Review of the European Microgravity Activities
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REVIEW OF THE EUROPEAN MICROGRAVITY ACTIVITIES
YVES MALMEJAC AND ULRICH HUTH Agence Spatiale Europ&enne, Laboratoire d'Etude de la Solidification, 85 X, 38041 Grenoble Cedex, France
C.E.N.G.
ABSTRACT A few months ago, european activities in the field of microgravity research appeared as being an addition of single programmatic elements without enough logics, coordination and scientific background. Under the active pressure and guidance of many european scientists who became more and more aware of the basic interest of materials research in the microgravity environment, and due to the efforts of the ESA executive, the situation could evolve in a significant way, succeeding now in getting the official recognition of the necessity and content of a coherent european microgravity programme by both the ESA Council and the community of classical Space scientists. This presentation will deal with the scientific motivations of this new-born Programme through both the initial status and the most rational ambitions for future. The poirts of emphasis of the necessary multidisciplinary cooperative exertion together with the possible involvement of these scientists who could not derive benefit from any of the existing national programmes will then be stressed. At last the resulting priority objectives will be briefly reviewed before discussing the needed coordination with other european and non-european microgravity activities.
There is a double looseness in this title - Firstly, the only activities to be described are those linked to the Materials Science discipline, - and secondly, the European activities in this field have two components the first affects the national activities likely to be developed by any european nation, and the second component affects those international activities that have been committed to the European Space Agency's care (There are at this moment 11 memberstates : Belgium, France, Nederland, Demmark, Italy, FRG, United Kingdom, Sweden, Switzerland, Spain and Ireland). Some European nations have devoted their entire efforts to the European Space Agency (ESA) whereas others have developed national or bilateral cooperative actions in parallel with their European participation : this is mainly true of Sweden, Germany and France. The aims of this invited paper are to set forth the current status and ambitions of the ESA's policy in this new field of Materials Science in Space. Very limited information will be given only when necessary as regards the main national activities. BACKGROUND The growth in scientific interest in research under microgravity conditions in Europe stems from the decision to develop the reusable Spacelab system. Up to that time the idea of microgravity experimentation was practically non-existent. In the short period between 1976 and 1981, some 70 different European research institutes proposed about 160 experiments to the ESA. In addition, about 70
10 experiment proposals submitted to various national space agencies were identified. Out of this total however, only a very limi
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