With the president’s launch of a new national space policy this fall, and the subsequent Chinese test of an ASAT missile, it seems the Europeans, and the French in particular, are feeling a bit left out of “the second global space race.” Peter B. de Selding, writing at Space.com, reports on a series of proposals from the French Parliamentary Office for the Evaluation of Scientific and Technological Choices. According to Selding, the committee’s report contains some 50 proposals ” to reinvigorate Europe’s civil and military space policy.” Among them:
Selding says the report was spurred by “recent acceleration of investment in China and India, and the reawakening of Russia’s space sector–the authors say Russia has multiplied space spending by 10 since 1999 . . .” Still, it’s hard to imagine that the Europeans will actually come up with the funds to compete with the United States and Russia, let alone emerging space powers like China and India. And, assuming the French do redesign the Ariane 5 to carry astronauts, given the limited scientific and military value of manned space flight, one wonders what the purpose of such a mission might be.
