Celestia Forums

I'm likely picking nits here, but is it "ESA", or is it "the ESA" when used in a sentence?

...John...

Their own Web site omits the article "the".

Although one would write "...the European space agency...", by itself the acronym ESA seems to be considered a proper noun, so it doesn't need the article.

See http://www.esa.int/

Many thanks!

...John...

You're quite welcome.

For those who are interested in English usage, this Web page seems to describe articles and proper nouns reasonably well:

http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/articles.html