00:00Space is the new cool domain to invest in.
00:02What's wrong with Europe not doing it yourself?
00:04It's a new space revolution.
00:12Welcome to The Big Question.
00:14Now this is the show from Euronews where we sit down with some of the biggest leaders
00:18shaping industries in Europe.
00:20And today is no different.
00:22So joining me on stage, please welcome
00:24the Director General of the European Space Agency,
00:27Josef Ashbacker.
00:30Lovely to see you again.
00:32Now, around a year ago in Bremen in Germany,
00:35there was the Ministerial Council meeting
00:37where all of the participating nations of ESA
00:40come together to commit their spend for the next three years.
00:43So tell me, what were the financial results of that meeting?
00:45The financial results have been outstanding.
00:47It was record on the record because in 22 already we had 17% more.
00:51In 25 we had 32% more than three years earlier
00:55in terms of funding that member states provided.
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.
01:07It'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.
01:15We have today a space economy of about €600 billion worldwide.
01:20This will grow to about €1.8 trillion.
01:22So 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,
01:32to also defend our countries and our people.
01:33Yes, absolutely.
01:35And on that defence point, you know, another key milestone that happened
01:37at the Ministerial Council meeting last year
01:39was that change in ESA's mandate to include non-aggressive security and defence.
01:44How has that changed ESA's daily work?
01:46And, you know, what new programmes have you initiated?
01:48Yeah, that's a big change that happened politically,
01:51but 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,
02:02because if you really want to monitor what happens on your borders,
02:05outside Europe, in Europe, in certain areas, you 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,
02:25but 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?
02:54You 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.
03:04Today 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,
03:25and NASA then procures a launch capability from SpaceX in 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
03:52if we want to continue exploring space with humans to get astronauts into space.
03:56So that's why I'm proposing and discussing with our ministers today,
04:01why 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.
04:14Can 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
04:39and the whole science operation 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,
04:48it would take about 10 years and it costs about 10 billion.
04:51If we don't invest and make this decision,
04:53we would still need to buy flights in the United States from a commercial supplier.
04:58We would still need to rent a space in space.
05:01The space station is de-orbited, so a commercial offer will provide the space station in order to do our
05:06research.
05:07If we get access to the station in a certain priority,
05:10it would cost us probably about 5 billion over the next 10 years.
05:13So if we do it ourselves, 10 billion.
05:15If we pay for it overseas, 5 billion.
05:18But the money is lost, 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,
05:29and even offer a seat maybe to our friends and colleagues from Japan or Australia or some other countries.
05:36We've discussed that change in ESA's mandate to include the non-aggressive defence
05:39and the decommission of the ISS and the future pathways for astronauts to get to space
05:44and 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?
05:53I 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,
05:59but it really is in terms of domain.
06:02It's a new space revolution or a new renaissance or 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, I want to be good, I want to offer excellence to our own citizens and
06:30to our own industry.
06:31And we know that Europe is good technically.
06:34We have really fantastic industry, fantastic capabilities, but 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,
06:45where I invited venture capital companies, banks, angel funding entities to come to us.
06:50And I can tell you the turnout was immense.
06:52And people were literally running into my doors and saying, space is 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.
07:05And which domains are more promising than others?
07:08And I have to say this was a huge success, but it also shows that we are attractive and money
07:13is flowing in.
07:13Not only from government side, but also from 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 Zafashbacher.
07:49Thank you.
07:51Thank you.
07:52Thank you.
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