Posted on 05/30/2005 4:13:40 PM PDT by KevinDavis
European governments have tentatively decided to go it alone in developing a Mars rover after concluding that a cooperative effort with NASA is impossible given today’s U.S. technology-transfer laws, according to European government officials.
Whether these governments will decide to finance the rover, whose costs are estimated at around 600 million euros ($756 million), will not be known until December, when European Space Agency (ESA) government ministers are scheduled to meet to decide the size and shape of ESA’s future programs.
But as ESA sketches its longer-term space-exploration effort, called Aurora, the agency is gradually coming to the conclusion that the U.S. legal regime known as ITAR — International Traffic in Arms Regulations — will foreclose whole categories of trans-Atlantic cooperative efforts in space exploration
(Excerpt) Read more at space.com ...
Clinton held back nasa (and help the ESA) in order that Europe (and Russia and China) could catch up with us. They seem to think that they are our equal in space exploration, let them prove it.
My guess is that they will not do very well.
The new vision should be primarily an America endeavor, IMO.
We give the EU way too much help in many research areas outside of space too. It was OK during the Cold War, but since they seem to think that they are superior to us, let them prove it.
Personally, I do not think that they can pull it off.
WE need to stop helping our technological competitors in a globally competitive economy.
I personally am not much impressed with the European S & T commnuity: lots of hype, too little substance.
The best and the brightest of Europe came here..
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