Comment by yellowapple
14 hours ago
The EU already had quite a bit of non-EU spaceflight capability, both in terms of rockets and launch sites.
14 hours ago
The EU already had quite a bit of non-EU spaceflight capability, both in terms of rockets and launch sites.
I think you meant non-US?
Although Ariane's rockets are wildly expensive and uncompetitive compared to SpaceX.
They are more expensive but the figures I have seen are 3x for Ariane 5 and 2x for Ariane 6 (source : https://spacenexus.us/guide/space-launch-cost-comparison).
Then, it depends on what you need to do. A 3x cost if you deploy a strategic constellation is fine. A 3x cost if you want to launch huge payloads for a Mars trip (I know costs were for LEO, just giving an example) is probably uncompetitive.
Any 2x or 3x cost for the same thing is uncompetitive in a free market.
1 reply →
They are right now, but if Japan can do it, and China can do it so can Europe and by the way, so can Australia, New Zealand and Canada they have the abilities they just have to have the will and if they haven’t learned anything recently, they better develop the will. Once again congratulations.
New Zealand has already done it. Rocket Lab may have rebranded as American but it still builds and launches from NZ every few weeks
None of the countries you name is even close to SpaceX. Not even close. Their most ambitious prototypes are on par or behind the rocket SpaceX has been flying for a decade commercially.
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Cost decreases with scale. Spacex was also wildly expensive, it grew up thanks to government assistance
Except for the fact that SpaceX had a hard time getting any contracts at first because they were all going to Boeing and Lockheed Martin since the 1990s and even when SpaceX came to the market they had to compete at first with ULA and fact that they made it cheaper by orders by magnitude. Except for the fact that Musk almost went personally bankrupt trying to get SpaceX off the ground. Except for all those facts yea sure maybe... haha nope you're still wrong.
> it grew up thanks to government assistance
Please give an example of gov assistance that was not a open contract to every private launch company in the US
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No because of reduction of bureaucracy. ESA is the prime example of 1 engineer to 50 managers culture.
This is an inaccurate simplification
No, counterintuitively Ariane is non-EU. It launches from South America
French Guyana is part of the EU, actually, in spite of being in South America. (Colonialism!)
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Last time I checked, France was part of the EU
If I drive my German-made VW sedan on American roads - how many people consider it an American car, and wonder if Germany has a real car industry or not?