If Star Wars is to take place, the beginnings are already visible… on Earth. The competition is raging between space agencies around the world to conquer space again. Among the historical players, NASA in the lead, the new competitors that are India or Saudi Arabia, and obviously the attack force of private giants like SpaceX or Blue Origin, there are people in the line of fire. And the Americans time and again took a huge piece of the space pie for themselves.
The United States approaches Europe
On Monday, the director general of the European Space Agency, Josef Aschbacher, was thus concerned on the set of BFM Business about the loss of European leadership in the field of rocket launchers, in particular because of the delays of the Ariane 6. Tuesday, Don Graves, the US Under Secretary of Commerce, wanted to reassure Europe on this issue:
“Last November, in the United States, in partnership with France, we relaunched the space dialogue. When Emmanuel Macron came to us, I was able to tell him about the work we are doing together for space,” said Don Graves, into the Hedwige Chevrillon microphone.
Investing in space for climate… and business
But why is the United States raising its head to the stars again? “Space is so important to us because humanity is experiencing an existential crisis with global warming. Our ability to observe, to understand the climate, to model, all this is done in space”, says the Undersecretary of State Commerce.
But as the American proverb says: “business is business.” And business is never far away.
Even so, also in this area, the member of the Joe Biden government also wants to be reassuring. “We should try to manage these activities through associations,” he said.
But the European states, which it is reaching out to, are not the only ones in the ranks. Tech companies are also on the prowl. “The United States is working cooperatively with the private sector. We are investing, but we know that the initiative will come from commercial companies”, acknowledges Don Graves. “We are trying to remove the obstacles so that the private sector can absorb these opportunities.” And for now, these companies are mostly American.
Source: BFM TV
