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Esrange och den norrländska rymdverksamhetens tillkomsthistoria från sekelskiftet 1900 till 1966
EsrangeKirunaSpacePhysicsGeophysicsRocketEngineeringTechnologyESROESANorthern lightsAuroraObservatoryResearch stationVassijaureAbiskoSTSHistory of sciencePolarRocket baseEsrangeKirunaNorrlandRymdverksamhetRymdfysikGeofysikRaketTeknologiSamerESROESANorrskenAurora borealisObservatoriumForskningsstationVassijaureAbiskoSTSVetenskapsstudierVetenskapshistoriaPolarforskningNorrskensforskningRaketbas
This essay is about the origin, planning and establishment of the European Space Research Organisation's (ESRO) sounding rocket base Esrange outside Kiruna in Northern Sweden. Three main questions are examined. First I show there were not just scientific and technical but also political, economical as well as military reasons to build a European rocket base. Second, I scrutinize the reasons to choose Northern Sweden as the location for the rocket base. As it turns out, the main reasons were the favourable location of Northern Sweden within the aurora oval zone, the proximity of the Kiruna Geophysical Observatory, and the possibility to use a large, although not quite uninhabited, area where the launched rockets could crash. Finally, I examine the difficulty of talking about boundaries of various kinds, such as temporal, spatial and functional. The essay also provides a discussion on possible ways to continue research on this topic.