FLUG REVUE December 2005: German Government needs to increase space funding

December 2005

BDLI CALLS FOR STRONGER SPACEFLIGHT SUPPORT

By Volker K. Thomalla

On 6-7 December, Germany will be hosting the next meeting of ESA's Council at Ministerial Level in Berlin. This is expected to focus on two questions: what direction should the European space industry be taking and how should the chosen course be financed? The German delegation will be going to the conference weighed down by several handicaps. As of the end of October it was not yet clear who would be the minister responsible for space technology in Germany's new Grand Coalition. It is therefore probably safe to assume that the head of the German delegation will have little experience in the area of space technology. The second handicap is the current state of the industry. The German Aerospace Industries Association (BDLI) has observed that within the last ten years the budget for the national space programme has declined by 25% to €only 145.5 million. According to the BDLI, the number of people working in the German space industry has slumped to 4,800, having declined by 30 percent just since 1999! This will not exactly strengthen the German position at the negotiations in Berlin.

These figures are surely cause to sound the alarm bells, for when an industry declines at this pace it cannot maintain its technology level and will cease to be of any significance within the foreseeable future. Evert Dudok, President of EADS Space Deutschland, is also calling for an appreciable increase in the public funding of space aviation. A minimum of €50 million extra per year needs to be invested in national programmes, Germany needs to boost its ESA contribution by a further €50 million. To support these demands, the BDLI has for the first time launched an image campaign to promote spaceflight and draw attention to this deplorable state of affairs. Full-page advertisements in magazines are intended to raise awareness of the problem, while a website www.deutschland-braucht-raumfahrt.de is to be used to present arguments for a stronger German commitment to space.

The BDLI does not have to persuade the public of the benefits of spaceflight. A representative survey carried out by the Emnid opinion research institute ascertained that 70 percent of Germans are in favour of greater funding of space aviation, and 14 percent of these support much greater funding. The shock results of the PISA school benchmarking study, which revealed central deficits in the German education system, appears to have had an effect, and Germans want to encourage forward-looking industries. According to the Emnid survey, 82 percent of Germans believe that spaceflight is important or very important to Germany's role as a research location. Klaus Jürgen Breitkopf, Managing Director of Kayser-Threde, sums up the situation with great effect: “If the politicians do not take energetic countermeasures, there is a real danger that competencies which in some cases are unique could be lost.”

From page 4 of FLUG REVUE 12/2005

Last updated 10 November 2005

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