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hektor
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« Reply #300 on: 10/05/2008 05:09 AM » |
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You have the leader of human spaceflight at ESA who is talking, so no need to talk about something implicite.
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Ronsmytheiii
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« Reply #301 on: 10/15/2008 07:55 PM » |
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Looks like the european Manned spacecraft project has become a victim of the credit crisis: A global financial crisis, which had shaken the European banking system, is likely to ravage the continent's space ambitions as well, industry insiders told RussianSpaceWeb.com.
According to sources in Europe, Jean-Jacques Dordain, the head of European Space Agency, ESA, has recently ordered severe and wide-scale cuts in the the continent's space budget, which was to be submitted for approval by the European ministers at a crucial "space summit" this November. The agency now plans to slash as much as 40 percent from its previously anticipated funding, leaving a number of space projects without any money at all. Europe's nascent ambitions in the manned space flight were expected to be the first casualty of the latest budget crunch. An anticipated funding for a previously announced plans to upgrade the ATV cargo ship, possibly converting it into a manned vehicle, plunged to zero in the revised budget, sources said.
If approved, budget cuts would likely kill all prospects for the Russian-European cooperation in the development of the next-generation manned spacecraft. A number of top Russian space officials had already made statements indicating that the country would rely solely on domestic resources to build the new ship.
The current financial crisis required massive government infusions of cash into the failing banking system and triggered urgent search for budget cuts across the European Union. In such climate, the manned space flight, often considered a luxury by the European politicians, would be the first target to save money. In 2005, a previous ministerial conference essentially rejected ESA's bid to develop the Kliper reusable orbiter in cooperation with Russia. In case, the manned space program is deferred again in November 2008, ESA would not have another chance to launch a major space initiative until the next ministerial meeting in 2011. Seems Russia is stable enough to go it alone though...... http://www.russianspaceweb.com/soyuz_acts_history.html
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ckiki lwai
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« Reply #302 on: 10/16/2008 04:06 PM » |
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Wow, 40% that sounds horrible! 
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maxx
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« Reply #303 on: 10/16/2008 04:13 PM » |
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Wow, 40% that sounds horrible!
And depressing... With a budget of zero we're not likely to see a manned ATV. Is there a list of the members of the "space summit"? I'd like to find who's in charge for this in Belgium.
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mr.columbus
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« Reply #304 on: 10/16/2008 05:33 PM » |
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Wow, 40% that sounds horrible!
Oh, let's just see how the November meeting really turns out. It's only a 40% cut in the proposed spending. The proposed spending is always more than governments do want to contribute. I doubt that ESA's overall budget will fall below 3 billion EUR per annum. Of course, ATV Evolution might very well be off the table now. The question we need to answer however is, does the world and especially Europe really need another capsule-style LEO spaceship or a rather expensive cargo carrier with downmass capability?
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ckiki lwai
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« Reply #306 on: 10/16/2008 09:27 PM » |
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Mr. Columbus, thanks for elaborating.
But a return vehicle could be handy for the ISS and still be in time.
A manned capsule would probably be too late, unless we want to build a new space station.
@ Maxx, 2 years ago, I sent an e-mail to the senator Francois Roelants du Vivier of the workgroup spaceflight, and I asked him about Russian European spacecraft.
He emailed me back saying he supported the project and said some things about it which showed he really knew about it.
Anyways, I guess the Belgian minister we will be sending is Sabine Laruelle, minister of federal science and she is from the same party as du Vivier.
I don't think we will change our Belgian space budget much, today it is still as high as in the days ESA was building Hermes and for some mysterious reason they didn't change it since then.
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maxx
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« Reply #307 on: 10/16/2008 09:46 PM » |
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@ Maxx, 2 years ago, I sent an e-mail to the senator Francois Roelants du Vivier of the workgroup spaceflight, and I asked him about Russian European spacecraft.
He emailed me back saying he supported the project and said some things about it which showed he really knew about it.
Anyways, I guess the Belgian minister we will be sending is Sabine Laruelle, minister of federal science and she is from the same party as du Vivier.
I don't think we will change our Belgian space budget much, today it is still as high as in the days ESA was building Hermes and for some mysterious reason they didn't change it since then.
Thanks a lot, I'll start documenting myself on our "space policy". (Wondering if it will be easy as I never heard or read anything in the media about Belgium's involvement in ESA).
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catfry
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« Reply #309 on: 11/18/2008 03:50 PM » |
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Can you give a synopsis? 300mb is quite a lot for some unfortunate people like me 
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rdale
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« Reply #310 on: 11/18/2008 03:52 PM » |
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AWST reports that ESA's space ministers meet next week, and ESA is asking for 1.4B for Columbus operations along with 2 new follow-on ATVs and long-lead items for a third.
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rdale
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« Reply #311 on: 11/18/2008 04:02 PM » |
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The first one is just an animation of a human-use ATV, docking, reentry, etc. This one is even bigger (700MB) but it's a full 12 minute package with interviews, narrator, etc. talking about future plans. If you download this, you don't need the other (it's just the animation clips from the main one.) http://esa.contentcoders.com/mpeg2/ATV_NEXT_STEP_MPEG_14-11-08_mpeg2ps.mpg(RealPlayer wouldn't do these for me, but VLC was fine)
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whitewatcher
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« Reply #312 on: 11/18/2008 04:07 PM » |
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AWST reports that ESA's space ministers meet next week, and ESA is asking for 1.4B for Columbus operations along with 2 new follow-on ATVs and long-lead items for a third.
Rumors are spreading that another flagship exploration mission is taken out of the agenda. This will free up the space for ATV or crewed system in the exploration budget. This is not yet confirmed, only rumors I've heard today.
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rdale
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« Reply #313 on: 11/18/2008 04:12 PM » |
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The article says that if a 3.5% increase in funding (as being proposed by ESA) is what they agree on, then they'll need to drop one large "L" mission that had been planned for the next decade.
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Analyst
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« Reply #314 on: 11/18/2008 05:22 PM » |
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AWST reports that ESA's space ministers meet next week, and ESA is asking for 1.4B for Columbus operations along with 2 new follow-on ATVs and long-lead items for a third.
Rumors are spreading that another flagship exploration mission is taken out of the agenda. This will free up the space for ATV or crewed system in the exploration budget.
This is not yet confirmed, only rumors I've heard today.
Well, this sounds not good: It is not like flagship missions are done often, to the contrary. (True also for NASA, also shows human spaceflight does cost about an order of magnitude more than robotic.) Analyst
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