In Paris, the European Space Agency ESA wants to announce the future astronauts. For the first time, people with a physical disability are to be trained to become so-called parastronauts. However, the new generation will not be allowed to fly to the moon for the time being.
Which Europeans will fly into space next? The European Space Agency (ESA) wants to present the next generation of astronauts in Paris. These are four to six future astronauts who were selected from around 22,000 applicants. They succeed the current generation, which also includes the German Matthias Maurer. The future astronauts are initially trained at the German Aerospace Center in Cologne.
They are initially intended for stays in the International Space Station ISS. If there is a manned flight to the moon, the already experienced astronauts of the previous generation would be deployed. For the first time, ESA also wants to present one or more “parastronauts”: people with a physical disability who are to be prepared for a flight into space. For this purpose, the ESA has changed its previously extremely strict criteria and admitted candidates who are missing a leg or whose legs have deformities.
The budget for 2023 to 2025 is also to be adopted at a ministerial meeting of the ESA. The representatives of the 22 member states are to approve the space agency’s budget of a good 18 billion euros for 2023 to 2025, a quarter more than in the past three years. Of this, three billion euros are earmarked for monitoring the effects of climate change and 3.3 billion for transport into space, in particular for the Ariane 6 launcher. The ESA also estimates three billion euros for the exploration of space by robots and astronauts.
Economics Minister Robert Habeck is taking part on behalf of Germany, calling for more sustainability in space and greater European sovereignty. In space travel, Europe is increasingly in competition with the USA, China and private investors, such as Elon Musk’s American company SpaceX. The launch of Ariane 6, originally planned for 2020, was recently postponed to 2023. “We have to push ahead with the commercialization of space travel,” said ESA boss Josef Aschbacher at the start of the ministerial meeting.
Germany, France and Italy reiterated that investments in the Ariane 6 and Vega-C launch vehicles must take commercial risk into account. They suggested changing the rules to ensure that countries that invest heavily would benefit their domestic industries. At the same time, they gave the go-ahead for the use of so-called microlaunchers, which are also to fly into space on behalf of ESA in the future. The three countries are competing to develop rockets capable of launching smaller loads into space.
