Europe Reaches Budget Deal on Space - NYTimes.com

 

LONDON — While European government chiefs were grandstanding in Brussels this week in what turned out to be a vain attempt to hammer out a common budget, their science ministers were quietly celebrating a deal to secure Europe’s prospects in space. At ministerial negotiations in Naples of the 20-member European Space Agency (E.S.A), the usually parsimonious British actually agreed to contribute extra funds to ensure Europe’s place in deep space exploration. And Germany and France, in a spirit of compromise that was sorely lacking in Brussels, ironed out their differences on upgrading Europe’s workhorse Ariane rocket. As European space chiefs hailed the outcome of the November 21-22 meeting, Jean-Jacques Dordain, the E.S.A.’s director-general, said the level of funding agreed was a significant achievement given current economic difficulties. Praising the agreement to spend €10.1 billion, or $13 billion, on space exploration over the next three to five years, Mr. Dordain said: “Member states recognize that space is not an expense, it’s an investment.” The successful deal, which was slightly less than Europe’s space officials wanted but at least matched current spending, was a recognition that the economies of European states could ultimately lose out if scientific research is slashed in an era of austerity. David Willetts, the British science minister, announcing an extra £300 million ($480 million) contribution to the E.S.A. earlier this month, said: “It will drive growth, create extra skilled jobs and help the U.K. to realize its ambition to have a £30 billion space industry by 2030.” As part of the Naples deal, Britain agreed for the first time to put money into a manned spaceflight program by agreeing to fund a European project to provide the propulsion unit for NASA’s new manned capsule, Orion. As a result of a Franco-German compromise, the E.S.A. will continue to pursue Germany’s preferred option for an upgraded version of the Ariane, the Ariane 5ME, which can carry heavier payloads and put them into higher orbit. However, the Naples meeting also agreed to fund France’s favored solution to build a new Ariane 6 that it says would be cheaper to launch and more competitive. “We are not talking about victories,” said Johann-Dietrich Wörner, chairman of the German space agency. “We are talking about European solutions.” The funding agreed this week pegs spending at current euro levels, so space development will lose out in real terms and some projects will have to go. Italy, France, Spain and Britain had already decided not to participate in a German-sponsored lunar lander project before the Naples meeting, meaning the E.S.A. will have to shelve plans for an unmanned landing on the south pole of the moon. The Naples meeting may have been good news for space fans and European aerospace, but scientists remain concerned about the overall impact of budgetary restraint. The Guardian newspaper reported this week that some of the world’s leading research organizations had written to warn José Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, that cuts to the European Union science budget would threaten the Continent’s economic recovery. European heads of state were supposed to make a decision on science funding this week. But, as a result of the Brussels budget debacle, that is just one more decision that will have to wait.