In the shadow of the Carpathian Mountains, where Dracula once impaled his enemies as warnings to invaders, a different kind of warfare unfolds overhead. Satellites pass in endless succession—American, Chinese, commercial—all watching as Russian forces discover they can no longer mass for attack without being seen and destroyed. Space has become the ultimate high ground.

Flaviu Raducanu knows this world intimately. From the classified facilities of Lockheed Martin to leading Romania's Space Agency, he's navigated the intersection where space technology and military power converge. Now, as his country hosts NATO's largest Eastern European base while Ukraine burns next door, he watches the future of warfare being written in real-time.

"This is the first modern war between advanced technologically equal militaries since World War II," Raducanu  tells me. "Space-based intelligence has changed everything."

But the implications extend beyond battlefields. In our conversation, Raducanu  reveals a troubling truth: the Atlantic alliance is fracturing along cultural fault lines neither side comprehends. "Europeans don't understand Americans, and Americans don't understand Europeans," he states bluntly. This mutual incomprehension is crippling the West's ability to compete while China follows America's playbook—without the advance advertising.

From nuclear submarine reactors that could power Mars missions to Eastern Europe's forgotten space legacy, Raducanu 's insights illuminate hidden dynamics shaping humanity's future beyond Earth. His message is urgent: in space, as in war, yesterday's assumptions are already obsolete.

During your tenure leading the Romanian Space Agency, how did you balance Romania's national space interests with broader ESA strategic objectives? What unique advantages do Eastern European nations bring to space security that Western partners often overlook?

For Romania, the balance comes naturally from economic reality. "As a small country with limited economic power, pursuing an independent space program would be unrealistic," Raducanu  explains. "Our only viable path is collaboration. But within that framework, we have opportunities to shape policies, influence programs, and carve out meaningful niches—not just for ourselves, but for Europe as a whole."

Romania's journey to ESA membership reflects this pragmatic approach. After joining as a Cooperating State in 1992 and signing the European Cooperating State Agreement in 2006, Romania became ESA's 19th member state in 2011. This progression from the Interkosmos program (1967-1991) to full ESA membership represents a broader Eastern European shift from Soviet to Western space cooperation.

What frustrates Raducanu  is how consistently Western Europe overlooks Eastern Europe's space heritage. "When people think of European space powers, they immediately name France, Germany, Spain, the UK, Italy. Maybe they'll mention smaller players like the Netherlands, Denmark, or Switzerland. But the former Eastern Bloc countries? They're forgotten."

This represents a critical blind spot. During the Cold War, Eastern European nations weren't passive observers—they were active participants through Intercosmos and Intersputnik, the Soviet bloc's answer to Intelsat, established in 1971. "While less developed than ESA, Intercosmos provided a framework for these smaller countries to build their space capabilities starting in the late 1960s, this is in addition to developing downstream satellite imagery capabilities and access with the US support in late 60s and early 70s" Raducanu  notes. "That legacy runs deep."

Romania's space history exemplifies this overlooked heritage. Dumitru Prunariu became Romania's first cosmonaut in 1981, flying aboard Soyuz 40 to the Salyut 6 space station as part of the Interkosmos program. This wasn't merely symbolic—Romanian scientists developed experiments for the mission, establishing expertise that persists today.

Eastern Europe never built complete rockets or space stations, but they excelled at the components that make such systems possible. "We developed experiments, instruments, and specialized technologies that integrate into larger systems. This expertise aligns perfectly with how international cooperation actually works—it's about bringing complementary capabilities together, not competing to build the same things."

As Vice Chairman of ESA's Board for Human Spaceflight, you witnessed the shift from cooperative to competitive space dynamics. How should Europe position its human spaceflight capabilities against the backdrop of U.S.-China space rivalry? Where are the critical decision points coming in the next 5 years?

Raducanu  sees a fundamental disconnect in how Europe and America view the changing space landscape. "From the U.S. perspective, there's a clear shift toward competition—a new space race. But Europe doesn't see it that way. We view space as common territory for collaboration, not a battlefield for supremacy."

This philosophical difference stems from Europe's post-war DNA. The European Space Agency, formed in 1975 from the merger of ELDO (European Launcher Development Organisation) and ESRO (European Space Research Organisation), embodies this cooperative ethos. "ESA exists because even our largest countries—France, UK, Germany, Italy—concluded they couldn't pursue space ambitions alone. Cooperation isn't just our strategy; it's encoded in our institutional DNA. After World War II, European development centered on what became the EU, starting with coal and steel cooperation and expanding from there."

What concerns European leaders isn't American or Chinese competition—it's the rapid rise of commercial space. "The real shift we're grappling with is the transition from government-led programs to business-driven innovation. In Europe, we've always had commercial contracts—cost-plus arrangements don't exist here like they do in the U.S. But now we need to foster growth beyond institutional customers toward genuine commercial markets."

This creates a paradox. Europe maintains strong partnerships—the Columbus laboratory on the ISS, European Service Modules for NASA's Artemis program, planned contributions to the Lunar Gateway—but Raducanu  argues this creates a dangerous comfort zone. "Yes, we get to send astronauts without building our own spacecraft or destinations. It's economically efficient. But we're not closing the capability gap. We focus all resources on participation, not on independent capacity."

The contrast with China's approach is stark. While China was excluded from the ISS due to the 2011 Wolf Amendment, they responded by developing independent capabilities—launching the Tiangong space station, planning crewed lunar missions, and fostering their own commercial space sector. "China is heading in the same direction as the U.S., just without the advance advertising," Raducanu  observes.

Your background spans military R&D, defense contractors like Lockheed Martin and Thales, and civilian space leadership. Which defense technologies currently being developed have the most transformative potential for civilian space applications? What's being overlooked?

Raducanu 's answer surprises: submarines hold the key to deep space exploration. "The most significant technology waiting to transform space comes from nuclear submarines—specifically, their small nuclear reactors. Physics is physics. Chemical rockets have reached their limits. We've squeezed every possible joule from chemical reactions."

The numbers tell the story. Chemical propulsion can't provide the high thrust, sustained power, and delta-V needed for serious interplanetary missions. "We need to rediscover what we attempted in the 1950s and 60s, but with modern technology: nuclear thermal rockets. A reactor heats propellant, expels it through a nozzle, and delivers high impulse with sustained thrust over long durations."

Projects like NERVA (Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Application) and Project Rover demonstrated nuclear propulsion's potential before political concerns halted development. Now, with renewed interest in Mars missions and deep space exploration, these technologies deserve reconsideration—enhanced by six decades of reactor miniaturization from submarine programs.

Beyond propulsion, military data fusion offers another overlooked opportunity. "The military has spent decades perfecting integrated operational pictures—fusing multiple data streams into actionable intelligence. Space desperately needs this, especially for navigation beyond Earth orbit." Current spacecraft rely on GPS (designed for Earth, not space) and stellar navigation, but landing on the Moon reveals the limitations. "Recent failures show we're still using Apollo-era approaches. Military-grade situational awareness could transform how we navigate and land on other worlds."

The string of recent lunar landing failures underscores this need. Japan's Hakuto-R crashed in April 2023, Russia's Luna-25 failed in August 2023, and Astrobotic's Peregrine experienced propulsion issues in January 2024. "These missions use approaches very similar to Apollo—ballistic re-entry, last-second vertical landing. The problem is that the final phase is incredibly dynamic, requiring split-second decisions relying on full real-time, accurate awareness of the situation."

Perhaps most critically, space needs real-world AI—not chatbots, but the kind that powers military drones and autonomous systems. "Beyond low Earth orbit, communication delays make remote control impossible. Spacecraft must make split-second decisions independently. The military has been solving this problem for years with autonomous vehicles operating in contested environments."

Given your experience with both European and American defense contractors, how should Europe navigate the tension between strategic autonomy in space and maintaining critical partnerships with the United States? Where are the red lines for European space independence?

Raducanu  offers a blunt assessment based on decades working in both cultures: "Europeans don't understand Americans, and Americans don't understand Europeans. This mutual incomprehension creates unnecessary friction in what should be a natural partnership."

From the American perspective, competition is healthy—even necessary. "Every U.S. policy since the Cold War emphasizes maintaining American technological superiority. The red line is simple: don't challenge our leadership position. But within that framework, Americans actually appreciate competition. They respect strength."

This competitive spirit manifests in policies like the Commercial Crew Program, which fostered competition between SpaceX and Boeing, and the Artemis Accords, which establish U.S.-led governance frameworks for lunar exploration.

Europe, however, operates with self-imposed constraints. "We're overly cautious about not angering the U.S., constantly worried about the optics of competition. But look at India—the U.S. didn't attack them for developing independent human spaceflight capabilities. I'm confident America would welcome Europe launching its own astronauts, leading its own missions to the Moon or Mars."

India's Gaganyaan program, aiming for crewed spaceflight by 2025, demonstrates this dynamic. Rather than opposing Indian ambitions, the U.S. has offered cooperation through NASA training for Indian astronauts.

The evidence supports this view. Europe provides critical components for American missions—ISS modules, Lunar Gateway contributions, Orion service modules—but Raducanu  notes these are things America could build itself. "From the U.S. perspective, we're providing financial relief, not unique capabilities. For Europe, it's a bargain: astronaut flights without building spacecraft. But this comfort zone prevents us from developing independent capabilities."

The cultural divide runs deeper than policy. "Americans see our approach as lacking ambition—like we've found a cozy spot and stopped pushing. For Europeans, the American competitive drive feels uncomfortable, even aggressive. We're more collaborative by nature, less individualistic about being 'the winner’. Europe’s wanderings and inadequacies on finding means to jumpstart a commercial New Space sector are telltales of its relation towards competition vs collaboration".

Raducanu  believes both sides are leaving value on the table. "America would genuinely welcome Europe as a partner that stands on its own feet, especially now with the U.S.-China competition heating up. But Europe needs to overcome its hesitation and invest in independent capabilities alongside our partnerships."

You've witnessed Romania's space capabilities evolve from post-communist restructuring to EU integration to current geopolitical tensions. What lessons from Romania's space development journey could inform other emerging space nations?

Romania's experience offers both cautionary tales and success stories. "We started with apparent advantages—a well-developed aeronautics industry that built everything from jet engines to passenger airliners, helicopters and fighters. We assumed this would translate directly to space. Surprisingly, it didn't."

Romania's aerospace heritage runs deep. Companies like IAR (Romanian Aeronautic Industry) produced licensed versions of French helicopters Puma and Alouette  and Romanian designed military  jets like IAR 93 and 99, British licensed passenger jetliners BAC 1-11, while Turbomecanica manufactured jet engines, other making avionics equipment or ejection seats. Names like Hermann Oberth or Henri Coanda, or the IAR 80 fighter, designed and built entirely in Romania during WWII, demonstrated indigenous aerospace capabilities dating back decades.

The mismatch was fundamental. "In the 1990s, space remained a craftsman's business—building unique prototypes that must work perfectly the first time. But our aerospace industry was geared for serial production. When we approached them about space opportunities, they wanted minimum orders of 20 units. That's not how space works."

Success came from unexpected quarters: small and medium enterprises. "These companies had the right scale for space orders. We found two types that thrived: specialized contractors with specific expertise—like titanium alloy fabrication for medical devices that translated perfectly to spacecraft components—and innovative startups."

One standout example illustrates the potential. "An entrepreneur with deep knowledge of physics and radio equipment proposed using ultra-wideband communications—the same technology in your iPhone's AirDrop—for spacecraft. It offers high bandwidth over short distances while eliminating heavy copper wiring. When every kilogram to orbit costs a fortune, such innovations matter."

Eastern Europe maintains one persistent advantage: cost differentials for labor-intensive work. "One Romanian company builds wire harnesses for major spacecraft, including the Lunar Gateway. It sounds low-tech until you realize these harnesses have 100,000 connection points, must withstand radiation, and require perfect hand assembly. The cost advantage makes us competitive globally."

But Raducanu  emphasizes one non-negotiable requirement: "Nobody buys your product without a 'yes' to one question: ‘Has it flown?’ This is where government support remains critical—providing flight opportunities through national or ESA missions. Once you've proven spaceflight heritage, the sky's the limit."

The key lesson? "Space for pride and glory only takes you so far. I've seen countries spend hundreds of millions on a single satellite for prestige, then stop. No follow-through, no sustainable industry. You need economic drivers. Whether you build from the bottom up like Romania, or top-down with major government investment like the UAE or Poland, success requires a long-term business case."

The UAE's approach exemplifies the top-down model. Their Hope Mars Mission, launched in 2020, served as a catalyst for developing national capabilities, while Poland's recent €295 million contribution to ESA programs demonstrates sustained government investment in space capabilities.

With Romania sharing NATO's longest border with Ukraine and serving as a critical transit hub for Western aid, how has the war reshaped your thinking about space-based intelligence and communications vulnerabilities?

Wearing his "old military hat," Raducanu  sees Ukraine as a watershed moment. "This is the first modern war between advanced technologically equal militaries since World War II. Every other conflict—Iraq, Afghanistan—involved massive technological asymmetry. Ukraine features two modern armies with comparable capabilities."

The implications are profound. "Space-based intelligence has fundamentally changed warfare. You can no longer concentrate large forces—no tank divisions, no massed infantry. Why? They're detected by satellites of your enemy the moment they begin assembling, then destroyed. The tactics and doctrines we've used since World War II are suddenly obsolete."

Commercial satellite imagery from companies like Maxar and Planet Labs has provided unprecedented transparency into military movements, making the traditional "fog of war" increasingly obsolete. The destruction of the Russian convoy heading to Kyiv in early 2022, detected and tracked by commercial satellites, exemplifies this new reality.

On communications, Starlink has proven remarkably resilient. "Despite numerous attempts at disruption, the constellation's sheer scale—thousands of satellites and beams—makes it essentially impenetrable. Everyone's now racing to build their own mega-constellations."

Russia's attempts to jam Starlink have largely failed, leading other nations to accelerate their own constellation plans. The EU's IRIS² (Infrastructure for Resilience, Interconnectivity and Security by Satellite) and China's Guowang constellation represent direct responses to Starlink's demonstrated military utility.

But Raducanu  warns against over-dependence. "We're falling into the same trap as GPS—becoming too reliant on a single system. Yes, jamming attempts have failed so far, but who's to say someone won't find a vulnerability? And there's another issue: active satellite communications seen from above are like shining a flashlight at a radio receiver. You mark yourself as a target."

GPS jamming, widely reported along NATO borders, is primarily defensive. "The defender jams GPS to misdirect incoming smart munitions—cruise missiles, long-range drones—that rely on satellite navigation. It's about survival, though it obviously affects civilian systems too."

The surge in GPS interference across Eastern Europe, particularly near Kaliningrad and along the Finnish-Russian border, has disrupted civilian aviation and highlighted the vulnerability of GNSS-dependent systems.

The real revolution is in intelligence processing. "We need near real-time coverage with rapid revisit rates—hours or minutes, not days. But with satellites detecting individual vehicles or small soldier groups rather than large formations, human analysts can't keep pace. We need AI to extract actionable intelligence from massive data streams."

Looking ahead, Raducanu  sees fundamental changes coming. "The observation satellites of the future will be radically different—designed for persistent coverage and automated threat detection. The battlefield has become transparent. The question is who can process that transparency into decisive advantage."

His conclusion is sobering: "Many solutions are being tested in Ukraine right now, along with countermeasures. It's not obvious how this will resolve. I just hope it ends sooner rather than later." After a pause, he adds: "But one thing is certain—the era of hiding military movements from space-based observation is over. That changes everything."

Author's Analysis

Flaviu Raducanu 's perspective cuts through the comfortable narratives both Washington and Brussels tell themselves about transatlantic space cooperation. His diagnosis—that cultural blindness is undermining Western space ambitions—deserves urgent attention as China rapidly closes the capability gap.

The numbers tell part of the story. While Europe celebrates its contributions to American missions, China has built an independent space station, landed on the far side of the Moon, and returned samples from the lunar surface. More tellingly, China is fostering its own commercial space sector with dozens of startups developing reusable rockets—mimicking the American model while Europe debates whether competition is culturally appropriate.

But Raducanu 's most prescient observations concern the integration of military and civilian space capabilities. Ukraine has become a real-world laboratory demonstrating that space assets aren't just force multipliers—they're now prerequisites for military operations. The country that controls the high ground of space controls the battlefield below. This reality should alarm European leaders who've grown comfortable as junior partners in American space ventures.

The Eastern European space heritage Raducanu  describes represents more than historical curiosity. As supply chains fragment and alliances shift, nations with indigenous space capabilities—however modest—hold strategic advantages. Romania's wire harness manufacturers and digital communications innovators may seem unglamorous compared to SpaceX's rockets, but they represent the kind of irreplaceable expertise that provides leverage in an increasingly multipolar world.

Perhaps most striking is Raducanu 's call for nuclear propulsion—technology abandoned for political reasons, not technical ones. While we debate marginal improvements to chemical rockets, physics dictates that serious space exploration  and expansion requires nuclear power. The nation that first deploys nuclear propulsion safely will hold the keys to the solar system. That Raducanu  sees this coming from submarine technology rather than traditional space programs reflects the kind of cross-domain thinking the West desperately needs.

His warning about over-dependence on systems like Starlink echoes military strategists' concerns about single points of failure. But it also highlights a deeper problem: we're building tomorrow's infrastructure with yesterday's assumptions about conflict and cooperation. In a world where space assets are both essential and vulnerable, resilience requires redundancy—something Europe's "efficiency-first" approach struggles to provide.

The mutual incomprehension Raducanu  describes between American and European space cultures isn't just a diplomatic inconvenience—it's a strategic vulnerability. While allies talk past each other, competitors like China benefit from clarity of purpose and unified execution. The question isn't whether Europe and America can maintain their space partnership, but whether they can evolve it quickly enough to remain relevant.

Raducanu 's experience bridging both cultures offers a path forward: Europe must overcome its hesitation about independent capabilities while America must recognize that true partners stand on their own feet. The alternative—a world where space leadership shifts decisively eastward—is already taking shape above our heads. The satellites passing over Ukraine tonight see everything. The question is whether we're watching closely enough to learn their lessons before it's too late.

About Flaviu Raducanu    

Former Vice-chairman of the ESA Board for Human Spaceflight and Robotic Exploration, ex-President of the Romanian Space Agency, ESA Council member,  ex-member of the EU Space Program Committee and Head of Delegation to UN COPOUS, but also  a veteran of the global Aerospace Industry leaders, dr. Flaviu Raducanu   brings along a unique combination of career experience spanning almost 40 years, 3 continents, SME and Industry giants, military and civilian, national and international government institutions.

“At the core of my professional roadmap was to join the real world, hands-on, on-the-job experience – on whole value chain of complex systems from research as a lead scientist, to a design engineer and project manager, to the integration floor, testing and commissioning to the field deployment and operations – with the timely and appropriate formal world-class education on the work topics – from Aerospace Engineering, to MBA, to PhD in AI. Thus, I rose to the highest levels on the global scene in Europe, America and Asia despite being born in a small Central European country. 

This journey took me from the industrial zones to the world of Angel Investors, VCs and Investment Funds, allowing M&A and Business Reengineering and Organizational Transformations, leading to the Corporate Boardrooms. I had the opportunity to be Chief Operations Officer, CEO and President in the business world and to directly manage project portfolios of up to 10 billion Euros. My business journey took me from startups in Romania or those in Silicon Valley, Singapore or Europe, to the top management of the big aerospace and defense actors like Airbus Defence and Space, Thales or Lockheed Martin.”