Titan probe – a giant step for Europe

By Martin Banks

Date: 10/02/05

The European Space Agency's director of science has made an impassioned plea to Europe's politicians to match their "voiced ambitions" in Space by investing more in research.

Professor David Southwood says the "extraordinary success" of the recent Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn's moon Titan was a "wake-up" call to policymakers.

"Surely, no one can now doubt that Europe can be a world-beater in space," he said.

"The Titan mission showed that we can take on an extraordinary challenge and do it.

"All we need are the resources - and, I am afraid, that is a very particular European problem. In the past, Europe has evaded taking long-term decisions on Space exploration, possibly assuming that Space was the traditional preserve of the Americans."

Now is the time, however, to take advantage of the currently large public appetite for space exploration and capitalise on the headway made by Beagle 2, Mars Express and the International Space Station, he said.

"I sense an enormous groundswell of public support for what we are doing. Recent missions seem to have really caught the public's imagination.

"This is a real opportunity but I feel politicians at all levels have been slow off the mark to recognise the value of Space exploration."

The European Space Agency (ESA) currently has an annual budget of €3 billion, the vast bulk of which goes on things like building rockets, contributing to the cost of the Space station and satellite systems.

Southwood, who is based at the agency's Paris headquarters, says that a relatively "tiny" amount of the 3bn - €370m - is spent on Space research.

"You can make that sound a big amount by saying it is €1m a day or a small amount because it equates to less than one euro per year for each of the EU's 450m citizens. I would be more inclined to veer towards the second scenario."

Southwood is pressing for the €370m to be increased to €450m to help secure the long-term future of European space exploration.

"We're not asking for a massive increase but I would say we have delivered and it is important that this is recognised."

At present, member states fund about 96% of the agency's work. The European Commission funds the remaining 4% and some observers see the EU as a possible source of increased funding.

But Southwood is at pains to stress that he does not see the Commission as some sort of saviour of space research.

"I am not criticising the Commission at all," he said. "They have a responsibility to run Europe, not space exploration.

"Pointing the finger at the Commission is merely to let member states off the hook."

His comments echo a report last November which criticised the UK government for failing to commit sufficient funds early enough for the doomed Beagle 2 mission to Mars.

It left the Beagle's British-led consortium with an "amateurish" gentleman's agreement holding it together, said the UK House of Commons science and technology select committee.

Committee chairman, Ian Gibson, said that the UK had wanted a Mars lander "on the cheap".

But Beagle's lead scientist, Colin Pillinger, said: "We couldn't have had anything other than a gentleman's agreement because we didn't have any money."

Beagle 2 was a robotic laboratory designed to look for life on Mars which had been planned to put down in a region of the planet known as Isidis Planitia on 25 December 2003. But despite many attempts to locate the probe, no sign of it - not even any wreckage - has been detected.

The lander was developed separately from the ESA-built Mars Express "mothership" that successfully carried it to the Red Planet.

Southwood said, however, that the effort invested on the project must not be wasted.

"Europe has never made a really serious attempt to land on Mars and I hope we can do something about that soon."

Meanwhile, Southwood added that he and his fellow scientists are still on "cloud nine" following the Titan mission - the furthest from Earth a spacecraft has ever been landed.

This joint NASA-ESA mission has been hailed as a landmark for ESA and one of the most successful in the history of space exploration.

It was also a personal triumph for Southwood and his ESA colleagues.

Landing on another planet is one of the trickiest ventures to undertake so a successful touch-down on Titan was a "tremendous" achievement, he said.

He and his colleagues are still busy analysing the data the space probe sent back about Saturn's largest moon.

"This data is for posterity."

But the agency is also looking forward to other key events in its calendar, including the scheduled launch tomorrow (11 February) of Europe's "super-rocket" capable of launching more than one and heavier satellites into orbit.

The Ariane 5-ECA rocket, dubbed Europe's workhorse, has not flown since it self-destructed over the Atlantic on its maiden flight in December 2002.

ESA's scientists are also eagerly awaiting the planned November launch of Venus Express which will study our nearest planetary neighbour in detail, in particular the Venusian atmosphere and clouds, and will make global maps of the surface temperature.

In between the two events is the launch of Soyuz, the Russian-made rockets, to the space station, with, Southwood proudly proclaims, a European astronaut - Italian Roberto Vittori - on board.

Southwood says that such missions demonstrate that Europe can be a "serious player" when it comes to Space exploration - but that investment and resources are vital to safeguard the long-term future of such ventures.

"We hear a lot in Europe about the Lisbon Agenda [to make Europe more competitive]. Well, I say if we are striving to create the world's most advanced knowledge-based society, Space should be at the heart of it," he said.

The European Space Agency's director of science, Professor David Southwood, made an impassioned plea to Europe's politicians to match their 'voiced ambitions' in Space by investing more in research. He said that the 'extraordinary success' of the recent Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn's moon Titan was a 'wake-up' call to policymakers.