The world’s major nations embark on ambitious human spaceflight programmes, but Europe is looking elsewhere. Industrial assets and skills would allow it to move swiftly – all that is missing is political will.
On May 30, private American company SpaceX successfully launched its first human space flight with a Crew Dragon capsule on its now famous Falcon 9 rocket. This flight has allowed the United States to regain its capacity for autonomous access to space, which it had lost when it ended its space shuttle programme in 2011. This is a decisive step for the US, as the country plans to return to the Moon by 2024, and a crucial step on the way to Mars.
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Also read Part 2: Long road to European human spaceflight programme
What could the EU’s motivation be to mobilise the budget to get humans into space? What should its strategy be to get there? Get the answers in this story’s Part 2.
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Currently, three major powers are able to send humans to the Earth’s periphery: the United States, Russia and China, which could soon be joined by India.
Europe, for its part, prefers to join international projects, such as the ‘Lunar Gateway’ project, a future international space station. It will be in orbit around the Moon and an anchorage point for missions to the Moon and to Mars. But there is still very little interest to develop such a European own programme for human space flights.
Missed opportunities
Yet, they had at one time toyed with the project, as German astronaut Thomas Reiter, also an adviser to the director general of the European Space Agency (ESA), explains.
Thomas Reiter, astronaut & ESA adviser: Ariane 5 could have hosted manned flights
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“[The Absence of a European Space flight programme] is definitely not a lack of ideas and a lack of industrial capabilities. There were already attempts in Europe to develop a human-rated launch system. When we go back to the 90s there was the Hermes programme with the Ariane 5 – actually, Ariane 5 as a launcher was developed along specifications which would have allowed it as a human transportation system. Unfortunately, this programme was stopped. I guess the main driver was financial reasons.”
Launched in 1987, Hermes was to be part of a human space flight programme providing independent European access to space. Designed to take three astronauts into orbits of up to 800 km in altitude for missions lasting 30 to 90 days, Hermes was to be launched using the Ariane 5 rocket. But the programme was eventually abandoned in 1992.
Despite this initial failure, there was a second, less ambitious, European attempt, Reiter explains.
Thomas Reiter, astronaut & ESA adviser: Second, less ambitious attempt for automated transfer vehicle in mid-2000s
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“We made a second attempt, actually in the mid-2000s timeframe, in 2008, to further evolve the Automated transfer vehicle, which was developed to supply the International Space Station with all various goods, into a human rated capsule. Again, that would have been comparatively a small step, but unfortunately our member states did not agree to it.”
The automated transfer vehicle (ATV) was a fully automated capsule that could bring a point less than 8 tons of cargo to the astronauts. Launched for the first time in 2008, the ATV was completed in 2014 after 5 missions.
However, Ariane Group’s CEO André-Hubert Roussel notes that the changing global situation is leading to a slow shift of opinion in Europe.
André-Hubert Roussel, CEO ArianeGroup: New momentum for human space flight
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“The situation has now changed. We see that human space flight is a renewed ambition of big space powers and that Europe, as the second space power in the world, can endorse as well this ambition, all the more. We can see at least that our two main leaders in space in Europe, the director general of the European Space Agency, Jan Wörner, and commissioner Thierry Breton, have obviously raised this question in the press in the last days.”
Reacting to the success of the human space flight of SpaceX (see interview in French), Breton stressed in a tweet the importance for Europe to have a programme of autonomous access to space.
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Hence, the door for a European space flight programme is not totally closed, ArianeGroup’s CEO told EuranetPlus. He hopes that Ariane6 will be able to make its maiden flight in the second half of 2021.
André-Hubert Roussel, CEO of ArianeGroup: Ariane 6 could welcome human space flights
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“It could be done for sure as an evolution [of Ariane 6]. Ariane 6 has been designed as a very versatile launcher to reach all orbits and with as well obviously extreme reliability features. This is clearly something that would be appealing for us to study and to develop and to evolve if the European ambition comes to this human space flight.”
Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou is preparing for Ariane 6 in February 2020 / www.esa.int
Six years
However, if Europe were to decide to set up such a programme and allocate sufficient funding to it, it could catch up in a relative short period of time, according to Reiter.
Thomas Reiter, astronaut & ESA advisor: Europe can have human spaceflight programme within six years
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“If you look at the developments in the US and other countries, of course, the timeframe for the development is always depending also of the funding scheme. If we would get full support [from the EU member states], I am pretty sure that, from the moment the decision is taken, within something like six years this could be achieved.”
American Saturn V rocket, which brought men to the Moon, was developed in just eight years, between the speech of the American President John Fitzgerald Kennedy inaugurating the lunar programme and man’s first step on the Sea of Tranquillity.
But the Apollo programme’s budgetary effort, estimated to have been between 200 and 240 billion dollars today, was astronomical. That was the price for landing on the Moon.
What could the European Union’s motivation be to mobilise such a colossal budget, and what should its strategy be to get there? These questions are addressed in this story’s Part II (coming soon)
- Author: Pascal Hansens, Euranet Plus News Agency