杏吧原创

THE HEADS of Italy鈥檚 nuclear energy agency and of France鈥檚 national
space agency are two of the leading candidates to succeed Reimar Lust as
the next director-general of the European Space Agency.

Lust, whose contract comes to an end next September, announced after
an ESA council meeting last week that five countries have so far put forward
names of possible successors: Austria, Belgium, France, Italy and Spain.
(The first director-general, Roy Gibson, is British, and Lust himself is
German, so these countries are not eligible to put forward candidates this
time round.) None of the names of the candidates have been officially announced.
However, according to sources in Paris and Washington, it is generally believed
that the two leading candidates are Umberto Colombo, the director of Italy鈥檚
National Commission for Atomic and Alternative Energy and Jean Marie Luton,
the director-general of France鈥檚 National Centre for Space Studies (CNES).

Colombo, a former research director of the Italian chemicals giant Montedison,
is well known in European science policy circles. He is currently a member
of the European Commission鈥檚 top science advisory committee, and is also
the president-elect of the European Science Foundation in Strasbourg.

Luton was appointed to his position at the CNES a year ago. Since then,
he has won some notable battles for the French agency, including government
backing for a new version of the Earth observation satellite SPOT.

However, some ESA member countries have expressed private reservations
about the agency being headed by a Frenchman, given in particular the fact
that France is the strongest European nation in space, and makes the largest
contribution to several of the ESA鈥檚 large space technology programmes,
such as the launcher Ariane and the spaceplane Hermes.

The three remaining candidates are widely reported to be Juan Majo,
a former Spanish industry minister, Jean-Pierre Boland from the Belgian
manufacturing company ETCA, and Johannes Ortner, president of the Austrian
space and solar institute.