Space Expert Panel

Eisenhower Institute Meets With Preeminent European Scientists and Other Experts on Outer Space to Analyze Current Trends in Military and Civilian Space

To read the full meeting summary, click here.

Vittorio Manno and Jacques Blamont

PARIS, July 15, 2002--On July 15 The Eisenhower Institute convened a group of preeminent European scientists and other experts on outer space to analyze current trends in military and civilian space use and to formulate an approach to creating international political and legal consensus on these new developments. This meeting was held as part of the Institute project, "The Future of Space: The Next Strategic Frontier."

The participants are members of a larger international panel of scientific experts and space practitioners who will recommend a framework that seeks to delineate between those military uses of outer space necessary for national defense and international security and those which could be detrimental for global stability.

Throughout the course of the project, the panelists have been interacting with military, commercial and scientific stakeholders in the future of space in order to ensure that this process is informed by the widest possible perspective. The meeting marked the first time that the European members of the panel met together as a full group to discuss the project.

Some of the issues discussed included the practicality of various means that have been proposed to protect space assets, dual-use technologies, legal concepts involved in formulating an agreement to guide future space use, multilateral vs. bilateral or unilateral-based agreements as a basis for consensus, mechanisms for verification of any potential agreements and enforcement and punitive measures, such as counterproliferation and sanctions. 

Participants:

• Roger Bonnet, former Scientific Director of the European Space Agency, Director-designate of the International Institute of Space Research, Bern, Switzerland;
• Jacques Blamont, Scientific Advisor to the Chairman of CNES (the French national space agency);
• Hubert Curien, President of the French Academy of Sciences, former President of CNES and former French Minister of Science and Technology;
• Susan Eisenhower, President of The Eisenhower Institute, member of the the International Space Station Management and Cost Evaluation Task Force (the Young Commission), former member of the National Advisory Council of NASA;
• Kerstin Fredga, Chair, Alfvén Laboratory, The Swedish Royal Institute of Technology (KTH); former director of the Swedish Space Agency; Executive Secretary of the Swedish Space Board; Chairman, Space Science Council of the European Space Agency; and President of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences;

  Reimar Lüst with Kerstin Fredga

• Reimar Lüst, eminent space physicist; former President of Max Plank Gesellschaft (equivalent to the German Academy of Sciences); and former Director General of the European Space Agency;
• Vittorio Manno, Programme Manager of the International Space Science Institute in Bern, Switzerland; former Senior Scientist at the European Space Agency's Science Directorate;
• Peter Jankowitsch, Chair, Supervisory Board, Austrian Space Agency, former Austrian Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs, former Austrian Permanent Representative to the Security Council of the United Nations, former Chairman of the United Nations' Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space

  The participants watch Dr. Sagdeev's project update briefing

• 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.