New european Mars program announced...

According to an article under www.marssociety.de the french president Sarkozy has announced its contours and called for it. He is quoted to have said that the reserach of Mars must be done worldwide and no country can claim exclusive rights to do it. Each country can participate and join by its own capabilities etc.

Sarkozy calls for an independent european Mars programm but not in competition to the US.

The project to step on Mars in trust to each other and by cooperation he calls a proff of maturity of nations.

He prefers to move over the administration of Korou from CNES to ESA to make it a true facility of the Eu and to keep independent european access to space.



Dipl.-Volkswirt (bdvb) Augustin (Political Economist)

Two things:

1) Seen from a total space-buff view: cool, good idea. I hope he can convince some of the other bigger nations to jump in. But the timeline will probably something like 2030 or so.

2) Seen from a more political point of view, Sarkozy is the weirdest out there. Okay, we have by far the weirdest looking president, but Sarkozy is more in line with Berlusconi then anybody else. For some reason, since this guy had become president in France, he pops up way to often in the news here. That didn't happen with the previous ones. And i don't mean that in a positive way.

I'm afraid, heck i believe, that it's more a political stunt then anything else. If he would have said "let's give ESA xx billion euro's to get a station on Mars by 2020", that sounds a lot more constructive. He could just do that, by upping France's stake in ESA, or budget, then it's a bit more likely that the other big members are willing to up the budget as well since they don't want to be left behind.

But the problem is the EU itself. We've discussed this somewhere else, but th EU is a problemchild. I don't know the status of ESA, if it gets it budget directly from the European Commision or from it's membernations. Besides, it's extremely fragmented to do something. How many years of developement have been wasted on that ATV thing?

If they're gonna do that, i sure as hell hope they will brief everyone with standards first and that english is mandatory in every document regarding the project.

May be the idea even politically has positive aspects.

Since CNES is operating or at least administrating Kourou they may have to bear large expenses themselves. If Administration, Operation and Control are moved over to ESA this would change and Kourou may be safer fiscally and financially.

May be also that the particular members of ESA make it safer than the particular members of the EU.

This isn't meant in favor of anyone or anything but an aspect simply.

What about this aspect? What about other aspects? What about prospects for european spaceflight, space programs etc.?



Dipl.-Volkswirt (bdvb) Augustin (Political Economist)

It sounds like, lets build a HAB and train some astronauts and get the Americans to put them on Mars for us.