There will be airplanes, drones and rockets to see – a lot that makes the heart of the avowed space and spacecraft enterprise fan Markus Söder beat faster. Accordingly, the Bavarian Prime Minister is likely to be looking forward to his visit to the Technical University (TU) Munich at the Ottobrunn / Taufkirchen site this Monday. There, Söder, together with TU President Thomas Hofmann, opens the first building of the Faculty for Aviation, Space and Geodesy, which is to become the largest of its kind in Europe over the next few years.
The Prime Minister gave the go-ahead for this in a government statement in 2018 when he presented the Bavarian space strategy “Bavaria One” – including a logo with his likeness, which, like the name, aroused a lot of ridicule and criticism. Regardless of this, Söder’s announcement caused a stir, especially in Taufkirchen and Ottobrunn, as it is the main location of the new TU faculty, which one day will include 55 professorships and thousands of students.
It started a good year ago on the Ludwig-Bölkow-Campus (LBC), says Mirko Hornung, the dean of the new faculty. There are currently 22 professorships, by the end of the year there should be 30 – “and things will continue at this speed after that,” assures Hornung. Several research areas such as autonomous flying and the hyperloop have already moved. The English-language Bachelor program Aerospace will start in the winter semester, but its first year students will be taught in Garching, says Hornung. After all, there is currently no lecture hall building at the LBC – “that is our top priority”.
The new faculty building in Lise-Meitner-Straße, which is opened by Söder, Minister of Science Bernd Sibler and Minister of Construction Kerstin Schreyer, is actually home to offices and laboratories. Ottobrunn’s Mayor Thomas Loderer (CSU) sees this as “the real start of the faculty”. This is a reason to be happy, says the town hall chief, not without mentioning that the opening “actually takes place in Ottobrunn” – just as it was the case with aviation pioneer Ludwig Bölkow a good 60 years ago, before his work “affected it whole area has spread to Taufkirchen “.
Which brings you straight to the starting point of the campus, which is supposed to be built both on Ottobrunner and above all on Taufkirchen’s corridor. If the neighboring towns now always emphasize their respective importance for the space plans of the Free State, then it does not happen “out of banalities”, emphasizes Loderer. He is convinced: “This constellation will still be a major stumbling block. That is why a controlling hand from above is all the more necessary.” According to the mayor, this could be a project company founded by the Free State “which makes the campus its area of responsibility”.
This idea also supports Taufkirchen’s town hall chief Ullrich Sander (non-party). After all, the campus and space program are “a matter of national importance – and then it is correctly located at the state level”. Sander does not want to speak of a rivalry between the neighboring communities that could slow down the project. Whereby he notes: “You always hear statements from Ottobrunn that want to know something about a potential for conflict. I am of the opinion that the communities should work together.”
Both mayors agree that the campus development must go hand in hand with the construction of the necessary infrastructure. In this context, Loderer even speaks of the “great risk of taking the third and second step before the first.” Or to put it another way: “Buildings that show off in public are easy to put up,” says Loderer. “But if you only start thinking about the accompanying infrastructure afterwards, then it is often very late.”
The town hall chief is referring to the housing market, which would come under additional pressure from a campus and surrounding companies and startups. Above all, however, he relates his warning to the traffic and combines it with the demand for the fastest possible subway extension. Because Ottobrunn in particular could feel less of the advantages of a campus location, but rather the disadvantages, fears Loderer. “Unless the infrastructure and especially the traffic are now consistently considered and taken care of.”
It sounds similar with Ullrich Sander, who comments on the question of the development: “I do not share the hesitant attitude that Mr. Loderer displays.” Sander is referring to the battle of words that his mayor colleague recently gave up with the district administrator when it came to possible trolleybuses and a magnetic levitation train to the Ludwig-Bölkow-Campus. Loderer justifies his reluctance to consider such considerations with the fact that he “does not want to deal with fallback solutions”, but rather wants to focus on the main solution – in other words: the subway. Ullrich Sander, on the other hand, advocates an additional connection.
Aside from all the challenges of development, Sander sees the campus as a great opportunity for his community. “For young people in particular, this would be an unbeatable educational offer combined with high-quality jobs on the doorstep,” says the mayor, who also emphasizes: “A lot is still unclear what is really going to be created there.” It is unlikely that the opening date will deliver too much new here. However, it offers the mayor the opportunity to put their hopes in relation to the Bavarian space plans to the fore – provided that Markus Söder has an ear for it in the midst of drones and rockets.