Europe's Galileo project gains ground

摘要

Europe is inching closer to realizing its far-reaching plans for Earth-observing. Last week Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission (EC), publicly confirmed his support for the Galileo and GMES satellite-navigation and Earth-monitoring programmes. "Without space applications we will not be able to observe and tackle climate change," Barroso told a European space conference held in Brussels on 15-16 October. "Without space research, our knowledge society will simply not come about."rnCritics point out, however, that Galileo has been in the works for a decade and still does not have the first of 30 planned satellites in orbit.