Why ESA (European space agency)not capable to manage manned space flight yet??

Question

Why ESA (European space agency)not capable to manage manned space flight yet??

Answer 1

Current European Launch vehicles are not designed for manned spaceflight, as they put forces to the payload in excess of 9G i guess.

Human spaceflight would require a brand new concept, which would cost a lot of money. And as you all know money is always an issue, especially if you keep all countries participating amused by what you do.

Except for lifting up people to the ISS there's basically no need for human spaceflight from ESA's side, and would you as a taxpayer want to burn money for something you basically don't need ?

cause along with the risk loosing a capsule, its way cheaper to send an automated probe.

Answer 2

The Ariane rocket is certainly capable of lifting a manned mission.  It's reliability has been good.  It's powerful enough.  And so on.  And, ESA is certainly capable of the engineering involved.  It's not a matter of capability.  It a matter of not having done it.  But the political winds are changing, and Europe, even Briton, is considering manned space flight.  I'd like to design a mission to Mars around the Ariane.  It'd be a heck of a mission.

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Historically, Europe has wanted to get good science for their money.  Robots are ten times cheaper than humans.  It was a sad day when the Beagle was lost on Mars.  But it wasn't anything like when Challenger blew up.

Answer 3

The E.S.A. is working with Russia and about a ton of other European countries, heck even Ireland contributes funds to the E.S.A., the E.S.A. prefers unmanned missions because the E.S.A. is still unsure of what they can do, N.A.S.A. should be watching these folks because there going to be bigger than N.A.S.A. someday, N.A.S.A. is funded by the tax payers of the U.S.A. but the E.S.A. is funded by about a dozen countries, the E.S.A. has plans in the works for a manned mission to Mars before N.A.S.A. is planning theres.

Answer 4

Two reasons:

1. We have good enough relations to USA and Russia to buy our flights on their craft. There was never really the need to bring humans into space here.

2. ESA is not a single country, but actually doing spaceflight by the smallest common projects the members of ESA can agree on. While many ESA members agree on needed manned capability, you also have countries who dislike manned spaceflight . Then you have the problem that not all countries agree on the same concept. France supports a home-grown capsule by reviving the CTV project, just like the European space industry BTW, while Germany for example prefers a cooperation with Russia behind closed doors.

But you can be sure, in the next decade, ESA will get it's own spacecraft. Either by the CTV project (also known as ATV evolution, though CTV is actually the older name for a manned ATV) or by the ACTS together with Russia.