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The EU already had quite a bit of non-EU spaceflight capability, both in terms of rockets and launch sites.
by yellowapple 11d ago
The EU already had quite a bit of non-EU spaceflight capability, both in terms of rockets and launch sites.
- decimalenough 11d agoI think you meant non-US? Although Ariane's rockets are wildly expensive and uncompetitive compared to SpaceX.
- samrus 11d agoCost decreases with scale. Spacex was also wildly expensive, it grew up thanks to government assistance
- holoduke 11d agoNo because of reduction of bureaucracy. ESA is the prime example of 1 engineer to 50 managers culture.
- Robotbeat 11d agoThis is an inaccurate simplification
- tekla 11d ago> 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
- wand3r 11d agoYeah, I really hate this revisionism of Elon as an extremely wealthy apartheid emerald mine heir who was a dumb guy who happened to get lucky at paypal and then stole all his money from the government while operating a car and rocket company. There is plenty to criticize about him, but SpaceX dramatically decreased cost to orbit which had reliance on Russian technology at the time.
- contingencies 11d agoMusk was raised affluent in apartheid-era South Africa, his father had some connection to Zambian emerald trading/mining, and Musk's companies have benefited enormously from public contracts and policy. He's not stupid.
- Tuna-Fish 11d agoMusk has benefited enormously from public contracts and policy, but all the questionable ones are in Tesla (and especially originally solarcity, but that got folded into Tesla). The government contracts that made SpaceX were all open bid, where SpaceX bid an better solution than anything that any of the established companies did, at literally half the price. Falcon 9 was a massive gift to the US government, in that it drove the entire industry to halve the prices they extracted from the government. Dragon was just as good. That they also built a profitable launch company out of it just highlights how much of an outlier SpaceX is. They sold the US government a dollar for fifty cents, made a profit doing it, and ended up driving half the rockets already flying out of the business.
- wand3r 10d agoYes. Obviously, I wasn't implying he never benefitted from the government. It is just a wild retelling that he started a rocket company, solar company and car company to make huge amounts of money. Also, he was largely estranged from his abusive father since he emigrated to Canada at 17. I am sure he received help and money from his mother at points, but this idea he is some trust fund kid like Donald Trump. People really believe they would be as successful as him if they grew up being abused in an upper class family in apartheid South Africa. It doesn't make him a good person, and there is so much to criticism about him, that I think it actually detracts from legitimate criticism.
- contingencies 10d agoall the questionable ones are in Tesla Let's not also forget that NASDAQ changed the rules right before listing SpaceX... resulting in forced index fund procurement of sinking equity. Not sure how 'public policy' that is (arguably separate), but in reality global prime market listing rules are pretty high-significance effectively Federal or even international monetary policy. Well done Elon! Can't fault you for execution!
- hparadiz 11d ago[flagged]
- sidewndr46 11d agoNo, counterintuitively Ariane is non-EU. It launches from South America
- Robotbeat 11d agoFrench Guyana is part of the EU, actually, in spite of being in South America. (Colonialism!)
- tekla 11d agoLast time I checked, France was part of the EU
- bell-cot 11d agoIf 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?
- Danox 11d agoThey 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.
- p-e-w 11d agoNone 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.
- Danox 11d agoChina and Japan have done it. You may not like the fact they have done it once or twice, they know how to do it from a technical standpoint and that’s only gonna grow in the future particularly China don’t act obtuse.
- numpad0 11d agoThe fact is that no one cares about reusability. Expendable rockets are cheap enough for governments and commercial entities alike, even for constellation launches. Starlink architecture only makes sense as a justification for the F9 launch cadence, and even then the actual satellites are managed as trains.
- boznz 11d agoNew Zealand has already done it. Rocket Lab may have rebranded as American but it still builds and launches from NZ every few weeks
- vladms 11d agoThey 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 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.
- randomNumber7 11d agoAny 2x or 3x cost for the same thing is uncompetitive in a free market.
- vladms 11d agoPrice is not the only characteristic of a product (hence the mention of "strategic constellation"). In a "free market" would you recommend on USA to rely only on a Chinese manufactured essential product for its military (or the reverse, or Europe on Russia, or etc.)? I am not against great private offers (be it rockets/cloud/etc.). But there should also be some "local" capability for some strategic products, so that if the private providers encounter issues (crazy CEO, tariffs, export regulations, etc.) you are not left without any of that capability.
- deleted 11d ago[deleted]
- yellowapple 10d agoI did mean non-US lmao I'm hopeful that SpaceX's success will lead to European companies following in their footsteps and providing some more affordable alternatives to Ariane's current wildly-expensive rockets.