Preliminary draft council resolution on the European Union on Space: Forestry applications, markets and industrial competitiveness

Documentution,

Book Reviews and Publications

Preliminary Draft Council Resolution on The European Union and Space: Forestry applications, markets and industrial competitiveness This resolution accompanies the latest communication from the Commission of the European Communities to the Council and the European Parliament.

Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Community. and in particular Article 130f thereof; Having regard to the communication from the Commission on the European Union and space; Having regard to the Opinion of the European Parliament; Considering the political, socio-economic and scientific interest of space technology applications for the European Union; Considering the efforts which the Europan Space Agency and the Member States of the Union have been making for more than 20 years to develop European space capabilities and to stimulate the development of a competent European industry; Considering the action undertaken by the Commission, in particular by the Joint Research Centre, in the field of space technology applications in the context of the European Community Framework Programme of research and technological development; Considering the major role of industry, including small- and medium-sized undertakings, in the development of space technology applications and the corresponding services: Whereas Community action should, in accordance with the objectives set out in the Treaty. aim to promote the Union’s prosperity through greater industrial competitiveness, improvement of the quality of life and sustainable development; Whereas the formulation and implementation of Community activities must take account of the objectives of economic and social cohesion within the Union; Whereas. in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, the Community may only intervene if and to the extent that the aims of the proposed activity cannot be achieved more satisfactorily by the Member States and are therefore, because of their scale or impact. best carried out at Community level; Whereas Community action should focus on selected activities which meet specific criteria;

174

Has adopted

5.

this resolution:

I. The Council recognizes the importance of a concerted European approach to the development of space technology applications and the urgent need for Community action in this respect to strengthen the European presence in markets for these applications, while creating conditions favourable to the emergence of new markets. 2. The Council encourages the Commission to continue with its efforts to create an economic environment suitable for increasing ‘the competitiveness of the European space industries at world level. In particular, it recommends that the Commission support the drawing up of common standards for space products and procedures, It also recommends that the Commission consider how financial engineering instruments might help in carrying out space projects, enabling the European industry to enter into the development and supply of new services without excessive risk. 3. The Council supports the action taken by the Commission as regards the development of space technology applications, in particular in the sectors of telecommunications, nagivation. Earth observation and environmental monitoring. It calls on the Commission to continue with its action and to report regularly to it on its own implementation. However, the Council also wishes to emphasize that no field of activity should be excluded (I piori. As far as dual-use civil and military technologies are concerned, the Council recommends a coordinated European approach and calls on the Commission to take appropriate steps in this respect. 4. The Council stresses the importance of space systems for the development of the information society at world level. It believes that the measures proposed by the Commission to open up services and develop infrastructures will contribute to creating an environment favourdble for the development of the telecommunications market and European competitiveness. It therefore encourages the Commission to pursue its action which will lead to the full opening up of these services, free access

6.

7.

K.

to the space sector and balanced access to the satellite market in the context of the World Trade Organization. The Council in particular encourages the Commission to seek further alignment of the European positions on the allocation of frequencies and orbital positions in close cooperation with the Member States and the organizations concerned. The Council recognizes the importance for Europe of confirming its role in the field of satellite navigation and positioning services. It supports the action taken jointly by the Commission, the European Space Agency and Eurocontrol for the establishment of an international interoperable civilian system and recommends that the Commission continue with its efforts to develop the European component of this system. It also recommends that the Commission consider the possibility of setting up a new operational body at European level in this sector in order to meet user requirements. The Council acknowledges the important contribution which the implementation of European Union policies may make to the development of the space data market in the field of Earth observation and environmental monitoring. However, it believes that, in the course of time, this sector should progressively be taken over, in most cases. by private investors and recommends that the Commission encourage this through the means at its disposal. It recommends that the Commission. in cooperation with appropriate partners. should foster the development at European level of service companies or new operational entities capable of supplying the space information needed to meet requiremenls. In particular, it encourages the Commission to open discussions with Eumetsat as soon as possible to investigate to what extent this body might play an operational role in environmental monitoring. The Council acknowledges the usefulness of Community action in the field of education and training in the use of space technology. The Council also emphasizes the importance of using space technology for development. It encourages the Commission to take appropriate steps in these fields. The Council takes note of the Commission’s proposals in the abovementioned fields and recommends that specific efforts should be taken to achieve greater complementarity and synergy of work in the context of ongoing and future framework programmcs of Community RTD activities. It takes note that there should be no need for additional funding for the time being; it also takes note that some activities may require recourse to other forms ol community support.

SPACE POLICY

May

1997

Documentation,

9. The Council calls on the Commission to pinpoint and prose, in cooperation with the Member States and the partners concerned, activities to obtain the opening of the markets of the main third countries and to help establish a set of international rules to guarantee conditions for balanced competition in the market for spacecraft launching services. 10. The Council recommends that a

common approach to cooperation with international organizations and third countries should be sought between the Member States. I I. The Council recommends that all of these activities should be coordinated with those of the Member States and the European Space Agency in order to obtain greater synergy between efforts at the European level. It requests that the Commission take suitable measures

Book

Reviews

and

Publications

to prepare the cooperation agreements required with the European Space Agency and other small agencies concerned. It takes note of the Commission’s intention to make use of the work of the Space Advisory Group (SAG) and other advisory groups. Source: Commission Communities, COM(96) 4 December 1996.

of the European 617 tinal, Brussels,

Book Reviews The Challenger Launch Decision: Risky Technology, Culture, and Deviance at NASA by Diane

Vaughan

University

of

1996, 575pp,

Chicago

Press,

Chicago,

f24.95

The

conventional explanation for the 1986 accident that killed the shuttle’s seven-person crew, according to Diane Vaughan, was that it was the result of decisions by ‘amoral calculating managers intentionally violating rules.’ Not so, she argues; rather, the accident was an almost inevitable organizational mistake, the kind of mistake that happens when large. complex organizations deal with tricky technologies. No one individual was at fault; the accident was the culmination of a ‘series of seeminlgy harmless decisions that incrementally moved the space agency toward a catastrophic outcome.’ Vaughan is a professor of sociology at Boston College, and her book is the result of in-depth research in the thousands of pages of documents relating to the Challenger accident and interviews with many of the participants involved in the decisions she studies. Her purposely narrow focus is on the Solid Rocket Booster (SRB) part of the shuttle system; it was an O-ring intended to seal a joint in one of the Challenger’s SRBs that failed during launch and was the proximate cause of the accident. The book is wordy and academic in style, and thus not easy reading. Those who follow her sophisticated reasoning will be rewarded with multiple insights into ‘the hazards of living in this technological age.’ Key to the author’s analysis is what she calls ‘the normalization of deviance.’ Step by step during the design of the SRB joint and its performance in the 24 shuttle flights preceding the accident, NASA engineers accepted the risks of a design that did not perform quite as expected, but also did not fail. Each small deviation from expectations became accepted after the fact and then was treated as the norm against which future deviations were evaluated. By the end of 1985, the many signals that the shuttle was operating with a major design problem had become almost lost in the repetitive process of clearing the shuttle ChaNenger

SPACE POLICY

May 1997

for each launch. In this context, the evidence presented the night before the Chullenger launch by engineers from the SRB manufacturer, Morton Thiokol, was not sutticiently compelhng to reverse the collective judgement of those responsible that the risk of O-ring failure continued to be acceptable. No rules were broken. No manager deliberately ignored predictions of possible failure. Rather, they made a judgement to accept the risk of going ahead with the launch within what Vaughan calls a ‘bureaupathological’ context created by the decisions and behavior of the previous decade. Very unfortunately. that judgement turned out to be horribly mistaken. To Vaughan, Challenger was close to a ‘normal accident,’ to use a term coined by one of her academic colleagues, Charles Perrow. The accident was the result of actions taken by highly skilled people doing the best they could in the face of technological uncertainties about the system they were trying to operate and the limits set on their work by organizational procedures and pressures; it was these people who made, with the best of intentions, a tragic mistake. One recognizes after finishing the book the near impossibility of completely avoiding similar mistakes in the future; that is a chilling conclusion. John M. Logsdon Spuce Poliq Inslitule George Washington lJniver.7it.v Washington, DC 20052 USA

Halfway Commercial by G. Harry M. Evans,

to

Anywhere: Space

The

Age

of

Stine New

York,

1996,

$21.95

This book spreads the good word: we stand at the brink of commercial astronautics, vacations in space and other goodies. It is very well written, interesting, with never a dull moment! So 1 enjoyed reading it and occasionally even I was carried along by the flamboyant style and eagerness of the author. But, on reflection, I admit it: I belong to the disbelievers too. Of course, I

was a team member with those who did put men on the Moon and Stine rightly explains that we had a very considered way of doing business (not quite his words, let me add). Now I wonder: can he accept criticism as well as handing it out? His basic knowledge is patterned along the Delta Clipper design. Personally, I hold that particular machine which was recently demonstrated in several insignilicant hops to be completely useless. It showed what nobody I know of doubted anyway. And even doing so little, failure struck bad luck perhaps - but indicative. The real bird of course is LEO-capable, having 10 tons of payload for (perhaps) 500 tons lift-off mass. This, I think, is completely illusionary. A reusable LEOcarrier of this type will require a negative payload to become orbital. (Mind you, this is even worse than just having zero payload!) Stine’s economic discussion (Chapter 20) is without any basis in fact, regardless of its professional appearance, and the dream collapses like a soap bubble colliding with a tender twig. I hasten to add that I am as sure as can be that any reusable SST0 LEO-transporter is unrealizable, based on available technology or that foreseeable within a decade or so. A slight chance might exist for a relined fluorine-hydrogen Delta Clipper type ~ I am not sure but a study would be illuminating. Using oxygen-hydrogen for propellants, an expendable orbital vehicle is possible: but optimism that ‘opportunity creates the market’? Maybe yes; maybe not. Look at Concorde, for example, and the flood of SST designs ~ silence, no success, despite technical brilliance. There is no need to go into much more detail. Buy the book, read and enjoy it as another science fiction story, have fun and don’t believe! However, some special remarks are needed to correct a few errors. A. Heinlein (1950) gets credited with ‘truly understanding’ the well known fact (familiar to Tsiolkowski at the turn of the century) that escape velocity is equal to 2 times orbital speed. This was called the ‘first astronautic paradoxon by G.V. Pirquet in 1930 20 years before Heinlein. What we engineers call ‘V capability’ is treated in a very gentlemanly fashion by

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