A great laboratory ” “

A visit to the Estec Centre, one of the various centres of the European Space Agency, helps us to understand the role of the Esa and the work performed there by physicists, engineers and biologists from fifteen nations. Their various provenance, the many languages they speak (the official ones are only English and French), the innumerable disciplines in which the scientists work, do not seem to be an obstacle to the common objective of “discovering as much as possible on earth, the surrounding space environment, the solar system and the universe in general”. The Agency also aims at “the development of satellite technologies and services and the promotion of European industries in the sector”. Below a report by Gianni Borsa, Sir correspondent in Brussels, on his recent visit to Noordwijk (Netherlands) where Estec is based. A SPACE PROBE ON TITAN, ANOTHER HEADING TOWARDS THE COMET. Esa once again hit the front-page headlines thanks to the success of its Huygens probe, which landed on Titan, Saturn’s biggest moon, in mid-January. The little unmanned spacecraft in the form of a flying disc “represents – Esa explains – man’s first attempt to send a probe onto so distant a planet in our solar system”, some 1,200 million kilometres from Earth; Huygens in fact took seven years to reach it. DAVID SOUTHWOOD, director of the ESA scientific programme, comments: “We can’t wait to find out the results of the mission to Titan”. The results should shed light on the “face” of Titan, the sounds registered on its surface, the composition of its atmosphere… Another space probe, Rosetta, launched in March 2004, is still continuing its journey to the comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko, with the task of releasing a lander to explore its surface: this will help to elucidate the mysteries at the origin of our solar system. Meanwhile Mars Express is studying the planet Mars, while Smart 1 “is photographing” the surface of the moon. ESTEC, LABORATORY OF PROJECTS AND TECHNOLOGIES. Estec (European Space Research and Technology Centre) is “the heart of the projects for most of Esa’s space vehicles and technological development”. Some large buildings on the outskirts of the town, not far from Amsterdam, announce the presence of the “laboratory” where two thousand people are working. A little space museum is besieged by parties of schoolchildren. At Estec scientists are developing the future system of satellite navigation called Galileo, which ought to make Europe independent of American satellites. Another ambitious project, in part already operational, is that of the international Space Station (which involves various agencies, including Nasa); it orbits 400 km from earth and offers astronaut-researchers the chance to conduct particular scientific experiments in the absence of gravity, which would otherwise be impossible. The goals of scientists always go beyond the short term: “One of our tasks – explains the astrophysicist FABIO FAVATA – is to respond to the needs and proposals that emerge from the scientific community in order to furnish suitable technological solutions to put them into practice”. He points out, among forthcoming goals, “the exploration of Mercury and Venus, and the Gaia mission, aimed at realizing a ‘cartographic image’ of the galaxy”. Favata exudes a real passion for his work: “The success of Huygens aroused in me the same kind of emotion as when as a child I saw Voyager land on Jupiter”. In his view, “our young researchers are very well trained”. Of fundamental importance, he believes, is the scientific education especially offered in some countries, such as France, and “the role of the mass media in explaining the tasks of space research and its applications”. THE “COMMON HOME” IS ALSO BUILT ON SCIENCE. The head of the office for the applications of satellite navigation is RAFAEL LUCAS RODRIGUEZ: “Galileo is a forward-looking project, with useful applications for transport by land, air and sea. But it is already yielding useful results today, in the sense that it is reinforcing the links between Esa and the businesses working in the space sector, with a transfer of technology and know-how otherwise unthinkable. There’s a great deal of cooperation around Galileo and the overall support that the Eu provides to Esa is very important for pursuing the project”. PAOLO DONZELLI, Estec personnel manager, underlines the fact that Eu integration is also realized in the sector of scientific research: “Esa is one of the most effective examples of scientific and industrial research in Europe, where the priority is the fostering of human resources. Here we put together ‘intelligences’ from various countries for objectives that, at the national level, would be impossible to achieve”. This too is a way of constructing united Europe. Donzelli concludes: “I am convinced that we need to transmit dedication to and passion for science to our children, so as not to run the risk of remaining without scientists and researchers in the future”.