Space Expert Panel

Future of Space Expert Panel Meets in Strasbourg, France
May 4-5, 2004

 
As part of its program, "The Future of Space: The Next Strategic Frontier," The Eisenhower Institute gathered the third annual meeting of its expert advisory panel in Strasbourg, France on May 4-5, 2004. The International Space University hosted the meeting. Institute senior fellow and director of the East-West Space Science Center at the University of Maryland, Roald Sagdeev. chaired the meeting and led the discussion on recent developments in military and civilian space in the international arena.

(Pictured from left: V.S. Arunachalam, Roald Sagdeev,
Ambassador Thomas Graham, Jr., and Vittorio Manno.)

On the first day of the conference, members of the panel and guest speakers participated in discussions on issues in military space ranging from the emerging concept of responsive space, to the use of space in new area of warfare, to national space doctrines and strategies of the US, Russia, India, and Europe. The afternoon discussion focused on such vital issues in civilian space as the controversy surrounding the co-existence of the US-built NAVSTAR Global Positioning System (GPS) and the European Union's Galileo (it is worth noting that the US and European experts praised positive developments in the GPS-Galileo issues in the past few months), and the future of NASA and the International Space Station. The new vision for the US space program, announced by President George W. Bush in January 2004, calling for the Moon and Mars exploration, was at the center of the discussion on the civilian space developments.

In addition to presentations by the panel members, guest speaker from Australia, Brett Biddington, Cisco Systems Inc., briefed the participants on the space-based networking as one of the trends in the future uses of space. In the second and closing day of the conference, Sagdeev led a discussion on a framework for advancing a space security regime that seeks to strike a balance between the full range of diplomatic, legal, defensive, and deterrence options a nation or group of nations has at its disposal for implementing security policy.

The remainder of the conference was devoted to the presentation and critique of the Space Security 2003 Discussion Paper, a report recently released by the Eisenhower Institute and Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT). Douglas Aldworth, DFAIT, presented the key assessments and overview of results of the Space Security Survey 2003. 

Panel members who attended the May 4-5 meetings in Strasbourg included:

• V.S. Arunachalam, former defense science advisor for the Government of India, former advisor to Prime Minister Rajeev Gandhi, distinguished service professor at Carnegie Mellon University
  
• Jacques Blamont, scientific advisor to the chairman of CNES (the French national space agency)
  
• Roger Bonnet, former scientific director of the European Space Agency, director of the International Institute of Space Research, Bern, Switzerland
  
• Kerstin Fredga, chair of the Swedish National Defense Research Institute; former chair and director general of the Swedish National Space Boards, former chair of the Science Program Committee of the European Space Agency, and former president of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
  
• Richard Garwin, IBM space fellow emeritus at the Thomas J. Watson Research Center, adjunct professor of physics at Columbia University
  
• Peter Jankowitsch, chair of the supervisory board for the Austrian Space Agency, former Austrian Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs, former Austrian permanent representative to the Security Council of the United Nations, former chair of the United Nations' Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space
  
• Reimar Lüst, former president of Max Plank Gesellschaft, and former director general of the European Space Agency

• Vittorio Manno, program manager of the International Space Science Institute in Bern, Switzerland; former senior scientist at the European Space Agency's Science Directorate
  
• Antonio Rodotà, former director-general of European Space Agency
  
• Roald Sagdeev, distinguished university professor and director of the East-West Space Science Center at the University of Maryland, former director of the Space Research Institute in Moscow, former director of the International Mission to Halley's Comet, and former advisor to Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev on the Strategic Defense Initiative
  
• Michael Yarymovych, past president of the International Academy of Astronautics, former vice president of International Technology and Advanced Systems of the Boeing Company, president of Sarasota Space Associates, an aerospace consulting firm

Other attendees included:

• Douglas Aldworth, senior policy advisor for Missiles and Space Security in the Non-proliferation, Arms Control and Disarmament Division of Foreign Affairs Canada
  
• Brett Biddington, Space Initiative Manager, Global Defense and Space Group, Cisco Systems Inc.
  
• Ambassador Thomas Graham, Jr., senior advisor, The Eisenhower Institute
  
• Olga Prygoda, program assistant, The Eisenhower Institute
  
• Suzanne Vogel, program officer, The Eisenhower Institute