Re: Ariane5 FAQ, 4th draft

[aek@vib.usr.pu.ru (Alexander Kopilovitch)]

David Gillon wrote:

> >   Ariane 5 was an international project (within European Union)
> 
> This may be incorrect as it implies Ariane 5 was an EU programme and I'm not
> certain that there was a direct link. The European Space Agency and the
> European Union are distinct and separate entities although they have a very
> high degree of overlap in their member nations -- IIRC Austria and the
> Nordic countries were ESA members without being EU members (though most are
> now in both). At the same time Arianespace is a French commercial company,
> but the Ariane programme was split in some way between ESA and Arianespace,
> and to complicate things further, ISTR not all ESA members had opted into
> the Ariane programme, probably the UK most prominently.

Thanks for the correction, I'll change "European Union" to "ESA = European
Space Agency" in the next draft of the FAQ. Perhaps eventually I'll find a
proper place in the FAQ for desciption of the role of Arianspace.
 
> I'd run this past sci.space.tech or one of the other space newsgroups to get
> an appreciation from people who will have a better view of the overall
> programme structure and the way the work was divided.

Yes, that probably would be good for the FAQ to do that, but I think that I
personally can't afford such a deep research. Perhaps someone else will do that.



Alexander Kopilovitch                      aek@vib.usr.pu.ru
Saint-Petersburg
Russia