🚀 go-pugleaf

  [ What follows are translated extracts from an article I wrote on a confe=
    rence that took place in Bonn on 5 March 1991. I tried to be fair to all
    parties that participated, but the result looks somewhat onesided. What
    could I do: the pro side simply didn't provide more arguments - I even
    reread all the speeches looking for more. So please flame *them*, not me!
      Readers in other European nations, particularly in France, might find
    it unbelievable or stubborn what the Germans are doing here, the British,
    though - who refused to take part in any of the ESA plans mentioned here -
    might support the critics mentioned hereafter. Opinions from the U.S.
    would be very welcome, too - with 'Fred' there's at least as much money
    at stake, not to speak of the Space Exploration Initiative (=:SEI). ]

The government of the Federal Republic of Germany ist standing firm to the
multi-billion-deutschmarks project package COLUMBUS/HERMES/ARIANE V solely for
political and not scientific reasons: this has become clear once more at a
major conference, "Raumfahrt kontrovers" (Spaceflight controversial) at the
Friedrich-Ebert Foundation in Bonn, Germany. Supporters and critics alike do
differ little in their assessment of German space activities prior to the 1987
The Hague decision by ESA to long for autonomy in manned spaceflight: noone
denies anymore the successes of space science missions (HELIOS, ROSAT etc.)
or the use of telecommunication, weather and earth observation satellites. Nor
is there anyone who denies that manned spaceflight has been 'sold' to the
German taxpayer with dubious arguments in the past. There had been studies
predicting exponential growth in space profits, factories in space were said
to be working in near future, and microgravity materials research had been
heralded as the ultimate justification of manned spaceflight.

Already in 1973 the German government had decided to join in U.S. missions,
the Spacelab was built, and the results of the SL-1 and D-1 flights were then
celebrated as scientific sensations. But ESA's former Director General R.Luest
made it clear once more that "mediocre or trivial experients" had dominated
these missions - and thus left the impression with many scientists in other
fields that microgravity research is an extremely expensive nonsense. ESA's
policy is not centered on microgravity, said Luest: as much as possible should
be done unmanned, and man in space was needed only in a few areas, most
notably maintenance of orbiting laboratories, platforms and satellites. But
even the latter argument was countered by an outspoken critic of manned space=
flight, E.Keppler: orbital repairs could only be of such a primitive kind that
they could be handled by robots as well. The first HUBBLE revisit in late 1993
might prove him wrong - or not. 

There's no controversy, however, in another aspect of how one must NOT argue
for manned spaceflight: the technical 'spin-off's' are meager. Luest called
the hope for them "dangerous and dishonest", and Keppler cited a U.S. study
that had checked 20000 alleged NASA spin-off's, finding only 14 genuine. He
also cited SF writer A.C.Clarke with the concept that moving Mount Everest
into the Sahara would be as spin-off-rich as manned spaceflight (and, implicit=
ly, equally pointless).

So what arguments are left in favor of manned spaceflight? The American vision
of going to Mars was only supported by one of many scientists present: G.
Neukum, a planetary geologist, is convinced that you will never understand a
planet unless you walk on its surface. But he is far from supporting NASA's
SEI: setting a timetable for a rush to Mars is dead wrong, he says, such a
mission must be developed organically as part of a very well planned and
for a long time coming unmanned exploration concept (by the way, Neukum also
sees no point whatsoever for manned activities in *earth's* orbit). "The fun
of spaceflight as such is justification enough", was the most bizarre argument
heard at the conference: R.Lo of Berlin's Technical University believes in
space tourism to the moon, once launch costs are down. ESA's position on the
SEI, Luest reported, is very cautious - mainly because of lacking funds.

Of the three components of the ESA package, the heavy-lift launcher ARIANE V
is the least controversial, but still questions were asked about the need for
such a launcher. While an ESA manager reiterated the agency's belief in
ever heavier and more complex spacecraft, several scientists argued for just
the opposite trend: while the politicians and the engineers were in favor of
big orbital platforms with dozens of instruments and multiple tasks, the
scientists were asking for small and *quick* 'dedicated missions' with 
unimpressively looking but highly capable satellites. This concept, of course,
requires cheap small launchers like the PEGASUS, not the big ARIANE V.

The COLUMBUS manned laboratory to be docked to FREEDOM and the ESA FREEFLYER,
however, met much resistance. Their supporters can only hint at *possible*
breakthroughs in microgravity and life sciences with long-term missions that
would make the trying as such worthwile. The critics countered that there's
no need for these laboratories: material science needs quick return of the
samples and the chance to fly them again and again - going with small piggyback
payloads on Chinese rockets was more attractive. Even the strong pro-micro-g
faction inside the German Aerospace Research Establishment DLR made it clear
that they were not married with the COLUMBUS concept: they would accept any
means of flying their experiments with quick data return - and don't see any
basic link with manned spaceflight.

The HERMES space shuttle, finally, was hailed as Europe's road into space
autonomy, but then again, noone could answer the question why this objective
would be worth billions of deutschmarks. Also, it was claimed, Hermes was an
unavoidable step in the development of the Saenger spaceplane which is remar=
kably popular even among the critics of the ESA spaceflight plans. Here,
though, it was countered that Hermes doesn't have an engine of its own and
that it is exactly the engine that makes the Saenger plans so demanding. Also,
it would be wrong to argue in favor of Hermes mainly with it being seen as an
intermediate step towards an even more expensive task.

So why then does the German federal government stand so firmly behind the
The Hague decisions, despite the current financial crisis following German
unity and the Gulf war contributions? Only a stretching of the timeline and
some descoping (especially of Hermes) is being called for. Either between the
lines or directly all speakers at the conference confessed it: it is the
resolve of France, ESA's #1 source of money, to carry on with the projects,
paired with the fear of the Germans to fall behind when being too critical.
E.Riedl from the Dept. of Economy even invoked the scenario of Japan taking
Germany's place in ESA, should the latter drop out of the manned plans. In
addition, he argued with the 'prestige' Germany as a whole would gain from
its major contributions to the manned package - and he compared that directly
with last year's soccer world championship. The conference left one wondering
whether  t h i s   is the right base to make crucial and very expensive
decisions for the decades to come...
                                               Daniel Fischer,  Koenigswinter

[To appear in next week's issue of 'SKYWEEK' - the .l.e.5 readers that are also
 reading Usenet's sci.space might thus feel privileged to have this 'preprint']