trading — though oxygen at least looks like a good bet — but if there is, Europe will be the China of the next hundred years. Just as important, Europe will miss out of the science that true expeditions can achieve on the moon, e.g., precise dating of cratering episodes in the early Solar System; retrieval of early continental and even oceanic crust splashed up to the moon with records of the early development of life on Earth; geochemical knowledge of the moon, impactors, and splashed up material from other bodies like Mars; and the inevitable discoveries that cannot be anticipated.
— Donald
Donald
Right now Europe is in the process of spending their space dollars to create an ITAR free industrial base for space. I spend a fair amount of time over there and they are not really that interested in what the U.S. is doing, especially since Griffin wants to abandon ISS after Europe put several billion dollars into the program and now feels cheated.
Dennis
Dennis, I understand the reasons for their attitudes — which, unfortunately, are largely justified — but that doesn’t change the ultimate impact of those attitudes, which I suspect will be bad for Europe. ITAR has been bad for us, and Europe’s lack of vision will be bad for them.
— Donald
Donald
You are missing the point. You are looking through American eyes at this. The European’s are interested in the Moon, they even did their own study called Moon 2025 about the European vision for lunar exploration.
Interestingly, the starting premise was to pretend that NASA did not exist, and then think about what a European lunar development might look like.
Very interesting results. ESA did the study and even wrote it up and published it and then quashed it. The ideas are still there though.
The point is that Europe’s ideas about space development are diverging from the American view, mostly because NASA and the U.S. is seen as an unreliable partner, based upon some very valid experience. How many billions of Euro’s did they spend on ISS and now NASA says, “ok we don’t like this anymore, we are going to do something else”. What happens when a new administration comes in and changes its mind once again?
Tough question.
Dennis
Dennis, this study aside, if the Europeans are really interested in the moon, they keep it pretty quiet. It looks to me like their Aurora program’s current direction (to the degree that it has one) is more a response to American plans than something generated internally.
Having gone to secondary school in England, I’m probably better able to see the world in “old world” eyes than most Americans, and that does not change my opinion here. Much like the Democratic Party in America, if the Europeans are to succeed they must stop looking to the past or reacting to what others do, and create a foreward-looking agenda of their own. In space, like too many other endeavors, I don’t really see that in Europe.
— Donald
However — one final thought — with ITAR, you are right that we are forcing them to come up with their own agenda. Ultimately, while that is undoubedly bad for near-term American commercial space interests, it is good for the Europeans. Since the more nations and groups that are involved in human spaceflight the more likely it is that someone will succeed, this is probably good for humanity.
— Donald
Donald
Keeping it pretty quiet? ESA has a spacecraft in orbit around the Moon even as we speak.
As I stated, the Europeans are doing exactly what you say that they should, ignoring the U.S. and forging their own path to the solar system.
Europe is focused on freeing themselves from ITAR right now and trying to figure out what the U.S. is going to do with ISS. These two issues will determine the relationship between the U.S. and Europe in space in the future. The U.S. has no conception about how much ITAR pisses off Europe. It pervades every meeting that I go to there.
Dennis
The U.S. has no conception about how much ITAR pisses off Europe.
Probably just about as much as it pisses me off. We’re giving away our commercial space industry for no better reason than Republicans scoring political points against Mr. Schwartz and the Clinton Administration.
— Donald