Working backwards through published accounts of the history of European space, it is possible to trace the origins of today’s ESA Science programme back to the original eight-year plan for the European Space Research Organisation (ESRO), produced by its preparatory commission, COPERS. But what exactly was in this ‘Blue Book’ and what was its wider significance, at the time and today? We go back to 1961 to take a closer look...
A quick recap of ESRO prehistory
The ESA Science Programme, while one of the major pillars of ESA from the start in 1975, actually predates its creation. It was inherited from ESA’s predecessor ESRO, which, in turn, was brought into being through the foundational work of the European Preparatory Commission for Space Research. Known by the acronym COPERS (from its name in French), this commission was set up following an agreement adopted at an intergovernmental conference, held at CERN in the Meyrin suburb of Geneva at the end of November 1960.
The Meyrin agreement establishing COPERS came into force in February 1961, and COPERS held its first session in the following month, where work began on establishing a European organisation to carry out space research. Some of the first items on its agenda included the preparation of a budget, convention, infrastructure and, crucially, a scientific programme – important as both the raison d'être and since it would have consequences for the others.
The COPERS working groups
COPERS established two working groups at the outset: an interim Scientific and Technical Working Group (STWG) to define a scientific programme, and a Legal, Administrative and Financial Working Group (LAFG), dealing with facilities, budgets and the preparation of a convention, among other tasks.
STWG met for the first time in Stockholm in April 1961, under the chairmanship of Lamek Hulthen from the Stockholm Royal Institute of Technology and with a certain Reimar Lüst from the Max-Plank-Institut in Garching as its coordinating secretary (Lüst would, of course, go on to become ESA’s third Director General in 1984.)
It agreed to organise the scientific programme into three different ‘categories’: short-term projects, based on sounding rockets; medium-term projects, requiring small satellites and space probes; and long-term projects, involving the use of larger and more complex spacecraft.
The meeting concluded with the creation of four subgroups of experts. The reports of these groups, dealing with Scientific Programmes, Technology, Tracking and Data Handling and Vehicles and Ranges, eventually went on to form the four main chapters of the STWG’s final report to COPERS - the Blue Book. Naturally, it was to the Scientific Programmes subgroup that the task of fleshing out the detail now passed.
One immediate, and thorny, question was whether ESRO should conduct its own in-house research. The initial recommendation of the subgroup to the STWG was that ESRO should not have its own scientific laboratory, with responsibility only for the engineering development of satellites and the provision of technical facilities. The scientific work was instead envisaged to be done by research groups in member states. However, there were opposing points of view and in the end it took several further meetings of both the subgroup and STWG itself to reach a compromise acceptable to everyone involved.
The October 1961 Report of the STWG – the Blue Book
Nevertheless, the STWG was ready to present an initial eight-year programme for ESRO, in its report to the third plenary session of COPERS, held in Munich on 24 and 25 October 1961. The 128-page Report of the Scientific and Technical Working Group, issued in English and French with the document code COPERS/GTST/23 (for Groupe de Travail Scientifique et Technique), was approved at the meeting. It was subsequently printed as an 80-page booklet and became known as the Blue Book, presumably owing to its blue cover.
It consisted of five chapters, with the first acting as an executive summary offering an outline of ESRO at the beginning, followed by the four chapters which related to the work of the subgroups and covered a Scientific Programme, European Space Technology Centre, Data Handling and Ranges and Vehicles.
Chapter two of the Blue Book dealt with the scientific programme. It began with introductory comments on the organisation of scientific work and two small sections on the scientific resources and activities that would be available to ESRO. These definitively resolved the debates over research, confirming that the majority of the scientific work would be undertaken by research groups in participating countries. Although in a compromise with those who had argued the contrary, it also stated that ESRO would offer ‘opportunities for original research beyond those which exist in individual countries’ in the form of fellowships and a small research group, with a handful of permanent staff.
Three main sections then laid out the proposed scientific programme, based essentially on sounding rockets and satellites and organised according to the three different time-spans enshrined by the STWG:
Short-term projects covered rocket experiments that could be carried out using existing means or that could be developed quickly. Three groups of study were planned, with the first an investigation of upper atmosphere physics in the auroral zone, based on a proposal by the Swede Bengt Hultqvist, Director of the Kiruna Geophysical Observatory, and Chairman of the Scientific Programme subgroup. This included the recommendation for a northern launching range for the organisation – later realised as ESRANGE in Kiruna. (The Blue Book noted both the importance of the study of auroral phenomena for better understanding of the relationship between the sun and the Earth, and the existing European tradition in this research.) The second was an extension of the upper atmosphere physics to lower latitudes using existing European national ranges, and the third was called ‘astronomical studies’ and included solar ultraviolet and X-ray radiation, lunar and planetary ultraviolet and infrared radiation, solar corona, zodiacal light and albedo.
Medium-term projects consisted of experiments involving small satellites in near earth orbits and small deep space probes, with proposed fields of study covering all areas of space science, (which were listed, although no priorities were assigned).
The recommendation for long-term projects was that one large project (the development and launching of satellite astronomical observatories, to be used for studies in UV and X-ray regions and for cometary and cosmic ray studies) commence as soon as possible once ESRO was active, with a second (for the development of lunar satellites, which could be used to study properties of lunar gasses, lunar surface, measurement of gravitational, magnetic and electric fields at the moon) to be established after two years.
Only the sections for short- and medium-term projects contained a paragraph on time schedule and launching rate, while all three sections concluded with a projected annual expenditure. The chapter as a whole ended with a small final section of considerations on the location of ESRO centres.
As John Krige observes in the ESA History Study Report on The early activities of the COPERS and the drafting of the ESRO Convention (1961/62), sounding rockets could cover a large range of scientific fields at low cost, with shorter queues to get experiments flown than on satellites, and were therefore a good way into space research for the European scientific community. Conversely, the large satellite projects were important as the very reason why ESRO was needed - to undertake projects of a scale and complexity beyond the reach of national programmes.
Establishing precedents – different shades of blue
Krige also notes that the scientific content of the Report was warmly received by the Munich session of COPERS as a broad framework of a programme for space research. The seal was then set some months later, when its launching schedule was accepted largely unchanged by the Conference of Plenipotentiaries which signed the ESRO Convention in June 1962.
However, Arturo Russo in the ESA History Study Report on ESRO's First Scientific Satellite Programme 1961-1966, points out that despite this initial enthusiasm, the vexed question of research would return to haunt ESRO, which had not emerged from its creation as true scientific institution. He maintains that without a scientific staff or a programme ‘clearly defined according to established priorities and objectives’ ESRO became a hybrid multi-national bureaucracy and ‘technical establishment conceived to use most of its operational budget for industrial contracts in member states’.
In addition to these issues with role, there were also problems with its aims. As Russo defines it, the scientific programme was more a ‘manifesto of interests and expectations (should we say a book of dreams?) than a concrete working hypothesis’, which would inevitably meet difficulties when the time came to translate it into an operational programme.
With that in mind, is it perhaps more correct to think of the Blue Book as a blueprint for a new organisation, rather than as the direct forerunner of today’s strategic plans?
Or perhaps the fil rouge is in the link between the Blue Book and the official documents that are prepared for ESA Council and its subordinate bodies. Known within ESA by the shorthand of blue papers (after the blue paper used in the past in the ESA print rooms) or blue docs (for today’s digital files), it would have been very appropriate if the choice of colour was a reference back to this very first 1961 plan.
Further Reading
The newly digitised English and French versions of the Blue Book are available in the SHIP database:
- Report of the Scientific and Technical Working Group to COPERS - English
- Rapport du Groupe de Travail Scientifique et Technique - French
(Please be aware that the quality of both versions is not high. The ESA Archives does not hold the original published Blue Books and so these versions have been created from copies. As ever, we would be delighted to hear from anyone who might have an original copy – contact us at Archive.Services@esa.int.)
ESA History Study Reports:
• HSR-2: ESRO's First Scientific Satellite Programme 1961-1966
• HSR-4: The early activities of the COPERS and the drafting of the ESRO Convention (1961/62)