Josef Aschbacher recalls gazing at the night sky above his parents' Alpine farm when he was seven, trying to comprehend what he had just seen on the family's black-and-white TV set: the landing of NASA's Apollo 11 on the Moon.
More than half a century later, Aschbacher heads the European Space Agency, a formidable force when it comes to scientific exploration, telecoms and Earth observation. But so far, the agency is still unable to put its own astronauts into orbit, relying on Russia and the United States for crewed spaceflight and some other high-profile missions.
