To the Director General of ESA and representatives of ESA member states,

We, as scientists and users of various microgravity and related facilities, assembled on the 22nd of September 2005 at the 16th ELGRA biennial symposium, in Santorini, Greece, would like to express our serious concerns about future flight opportunities for scientific research and technology studies.

The ISS, as one of the major platforms to conduct microgravity research, is at stake. It has come to our attention that the ESA Columbus module might not be launched, or be accessible to experimenters for the expected planned period of time. This would be a serious drawback for research. Numerous scientists have worked for years to prepare their experiments in one of the Columbus or other ISS facilities. This investment of effort would become inutile. Even the use of remaining platforms for long duration missions like Soyuz or Foton cannot adequately compensate the planned ISS initiatives in physical sciences. It would be worse for life sciences, biology and human physiology.

For these reasons we would like to urge ESA and its member states to take our concerns into consideration. In order to limit the potential material and intellectual loss, strong and independent sounding rocket, retrievable free flyer and ground based research programs are required. Such an independent ESA program would also comply with the EU \ Lisbon treaty to improve and intensify European science and technology competitiveness.

As was mentioned by the Minister of Science of our hosting country: “We politicians should never forget that your field is where exciting new technological discoveries are developed and first tested before being available to us all”.

Santorini, Greece,
22 September 2005