‘You cannot live without space in 20 years’: What does the future of Europe’s economy look like?

Space will be everywhere. You cannot live without space in 20 years from today

One euro invested in space programs brings about five euro back to the economy

Welcome to The Big Question, the series from Euronews where we explore every corner of the world of business

Today I'm joined by the Director General of the European Space Agency, Josef Ashbacher

Thank you very much for joining me today. So in recent years, the image of space travel has gained a reputation as a bit of a billionaire's boys club

Do you think the private space industry plays an important role in the space industry globally

Private industry will play a major role, but it is also clear that private industry will not succeed without public investments

Take the example of SpaceX, SpaceX being the largest space company today in the world

But they have been built up thanks to a very strong support of NASA, both in terms of funding

NASA has provided huge amounts of funding to build up and develop projects, but also expertise

So yes, we need private investment, we need to attract venture capital funding

we need to attract funding from outside the public domain, absolutely, and I'm working very hard on this also in Europe

but it has to go hand in hand with European programs that give the objective of what we want to do

We want to go to the space station, we want to go to the moon, we want to go to Mars, and then we engage private industry and buy a service from them

But we have to really make sure that we have the long-term vision, the long-term programs and the funding to enable it

Yeah, absolutely. Why is ESA's work important work that needs to be publicly funded

Oh, it's extremely important. Sometimes I make a comparison. I say, look, if I would have asked you 20 years ago, do you need the Internet

You would have said, yes, sounds very exciting. It sounds very fancy

It may be good for something. but 20 years ago nobody would have ever imagined the dimension of what the

internet brings today for daily life for everything and I think space is a bit in a similar situation today of course space is already utilized in many disciplines but in 20 years from today I can assure you that space will be everywhere

It will connect people, it will observe our planet, and many other things will be assisted with space technology

In other words, you cannot live without space in 20 years from today. Already today you cannot live without space, but in 20 years even more

And this has economic aspects, societal aspects, geopolitical aspects, also security aspect, last but not least also inspiration of people, because if you have

cool space programs, young people tend to work there and not leave the country or leave

the continent. I saw at the age of seven years the moon landing, and this changed my mindset

It convinced me that this is something I want to work when I'm growing up, and I'm still

fascinated every single day. So yes, space is very important for the European Space Agency

but actually for every citizen in Europe and worldwide. All these brilliant programs and research and stuff that you do here at ESA, it's not cheap

But how much does it actually cost? It is very cheap. The ESA budget is about 8 billion per year

So if you compare this figure and put it in context with what is spent in the US

NASA has a budget of about 25 billion per year. We have in ESA one third of the NASA budget

But having said that, we do have a huge output for what we do

Last year, we had a record number of 13 satellites that we have launched

We had the inaugural flight of Ariane 6. We had the return to flight of Vega C

And all of this has been successful. We have two flagship programs today that are Copernicus and Galileo

They are the best programs in the world. Galileo delivers the most accurate signal for navigation worldwide

It's more accurate than GPS. despite the fact that Galileo was developed 20 years after GPS was already on the market

The very same happens in Copernicus. We have the most comprehensive observation of our planet

and we deliver 350 terabytes of data to the globe of what happens on our planet Again it the best Earth observation program in the world So I think this is something that shows that we do with a relatively modest amount of money

a lot of deliverables in terms of space infrastructure. And I think this is something that Europe can be very proud of because this is money very well invested

Yeah. And for that investment from the member states in Europe, how does ESA contribute to the European economy

We've asked some consultancy companies to assess how much one euro invested in space is bringing back to the economy

Depends a little bit on the domain. In Earth observation or in weather forecasting, the economic impact is higher as compared to technology development

But across the board, one euro invested in space infrastructure or space programs brings about five euro back to the economy

More recently, I've seen one example of the Arctic weather satellite, which we have just launched last year

One, you're invested in this Arctic weather satellite constellation. At the moment we have one satellite, but there's a future constellation that can be built up

It can bring economic values 50 times higher than the investment. Brilliant. All the work that actually happens in space

so the programs and the missions and the satellites and things, how do they benefit us and our economy

WeChill is a very interesting mission because it's monitoring space weather. In this particular case, the solar flares that come from the sun

So if there's a strong solar storm or solar flare, it can impact our infrastructure on planet Earth

That means electric systems, even in space, the electronics can be damaged

So we need to know when such a solar flare is about to erupt

And there's a certain intensity that it could harm our infrastructure. So Vigil is actually one of two satellites

One is built by ESA, the Vigil, another one by NASA. And with these two satellites you can really determine much earlier when a strong solar eruption would come

and therefore have an impact on infrastructure either in space of satellites or the space station

or on Earth for the electric grid which is one of the elements that is at risk How expensive is something like this and then what would be the projective savings from us gaining that for warming The cost of such a satellite is in the order of a few hundred millions which is certainly an investment to be made but if you can imagine

of how much you can save by protecting infrastructure on the ground and therefore

minimizing damage that can happen through a solar eruption then there's a multiple factor

in between. Let me just take one example because we do not yet have vigil in orbit and therefore we

We do not yet have this information. Recently, there was a solar storm that was unexpected

which resulted in the damage of tens of satellites that have just been launched

And the solar wind literally pushed it from orbit into the atmosphere, and therefore they de-orbited

because they could not be rescued. This was unexpected and unprepared. And of course, you can imagine several tens of satellites

cost much more money than one satellite necessary in order to monitor such a solar storm

and therefore be well prepared. And finally, on a personal level, what are you most excited about in ESA's future

ESA is an incredibly powerful organization in terms of delivering. ESA is very efficient in terms of use of taxpayers' money

and the impact it creates for the economy and for people's daily life. That is connecting people, that is driving people

in the sense of giving them the navigation signals. So there I really see ESA and space in Europe

become an essential part of the future economy and the future society and maybe

in many cases not visible because it's you know satellites are up there and you

do not know that your navigation signal needs satellites but you use them and you

rely on them but it really will enable the functioning of our society and make

Europe powerful richer and certainly more successful. Okay brilliant well thank you so much for sharing this exciting work with me today and for joining me on