The Space Council, the musicians who are going to write the score of the Spanish Space Agency

The process that marks the real beginning of the creation of the Spanish Space Agency resembles to a large extent the founding of a musical formation of classical repertoire, the closest thing to an inter-ministerial collegiate body.
 
The conductor and musicians who make up the Space Council have already been chosen and the unique orchestra has just been constituted on 11 July at the headquarters of the Ministry of Science and Innovation in Madrid. The inaugural session has consisted of a sharing of ideas, rereading the objectives, setting the timetable and determining the basic criteria for writing the score and libretto of a composition that is not yet known whether it will be a symphony, an opera or a zarzuela.   
 
The number of musicians on the Council is not enough to make up a symphony orchestra, but far exceeds that of a chamber orchestra. It is made up of 18 virtuoso soloists on wind, string and percussion instruments, who in this case are engineers, military, scientists and others, which ensures a wide variety of musical instruments and, therefore, the richness of the ensemble's sound.

No less than 11 ministries are represented on the Space Council, in some cases twice or even three times, as well as two other institutions - the National Intelligence Centre and the Presidency of the Government - which guarantees the melodic richness and nuances of the resulting work.
 
All those present at the first meeting have come full of good intentions and are aware of the heavy responsibility they have in their hands. They are aware of the duty to bring forward a national organisation that encompasses the responsibilities scattered for decades among too many departments, representing Spain in international forums. Practically all the musicians assume these aims, but some try to combine them with the defence of the responsibilities that their respective departments have been able to monopolise for years.

A serious and rigorous mission for a serious and rigorous man 
 
To tackle, reconcile and bring down some of the few autonomist positions is the man who holds the baton, the conductor of the orchestra, the one who assumes the greatest weight with respect to the viability of the final score. The person chosen by the Minister of Science and Innovation, Diana Morant, to occupy the position of president of the Space Council is Miguel Belló, who combines his training as an aeronautical engineer with that of a businessman and who, since 5 July, has been the Commissioner for the Aerospace PERTE. 
 
A man with proven leadership skills and great pedagogical and communicative qualities, he is responsible for giving shape and content to the new Agency. Knowing him and his background, I know that he will lead the work entrusted to him with parameters in line with the present and future reality of the national space ecosystem. And bearing in mind that it is not a question of creating a NASA or anything like it, nor a CNES, DLR or ASI, the space agencies of France, Germany and Italy, respectively

Belló is tasked with accelerating the process of setting up the new organisation. The President of the Government made this very clear in his speech on 9 June at NASA's deep space monitoring complex in Robledo de Chavela (Madrid). Pedro Sánchez urged the government to "speed up" the work so that the Spanish Space Agency would be "operational at the beginning of 2023". And by 1 January there are... five and a half months and a torrid summer ahead!
 
Miguel Belló is not a man to shy away from big challenges. With a clear head and a good knowledge of the national and international space sector, in recent years, and until his appointment as Commissioner for the Aerospace PERTE, he was the executive president of the Atlantic International Research Centre (AIR Centre). It is a project promoted by Manuel Heitor, who for seven years and until just over three months ago was Portugal's Minister of Science, Technology and Higher Education, and to whom Belló has been an advisor and confidant on ultra-terrestrial matters.
 
The engineer, teacher and leader at the helm possesses initiative and vision. This is attested to by the fact that he was the first senior manager of a private Spanish company to decide to enter the commercial market for Earth observation satellites.  And he successfully put into orbit not one, but two platforms, which he made a reality in the late 1990s -Deimos 1 and early 2000s -Deimos 2 - at the development, manufacturing, monitoring and control facilities that his company, Elecnor Deimos, built in Puertollano (Ciudad Real), his hometown.

Neither Herbert von Karajan nor Richard Wagner either
 
Among the instrumentalists who make up the unique ensemble are important soloists on violin, cello, trumpet, clarinet, oboe, flute, bassoon..... For example, there is the Secretary General for Innovation of the Ministry of Science and Innovation, Teresa Riesgo. She is the first vice-president of the Council, i.e. the equivalent of the first violin in any symphony orchestra. She is accompanied by a prestigious scientist with in-depth knowledge of the workings of the world's main space agencies, who has visited many of them: Álvaro Giménez.
 
From 2011 to 2017, the astrophysicist was the head of the Science Directorate of the European Space Agency (ESA), an organisation for which he was previously director of its space science department and coordinator of its science policy. He has also been Director General of the National Institute for Aerospace Technology (INTA) between 1995 and 1997, full professor of Astrophysics at the Complutense University of Madrid and researcher at the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia.
 
Among the distinguished soloists are also the 2nd Chief of the Air Chief of Staff, Air Lieutenant General Ignacio Bengoechea, second vice-president; and the PERTE commissioner for Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda, Carmen Librero, third vice-president. The constituent meeting was attended by the Director General of INTA, Air Lieutenant General Julio Ayuso, who took office in May, but who in the previous three years had been the Deputy Director General for Coordination and Plans of the Institute and knows in detail its human and technological capabilities

Another prominent assistant is Juan Carlos Cortes, director of Space, Large Installations and Dual Programmes at the newly renamed Centre for Technological Development and Innovation, which retains its CDTI acronym. His extensive knowledge of the national industrial sector, of ESA and of the main European and world agencies makes him an indispensable member of the orchestra as it begins its journey.
 
It is clear that Miguel Belló is not going to conduct the orchestra he has in his hands with his eyes closed, like Herbert von Karajan. Nor with the energy of Richard Wagner. But his baton and his left hand will have to synchronise the different musical styles that the soloists around him have performed so far. As a man of science, he is fully aware that his goal is to bring to life the space orchestra that Spain needs, so as not to be left behind in the new scenario that is looming on the horizon, in which being someone in the outer space domain is key, more than ever.