Further than the Moon or Mars, further than any place a human-made artefact ever landed, this is the successful mission accomplished by the remarkable EU/USA cooperation named ‘Cassini-Huygens’.

Worldwide TV and media coverage, people (especially kids) fascinated by the images, frenzy for scientists, … and this was not about a natural disaster or a human expression of rage (such as wars or terrorists attacks)! No, once again, like with the little Martian robot of NASA a few years ago, it was about a new space exploration success.

But in that case, it tells us a lot more than just the usual analysis (usual though, but true) that people are fascinated by the dream content of space exploration, that kids do project themselves much easier in the fantasy of space conquest than the into the nightmare of countries ‘ invasion.

In that very case, we have a perfect example of what EU/USA cooperation can be about; not only in terms of goals, but also in terms of methods. As for the aims, it is pretty obvious: most modern endeavours require a major international cooperation, no country alone, for instance, can face up alone the cost, risks and complexity of future space exploration. It seems that slowly but surely all players are understanding this fact.

Though it is not always a key for success as is currently showing the progressive failure of the International Space Station programme. Behind the nice words of space agencies worldwide, let’s face the reality: the grounding of US space shuttles following its terrible accident 2 years ago is preventing the programme to be developed at the pace it should have. Meanwhile the already installed infrastructure of the Space Station are aging. Which most likely will make the Station unable to be ever properly completed as the whole project was planned to last about 15 years. I did not figure this out by myself: I was explained this very situation at Cape Kennedy a year ago.

And there we come to the methodology aspect of what Cassini-Huygens is telling us: major space exploration programmes require international cooperation, but this cooperation has to be planned and organized in a way that they are developed with sufficient time preparation (some scientists worked for about 25 years to see their ‘baby’ emitting images from Titan) with no rush from one or the other partner for reasons of political agenda or visibility. This cooperation has to carefully weighed the added-value of each partner and must try to limit political and financial trading-horses. No systemic dependency for the whole project, especially if it is a sustainable one (such as a space station), must rely on one partner only (if so, then the project must be redefined or abandoned).

Therefore two kinds of international programmes will emerge: programmes which are truly international, meeting the criteria I just mentioned; and national programmes with an international component, where the main operator decides almost everything and the international partners have to adapt to its decision. For the largest projects, I do not believe that the latter solution is anymore viable.

Back to Titan, and Cassini-Huygens, what we also have here is a superb Transatlantic cooperation which may show that if there is no life on Titan, there is still life for Transatlantic cooperation after the Iraq crisis. But, as for space exploration programmes, the future of EU/USA relations should be shaped like Cassini-Huygens and not like the International space Station. At least if we want it to be an efficient tool to cope with our future common challenges!

Send your answers/comments to Franck Biancheri, contact@newropeans.org

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Franck Biancheri