00:00Space is the new cool domain to invest in. What's wrong with Europe not doing it yourself? It's a new
00:05space revolution.
00:12Welcome to The Big Question. Now this is the show from Euronews where we sit down with some of the
00:17biggest leaders shaping industries in Europe.
00:20And today is no different. So joining me on stage, please welcome the Director General of the European Space Agency,
00:27Josef Ashbacker.
00:30Lovely to see you again. Now, around a year ago in Bremen in Germany, there was the Ministerial Council meeting
00:37where all of the participating nations of ESA come together to commit their spend for the next three years.
00:43So tell me, what were the financial results of that meeting?
00:45Well, the financial results have been outstanding. It was record on the record because in 22 already we had 17
00:50% more. In 25 we had 32% more than three years earlier in terms of funding that member states
00:57provided.
00:57And I think there are three reasons why member states put so much funding into this ministerial conference.
01:03Number one, space is a critical technology. It's a technology that is used and is needed for daily life.
01:10Number two, space as an economic sector is a very fast-growing sector.
01:16We have today a space economy of about 600 billion euros worldwide.
01:19This will grow to about 1.8 trillion, so a very strong increase, about 10% per year.
01:25Which economic sectors are growing by 10% per year?
01:28And number three, more and more space is needed, necessary, to also defend our countries and our people.
01:34Yes, absolutely. And on that defence point, you know, another key milestone that happened at the Ministerial Council meeting last
01:39year
01:39was that change in ESA's mandate to include non-aggressive security and defence.
01:44How has that changed ESA's daily work and, you know, what new programmes have you initiated?
01:48Yeah, that's a big change that happened politically but also now practically in terms of programme implementation.
01:54We have got also money, 1.3 billion for the first programme here as CEO.
01:58It's a programme where we're building up intelligence capability for Europe
02:01because if you really want to monitor what happens on your borders, outside Europe, in Europe and certain areas,
02:08you want frequent observations.
02:10That means every 20 to 30 minutes an image of anywhere in the world.
02:14And this is exactly the aim of such a constellation,
02:17to have a capability for intelligence to build up a very dense observation frequency
02:22with optical radar, thermal infrared channels, but also secure communication, well integrated.
02:34Thinking about some of the other work that you do at ESA, you know,
02:37I think people most commonly think of space as human space exploration, right?
02:41And right now the key opportunities for European astronauts are to the ISS
02:44and the Artemis missions to the Moon, which are both in partnership with NASA, right?
02:48But the ISS is going to be decommissioned in 2032,
02:51so what are the opportunities going forward for European astronauts?
02:54But, you know, is there a path to space for us that doesn't involve the U.S.?
02:58That's a very big question and I believe I'm discussing this day and night at the moment.
03:02Let me step back a bit and see where we are today.
03:05Today there are three countries who can bring astronauts to space.
03:08It's Russia, it is China and the United States.
03:11So the first two are not our partners of choice today.
03:14And so if we fly astronauts to space to do research and technology development,
03:19then we need today to hitchhike, that means to fly with somebody else.
03:23That means we have an agreement with NASA and NASA then procures a launch capability from SpaceX
03:29in order to bring astronauts to space.
03:31And that's the situation today.
03:32SpaceX has already announced that they want to decommission Falcon 9 and the Crew Dragon,
03:38that is the crew vehicle that brings the astronauts to space, probably around 2029.
03:43So that means in a few years we will not have at least this capability available anymore.
03:47There may be others coming up, which we do not know today.
03:49So that means there's a huge uncertainty for Europe if we want to continue exploring space with humans
03:55to get astronauts into space.
03:56So that's why I'm proposing and discussing with our ministers today, why don't we do it ourselves?
04:03We are a continent that is very strong economically.
04:06Some people even say, what's wrong with Europe, not doing it yourself?
04:09I mean, we can do it technically, this we know.
04:11It takes engagement, time and, of course, commitment.
04:15Can you give us a little bit of a roadmap of how you foresee this sovereign launch capability happening?
04:19What sort of cost would it have?
04:20How long will it take to get there?
04:22And what's the alternative if we don't do that?
04:25We have some technology that we have and we can use already.
04:28Some others we don't have.
04:29We do not have a crew vehicle where astronauts could fly to space with a launch abort system.
04:35We do not have a launch recovery of the astronauts once they land to recover them and the whole science
04:40operation and everything that needs to be done.
04:42We have bits and pieces but not the full chain.
04:44So if we would do it from scratch, that means from today's situation, it would take about 10 years and
04:50it costs about 10 billion.
04:51If we don't invest and make this decision, we would still need to buy flights in the United States from
04:57a commercial supplier.
04:58We would still need to rent a space in space.
05:01The space station is deorbited, so a commercial offer will provide the space station in order to do our research.
05:07If we get access to the station in a certain priority, it would cost us probably about 5 billion over
05:12the next 10 years.
05:13So if we do it ourselves, 10 billion, if we pay for it overseas, 5 billion, but the money is
05:19lost or lost in the sense it's being spent not in Europe.
05:22So I'd rather invest this funding in Europe, strengthen our industry, increase the autonomy of Europe in this domain and
05:29even offer a seat maybe to our friends and colleagues from Japan or Australia or some other countries.
05:36And we've discussed that change in ESA's mandate to include the non-aggressive defence and the decommission of the ISS
05:41and the future pathways for astronauts to get to space and moving away perhaps from those NASA collaborations.
05:46This all feels like quite a big change to the space industry that we've known.
05:51In your opinion, are we at a turning point in space history?
05:54I mean, space at the moment is really flying high.
05:57And if I say flying high, it's not only the rockets and the satellites, but it really is in terms
06:01of domain.
06:01It's a new space revolution or a new renaissance, whatever you may call it.
06:07Of course, the very first one was in the 60s with the Apollo program in the United States.
06:11There were only two countries involved at that time, the USSR at the time and the United States.
06:15Today there are many countries and space everywhere is increasing very fast.
06:19Me as Director General of ESA, I have always to look where do we stand in Europe.
06:23I want to be competitive.
06:25I want to be good.
06:25I want to offer excellence to our own citizens and to our own industry.
06:31And we know that Europe is good technically.
06:34We have really fantastic industry, fantastic capabilities.
06:37But Europe is also underfunded.
06:39And this is something I recognize.
06:41I've organized the very first investors forum of the European Space Agency.
06:45We invited venture capital companies, banks, angel funding entities to come to us.
06:50And I can tell you the turnout was immense and people were literally running into my doors and saying, space
06:56is the new cool domain to invest in.
06:59What can we do?
07:00How can we bring money into your ecosystem?
07:02Not necessarily to ESA, but to the companies in Europe and which domains are more promising than others.
07:08And I have to say this was a huge success.
07:10But it also shows that we are attractive and money is flowing in, not only from government side, but also
07:15from the private side.
07:16And this is exactly what I want to achieve.
07:18Okay, brilliant.
07:19We have the next Ministerial Council meeting coming up in 2028, which is just two years away.
07:23So what will ESA look like in 2028?
07:26Final thoughts?
07:27ESA will be very different.
07:28We will be lighter, faster, more dynamic, but certainly having a strong focus also on security and defense for all
07:35the reasons just mentioned.
07:36And hopefully a program on its way to send European astronauts to space with our own rocket, in our own
07:42capsule, recovering with our own means.
07:44Fantastic.
07:45I hope to see that too.
07:46Well, thank you so much for joining me again on the show.
07:48Ladies and gentlemen, you're the flashbacker.
07:50Thank you.
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