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Why don’t they just give the money to spacex? This is such typical French/eu behaviour. Let’s build something that already exists, for 10x the price, 10 years l
by zpeti 6y ago
Why don’t they just give the money to spacex? This is such typical French/eu behaviour. Let’s build something that already exists, for 10x the price, 10 years late, so that we can create jobs and have our own... Except the market viability is close to 0.
how about using that money for something that’s actually innovative? Or perhaps charge less tax so people can decide on their own what’s worthwhile.
- cynicalreason 6y agocompetition is good, it's better than piling all the money in one place.
- kiba 6y agoIs it really competition when nobody is trying?
- wastedhours 6y agoSurely there's evidence they're both trying?
- Aeolun 6y agoEurope is trying to build a glorified cargo box. SpaceX is trying to build a starship. I’d be more enthusiastic if we had 2 attempts at a spaceship.
- ClumsyPilot 6y agoI am tired of spacex fanboys that cant tell the difference between a scientific mission for research and a commercial operation
- Aeolun 6y ago> "And this satellite that Airbus will build - I like to call it 'the first interplanetary cargo ship', because that's what it will be doing. It's designed to carry cargo between Mars and Earth," It has nothing to do with fanboy or not. I’m sure there are tons of challenges involved in making this happen, but I just don’t think a cargo satellite is fundamentally very exciting. Having a human in orbit of mars would make the whole process of retrieving rock samples orders of magnitude easier.
- rsynnott 6y ago> SpaceX is trying to build a starship No.
- Aeolun 6y agoNo? I agree that so far it has been mostly exploding cylinders, but that doesn’t really change what they’re attempting no?
- Jabbles 6y ago"The joint American-European project is expected to cost billions and take just over a decade to implement." This doesn't exist. It's never been done before. If SpaceX does it before Airbus and brings back literal tons of mars rock then great, but it's not certain when that will be possible. Market viability isn't an appropriate metric for scientific research.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- ragebol 6y ago> Let’s build something that already exists What already exists that can do what this is built to do?
- ever1 6y agoOn the contrary, it would be foolish of the EU to be so dependent on a foreign company, dependent on a foreign law on a subject as strategic as space. It is a crucial choice that, as a EU citizen, I applaud.
- growlist 6y agoIt's not beyond the realms of possibility that around the same time as the sample returns to Earth, the US could have geologists' boots on the ground on Mars doing actual geology in situ, courtesy of SpaceX/Starship. Kind of puts this effort in perspective. They should be going all out for reusability, but instead they chose the oldspace pork approach. I don't know whether to laugh or cry.
- rsynnott 6y ago> It's not beyond the realms of possibility that around the same time as the sample returns to Earth, the US could have geologists' boots on the ground on Mars doing actual geology in situ, courtesy of SpaceX/Starship. I mean... maybe? What's your suggestion here? NASA and ESA should put all interplanetary work on hold, in case Musk delivers on time and on budget for once?
- growlist 6y ago> I mean... maybe? What's your suggestion here? NASA and ESA should put all interplanetary work on hold, in case Musk delivers on time and on budget for once? No. I'd prefer ESA to be building reusable rockets of their own, which offer the prospect of orders of magnitudes greater potential for exploration. I just find it amusing to imagine the Earth-based geologists poring over their few crumbs whilst actual geologists stomp about on Mars with hammers chipping away to their hearts' content, likely also deploying fleets of rovers etc. and thereby gathering terabytes of data, and it could be the case that these two things are happening very close together in time. Surely you'd agree that's a poignant juxtaposition.
- rsynnott 6y ago
- ben_w 6y agoWhile I absolutely agree that SpaceX is way ahead of anyone else, and I am very enthusiastic about SpaceX in general, SpaceX is a US corporation, and it is a really bad idea for any other economy or military to allow the USA to have a monopoly on space tech. Space has enough strategic advantages that the economic reasoning of comparative advantage, while still true in itself, simply isn’t the most important concern.
- lumberjack 6y agoI don't want my tax money to go fund SpaceX. SpaceX is American and all their capabilities are practically owned by American entities. Europeans like me cannot even work for SpaceX, so unless we have our own parallel programs we would just have no capability at all in this space.
- growlist 6y agoIf ESA were building reusable rockets and not instead persisting with a pork-driven employment programme that happens to have a side effect of producing rockets, I'd agree with you. Until then ESA deserve to be hammered with criticism - and especially by those whose tax money etc. is being spent on an approach that is hurtling towards obsolescence.
- ever1 6y agoWhat are you talking about ? So far Ariane program seems to be a commercial success. ESA on a scientific point of view too. It is true that Ariane 6 will not be reusable, although cheaper than Ariane 5, just like ALL reliable commercial launchers today (even tomorrow for ULA) outside of space X. It is clear that this is the future. However, these are only the first steps. I am not sure that today space X will be able to be profitable with it. Talking about tax money, note that SLS will not be reusable too...
- growlist 6y agoESA's leaders have mocked and disparaged SpaceX's approach in recent years; why would they bother unless they considered SpaceX a serious threat? They must be worried. I'll also point out that SpaceX naysayers have a dismally poor record of predicting the future. This isn't an EU/US thing and I totally agree with you on ULA, SLS and I might add Roscosmos etc. I wish ALL launch providers would move towards reusability because in the end that increases the opportunities for getting humanity exploring space properly again, which is what I'd really like to see. Clearly Europe has fantastic engineers: why aren't they leading this transition? Why is it only SpaceX, Blue Origin and Rocket Lab that are actively pursuing reusability today (notwithstanding paper studies etc. from other groups)?
- rsynnott 6y agoNothing like this currently exists. The closest would probably be Phobos-Grunt, but that, er, didn’t work.
- shantara 6y agoYou can look at the UK as an example of what happens when a country abandons its own space program and decides to buy launches in the US instead.
- simion314 6y agoUS and EU have already a "trade war/tariffs", so it is really stupid to give money to US to build their space industry so in future some weird dispute can cause $EU to lose access to space or over pay. There are also good engineers in EU that would need jobs, maybe they can create better stuff if they compete with SpaceX or create something different that can dominate a niche. i bet US would have loved Airbus do not exists so Boeing made more money. For strategic industry you don't want to minimize your dependency on external factors, some natural disaster happens and you no longer have food to feed your citizens or no longer have medicine or your software will refuse to run etc.