Customer Reviews

A New Force at a New Frontier: Europe's Development in the Space Field in the Light of its Main Actors, Policies, Law and Activities from its Beginnings up to the Present

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The European Space Agency (ESA) has been officially created in 1975, included ten countries, and was the first truly international cooperative space organization.

Twenty-five years later, with fifteen members, the Agency is still the only space agency of its kind, and has been a spectacular success: a complicated mix of technology, science, commerce and politics that lead to Giotto, Ariane, SOHO, XMM or the ISS. And the future seems even brighter, since the ESA is working on ambitious projects such as Mars and Venus Express, Darwin, BepiColombo or GalileoSat.

Twenty-five years before ESA was born, cooperation between the main European nations has been attempted, eventually leading to the creation of two organizations: one for science (ESRO), the other for rockets (ELDO). ESRO did achieve some success, but ELDO failed completely with its Europa launcher.

How did such a unpromising start led to such a promising future?

This book, "A New Force At A New Frontier", starts from the beginning of it all (Sputnik), and chronologically relates what happened, why, and how it was handled. Mainly covering political and legal aspects, this book provides the space enthusiast with a highly detailed historical account.

Very precise, complete and technical (treaties and agreements are dissected almost point by point), the future reader must be aware that this text is definitly a research work done by a specialist, and not an ordinary, easy-reading book on the space program written a journalist. But learning about the politics involved is the only way to understand the ESA history.

Overall, an excellent reference that makes a good book, but for a limited readership, given its subject (ESA is not very well known, but this may change) and treatment (technical analysis of legal texts).

If you want to improve you overall knowledge of ESA, I would recommend the very interesting book from a professional anthropologist: "Launching Europe" by S. Zabusky (1995, ISBN 0691029725). In 300 pages, you will get an intimate view of the inner workings of ESA. I would also recommend the short but interesting book from two insiders (who actually helped define the highly successful "Horizon 2000" programme): "International Cooperation in Space: The Example of the European Space Agency" by R. Bonnet and V. Manno (1994, ISBN 0674458354). In just under 200 pages, this book provides the historical and political background of the agency. You can also order (for free!) the annual reports, from 1994, directly from the ESA web site.