When David Southwood, the European Space Agency’s director of science, emerged in May from several months of feverish strategizing, he delivered some surprisingly good news: ESA will fly all of its planned space exploration missions despite the recent blow to its science budget.
ESA’s crisis began last November, after ministers representing the agency’s 15 member states put the screws to the science budget. For the years 2002–06, science exploration was allotted ά1869 million (euros and US dollars are roughly equal in value). “I got even less than our most pessimistic assumption,” says Southwood. “If I integrate over 10 years—the time scale for space mission planning—it’s about a ά500 million reduction.”
The tightened budget cast a pall over ESA’s space science program. It was widely expected that the galaxy mapper GAIA would be axed. Instead, Southwood and ESA science policy advisers shook up the mission plan, ultimately saving GAIA and even...