FLUG REVUE October 2004: ESA Moon plans

THE ESA VISION FOR THE FUTURE OF MANNED SPACEFLIGHT

By Matthias Gründer

Since President Bush announced his “vision” for the future of US manned spaceflight at the beginning of the year, all the public has heard is talk. Meanwhile, a report published by ESA's Human Spaceflight Vision Group back in December 2003 on the prospects for manned spaceflight up to the year 2025 has received little attention until now.

ESA Moon station

By the year 2025, Europe should be operating a permanently manned space station on the moon in collaboration with international partners. This is the vision of the experts for a significant element of the future European research landscape. “Moon: the 8th continent” is the name of the final report of the working party, a multidisciplinary team of 23 space experts from eight European countries.

They were tasked by Jörg Feustel-Büechl, ESA Director of Manned Spaceflight and Microgravity, to think about the direction in which spaceflight should go. Supported by experts in the area of manned spaceflight, the “visionaries” were asked to analyse the global challenges facing the citizens of Europe and at the same time work out which of these challenges they might take on with the aid of spaceflight.

Tasked with expressing their own ideas, uninfluenced by the current political and economic situation, three workshops took place, the Exploration Workshop in Berlin (June 2003), the Vision Workshop in Frascati near Rome (July 2003) and the Roadmap Workshop in Paris (September 2003). After several months of intensive analysis and discussions, the members of the working party agreed on the salient features of future European spaceflight policy, which will now form the basis of discussion for future resolutions of the ESA Council of Ministers.

Starting with a wide-ranging account of the history of mankind up to now, the report stresses that in the past it was always Europeans who took the lead role when it was a matter of exploring virgin territory on the globe. It would be counter to the European culture if Europeans were not to take such a lead role, especially as doing so would unite all the creative sources and thus contribute significantly to the unity of Europe. At the same time, the report makes the point that Europe is bigger than the European Union. This opens up the possibility of developing autonomous spaceflight capabilities in close cooperation with Russia and the Ukraine, both of which have enormous spaceflight potential.

The realisation of new goals in spaceflight is not extraneous to the development of society, as it is the declared aim of the politicians

to achieve an economic leadership role through integration, whilst simultaneously preserving national differences;
to push forward social and technological innovations;
to develop a world-leading, knowledge-based society through education and research;
and to develop the capabilities to preserve our fragile environment.

To achieve these aims, the Council of Europe passed a resolution in Barcelona in March 2002 that in future at least 3 percent of gross national product should go into research, development and technological innovation. Spaceflight itself is funded to the tune of two euros per EU citizen per year, less than half the price of FLUG REVUE magazine.

If Europe is to achieve its ambitious objectives, it must first be made clear to every citizen that our Earth itself is a spaceship. There are no passengers on board, only crew members.

This requires that implementation of the vision becomes a matter of importance to the community as a whole and not just to a few dreamers who are seen in the eyes of the majority as wasters of public money. Another requirement is that the idea is sold to the politicians, as it is their decisions which will determine whether the vision is translated into scientific and economic reality.

So why choose the moon, and why settle it when we already have the technology today to perform a wide range of research using robots? The answer is quite simple and can be explained by human curiosity, wanderlust and thirst for knowledge. We are not satisfied with merely finding out about foreign countries and cultures through the media, but we want to see, hear, smell and taste these places for ourselves. Humans are curious by nature, and without this grandiose characteristic we would not even know of America's existence today.

Quite apart from the pure scientific research conducted by our satellites, about which we still always know much too little, the question arises as to what we should do in the post-International Space Station era. Continue to build new, ever bigger stations in orbit around the Earth or build houses and research stations on the moon? Long-term research in the areas of biology, human physiology and medicine could in the long run be conducted more favourably there than in orbit around the Earth. Moreover, the moon is an ideal test laboratory for further research into the solar system, and especially Mars.

Because the moon has no atmosphere, it is the ideal base for astronomical research. Satellites, especially the Hubble telescope, have given us an appetite for more, but only on the moon can we get more. It is no problem from a technology point of view to form a crater as the “key” for a giant radio telescope, and on the far side of the moon there could well be ideal conditions for astronomers as there they would be free of any influences from the Earth. A telescope with a diameter of only 16 meters would be sufficient to discover planets similar to the Earth in remote solar systems.

Of course this can only be achieved at enormous cost, but the magnitude of this is not so daunting when one considers that it will be spread over a period of 20 years. On the other hand, colonisation of the moon could be expected to produce many huge economic benefits. Apart from the jobs and technology boost, the raw materials of the moon are of great interest to industry on the Earth. The deposits of helium 3 in the regolith of lunar rock would be sufficient on their own to solve the energy problems of mankind both there and on the Earth. This alone is sufficient justification to build some outposts.

In conclusion, we have all the scientific and technical capabilities to fulfil the vision. What we are lacking is the political will to do so. It should be possible for Europe to continue to play a pioneering role in the exploration of virgin territory on the world map.

From page 82 of FLUG REVUE 10/2004

Last updated 13 September 2004

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