Rescue Mission For European Space Industry 563
metz2000 writes "The New Scientist reports that the European Space Agency (ESA) has pledged hundreds of millions of Euros to guarantee its independent access to space. Europe also looks set to co-operate with the Russian Space Agency. Looks like the space industry is hotting up again. How will NASA react to this news after being the dominant space agency over the past three decades? A lot of money is going into rocket technology also; with this and the 'European version' of GPS are we heading towards a future conflict across the Atlantic?"
Timely (Score:5, Informative)
A more timely report was published last week at the BBC [bbc.co.uk].
All the same, this is a very interesting move for the ESA, and for Europe. A challenging move here could well help our efforts towards a more united Europe.
This is a rare 'carrot' for UK residents, more used the threat of monetory union and other unpleasent symptoms of a united Europe.
No Space War (Score:3, Informative)
The problems are the funding (and this is what is being discussed in the article) To the best of my knowledge all the worlds space agencies are losing money. Currently the only way they make money (apart from ever reducing government grants) is by launching comercial cargo. This is why there is so much crap up their in orbit.
We need to limit the amount of commerical launches or we risk ruining space for the next few generations. If this extra money means less satilites are launched for companies that will go bust before they are ever used then it is good money. But if the money is going to be used to subsidise the launches of this type of cargo then it good money after bad.
The reason for a euro GPS system is also commercial. You need to be a partner of the US government to get full access to GPS data at the highest resolution. The euro GPS will sell to those companies that want to make use of accurate GPS data but can't (or are unwilling to attempt) to get the US government to play ball. This is both a good and bad thing. If access to accurate GPS helps governments and companies develop and help local peoples then it is a good idea but I personally think the data will be used by robber oil barons and weapons manufacturers making the current situations even worse for the average man on the streets.
Re:First! (Score:1, Informative)
Re:First! (Score:2, Informative)
You forgot Italy ($1.44 Trillion), and Spain isn't far off the big T ($828 Billion). EU GDP is larger than that of the USA, as is population - but the combined armed forces are no match for America's ludicrously expensive collection of death toys. We tend to spend our money on hospitals instead...
Re:no need to keep 100% accurate local time (Score:5, Informative)
Suppose you have a bunch of satelites transmitting time and their location. When you receive that you know were that satelite was at that moment.
Suppose you have also have a good clock, and you receive one satelite. In that case you can calculate the distance between you and the satelite (time difference between the two clocks multiplied by the speed of the radio signal, ignoring atmospheric influences for simplicity).
No you know that your position is somewhere on a sphere around this satelite.
When you receive two satelites you get two intersecting spheres. Two intersection spheres gives a circle of common points. So now you know that your position is somewhere on this circle.
With a third satelite you get a two (unless you are in space exactly in between three satelites) intersect point. So now you now your exact position since one can easily be ruled out. (Unless you ARE in space ofcourse)
But this only works if you have an accurate (as in atomic clock accurate) clock.
If your clock is a litle bit behind the calculated distance between you and ALL three satelites becomes larger and you have no way of knowing it did. (Your still get one singular intercept point).
If you have three satelites and a questionable clock all you know is that you are on a line intersecting the two points I mentioned earlier.
With four satelites you can make several groups of three satelites (three groups to be exact) resulting in three of such lines.
Were these three lines intersect is the point you are. (This method also rules out you accidently thinking you are in space btw)
With this point you can adjust your own clock...
Jeroen
Some prospective (Score:5, Informative)
They said they would put "over 1 billion euros" on that. What about some prospective? ESA's [esa.int] budget for 2002 was around 2,8 bn euros. With this sort of money for last four years they were able to put together a mission to Mars - and that's about it. NASA's budget [nasa.gov] is around 15 bn Euros and it is barely enough to keep the Shuttle fleet flying and make around two scientific missions a year (look for example at the state US Mars exploration is in). And that is not all the money US spends on space - there is also DoD budget.
A single Ariane 5 launch costs around $150 M which is roughly $140 MEuros, so this is good for around ten launches. Proton and Soyuz are cheaper - $80M and $40M respectively. (a table of launch vehicles costs [spaceref.com]). But of course this money won't be spent directly on launches, you have to have something to launch first.
Europe's space program has been so far driven mostly by France and to some extent Britain. Others were just interested, but with no real substance. All projects of manned missions were dropped along the way (and there were a few - a small shuttle designed by French that was supposed to be Ariane's payload - I forgot the name, German SSTO Sanger plane and similar British project). As a result Europe has no experience in building manned spacecraft - unless they would get it from Russians. I'm afraid that 1 bn Euros won't be enough to put together a manned mission unless it would be just flying Russian spacecrafts with Europe's yellow stars logo painted on them.
If Europe would spend this money on building a GPS-like system, then 1 bn Euros is a significant amount, however again not enough to build the system - and keep it running (Russians build one to guide their warheads but couldn't afford to keep it up).
What is most likely however is that this money won't be spent on a single mission or project. As the article says this money would be "pumped into the sector to overhaul its manufacturing and marketing programmes". It means that it would be divided into many small donations to various projects just to keep the industry afloat. So it is nice, but is far from enough if Europe really wants to be a player in the Space Race.
And - BTW - Deutsche Telekom's loss [guardian.co.uk] for 2002 was "over" 24 billion euros.
reflection on the space "battle" (Score:4, Informative)
First of all both the EU and Russia are highly succesful in the launching business. The Ariane 4 was at one point responsible for over 40% of all commercial launches and still is very successful. The Ariana 5 has seen some significant setbacks with all those errors but still is (will be) a very competitive launcher. The russian launchers, while based on sixties technology have been refined and re-engineered to an enormous ammount for decades and were and still are very competitive. For most commercial apps the shuttle program is outrageously expensive and even the US itself relies on convential rockets (which they also make of course) for many launches. Another problem in general for the US, and more limited for the EU, is that the international space station is costing a lot more than expected (nuttin'new, right?) and this is affecting other projects. This problem is even larger due to the fact that -for now- we need the shuttle as a servicing vehicle for the ISS
Now for those GPS systems: first of all to clear that bit up: you need a few dozen to make sure always at least three (but better four or five) are visible everywhere on earth (except usually the poles due to orbit mechanics) for triangulation methods. Second of all Europe is not happy with the position the military takes in the GPS system of the US: we saw this many times with both Gulf wars that the US decided to downgrade the system accuracy for everyone but themselves (the military that is). In general people are a bit tired of the US policy to foreign countries with the change from Clinton to Bush (I don't want to take sides on the last war in this comment but in general popularity and support of the US bombed in the EU recently (as in from 60% to 25%), even in the normally pro-US United Kingdom). The military funding of many system in the US is what makes the EU sometimes a bit scared and makes it want to develop its own system, and the anti-US feelings in the population make these kind of projects a lot easier to get funded. Now, wether or not we need another system if another question but it takes time to launch so many sattelites for a new GPS system, so China is still busy get everything up there, as it will also take Europe time to fully deploy. Even more, if the US and the EU can/want work together these GPS system can also complement eachother.
Unfortunate US reaction ahead.... (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.eetimes.com/sys/news/OEG20030522S0050 [eetimes.com]
The nation's largest intelligence agency by budget and in control of all U.S. spy satellites, NRO is talking openly with the U.S. Air Force Space Command about actively denying the use of space for intelligence purposes to any other nation at any time--not just adversaries, but even longtime allies, according to NRO director Peter Teets.
At the National Space Symposium in Colorado Springs in early April, Teets proposed that U.S. resources from military, civilian and commercial satellites be combined to provide "persistence in total situational awareness, for the benefit of this nation's war fighters." If allies don't like the new paradigm of space dominance, said Air Force secretary James Roche, they'll just have to learn to accept it. The allies, he told the symposium, will have "no veto power."
This would not go down to well at all. I know the US economy/military is the biggest in the world - but I still think that a trade war/shooting war with every other country in the world isn't the best way of improving the lives of American citizens.
Re:"Competition" (Score:1, Informative)
Patrick (Eire)
Re:NASA the dominant agency? (Score:4, Informative)
I'd like to remind you of the fact that even though NASA is very glad to have won the race to the moon, there was no such thing.
Some respected commentators would dispute this 'fact', for example James Oberg [afa.org].
Re:Heavy lifters (Score:3, Informative)
Now, for sending fewer very large payloads, or simply breaking earth orbit, that would require much larger rockets. That is where we should be using throw-aways.
This is somewhat backwards from what we have today. We use the shuttle for large delivery and throw aways for small devices. On the other
Re:Heavy lifters (Score:4, Informative)
Disposable rockets dispose of, well, the rocket. That is also not a trivial expense. Imagine throwing away your car every time you took a trip. Gets kinda expensive, even if you buy really cheap cars.
In a truly reusable system, the only costs would be fuel and maintenance. It would be more like an aircraft than a car in terms of maintenance, but it would still be significantly cheaper. Inventing something like that is very expensive, but by amortizing it over many vehicles and many launches, it would make space much more acessible.
Re:Heavy lifters (Score:5, Informative)
NASA are considering cloning the Energia: it's called Magnum [space.com].
Why they don't just use Energia itself I don't know... probably politics.
Military vehicles and weapons .. (Score:2, Informative)
What choice do you think the Europeans have? (Score:5, Informative)
wired: U.S. Could Deny GPS To Taliban [wired.com]
The international fear and uncertainty has become so large that the Pentagon even feld compelled to say they wouldn't enact a global GPS blackout during war time. This is obviously a completely unbearable situation for anyone besides the US government. Here is a link:
Reuters: Pentagon pledges 'no global GPS blackout' [yahoo.com]
I don't know what happened to the Russian space positioning system that was once discussed as alternative, but the European Union is completely right in that they think they have to create an alternative to GPS. Even more puzzling is the fierceness with which the USA have tried to stop Galileo (why would they do that if not to leverage their monopoly pressure?). Here is a satnews.com story about it:
EU Postpones Decision on Galileo System Until 2002 [satnews.com]
The argument of the US government against Galileo was that it "could be abused by future enemies". So you can see how the US government is using GPS to pressure others. It is very important to create an alternative to GPS, even if it's just to stop the US from bullying other nations.
So much about Galileo, but what about other reasons for a non-US space program? I think one of the most dramatic display of bullying ever to be seen by any government is what the US government semi-openly discussed according to a Reuters story this February: to deny other nations access to space:
U.S. Pentagon Sees Space as Military 'High Ground' [go.com]
If any sovereign nation sees something like this, it is obvious that a big space program besides the US one is absolutely necessary. The USA have proven time and again that they are a very volatile friend who on a whim decides to deny their resources to their friends.
There was one well documented case in the Bosnian war that is quite telling. The US vehemently denied ground troops and any real war involvement of theirs in Bosnia, on the grounds that Clinton thought his political career would be over of pictures of dead soldiers arrived home. So the role of the USA was mostly reconnaissance and intelligence and they did help keeping the air space empty. However, it later turned out that they gave weapons to the rebels, in violation of NATO orders. Here is one link about it:
Washington finances ethnic warfare [emperors-clothes.com]
This is a very serious issue, please don't take my word for it, look for yourself. There was a good joint European documentary about it a while ago, where they interviewed the NATO official in Bosnia, a Norwegian military official, and he said that the USA basically denied their allies the contractually guaranteed intelligence to cover up their covert operations.
In my eyes this kind of behaviour leaves Europe no other choice but to go for independence in space and military. Most nations have given in to US surveillance and intelligence superiority, some like Australia and Britain even joined the Echelon system. There are stories that even those very close allies do not have full access to the jointly generated intelligence. In effect, the USA is exploiting and abusing everyone else around them, and now Mr Bush has stepped over the line with his excessive bullying and the other nations are banding together.
I have been waiting for this for many years, and I am happy that it finally happened. While I despise Bush on all levels, he did something very valuable for the world. He gave them enough motivati
Re:Hmmm, Interesting (Score:3, Informative)
Arianespace already has a significant share of the market (~40-50%) and has had so for years.
Up until recently one of the main reasons it didn't have a bigger share was the requirement that US satellites to be launched with US launchers.
The new Ariane-5 series however is more expensive, and it could take awhile until optimization has it back to the competitiveness level of the 4 (though it was necessary to move to the 5 due to the increasing requirements for payload weight)
Actually the Arianne series doesn't really compete with the shuttle, it's main (US) competitor is the Atlas series.
The shuttle is massively more expensive to launch for anything but the largest payloads not so much because of it's crew (though it doesn't help), but because it was designed for an altogether different mission.
Meanwhile the Russian rockets are in many ways cheaper than both.
Re:yes, major conflict brewing (Score:3, Informative)
Um, what? The United States alone had a GDP of $10 trillion in 2001, compared to $7.8 trillion for the entire EU -- and an apples-to-apples comparison would measure the EU against NAFTA. The EU is approaching self-imposed limits on its geographic expansion, has a birth rate significantly below the replacement rate, and has economic, cultural, and legal fracture lines that the U.S. eliminated centuries ago.
China and India may have pockets of technological expertise, but they are not "caught up" in any meaningful sense -- they are not inventing radical new technologies or approaching first-world levels of infrastructure, health care or political stability. It will be a long, long time, measured in centuries, before either country equals the U.S. in an economic, scientific or military sense, even if the U.S. stops advancing.
You're describing the 1970s. America's dominance is not a passing phase that started with WWII and ended on 9/11 -- it's a phenomenon that will last as long as America lasts, or until other nations become so much like America that one can't tell them apart. European and Asian space programs may leapfrog the moribund NASA in the short term, especially in light of the Columbia disaster -- but in America private citizens are building their own launch vehicles, and may well put people into orbit before China does.
Re:EU's Collosal Waste of Money (Score:2, Informative)
Furthermore, Galileo obviously won't be using 20 year old technology. It'll be more up to date, and it's meant to be far more accurate than the GPS system.
Since this is seems to be the only comment of your account, I'm assuming you're a troll here, but I'll continue on with my reply anyway.
Some EU countries do have vastly inflated tax rates that could come down a bit, but mostly it's a system that works well. The majority of the taxes go to health care and schooling, rather than to the unemploymed (which is hardly a desirable situation by any means). It costs an awful lot to run a national health service, but you can hardly claim it's wrong to help the injured, or to provide cheaper education to people.
And a lower birth rate isn't necessarily bad. The EU has many more people packed into a smaller area than the US, and the world's population is increasing at an undesirable rate. Less people might be better. Besides which, the current rate things are going, the EU is still going to have more people per square mile than the US for quite some time, so there's hardly a danger of depopulation.
Re:First! (Score:3, Informative)
Beyond that, you might want to wrap your head around the fact that the EU does not consist of all of Europe and will not likely do so for quite some time. The ESA is a grandiose title that may someday be true but is by no means true today and will not be true this decade at least.
Re:Heavy lifters (Score:4, Informative)