Adding muscle to European human space exploration
Just another grand talking shop or the kernel from which something really quite interesting could grow?
Ministers from 29 European Space Agency (Esa) and European Union (EU) member states will tip up at Stirin Castle just outside Prague in the Czech Republic on Friday.
The attendees - which will also include industrialists and academics - are going to discuss Europe's current role in the human exploration of space and how it might change in the future.
Europe is feeling rather good about itself on this issue right now, and with good reason.
Its astronaut Frank De Winne is the current commander of the International Space Station (ISS); it has a sophisticated science lab (Columbus) in orbit; and an impressive robotic cargo truck which will play a leading role in keeping the ISS fully supplied and functional in the years ahead.
But Europe is missing a key capability: the independent means to send its own astronauts into orbit.
And that means most of what Europe does in the realm of human space exploration, it does so at the invitation of the Americans or the Russians.
Europe has looked at developing its own crew transport system in the past - notably the Hermes shuttle - but it has shied away from carrying through sometimes extensive research into an operational system.
Money is an issue, of course. Crew transport systems are not cheap to develop. Just ask the US space agency, which is spending something like $300m a month on developing the various elements of its new Constellation programme.
And looking at Esa's budget line, it's difficult to see where one would find the extra sums needed to produce a manned launch system. Enter, perhaps, the EU.
For those not familiar with how Europe organises itself, it is necessary to realise that Esa and the EU are separate entities; their memberships, although similar, are by no means facsimiles of each other. Esa includes member states that are not in the EU and vice versa.
Nonetheless, in recent years, the two organisations have forged a closer working relationship. They have combined on two multi-billion-euro space projects: one to develop a GPS-like sat-nav system called Galileo; and the other to develop an Earth-monitoring programme called GMES.
The EU saw a political imperative to initiate these two space projects, and called in "the experts" at Esa to try to make them happen.
If you've been following the debate about the Lisbon Treaty, you'll know also that space is to be regarded as a shared responsibility for the EU and its member states.
So could we now see Brussels extend its interests from sat-nav and Earth observation into human space exploration as well?
Don't expect grand announcements from Stirin Castle. This is the start of something, not an end point. Stephan Nonneman is head of the European Commission's Space Policy and Coordination Unit. He told me:
"The intention is to launch the debate on a political level. We will start a process. We will probably have a second conference in a year's time. In the meantime, Commission services together with Esa and the member states are going to explore scenarios, evaluate socio-economic impacts, and study the problematics.
We will then have the second conference where the results of this one will be put on the table for further discussion."
Esa has initiated a study to work out how its ISS freighter could be upgraded, first to have the capability to bring cargo safely back to Earth but also - perhaps - to act as a manned spaceship.
Such a vehicle would be launched on the Ariane 5, just as Hermes was designed to do. It might cost five billion euros to make it happen. The assessment will give us a clearer figure.
But if the European Union sees a political imperative in human space exploration then the experts at Esa could conceivably have some extra money behind them to deliver an independent astronaut transport system.
It's all good speculation. Watch this space.
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If Britian is ever to 'Great' again and not just an offshore banking casino it needs to do something to inspire its very talented engineers - else as always they eventually leave taking the industries, jobs and yes apprenticeships which we so desperately need with them. Space is as good as any and surprise surprise turns out to be profitable.
Of course our untalented politians, too much part of the banking establishment, could never even imagine such a thing.
Get a grip, imagine a bright future and return Britian to a leader (within Europe) or else wait until the moon is a Chinese province (not that I have anyhting against the Chinese.
(of my contempories I at University in electonics I think
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A manned ATV derivative would be obsolete before it ever flew. With this, ESA is planning to build a system which is essentially the same as the Apollo-Saturn IB which first flew over 40 years ago. The only point of the system would be for the extremely expensive manned exploration of the Moon and Mars, which ESA dreams of but which no European politician has the remotest interest in!
Meanwhile the real future of manned spaceflight is in space tourism -- i.e. spaceflight which earns money rather than consumes it, and which shares the wonder of spaceflight with an increasing number of people rather than fencing if off for a tiny elite.
Stephen
22 October 2009
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Short of a revolutionary new propulsion system (nuclear propulsion), the most efficient way to leave earth's orbit is to use the same stick rocket model of the Saturn V. There are very neat upcoming technologies like scram-jet and such, but that alone won't get you to the moon, or mars (though there may be hybrid methods to consider).
I agree that space tourism is the commercial future, but this will be handled by non-government space tourism companies for profit. The future of government-funded manned spaceflight will be, and should be, to push the envelope and travel to mars and beyond. And then perhaps, once the commercial space industry has caught up, space tourism to the moon or mars may also be profitable. And our space agencies will then be pushing for new heights, for the advancement of mankind, with commercial interests following close order behind them.
Of course, from what I can gather, the ESA isn't exactly planning a trip to the moon just yet. Which makes me wonder, what happens when the private sector becomes practical (and less expensive) for freight and tourism services?
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So, along the lines suggested by the Augustine committee for the US, is this the time when Europe should be "seeding" its own commercial crew capability? Thales Alenia Space of Italy is participating in a US commercial space cargo system (Cygnus), so what would it take to get such an initiative going in Europe? Or is Europe happy to keep buying seats from Russia, the US, and in the future from the Chinese and perhaps even the Indians. Maybe independent astronaut access to space really doesn't matter.
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Yes, absolutely, Europe should have its own COTS programme! This is already happening in a very small way -- the ESA contracts to Reaction Engines for work on the Skylon spaceplane. But Hotol also received official funding (in that case, I believe, from the UK government) and was then abandoned. It would be so easy to abandon Reaction Engines once decisions about serious amounts of funding are needed.
Europe's three main contenders, so far as I'm aware, are Skylon, Bristol Spaceplanes' two-stage Spacebus, and of course Germany's two-stage Sänger, which was shelved in 1994 after several years work by MBB. Any or all of these could provide ESA with independent astronaut access to space, and, once developed for government use, would subsequently be marketable to private operators for space tourism and industrial research and manufacturing in orbit.
Independent astronaut access to space doesn't seem to figure very highly in Europe's political circles (and in the UK government of course it is a matter of the utmost indifference). The message must be, I believe, that we can now build systems which increasing numbers of people can afford to fly in, and manned spaceflight must be turned around from an expensive luxury to a normal economic activity if it is not to remain an irrelevance to most people.
Not to be missed -- Alan Bond's talk at the Royal Aeronautical Society mid-November. See you there!
Stephen
23 Oct.
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The saying 'there is nothing new under the sun' comes to mind when seeing these ESA manned capsule proposals, since they remind me of a design by British Aerospace way back in 1987;
http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1987/1987%20-%202182.html?search=BAe%20Manned%20Capsule
Optimistic dates back then as we see, but the idea of a basic crew transport to ISS was the right one then, sadly at the time a French vanity project, the 'Hermes' spaceplane was in favour. Which itself was ultimately abortive.
Not helped by the then responsible minister in the UK, one Ken Clark, being rather hostile to the setting up of a UK Space Agency as well as spending on industry in general.
BAe as it was then, does not exist now, it's facilities are now under the Astrium banner, but could this design be dusted off?
The basic shape would be unchanged, only the internal systems updated.
Since it was designed to be launched by Ariane 4, not 5.
Suggesting that even the inevitable weight gains in the design and construction process could be better accommodated by the launch vehicles potentially available now.
There might be some objection to this capsule's sea recovery mode, but ESA states have in their navies vessels capable of recovery, not just full on aircraft carriers like the French one, the now building UK CVF's, but a number of helicopter carriers in Italy and Spain as well as France and the UK.
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