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I remember this comment from ArianeGroup chief: > "Let us say we had ten guaranteed launches per year in Europe and we had a rocket which we can use ten times—

I remember this comment from ArianeGroup chief: > "Let us say we had ten guaranteed launches per year in Europe and we had a rocket which we can use ten times—we would build exactly one rocket per year," he said. "That makes no sense. I cannot tell my teams: 'Goodbye, see you next year!'" [1] [1] 2018, "Ariane chief seems frustrated with SpaceX for driving down launch costs" https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/05/ariane-chief-seems-frustrated-with-spacex-for-driving-down-launch-costs/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/05/ariane-chief-seems-f...

kstrauser 6y ago
Wow. That's literally Luddite thinking, which is not what you want to hear from someone in charge of a rocket company.
- medium_burrito 6y ago
  Look at the head of the EU! They literally chose the most mediocre bureaucrat in Germany to run the whole area. It's emblematic of how the EU functions.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - ginko 6y ago
    VdL is certainly mediocre, but she's a career politician, not a bureaucrat.
- blibble 6y ago
  once you understand that Arianespace primarily exists as a means to funnel taxpayers money to the companies that produce components for the rockets then it all makes sense
- cryptonector 6y ago
  It's what you might expect when the "business" isn't a business but a political project funded by taxpayers.
- rtsil 6y ago
  That's not luddite thinking, that's a politician thinking. Ariane, just like SLS, is mostly a job program for large companies with huge workforces and thousands of small subcontactor shops. Manufacturing less rockets without a viable replacement would be an economic and political disaster. Of course, pretending like SpaceX was not a serious threat was an economic and strategic disaster, albeit on a slightly longer term and with less visibility. The ArianeGroup CEO in question retired less than a year after that infamous interview, so he clearly didn't care about that longer term.
  - lenkite 6y ago
    Won't decreasing the price, increase the demand and thus increase the workforce required ? I mean this is basic production engineering "Law of Demand".
    - rbanffy 6y ago
      > Won't decreasing the price, increase the demand and thus increase the workforce required ? This assumes there is a need for additional launches and that lowering the cost will increase the demand. While, in this case, I think it's obvious lowering launch costs will increase demand, but, if you could remove an appendix for half the price I don't think there would be a huge uptick in demand for surgeries.
      - lenkite 6y ago
        I wonder if your analogy holds true for cosmetic surgeries. We know that cosmetic surgery tourism has increased for nations like South Korea (and even Turkey) thanks to cheaper procedures compared to the US. Of-course, the pandemic has messed up all such economic key-indicators currently.
- agumonkey 6y ago
  this is natural ego talking people want to keep their share; it's a bit sad that his reaction is not 'holy.. reusable vertical landing rockets are mindblowing.. why aren't we beating them ?'
- inglor_cz 6y ago
  Luddites fought against automatization of human work. There is no equivalent in the rocket industry, certainly not what this boss is doing. Production of a single launcher per year would absolutely be uneconomical. Where the boss is going astray is in his inability to conceive of a robust private demand for launches. SpaceX has a huge private manifest, including their own project, Starlink. But this is Europe and European Space Agency and the Franco-German spirit shows. Government is what matters first and foremost, everything else is uncertain and thus better ignored. (Yeah, I know. Not everywhere in Europe is the same. Estonians would probably have a vibrant private launch industry, if they were as numerous as the French. But they are only a million.)
  - imtringued 6y ago
    Correction, luddites were basically homeless people fighting against their former employers, not the machines.
    - inglor_cz 6y ago
      I think we both mean the same. "Automatization" was a decision on the part of their employers, the machines themselves had no say in it. They just were a target at hand.
  - rbanffy 6y ago
    > inability to conceive of a robust private demand for launches. If the money used in public launches is redirected to development of more/better payloads, then the number of launches can increase. One of the reasons building a spacecraft is so expensive is because they need to be designed to be extremely light because launching is expensive and extremely reliable because they won't be cheaply replaced. If launching gets cheap, we can reduce the cost of development a payload and increase the iteration pace, which is much like the SpaceX approach to fail cheaply and quickly.
cryptonector 6y ago
Or... you can cut costs by a factor of ten and increase demand accordingly and then build more rockets, but yes, if you don't need more, you don't build more, hello.
- kristianp 6y ago
  Yes it's like he doesn't know any economics. I expect he is rationalizing past decisions to use non-reusable rockets.
  - inglor_cz 6y ago
    His risk/reward structure is different from Musk's. As a state contractor, if you undertake something risky and it fails, you will be in a world of hurt. Possibly even land in prison. Certainly the press will hound you and pelt you with accusations of nefarious manipulations and hidden corruption. It is safer to just kick the can down the road, and risk-loving individuals won't even try to work in a risk-averse structure, much less lead it.
- londons_explore 6y ago
  But unless you end up lower cost than SpaceX, you probably won't get a single extra launch. So far, they basically only get EU political projects, and those tend to not care about price.
  - inglor_cz 6y ago
    So, basically, the ESA response goes like this: 2011 - no one is doing rocket reuse, so it is obvious that it would be too hard and probably uneconomical; let us go on with expendable launches as usual. 2021 - oh no, SpaceX has mastered first stage reuse, they took the entire market, now it would be too hard and probably uneconomical to try to compete with them. So let us go on with expendable launches as usual! They can sorta-kinda affort that, for the French government would never give its business to some dirty Amis, even if it meant to pay 10x or 100x as much for the same payload to LEO. Paris wants to retain its strategic independence and I can understand that. But for ESA it means that they will be a designated and expensive horse-and-buggy company in the age of a Ford T.

kstrauser 6y ago

Wow. That's literally Luddite thinking, which is not what you want to hear from someone in charge of a rocket company.

medium_burrito 6y ago
Look at the head of the EU! They literally chose the most mediocre bureaucrat in Germany to run the whole area. It's emblematic of how the EU functions.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- ginko 6y ago
  VdL is certainly mediocre, but she's a career politician, not a bureaucrat.
blibble 6y ago
once you understand that Arianespace primarily exists as a means to funnel taxpayers money to the companies that produce components for the rockets then it all makes sense
cryptonector 6y ago
It's what you might expect when the "business" isn't a business but a political project funded by taxpayers.
rtsil 6y ago
That's not luddite thinking, that's a politician thinking. Ariane, just like SLS, is mostly a job program for large companies with huge workforces and thousands of small subcontactor shops. Manufacturing less rockets without a viable replacement would be an economic and political disaster. Of course, pretending like SpaceX was not a serious threat was an economic and strategic disaster, albeit on a slightly longer term and with less visibility. The ArianeGroup CEO in question retired less than a year after that infamous interview, so he clearly didn't care about that longer term.
- lenkite 6y ago
  Won't decreasing the price, increase the demand and thus increase the workforce required ? I mean this is basic production engineering "Law of Demand".
  - rbanffy 6y ago
    > Won't decreasing the price, increase the demand and thus increase the workforce required ? This assumes there is a need for additional launches and that lowering the cost will increase the demand. While, in this case, I think it's obvious lowering launch costs will increase demand, but, if you could remove an appendix for half the price I don't think there would be a huge uptick in demand for surgeries.
    - lenkite 6y ago
      I wonder if your analogy holds true for cosmetic surgeries. We know that cosmetic surgery tourism has increased for nations like South Korea (and even Turkey) thanks to cheaper procedures compared to the US. Of-course, the pandemic has messed up all such economic key-indicators currently.
agumonkey 6y ago
this is natural ego talking people want to keep their share; it's a bit sad that his reaction is not 'holy.. reusable vertical landing rockets are mindblowing.. why aren't we beating them ?'
inglor_cz 6y ago
Luddites fought against automatization of human work. There is no equivalent in the rocket industry, certainly not what this boss is doing. Production of a single launcher per year would absolutely be uneconomical. Where the boss is going astray is in his inability to conceive of a robust private demand for launches. SpaceX has a huge private manifest, including their own project, Starlink. But this is Europe and European Space Agency and the Franco-German spirit shows. Government is what matters first and foremost, everything else is uncertain and thus better ignored. (Yeah, I know. Not everywhere in Europe is the same. Estonians would probably have a vibrant private launch industry, if they were as numerous as the French. But they are only a million.)
- imtringued 6y ago
  Correction, luddites were basically homeless people fighting against their former employers, not the machines.
  - inglor_cz 6y ago
    I think we both mean the same. "Automatization" was a decision on the part of their employers, the machines themselves had no say in it. They just were a target at hand.
- rbanffy 6y ago
  > inability to conceive of a robust private demand for launches. If the money used in public launches is redirected to development of more/better payloads, then the number of launches can increase. One of the reasons building a spacecraft is so expensive is because they need to be designed to be extremely light because launching is expensive and extremely reliable because they won't be cheaply replaced. If launching gets cheap, we can reduce the cost of development a payload and increase the iteration pace, which is much like the SpaceX approach to fail cheaply and quickly.

cryptonector 6y ago

Or... you can cut costs by a factor of ten and increase demand accordingly and then build more rockets, but yes, if you don't need more, you don't build more, hello.

kristianp 6y ago
Yes it's like he doesn't know any economics. I expect he is rationalizing past decisions to use non-reusable rockets.
- inglor_cz 6y ago
  His risk/reward structure is different from Musk's. As a state contractor, if you undertake something risky and it fails, you will be in a world of hurt. Possibly even land in prison. Certainly the press will hound you and pelt you with accusations of nefarious manipulations and hidden corruption. It is safer to just kick the can down the road, and risk-loving individuals won't even try to work in a risk-averse structure, much less lead it.
londons_explore 6y ago
But unless you end up lower cost than SpaceX, you probably won't get a single extra launch. So far, they basically only get EU political projects, and those tend to not care about price.
- inglor_cz 6y ago
  So, basically, the ESA response goes like this: 2011 - no one is doing rocket reuse, so it is obvious that it would be too hard and probably uneconomical; let us go on with expendable launches as usual. 2021 - oh no, SpaceX has mastered first stage reuse, they took the entire market, now it would be too hard and probably uneconomical to try to compete with them. So let us go on with expendable launches as usual! They can sorta-kinda affort that, for the French government would never give its business to some dirty Amis, even if it meant to pay 10x or 100x as much for the same payload to LEO. Paris wants to retain its strategic independence and I can understand that. But for ESA it means that they will be a designated and expensive horse-and-buggy company in the age of a Ford T.