Astronomical costs of a journey into the unknown

Date: 09/04/1998

Lack of investment is bringing EU's struggling space industry down to earth with a bump. By Mark Turner reports

SPACE may be the final frontier, but most Europeans are rather more concerned about sorting out their own borders than reaching for the stars.

Even though it was Europe - or Germany, to be more exact - which awakened the world to the might of propulsion technology in the 1940s, the last 50 years have been a case-study in how a fragmented continent of disparate interests can fail to capitalise on its best brains.

But as the EU finally begins to find its feet, and takes its place as a trading superpower, can the world expect a renaissance in European space power?

Will the first man on Mars come from Maastricht? Or the first woman on Jupiter celebrate the landing with a Jupiler beer?

Probably not. In fact, even Europe's greatest recent coup - the 6 March announcement that the European Space Agency would land a machine on the moon just as National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) had spotted the presence of ice near its poles - was brought down to earth when the ESA's council decided it would cost too much, and was wary of involving private industry.

If European Commission officials are to be believed, regarding space as a fascinating sphere of human activity removed from normal concerns is no longer the right approach.

“We would not invent a space agency today,” says Herbert Allgeier, director-general of the Commission's Joint Research Centre.

Having a space policy in the late 1990s is little more meaningful, he argues, than it would have been to invent a 'wheels policy' when the first cave-dwellers learned that things could roll.

Instead, we should be thinking in terms of applications - whether they be telecommunications, navigation or observation. Only then will people learn the true state of affairs: that Europe is in some trouble.

After decades of trailing behind the US, despite the best efforts of France, Europe is now finding itself scrabbling to keep up with American dominance of commercial space.

In telecoms, the US has benefited enormously from years of military research which is now being made available to its entrepreneurs. Although the gap is less immediately noticeable in observation and navigation, it is likely to grow as Washington ploughs between five and ten times as much public money into new developments.

All of this is happening against a background of massive aerospace restructuring. Americans are increasingly asserting their global mastery through mega-mergers while Europeans continue to bicker over sovereignty and are steadily losing market share.

The irony is that it need not be this way. “Europe is capable of being in most markets. We are as good as our American friends,” insists Allgeier.

But, as in so many great endeavours, the bottom line is money. Europe simply does not have a Pentagon willing to spend vast amounts of money on equipment to support a global armed force, providing its space industry with a guaranteed customer.

Instead, the continent tends to marginalise spending in research funds or through contributions to the ESA, and there is not enough money available.

That is why the Commission is pushing for policy-makers in other areas, such as industry or transport, to get in on the act. But at a time of severe budgetary stringency in the run-up to economic and monetary union and enlargement to eastern Europe, EU governments have other priorities.

Although there has been growing optimism of late that industry might fill in the gap (witness the Euromoon project, which was to be 75&percent; privately funded), the future of Europe's commercial space technology is far from certain.

Dreams that space tourism will drive investment are little more than nebulous hopes. No one is even sure that the navigation or observation markets will ever be commercially viable. Even where applications are fairly obvious, such as technology for civil aviation, industry is proving very wary.

The Association of European Airlines (AEA) recently aired concerns that a European satellite system known as EGNOS could end up costing far too much, with little benefit. “Improvements, if any, could be achieved in a much cheaper way,” said AEA secretary-general Karl-Heinz Neumeister.

Allgeier is diplomatic, but clear. “This technology can be commercially driven, but then it would have to live with conditions which are severely constrained,” he says.

The problem is that few European entrepreneurs view space as an investment which will give back clear returns, especially in relation to manned space flights. What is fundamentally needed, claims Allgeier, is more genuine vision from the top.

Although the Commission has tried to stimulate debate by laying down road maps and action plans, there is little it can do. “We can talk, but we have no tools,” he says. “We are not a customer.”

Even recent efforts to stimulate an EU space dialogue with the Russians have been delayed following President Boris Yeltsin's decision to sack his entire government. In these post-Cold War times, few politicians see space as a truly vote-winning issue.

“Space has no owner any more,” says Allgeier.