donald trump was detached from reality. his former attorney general, william barr, said he showed more interest in crazy stuff than facts. mr trump has called the investigation a sham. now on bbc news, it s hardtalk. welcome to hardtalk. i m stephen sackur. the rupture in relations between most of europe and russia since vladimir putin s invasion of ukraine has left european governments scrambling to end their dependence on moscow s oil and gas. it turns out there was another arena in which europe had become dangerously dependent on russia space. without russian rockets and other space know how, europe s short term space plans are now in disarray. my guest isjosef aschbacher, director general of the european space agency. is europe destined to be an also ran in the space race? josef aschbacher, welcome to hardtalk. thank you. thank you for having me. let s start where i started in that introduction your relationship with russia. it has exposed, has it not, the war w
europe s short term space plans are now in disarray. my guest isjosef aschbacher, director general of the european space agency. is europe destined to be an also ran in the space race? josef aschbacher, welcome to hardtalk. thank you, thank you for having me. let s start where i started in that introduction your relationship with russia. it has exposed, has it not, the war with ukraine, the degree to which you ve had to sever ties with the russian space agency? it s exposed a dangerous over reliance on cooperation with moscow? i mean, it is true that with the invasion of russia in ukraine, it was a wake up call for many of us in the energy sector, in many other parts, that we suddenly have a war in front of our doors and also in space. and in space, what actually happened is exactly the same as in many other domains. the heads of states and heads of government of many european countries were encouraging everyone to embrace russia, to work with russia, get russia into the we
which unionists don t like because it, in effect, puts a border down the irish sea. now on bbc news, here s hardtalk. welcome to hardtalk. i m stephen sackur. the rupture in relations between most of europe and russia since vladimir putin s invasion of ukraine has left european governments scrambling to end their dependence on moscow s oil and gas. it turns out there was another arena in which europe had become dangerously dependent on russia space. without russian rockets and other space know how, europe s short term space plans are now in disarray. my guest isjosef aschbacher, director general of the european space agency. is europe destined to be an also ran in the space race? josef aschbacher, welcome to hardtalk. thank you. thank you for having me. let s start where i started in that introduction your relationship with russia. it has exposed, has it not, the war with ukraine, the degree to which you ve had to sever ties with the russian space agency? it s exposed a d
are now in disarray. my guest isjosef aschbacher, director general of the european space agency. is europe destined to be an also ran in the space race? josef aschbacher, welcome to hardtalk. thank you. thank you for having me. let s start where i started in that introduction your relationship with russia. it has exposed, has it not, the war with ukraine, the degree to which you ve had to sever ties with the russian space agency? it s exposed a dangerous overreliance on cooperation with moscow? i mean, it is true that with the invasion of russia in ukraine, it was a wake up call for many of us in ukraine, it was a wake up call for many of us in the energy sector, in many other parts, that we suddenly have a war in front of our doors and also in space. and in space, what actually happened is exactly the same as in many other domains. the heads of states and heads of government of many european countries were encouraging everyone to embrace russia, to work with russia, get ru
in development, but the sad truth is that some of your key programmes and missions for the next year or two have now been jeopardised and may well be entirely ruined because of the withdrawal of cooperation with russia. and i m thinking in particular of your ambitious plan to send a european rover vehicle to mars. that entire mission may not happen now. today, it s not decided what will happen or will be the future of that mission, this is true, because on february 24th, right afterwards, i called a meeting with my member states to decide what we do. and, as you say, stephen, we had to decide to suspend this cooperation with russia. let me just say that this is hurting us all. i have a lot of engineers in esa and in industry, and you can imagine what it means. we have. some of the scientists