Space conquest 2.0: Useful or futile space? - Philippe Lugherini

After the first step on the Moon in 1969,Space was no longer to be conquered, but the means and place for creating economic, social and scientific value...

For four decades, reasonable daring has nonetheless turned the world upside down.

And then came the time of great daring, of strong ambitions for a new "conquest" ofSpace, the Moon, Mars, asteroids...

The dream has become a dystopia.

Until, in the last few weeks, the heart of the American space program collapsed, dragging with it whole sections of the European space program. Has the bubble burst?

Rereading the history of space, fromApollo to Musk, from dream to dystopia, from ESRO to ESA, and untangling the webs of cooperation and rivalry that have fueled this history, will help us to understand these wanderings and distinguish the useful from the futile.Space must cease to be a playground, and once again become a domain of responsibility, at the service of our planet and the human societies we have formed there.

Speaker:

Philipe Lugherini worked for the DGA (Direction Générale de l'Armement) as head of the space component of the HELIOS program (France's first military Earth observation satellite), then in industry as space director of SODERN, a space equipment manufacturer, CEO of Nuclétudes and CILAS, and finally strategy director of ArianeGroup. A retired engineer from the École Polytechnique and SUPAERO (now ISAE-SUPAERO), Philippe is a regular commentator on space news, and recently published an essay entitled l'Espace des fous.