Today's Date:

It is an honor for me to open this symposium and discuss the challenges and the prospects of transatlantic cooperation in space.

Before starting, I would like to thank our partner, the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, September 29, 2005 and its dean, Dr. Jessica P. Einhorn, for hosting us today. I also must acknowledge Jeffrey Bialos, Executive Director at the University’s Center for Transatlantic Relations and Jean-Jacques Tortora, Attaché for Space and CNES Representative at the Embassy of France for their close cooperation in the planning of this event.

Many thanks as well to the sponsors for their generosity and to the Office of Science and Technology for their continuous support. Finally, my thank you goes to the speakers, chairs and participants for their attendance, in particular those who came from Europe. I am flattered to be here today and impressed by the quality of the audience.

Space belongs to everyone and knows no boundaries. International by nature, it is a fertile ground for cooperation and offers mankind and nations the opportunity to join efforts and define common standards. The recent natural disasters in South East Asia and in the Gulf Coast region of the United States show once more how space is a reliable and precious resource, all the more critical for disaster management. However fragile and vulnerable, space is a common asset of humankind and must be protected for the sake of future generations.

This unique characteristic of space has been an essential factor in the competition between nations with access to space since the very beginning. This competition generates some market dynamics in the field, but heightening competition and developing cooperation do not always go together. Space activities have always been supported by diplomatic action due to the need to combine contradictory, not to say opposite, requirements. In reality, we see that two forms of competition are at work in this sector. The first opposes the different players involved, institutional or private, and is complicated by interference involving political and strategic issues. Secondly and from a broader perspective, the overall sector is in competition with alternative terrestrial capacities.

On this matter, let’s remind ourselves of the limitations of the space sector in comparison with the terrestrial means:

- First, the high level of technology needed both to access space and to exploit it. That implies considerable spending, and the associated risks – which remain intrinsically high – temper the enthusiasm of investors.

- Secondly, the high level of investment required leads to long development and pay-off cycles hardly compatible with the visibility that markets offer, in particular the number-one field of space applications: telecommunications.

- Finally, Space hardly allows any progressiveness in the investments to be made: only the complete deployment of a system makes it possible to assess its economic viability.

These constraints are serious and the current crisis appears to be structural: with institutional budgets at best flat and commercial demand virtually limited to a renewal market, there is no growth to expect. Therefore, the ground segment competition is today conditioning the future economic well being of the space industry. In this perspective, there is, in my opinion, a pressing need for more international cooperation. The stakes are high.

The space actors have greatly invested in the development of industrial capabilities, envied by many, but they can hardly find any use for them. “Have we reached the limits of what we can achieve in Space?” Here is the question we must raise at the beginning of this symposium. I am convinced that the answer is negative; still we must find the technological and economic means to prove it.

To reach this objective, all the involved actors must join efforts, whether they are from governments or the private sector, Europeans or Americans. Indeed, the models are different on both sides of the Atlantic. Here in the United States, we can see an increase in the number of projects involving the private sector, some of them even resulting from its own initiative. We can only be impressed by achievements such as SpaceShipOne that further motivate the space industry. In Europe, we see the persistence of models dominated by some governmental interventionism that strives to build, little by little, coordinated space capabilities. Both models are probably a reflection of the history of our respective continents.

Nevertheless, the space arena will likely never throw off the governmental controls that led to its birth and development. Very few industrial sectors come close in comparison. Only the nuclear industry appears to me as well dominated by public intervention, for obvious strategic reasons that the space sector shares only partially.

In fact, the government effort responds to three main objectives: defining and implementing regulations, working on innovative technologies and developing new services that benefit the citizenry. As for the private sector, it breeds creativity in the conception of new applications, efficiency in their quick and affordable development and dynamism for their implementation.

This appears to me as a global framework, although the combination of public and private contributions remains different on both sides of the Atlantic. It is therefore important to find together a balance that will foster the emergence of common models.

This approach will necessarily be different, depending on the fields of application – space transportation, earth science, navigation, telecommunications – as they answer specific problems and face unique difficulties.

With regard to space transportation, the high cost of access to space has always been considered the main obstacle to the development of any application sector. Although the space agencies and the launch industry around the world have made huge efforts, the results are generally deemed greatly inadequate by the user. Rare are the cases in which you have such a paradox, with clients considering they are paying way too much while providers register very modest results. Until recently, we thought that cost reduction could be obtained only by the re-use of proven means and technologies such as those used by Russia, based on designs from the 60’s.

Today however, a new generation of entrepreneurs firmly believes that innovative technologies as well as new engineering and marketing concepts will make access to space more affordable and more attractive to new applications. Institutions will play a crucial role in defining the regulatory framework of these new developments. They must bring the constraints to the bare minimum while ensuring the safety of people and goods and controlling the impact of these activities on the Earth and space environment.

As for Earth observation, contrary to what we thought in the past, the supremacy of the satellite is being questioned. Strangely enough, in a context of a general decrease in the cost of space imaging and regardless of the significant improvement of its quality, we are seeing an unexpected return of alternative photography techniques onboard planes or UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles). This evolution can be seen both through recent military operations and civilian activities such as agriculture.

Nevertheless, demand remains strong and is gradually encompassing new players seeking to develop or acquire their own capabilities. This trend is visibly the result of the strategic interest fostered by Earth observation capabilities in Space. Will we witness in the future the multiplication of redundant systems around the world or an attempt to establish common and global approaches? This question influences the future of this field of application but more importantly the benefits that space resources bring to mankind with regard to our knowledge of our home planet. In that prospect, the international project GEOSS (Global Earth Observation System of Systems) could be a very positive step forward.

As for satellite navigation, the transatlantic discussions leading to the interoperability between GPS (Global Positioning System) and Galileo have dominated recent headlines. This agreement was concluded in the interest of us all: improved performance, redundancy, new service opportunities for the transportation sector, open utilization of either system with one single type of receiver. This important accomplishment may be measured in retrospect when compared to the current architecture of the GSM (Global System for Mobile communications) system, where the lack of dialogue at the government level led to a multiplication of standards.

All great achievements are bought at the cost of some pain! We must acknowledge this milestone, and from now on together think of ways to pursue the development of satellite navigation, making the best use of redundancy, complementarity or competition between the two systems on a case-by-case basis.

Telecommunications is traditionally the leading application for space activities, both in the commercial area, with spectacular developments in broadcasting, as well as the unique capabilities of the satellite as a vector of choice for the deployment of integrated military systems. The commercial market, however, has been limited in recent years to the replacement of in-orbit capacities, due to the global overcapacity of equipment in orbit. This is the result of massive investments made at a time when humanity’s limitless quest for knowledge seemed likely to be the way of the future – a time long over. The shrinking of the market triggered numerous mergers between operators, which in return greatly optimized operating satellite fleets.

This important phenomenon had devastating effects on the satellite and launch industries. Once this phase ends, the market should expand with the arrival of new services demanding greater data-rate performance. The challenge here will be technological – having the proper capacities – and financial, for their deployment and the acceptance of associated risks.

At the other end of the spectrum, we are seeing a new demand for low-speed applications geared toward such public services as data collection, the localization of mobile ground fleets and mail services. This demand is mainly a result of government needs. However, every citizen benefits from it, whether it be for environmental monitoring, natural disaster management or the tracking of containers by sea and land. Today, the great sensitivity to terrorist threats and the recent crises following the tsunami in Asia and Hurricane Katrina demonstrate that a lot of work remains to be done in telecommunications. These are global needs and the importance of developing the appropriate means of communication is broadly shared.

In order to efficiently meet this demand, international standards must be defined. The challenge here is political.

To conclude, the space sector is probably at a turning point in its development. The future utilization of Space calls for some thinking that transcends our national differences. This symposium offers an opportunity to analyze these problems and recommend a range of solutions. The transatlantic framework is a perfect setting for a broader approach in which international players will have to be included, whether or not they are already part of the space sector.

I have no doubt that the impressive qualifications of the speakers and participants here today can lead to significant progress in thinking about the future, our future. Thank you all for your contribution and have a great symposium.