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I am not particularly informed on European aerospace and I am not disputing your point. As a historical note France was very economically competitive mid-50s -

• baud147258 8y ago
  France was the European country that started the Ariane launch program: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_(rocket_family) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_(rocket_family)
• Xixi 8y ago
  On European aerospace: until SpaceX came with its cheap Falcon rockets, Ariane 5 was very competitive, especially for heavy GTO launches (think telco satellites). Ariane 5 is overpriced, as brilliantly demonstrated by SpaceX, but the competition was either even more outrageously overpriced American rockets, particularly unreliable Proton Russian rockets, or new unproven Japanese (Chinese, etc.) designs (not on the cheap side either). SpaceX technological success caught quite a few people by surprise... Ariane 6 will bring down the cost somewhat in line with SpaceX, though it won't be quite enough to gain an edge. But there is already an ongoing effort to bring down the costs even more: Ariane NEXT. Research projects include the Prometheus engine [1] (which could be used on Ariane 6), Adeline [2] or Callisto [3] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prometheus_(rocket_engine) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prometheus_(rocket_engine) [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adeline_(rocket_stage) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adeline_(rocket_stage) [3] https://spacenews.com/ariane-6-is-nearing-completion-but-europes-work-is-far-from-over/ https://spacenews.com/ariane-6-is-nearing-completion-but-eur...