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
the soyuz rocket programme, to take your astronauts and your equipment up into space. i mean, that was complacency, wasn t it? you can call it complacency. actually, it has served us very well for. not now. not now, but for more than ten years, we had another rocket. we have, actually, three classes of rocket, as we call it. the one that is transporting heavier satellites into space, called the ariane 5 today. then we have the one in the lower segment, which is vega. and then we have the medium segment, which is now soyuz, which was soyuz, i should say, which was serving us well. but, at the time of the invasion of crimea in 2014, we already have made decisions to develop another rocket called ariane 6, which will fly very soon, some time next year, to replace soyuz and also the ariane 5 rocket. so, actually, the ariane 6 was already developed, and decisions were made in iii to foresee that this change is necessary. well, ariane 6 is still