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Arianespace CEO: Europe won't have reusable rockets for another decade

152 points by carabiner 4y ago

crop_rotation 4y ago
Europe won't have lots of cutting edge technology for a long long time. Sometimes I feel European policymakers think they have to make policies for a prosperous society where the prosperity is taken for granted. But if Europe keeps lagging technologically, the living standards will drop. Europe needs to strike a balance.
- saberience 4y ago
  You're acting like Europe is living in the dark ages. Don't forget Europe also has companies like Arm and ASML, without which neither Apple nor Intel would be able to make processors.
  - rektide 4y ago
    ASML is where it is because Apple and Intel dumped a ton of money into it. Intel especially back when they were doing fine, before the current rockier years. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-intel-asml/intel-funds-next-gen-chipmaking-buys-into-asml-for-4-1-billion-idUSBRE86819B20120709 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-intel-asml/intel-funds-ne... Still an incredible company. Absolutely. But worth pointing out how strongly they were driven to sucess by external factors.
    - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
      >ASML is where it is because Apple and Intel dumped a ton of money into it. And also because the US gave them the EUV tech on a silver platter to disrupt the Japanese competition and prop-up a company with domestic presence on US soil.[1] So, as much as it hurts EU fanboys and chip hipsters to hear this, ASML isn't the result of some magic tech formula developed on EU soil, but the result of a perfect storm of strategic acquisitions on exclusivity to the right tech and the right suppliers at the right time. [1] https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/65642319 https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/65642319
      - sveme 4y ago
        Care to elaborate? Do you have a source for that? As far as I know the EUV lenses part was done by Zeiss and the EUV sources part by Trumpf.
        ChuckNorris89 4y ago
        >As far as I know Then you don't know the full story. Important is who has the IP and license for the EUV technology that has proven to produce the highest yields. The only reason ASML won EUV lithography and its competitors Canon and Nikon lost, is that US decided to license its domestic EUV tech developed by Sandia Labs to ASML, and denied it to Canon and Nikon, purely because ASML acquired Silicon Valley Group Inc, US's leading lithography supplier at the time, giving ASML a strategic US presence on US soil, versus their Japanese competitors.[1] Also, light sources are made by CYMER[2], another US supplier that ASML bought. Nikon and Canon could also contrat Zeiss and Trumpf for the same parts that ASML gets but they don't have access to Sandia's and CYMER's EUV tech which is better than the EUV tech they developed in house. So you see, ASML is not some European wonder as the chip hipsters would want to believe, since it wouldn't own the EUV market today if it weren't for strategic acquisitions on US soil that gave them the EUV monopoly they enjoy today. [1] https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/65642319 https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/65642319 [2] https://www.cymer.com/light-source-technology/ https://www.cymer.com/light-source-technology/
        sveme 4y ago
        That's a bit like saying that Google would not exist without the contributions by Leo Katz. Or that Sandia's EUV tech would not exist without Ernst Abbés contributions. Everything's build on top of something. But for some reasons all your posts seem to be intended to downplay anything coming from Europe. Which is fine, everyone needs a resident contrarian.
        ChuckNorris89 4y ago
        I'm not downplaying anything, I'm being a realist among the hype that EU is some tech powerhouse when it's objectively much weaker than the EU fanboys would like to believe. The US could have sold the EUV tech to Canon or Nikon and the Japanese would have owned the EUV industry, but the Dutch ASML played the political game better and won the deal but selling US tech doesn't make it an EU innovation. And you can't compare licensed or bought tech to individual contributions from indvidual persons. The US still owns the EUV tech ASML is using and has veto rights on what it can do with it and who it can sell it too. ASML would love to sell EUV steppers to China and make bank since China is desperate to ramp up its domestic fab industry, but US says "NO" and it must comply. The NL or the EU didn't veto the sale, the US did, and ASML complied because the US Gov have ASML by the balls since it's now also partly a US company monetizing US tech.
    - saberience 4y ago
      If it was just based on money, why wouldn't Intel do it themselves, or anyone else for that matter? ASML is basically a monopoly, there is clearly big money to be made if someone else could make those machines. I think you're doing disservice to the engineers and researchers at ASML suggesting they are only there because the US sent them money.
      - dralley 4y ago
        Because the only way to make it profitable for anyone is to get the economies of scale of everyone behind the same development. Intel, Samsung and TSMC all invested a lot of money in ASML to get EUV over the finish line.
    - belter 4y ago
      The IPhone would never be possible without China. Or each model would cost $10,000.
  - dejv 4y ago
    Don't forget precision machinery of all kinds: from industrial CNCs, medical instrumentation or electron microscopes.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- throwawayrocket 4y ago
  Even worse they preach developing world not to fund space/advanced industries
- genezeta 4y ago
  ESA -and Europe in general, sure, but particularly ESA- also has a massive bureaucratic problem.
- batmansmk 4y ago
  Not saying you are wrong, US is lagging behind as well on many other sectors as well compared to the rest of the world; manufacturing, transportation, green tech, participative democracy, integrated administrations to quote a few. Reusable rockets make launching stuff cheaper, but integrated Administrations save you millions of admin jobs that could be redeployed to more game changing missions. Imagine not having to declare your tax, or have bookkeeping, or file mountains of documents to renew a visa.
  - throwaway06069 4y ago
    > Imagine not having to declare your tax, or have bookkeeping, or file mountains of documents to renew a visa. I think you live in some parallel universe EU
  - pjc50 4y ago
    The only one of these that might have a point is the tax one. And possibly simpler health insurance systems. (Schengen provides visa-free travel and living intra-EU, but if you're from outwith the EU prepare for a mountain of paperwork)
    - GrigoriyMikh 4y ago
      I work a regular full time job in Germany. Plus do some investing and gigs. Declaring taxes every year. It's not fun at all, basically you have to prepare for it the whole year(keep track of your transactions, expenses). So i don't see the point about "not declare your taxes". I guess, it's valid only for the most unproductive people in society. Generally, i have an impression that Germany benefits the most unproductive(i.e. edge case poor and super-rich). While putting all the pressure on the middle class.
      - ambicapter 4y ago
        > benefits the most unproductive(i.e. edge case poor and super-rich). While putting all the pressure on the middle class. People say this about every country. I think it's just that countries benefit the poor more than they "contribute" b/c they have the least ability to do so and people want their governments to be progressive. On the flipside, everything is always easy for the super-rich, because they have tons of resources to employ armies of people that enable them to benefit from every loophole possible.
- lm28469 4y ago
  It can drop for a while before reaching the US one
  - nivenkos 4y ago
    Compare European and US salaries sometime, you have no idea how lucky you are. There's a reason tens of thousands of European engineers, doctors, lawyers, developers, etc. are desperate to move to the US.
    - lm28469 4y ago
      Until you get fired, or a cancer, or kids, or you're not lucky to be in the 10% money makers, &c. I've lived in both systems, if you're not working for FAANG you're better off in Europe, and if you're working for FAANG in Europe you're probably even better off tbh Personally no ammount of money will buy my peace of mind, I wouldn't even take 3x my current salary to go to the US
    - edgyquant 4y ago
      It’s not luck, it’s the result of long term policy.
    - panick21_ 4y ago
      I rather get a little less money and not live in a car depended sprawl with cities full of homeless and no public transport.
- Certhas 4y ago
  This is such a weird take. The global high tech economy is tightly intertwined. The EU is an integral part of that, and in many areas is doing perfectly fine. Further European policymakers have for the last two decades done an overal excellent job integrating eastern Europe into the Western economic model. Of course first credit belongs to the states themselves, but the border between Germany and Poland used to be one of the largest GDP per Capita drops in the world. Now the difference is marginal. This has happened inside one generation. To accuse them of legislating only for already prosperous societies bears no resemblance to reality. The Internet and digitalization revolution enabled a few US companies to capture vast amounts of value worldwide simply by being first by having access to the first emerging market for the new tech (and being ruthlessly business savvy). The US being rich and an optimistic consumption culture made that happen. Some of that windfall has been redirected to fun things like boosting Rocket tech, or useful things like boosting EV tech. Speaking of the latter, I remember a few years ago a lot of people on here were claiming that the US and specifically Tesla had an unassailable lead in Battery Tech. That didn't exactly last long, did it? But the idea that the US is uniquely poised to dominate the tech landscape for the next decades is silly, doubly so based on some relatively niche tech like rockets. As a European I am worried about the strategic tech competition with China, not the US. And I am worried that the EU is not doing enough to tax the profits being generated here, (cough, Ireland, Luxembourg...). ... and btw, it's all built on Linux, which was given away for free by some European guy.
- el_mocambo 4y ago
  The EU bureaucracy is a catastrophy for European innovation. The more EU there has been, the crappiest the ability to create wealth/innovate has become. Europhiles like to boast about Airbus or Ariane as "European projects" but they are not, they are inter-states collaboration, and were create when EU commission didn't exist with its vast bureaucracy and it's never ending forms to fill. Can you name one Brussels backed project that went somewhere?
  - moffkalast 4y ago
    Speaking as one of those Europhiles, EU grants are on average a pretty great thing, you can see the effect first hand just walking around any random town with EU project plaques everywhere. If anything, the EU itself is doing the most to fund practical projects and the excessive bureaucracy does serve as somewhat of a safeguard against the rampant embezzling that is otherwise the norm. The problem with innovation here is extensive, both legal and cultural. Some countries are downright hostile to startups. In the US it takes what, $200 to open an LLC? In Germany you better have 25000€ ready for an equivalent entity. The amount of regulations one has to adhere to is far more extensive, taxes are borderline absurd, there's basically no venture capital to speak of, so any actually successful company is immediately absorbed by some American megacorp with fat stacks laying around (e.g. Wolt Delivery bought by DoorDash). Most of the people who lived under socialist systems also grew up in a culture where entrepreneurship was the pinnacle of egoistic greed which probably doesn't really help.
- rr808 4y ago
  Europe needs more babies more than anything. Economically it has many great companies, maybe not so high tech.
samwillis 4y ago
And likely neither will Russia, China, India, Japan or anyone other than the US - with maybe the exception of New Zealand. The writing has been on the wall for where rockets were going for ten years, policy makers absolutely have failed, but let's not pretend it's only Europe who have got it wrong. Also, the negativity these sort of headlines bring to "tech" in Europe as a whole are also unhelpful. Europe is absolutely at the cutting edge of technology.
- marian_ivanco 4y ago
  China is definitely working hard to have it, maybe copy-paste approach but it is. We in Europe are definitely not cutting edge in general, maybe robotic space exploration but this is changing also rapidly. The problem is Arianespace and France. It's the similar issue to HLS. It's just a way to distribute money without any meaningful vision. Years of denial and ridiculing of SpaceX. The sad part is there is still no vision even when the world moved on.
  - jlpom 4y ago
    Robotic space exploration, like our rover that crashed on Mars not a long ago?
    - ragebol 4y ago
      How about Rosetta en Philae? But yes, also that rover.
  - weneedasfollows 4y ago
    Maybe a EU level spending package of 1 trillion, for a resilient and equitable space exploration would solve the problem
    - bluescrn 4y ago
      Why not, the money printers are still warm, just hit the 'solution to anything!' button again?
tekla 4y ago
Elon running a company running laps around the entire worlds space industry. Obscenely impressive.
- foderking 4y ago
  also running laps around ev
  - sofixa 4y ago
    That's no longer true, pretty much any big car manufacturer outside of Toyota has caught up. Not only that, they provide much wider variety of vehicles (from the Renault Zoe and Dacia Spring all the way to massive pickups like the Ford F-150 Lightning).
    - zpeti 4y ago
      Except ford is losing a ton of money on EVs. I think yesterday a report came out their margins are -44% on EVs. While they might be selling some EVs, they’re pretty far from what Tesla is doing as a business.
      - 0zemp2c 4y ago
        Ford and GM can't ever follow through on their own BS and become "electric only" What is GM's cash cow? Pickups and the Tahoe/Yukon/Suburban/Escalade platform...pretty much the polar opposite of "environmentally conscious" products Ford? Same thing, monster F150s These companies aren't killing their cash cows Indeed, I expect both companies to dramatically tone down the rhetoric on EVs soon and just refer to them as "alternatives" Or even worse, start PR campaigns highlighting the inconveniences (charging times etc) of EVs
      - misiti3780 4y ago
        Im not saying Tesla will always be the leader, but anyone who says they're not now just needs to try to take a long road trip in a mach-e vs a model-y. It will be completely clear who is winning in EVs, from comfortable through the technology and supercharging.
danpalmer 4y ago
I feel we're setting up for a SpaceX monopoly if they nail Starship reusability. The only meaningfully reusable rocket right now is the Falcon 9, and while that significantly reduces the already cheap launch costs, it doesn't really change them by an order of magnitude, and with so many other costs, it doesn't make that much more possible that was previously impossible. Arguably Starlink is possible now and wouldn't have been before, but there are other similar (fewer satellites) constellations not relying on F9 being that much cheaper. Also arguably there are more smallsats going into orbit, but I think RocketLab has done roughly as much for them as the F9 has so far. As for other providers, ULA hasn't got a lot of re-usability built in, at least not to the extent that Starship (theoretically) or maybe even F9 has. RocketLab is starting reusability work, but is a way off anything good. Blue Origin are continuing to... well... who knows. I don't think anyone other than SpaceX are going to have usefully reusable rockets for another decade. I'm also not sure SpaceX are going to be more than 8 years ahead anyway because I don't think Starship will be delivering on its promises for at least another few years.
- chroma 4y ago
  > The only meaningfully reusable rocket right now is the Falcon 9, and while that significantly reduces the already cheap launch costs, it doesn't really change them by an order of magnitude, and with so many other costs, it doesn't make that much more possible that was previously impossible. SpaceX's charges around $1,200/lb to low earth orbit. Soyuz costs around $8,000/lb. The space shuttle was $30,0000/lb. Because of SpaceX's lower launch costs, they now put more mass into LEO than the rest of the world combined.
- HDThoreaun 4y ago
  Does anyone know what's up with Blue origin? Bezos pumps a solid billion into them every year but it doesn't seem like they're anywhere?
  - deleted 4y ago
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  - Mountain_Skies 4y ago
mathverse 4y ago
Europe is failing because it's not a single entity. It's a loose cooperation between many countries. Insane amount of talent is wasted because of "so called" european language and cultural racism. Companies are still "national" instead of european and talent is not appreciated. Taxes are sky high and so is national, cultural racism. You think a brilliant bulgarian scientist is treated the same by his French colleagues? Until this changes and europeans will start treat their fellow europeans fairly nothing will improve.
- GrigoriyMikh 4y ago
  I think that's the best explanation of the current situation in Europe. Just look at Germany, biggest economy in EU. It's treating it's migrant workers as slaves. Feeding failing pension system from them. Not giving any rights for innovation(you can't start business without German national cofounder) or even any motivation to innovate(high taxes, anti-success culture, strict residence laws). When you mention any problems with Germany to Germans, they're so protective and unwilling to change that their only response is "go back home if you don't like it here".
  - awesomeMilou 4y ago
    > you can't start business without German national cofounder That's an outright lie, you need a Visa though if you're not a citizen from a Schengen country. > strict residence laws Ever tried to get a Greencard? And if you have the financial backing, up until the start of the Ukraine war there were plenty of states with a golden visa program. I think you're being too harsh on german and european policymakers. I agree, the climate for startups is abysmal and the room for improvement is huge, but in terms of being inclusive EU is leading over the US.
    - GrigoriyMikh 4y ago
      > you need a Visa though if you're not a citizen from a Schengen country Ok, let me be clear. I have a temporary residence in Germany. Before, i had a worker visa. I'm not allowed to start my own business with temporary residence here. Only if i have a German co-founder. > but in terms of being inclusive EU is leading over the US I'm not 100% sure about US. Although, i have 3 friends there who don't experience problems that i have in Europe. But in Germany, specifically, banking and government bureaucracy machine became outright nationalistic. My bank account have been blocked because of my nationality. I had problems when i was changing my registration address, because of my nationality. No i'm struggling with tax office(changing my tax class) because of my nationality(specifically, i have some papers from my country). And i heard similar complains about Spain and Poland(it's actually refusing to give worker visas to Russians, even if they already reside in EU). EU is pure nazi at this point. But majority of people ignore it, because it's, apparently, not nazi to be against Russians at this moment.
wildekek 4y ago
Europe’s lack of proper launch locations inhibits startups from attracting talent. So ESA sticks with Airbus since that’s the only option.
- anonymousDan 4y ago
  Given it's size, I find it strange it doesn't have launch locations like the US. Why is that the case - latitude? Population density.
  - jnurmine 4y ago
    Mainland EU's first orbital launch site was inaugurated in January 2023. It is located at Esrange, in Kiruna, high up north in Sweden. The Themis program ("reusable space launcher demonstrator") will actually do some of their tests there. I wonder how much of the "lag" in European space launcher innovation is due to the logistics of having to haul everything half a planet away to Kourou over an ocean for the actual launches. Hopefully having a mainland facility will improve things.
  - fhars 4y ago
    Latitude. Gibraltar is on the same latitude as North Carolina. Most of the suitable locations are in French Guayana, where the ESA launch site actually happens to be located.
  - panick21_ 4y ago
    Because you have to launch West and West of Europe there is mostly land. For polar launches Europe is positioned just fine. It makes more sense to use French colonies in South America. Those are perfectly positioned.
- seydor 4y ago
  Isn't French guyana one of the best places?
  - panick21_ 4y ago
    For many orbits yes. But it has some disadvantages because of how wet it is. Lots of rain lots of humidity. But it certainty no reason to think its holding them back all that much. If SpaceX had a private launch site like that they would likely go crazy.
WhereIsTheTruth 4y ago
Something is fishy: [1] - SpaceX Accuses Europe's Ariane Of Unfair Competition [2] - Europe eyes Musk’s SpaceX to replace Russian rockets I feel like EU's industry is being held back on purpose Yet SpaceX benefits lot of subsidies from the US government, as well as Tesla, hmm, methinking [1] - https://worldcrunch.com/business-finance/exclusive-spacex-accuses-europe39s-ariane-of-unfair-competition https://worldcrunch.com/business-finance/exclusive-spacex-ac... [2] - https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/12/europe-eyes-musks-spacex-to-replace-russian-rockets.html https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/12/europe-eyes-musks-spacex-to-...
- lyu07282 4y ago
  EU has been self-sabotaging for decades, but it usually is just caused by economic liberalism / pragmatism. Although there is of course a strong connection between european leadership and the "Atlantik Bruecke" (atlantic bridge) which is an extremely powerful and influential atlanticist organization, it isn't always failing in favor of US economic interests. Germany did surrender its advantage in solar energy technology to China for example, there is no need for any explanation other than (neoliberal) ideology and incompetence. https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/last-major-german-solar-cell-maker-surrenders-chinese-competition https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/last-major-german-solar...
  - imtringued 4y ago
    This reminds me that the EU follows neoclassical economics much closer than the US. https://unherd.com/2021/11/the-cruelty-of-eu-austerity/ https://unherd.com/2021/11/the-cruelty-of-eu-austerity/ Meanwhile when you read e.g. some of the extremist opinions like mises.org blog posts, apparently Europe is infested with socialism and anti-capitalism and isn't doing enough. I mean geez. Greece did the hardest austerity program in history, with possibly the fastest collapse of a growing economy. It used to grow 5% a year during the corruption years, during which people accused Greece of excessive borrowing to pay pension funds and other non productive spending. Now that they did the responsible thing GDP dropped by 50% and GDP growth has stagnated and the debt level is even higher than before as a percentage of GDP. This obviously makes "proper capitalism" look bad to citizens and now you can simply accuse them of being "socialists" who ruined their own country. Great track record. It kind of reminds me of horseshoe theory. Extreme communists and capitalists are more alike to each other than to the center. Communists that fail to achieve their dreams go and hunt the capitalists. Capitalists that fail to achieve their dreams hunt socialists. I don't know if you can call it pragmatism. It would be economic pragmatism if you try to take the best ideas and combine them into something that actually works.
robomartin 4y ago
This is what happens when someone is ten years ahead of everyone else in development. And, to make it worse, when, during those ten years, everyone ridiculed what they were doing. In some ways this is exactly what "The Innovator's Dilemma" is about, isn't it? Would it make sense for SpaceX to become like Boeing and sell/lease reusable rockets to others? Elon was well-known for always using the reusable airliner argument when explaining why reusable rockets were important.
beembeem 4y ago
I don't claim to know too much about Arianespace, but I wonder if this has any connection to the Russia situation and not being able to launch Soyuz rockets due to sanctions. https://spacenews.com/arianespace-and-oneweb-reach-settlement-for-suspended-launches/ https://spacenews.com/arianespace-and-oneweb-reach-settlemen...
- 0xDEF 4y ago
  Has nothing to do with Russia. This is about the future European Ariane 7 rocket that is meant to be fully reusable like the reusable SpaceX rockets.
- panick21_ 4y ago
  No it doesn't. Ariane 6 was planed to take over many of the launches from Soyuz that ArianeGroup would usually launch anyway, even before re-usability. Both Ariane 6 delay and Russia situation are leading to many launches moving to Falcon 9.
nordsieck 4y ago
It's interesting to see them say 2030s now. When the plans for "Ariane Next" first came out, they were aiming for 2028. Sounds like the program has already slipped quite a bit. Ariane Group is going to be in for a rough time every year beyond ~2026 that they delay. By then most of Starship (SpaceX), New Glenn (Blue Origin), Terran R (Relativity), and Neutron (Rocket Lab) should be operational - all of which will at least reuse the 1st stage. Of course, they'll be able to fall back on institutional payloads to maintain a minimum level of funding. But that's not a great place for the program to be in terms of funding. Or politics. This whole situation is really tragic. The design of Ariane 6 was finalized in 2016 - after SpaceX had successfully landed a Falcon 9 for the first time. While I realize that that would have been quite late in the design process for the rocket, it really shows the weakness of Ariane Group when it comes to assessing the competitive landscape and making difficult decisions. To be fair, it is hard on the king to wear the crown for too long. Europe and Russia had a long run; we'll see how well SpaceX carries the burden.
- BitwiseFool 4y ago
  Admittedly I don't know much about the economics of rocketry, but the Ariane 6 doesn't seem much different from the Ariane 5 and I can't imagine it actually brings much to the table in terms of performance or cost savings, especially in light of how involved the development of it was.
  - nordsieck 4y ago
    > the Ariane 6 doesn't seem much different from the Ariane 5 and I can't imagine it actually brings much to the table in terms of performance or cost savings, especially in light of how involved the development of it was. My understanding is that Ariane 6 was explicitly designed to reduce production costs compared to Ariane 5, in large part due to competitive pressure from SpaceX. > With the new Ariane 6 slated to enter service in 2020, ArianeGroup promises to cut per-kilogram launch cost by 40 to 50 percent compared to Ariane 5. https://spacenews.com/arianegroup-cfo-pierre-godart-on-ariane-6-cost-savings-micro-launchers-and-reusability https://spacenews.com/arianegroup-cfo-pierre-godart-on-arian... (2017) I guess, we'll see if they achieve that goal. Although rocket pricing is notoriously opaque.
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seydor 4y ago
I don't get why these statements emphasize the antagonism with the US. A lot of europeans see europe as extended US market by now, and promising european businesses will move to the US for faster growth. Ariane is a company , and of course they will find it hard to beat the 'Amazon of space'. Their reusables would be for the world, not just for europe. Europe already uses reusables if it uses spacex
- TulliusCicero 4y ago
  Seems pretty obvious why to me. Europe wants strategic independence in this area, but SpaceX is radically more cost effective and will remain so for the foreseeable future. That means that European companies that want to launch satellites will probably choose SpaceX, they won't want to throw money away.
  - moffkalast 4y ago
    Meanwhile the US government is arguably doing the same with SLS. Nobody's expecting it to ever be cost effective for anything, but it provides said strategic independence.
    - imtringued 4y ago
      SLS is cost effective in the segment of successfully going to the moon and coming back.
      - moffkalast 4y ago
        If Starship succeeds (which is what we're assuming in these discussions here anyway) then no, not even close. Crew Dragon + Starship transfer vehicle and lander would probably come in at a tenth the cost. Nevermind that the SLS programme assumes that Starship will succeed, otherwise they literally have no lander. So if SLS is to accomplish its goals it'll do so only in a world where it's obsolete.
panick21_ 4y ago
Anybody who is watching this industry knew this. Ariane 6 is really just a slight upgrade over Ariane 5. The Ariane 5 ME is mostly what the parts that are now in Ariane 6 came from, otherwise Ariane 6 would have taken much longer. This was approved in 2014, and the rocket wont be really operational until 2024. So 10 years for a really simply upgrade. Some of the parts now on the Ariane 6 have been in development for 20+ years. Even if right now, Europe decided to do a huge new rocket projects, it would be 10 years minimum. But this is not likely going to happen. Many didn't even want to spend the money for Ariane 6. An agreement on a real large reusable rocket is politically not feasible anytime soon, an no country, not even France is gone do it alone. Of course a real reusable rocket is gone cost more the develop then the Ariane 6, a slight upgrade over Ariane 5. Ariane 6 cost 5 billion and that ignores a lot different costs for infrastructure and development of sub-components over the last decades. So a decade is actually an incredibly optimistic prediction, 2 decades is more likely and that is far from certain. And even if they do so, they will never have a large share of the market. They will battle a whole host of other companies, RocketLab, ULA, Relativity for things that SpaceX will be excluded from (Amazon and so on).
- kranke155 4y ago
  Honestly as an European - this is not on the table of high priorities right now. Let Musk figure out between F9 and Starship how it’s best to produce rockets for the next half century, then copy and remake the same thing here. The EU having independent access to space is a point of pride, not a continental emergency.
  - panick21_ 4y ago
    Ironically even the US launched mostly with Russian engines for quite a while. And Arianespace was launching more russian rockets then European ones.
nunuvit 4y ago
> Aside from Arianespace, Europe is currently fostering a number of private rocket companies, including Rocket Factory Augsburg, Isar Aerospace, PLD Space and Skyrora, with some of these rockets to be reusable. However the rockets in development are light-lift, whereas Ariane 6 and its possible successor are much more capable, medium-heavy-lift rockets. The real problem is that there's no prototype path for Ariane. SpaceX had the grasshopper and others. The original space race was very incremental. Hopefully the smaller companies will succeed with their more manageably sized rockets. Then they'll have to fight an uphill political battle against the big incumbents, just like SpaceX did. Ariane could make prototypes too, but they probably won't.
- panick21_ 4y ago
  There is no point in making prototypes for Ariane 6. What would they be testing. Its mostly just incremental updates in existing technology, if that. The only really fundamentally new thing is the upper stage engine and that's hard to prototype launch.
  - nunuvit 4y ago
    It's more about the humans than the hardware. Schedules slip for many reasons. Landing and reusing a rocket is new to them. There's nothing like reality to force people to be realistic and get experience.
    - panick21_ 4y ago
      I'm confused. Ariane 6 has nothing to do with rocket landings. Ariane 6 was never and could never be a reusable rocket.
      - deleted 4y ago
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      - nunuvit 4y ago
        I just realized you said 6. I was connecting to the theme of the article, which is reusables after 6.
solarkraft 4y ago
Oh boy. If this is true we've already lost the current-generation space race. I don't see any other company that can fill their gap.
sdfghswe 4y ago
As a European living in the US, one thing that I prefer about US culture is that it seems that at least comparatively, Americans are more willing to scrap what they have a start over (that's how I see spaceX). Europeans never ever do that. Incrementalism is great in some situations, and bad in others.

152 points by carabiner 4y ago

Europe won't have lots of cutting edge technology for a long long time. Sometimes I feel European policymakers think they have to make policies for a prosperous society where the prosperity is taken for granted. But if Europe keeps lagging technologically, the living standards will drop. Europe needs to strike a balance.

saberience 4y ago
You're acting like Europe is living in the dark ages. Don't forget Europe also has companies like Arm and ASML, without which neither Apple nor Intel would be able to make processors.
- rektide 4y ago
  ASML is where it is because Apple and Intel dumped a ton of money into it. Intel especially back when they were doing fine, before the current rockier years. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-intel-asml/intel-funds-next-gen-chipmaking-buys-into-asml-for-4-1-billion-idUSBRE86819B20120709 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-intel-asml/intel-funds-ne... Still an incredible company. Absolutely. But worth pointing out how strongly they were driven to sucess by external factors.
  - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
    >ASML is where it is because Apple and Intel dumped a ton of money into it. And also because the US gave them the EUV tech on a silver platter to disrupt the Japanese competition and prop-up a company with domestic presence on US soil.[1] So, as much as it hurts EU fanboys and chip hipsters to hear this, ASML isn't the result of some magic tech formula developed on EU soil, but the result of a perfect storm of strategic acquisitions on exclusivity to the right tech and the right suppliers at the right time. [1] https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/65642319 https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/65642319
    - sveme 4y ago
      Care to elaborate? Do you have a source for that? As far as I know the EUV lenses part was done by Zeiss and the EUV sources part by Trumpf.
      - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
        >As far as I know Then you don't know the full story. Important is who has the IP and license for the EUV technology that has proven to produce the highest yields. The only reason ASML won EUV lithography and its competitors Canon and Nikon lost, is that US decided to license its domestic EUV tech developed by Sandia Labs to ASML, and denied it to Canon and Nikon, purely because ASML acquired Silicon Valley Group Inc, US's leading lithography supplier at the time, giving ASML a strategic US presence on US soil, versus their Japanese competitors.[1] Also, light sources are made by CYMER[2], another US supplier that ASML bought. Nikon and Canon could also contrat Zeiss and Trumpf for the same parts that ASML gets but they don't have access to Sandia's and CYMER's EUV tech which is better than the EUV tech they developed in house. So you see, ASML is not some European wonder as the chip hipsters would want to believe, since it wouldn't own the EUV market today if it weren't for strategic acquisitions on US soil that gave them the EUV monopoly they enjoy today. [1] https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/65642319 https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/65642319 [2] https://www.cymer.com/light-source-technology/ https://www.cymer.com/light-source-technology/
        sveme 4y ago
        That's a bit like saying that Google would not exist without the contributions by Leo Katz. Or that Sandia's EUV tech would not exist without Ernst Abbés contributions. Everything's build on top of something. But for some reasons all your posts seem to be intended to downplay anything coming from Europe. Which is fine, everyone needs a resident contrarian.
        ChuckNorris89 4y ago
        I'm not downplaying anything, I'm being a realist among the hype that EU is some tech powerhouse when it's objectively much weaker than the EU fanboys would like to believe. The US could have sold the EUV tech to Canon or Nikon and the Japanese would have owned the EUV industry, but the Dutch ASML played the political game better and won the deal but selling US tech doesn't make it an EU innovation. And you can't compare licensed or bought tech to individual contributions from indvidual persons. The US still owns the EUV tech ASML is using and has veto rights on what it can do with it and who it can sell it too. ASML would love to sell EUV steppers to China and make bank since China is desperate to ramp up its domestic fab industry, but US says "NO" and it must comply. The NL or the EU didn't veto the sale, the US did, and ASML complied because the US Gov have ASML by the balls since it's now also partly a US company monetizing US tech.
  - saberience 4y ago
    If it was just based on money, why wouldn't Intel do it themselves, or anyone else for that matter? ASML is basically a monopoly, there is clearly big money to be made if someone else could make those machines. I think you're doing disservice to the engineers and researchers at ASML suggesting they are only there because the US sent them money.
    - dralley 4y ago
      Because the only way to make it profitable for anyone is to get the economies of scale of everyone behind the same development. Intel, Samsung and TSMC all invested a lot of money in ASML to get EUV over the finish line.
  - belter 4y ago
    The IPhone would never be possible without China. Or each model would cost $10,000.
- dejv 4y ago
  Don't forget precision machinery of all kinds: from industrial CNCs, medical instrumentation or electron microscopes.
deleted 4y ago
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throwawayrocket 4y ago
Even worse they preach developing world not to fund space/advanced industries
genezeta 4y ago
ESA -and Europe in general, sure, but particularly ESA- also has a massive bureaucratic problem.
batmansmk 4y ago
Not saying you are wrong, US is lagging behind as well on many other sectors as well compared to the rest of the world; manufacturing, transportation, green tech, participative democracy, integrated administrations to quote a few. Reusable rockets make launching stuff cheaper, but integrated Administrations save you millions of admin jobs that could be redeployed to more game changing missions. Imagine not having to declare your tax, or have bookkeeping, or file mountains of documents to renew a visa.
- throwaway06069 4y ago
  > Imagine not having to declare your tax, or have bookkeeping, or file mountains of documents to renew a visa. I think you live in some parallel universe EU
- pjc50 4y ago
  The only one of these that might have a point is the tax one. And possibly simpler health insurance systems. (Schengen provides visa-free travel and living intra-EU, but if you're from outwith the EU prepare for a mountain of paperwork)
  - GrigoriyMikh 4y ago
    I work a regular full time job in Germany. Plus do some investing and gigs. Declaring taxes every year. It's not fun at all, basically you have to prepare for it the whole year(keep track of your transactions, expenses). So i don't see the point about "not declare your taxes". I guess, it's valid only for the most unproductive people in society. Generally, i have an impression that Germany benefits the most unproductive(i.e. edge case poor and super-rich). While putting all the pressure on the middle class.
    - ambicapter 4y ago
      > benefits the most unproductive(i.e. edge case poor and super-rich). While putting all the pressure on the middle class. People say this about every country. I think it's just that countries benefit the poor more than they "contribute" b/c they have the least ability to do so and people want their governments to be progressive. On the flipside, everything is always easy for the super-rich, because they have tons of resources to employ armies of people that enable them to benefit from every loophole possible.
lm28469 4y ago
It can drop for a while before reaching the US one
- nivenkos 4y ago
  Compare European and US salaries sometime, you have no idea how lucky you are. There's a reason tens of thousands of European engineers, doctors, lawyers, developers, etc. are desperate to move to the US.
  - lm28469 4y ago
    Until you get fired, or a cancer, or kids, or you're not lucky to be in the 10% money makers, &c. I've lived in both systems, if you're not working for FAANG you're better off in Europe, and if you're working for FAANG in Europe you're probably even better off tbh Personally no ammount of money will buy my peace of mind, I wouldn't even take 3x my current salary to go to the US
  - edgyquant 4y ago
    It’s not luck, it’s the result of long term policy.
  - panick21_ 4y ago
    I rather get a little less money and not live in a car depended sprawl with cities full of homeless and no public transport.
Certhas 4y ago
This is such a weird take. The global high tech economy is tightly intertwined. The EU is an integral part of that, and in many areas is doing perfectly fine. Further European policymakers have for the last two decades done an overal excellent job integrating eastern Europe into the Western economic model. Of course first credit belongs to the states themselves, but the border between Germany and Poland used to be one of the largest GDP per Capita drops in the world. Now the difference is marginal. This has happened inside one generation. To accuse them of legislating only for already prosperous societies bears no resemblance to reality. The Internet and digitalization revolution enabled a few US companies to capture vast amounts of value worldwide simply by being first by having access to the first emerging market for the new tech (and being ruthlessly business savvy). The US being rich and an optimistic consumption culture made that happen. Some of that windfall has been redirected to fun things like boosting Rocket tech, or useful things like boosting EV tech. Speaking of the latter, I remember a few years ago a lot of people on here were claiming that the US and specifically Tesla had an unassailable lead in Battery Tech. That didn't exactly last long, did it? But the idea that the US is uniquely poised to dominate the tech landscape for the next decades is silly, doubly so based on some relatively niche tech like rockets. As a European I am worried about the strategic tech competition with China, not the US. And I am worried that the EU is not doing enough to tax the profits being generated here, (cough, Ireland, Luxembourg...). ... and btw, it's all built on Linux, which was given away for free by some European guy.
el_mocambo 4y ago
The EU bureaucracy is a catastrophy for European innovation. The more EU there has been, the crappiest the ability to create wealth/innovate has become. Europhiles like to boast about Airbus or Ariane as "European projects" but they are not, they are inter-states collaboration, and were create when EU commission didn't exist with its vast bureaucracy and it's never ending forms to fill. Can you name one Brussels backed project that went somewhere?
- moffkalast 4y ago
  Speaking as one of those Europhiles, EU grants are on average a pretty great thing, you can see the effect first hand just walking around any random town with EU project plaques everywhere. If anything, the EU itself is doing the most to fund practical projects and the excessive bureaucracy does serve as somewhat of a safeguard against the rampant embezzling that is otherwise the norm. The problem with innovation here is extensive, both legal and cultural. Some countries are downright hostile to startups. In the US it takes what, $200 to open an LLC? In Germany you better have 25000€ ready for an equivalent entity. The amount of regulations one has to adhere to is far more extensive, taxes are borderline absurd, there's basically no venture capital to speak of, so any actually successful company is immediately absorbed by some American megacorp with fat stacks laying around (e.g. Wolt Delivery bought by DoorDash). Most of the people who lived under socialist systems also grew up in a culture where entrepreneurship was the pinnacle of egoistic greed which probably doesn't really help.
rr808 4y ago
Europe needs more babies more than anything. Economically it has many great companies, maybe not so high tech.

samwillis 4y ago

And likely neither will Russia, China, India, Japan or anyone other than the US - with maybe the exception of New Zealand. The writing has been on the wall for where rockets were going for ten years, policy makers absolutely have failed, but let's not pretend it's only Europe who have got it wrong. Also, the negativity these sort of headlines bring to "tech" in Europe as a whole are also unhelpful. Europe is absolutely at the cutting edge of technology.

marian_ivanco 4y ago
China is definitely working hard to have it, maybe copy-paste approach but it is. We in Europe are definitely not cutting edge in general, maybe robotic space exploration but this is changing also rapidly. The problem is Arianespace and France. It's the similar issue to HLS. It's just a way to distribute money without any meaningful vision. Years of denial and ridiculing of SpaceX. The sad part is there is still no vision even when the world moved on.
- jlpom 4y ago
  Robotic space exploration, like our rover that crashed on Mars not a long ago?
  - ragebol 4y ago
    How about Rosetta en Philae? But yes, also that rover.
- weneedasfollows 4y ago
  Maybe a EU level spending package of 1 trillion, for a resilient and equitable space exploration would solve the problem
  - bluescrn 4y ago
    Why not, the money printers are still warm, just hit the 'solution to anything!' button again?

tekla 4y ago

Elon running a company running laps around the entire worlds space industry. Obscenely impressive.

foderking 4y ago
also running laps around ev
- sofixa 4y ago
  That's no longer true, pretty much any big car manufacturer outside of Toyota has caught up. Not only that, they provide much wider variety of vehicles (from the Renault Zoe and Dacia Spring all the way to massive pickups like the Ford F-150 Lightning).
  - zpeti 4y ago
    Except ford is losing a ton of money on EVs. I think yesterday a report came out their margins are -44% on EVs. While they might be selling some EVs, they’re pretty far from what Tesla is doing as a business.
    - 0zemp2c 4y ago
      Ford and GM can't ever follow through on their own BS and become "electric only" What is GM's cash cow? Pickups and the Tahoe/Yukon/Suburban/Escalade platform...pretty much the polar opposite of "environmentally conscious" products Ford? Same thing, monster F150s These companies aren't killing their cash cows Indeed, I expect both companies to dramatically tone down the rhetoric on EVs soon and just refer to them as "alternatives" Or even worse, start PR campaigns highlighting the inconveniences (charging times etc) of EVs
    - misiti3780 4y ago
      Im not saying Tesla will always be the leader, but anyone who says they're not now just needs to try to take a long road trip in a mach-e vs a model-y. It will be completely clear who is winning in EVs, from comfortable through the technology and supercharging.

danpalmer 4y ago

I feel we're setting up for a SpaceX monopoly if they nail Starship reusability. The only meaningfully reusable rocket right now is the Falcon 9, and while that significantly reduces the already cheap launch costs, it doesn't really change them by an order of magnitude, and with so many other costs, it doesn't make that much more possible that was previously impossible. Arguably Starlink is possible now and wouldn't have been before, but there are other similar (fewer satellites) constellations not relying on F9 being that much cheaper. Also arguably there are more smallsats going into orbit, but I think RocketLab has done roughly as much for them as the F9 has so far. As for other providers, ULA hasn't got a lot of re-usability built in, at least not to the extent that Starship (theoretically) or maybe even F9 has. RocketLab is starting reusability work, but is a way off anything good. Blue Origin are continuing to... well... who knows. I don't think anyone other than SpaceX are going to have usefully reusable rockets for another decade. I'm also not sure SpaceX are going to be more than 8 years ahead anyway because I don't think Starship will be delivering on its promises for at least another few years.

chroma 4y ago
> The only meaningfully reusable rocket right now is the Falcon 9, and while that significantly reduces the already cheap launch costs, it doesn't really change them by an order of magnitude, and with so many other costs, it doesn't make that much more possible that was previously impossible. SpaceX's charges around $1,200/lb to low earth orbit. Soyuz costs around $8,000/lb. The space shuttle was $30,0000/lb. Because of SpaceX's lower launch costs, they now put more mass into LEO than the rest of the world combined.
HDThoreaun 4y ago
Does anyone know what's up with Blue origin? Bezos pumps a solid billion into them every year but it doesn't seem like they're anywhere?
- deleted 4y ago
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- Mountain_Skies 4y ago

mathverse 4y ago

Europe is failing because it's not a single entity. It's a loose cooperation between many countries. Insane amount of talent is wasted because of "so called" european language and cultural racism. Companies are still "national" instead of european and talent is not appreciated. Taxes are sky high and so is national, cultural racism. You think a brilliant bulgarian scientist is treated the same by his French colleagues? Until this changes and europeans will start treat their fellow europeans fairly nothing will improve.

GrigoriyMikh 4y ago
I think that's the best explanation of the current situation in Europe. Just look at Germany, biggest economy in EU. It's treating it's migrant workers as slaves. Feeding failing pension system from them. Not giving any rights for innovation(you can't start business without German national cofounder) or even any motivation to innovate(high taxes, anti-success culture, strict residence laws). When you mention any problems with Germany to Germans, they're so protective and unwilling to change that their only response is "go back home if you don't like it here".
- awesomeMilou 4y ago
  > you can't start business without German national cofounder That's an outright lie, you need a Visa though if you're not a citizen from a Schengen country. > strict residence laws Ever tried to get a Greencard? And if you have the financial backing, up until the start of the Ukraine war there were plenty of states with a golden visa program. I think you're being too harsh on german and european policymakers. I agree, the climate for startups is abysmal and the room for improvement is huge, but in terms of being inclusive EU is leading over the US.
  - GrigoriyMikh 4y ago
    > you need a Visa though if you're not a citizen from a Schengen country Ok, let me be clear. I have a temporary residence in Germany. Before, i had a worker visa. I'm not allowed to start my own business with temporary residence here. Only if i have a German co-founder. > but in terms of being inclusive EU is leading over the US I'm not 100% sure about US. Although, i have 3 friends there who don't experience problems that i have in Europe. But in Germany, specifically, banking and government bureaucracy machine became outright nationalistic. My bank account have been blocked because of my nationality. I had problems when i was changing my registration address, because of my nationality. No i'm struggling with tax office(changing my tax class) because of my nationality(specifically, i have some papers from my country). And i heard similar complains about Spain and Poland(it's actually refusing to give worker visas to Russians, even if they already reside in EU). EU is pure nazi at this point. But majority of people ignore it, because it's, apparently, not nazi to be against Russians at this moment.

wildekek 4y ago

Europe’s lack of proper launch locations inhibits startups from attracting talent. So ESA sticks with Airbus since that’s the only option.

anonymousDan 4y ago
Given it's size, I find it strange it doesn't have launch locations like the US. Why is that the case - latitude? Population density.
- jnurmine 4y ago
  Mainland EU's first orbital launch site was inaugurated in January 2023. It is located at Esrange, in Kiruna, high up north in Sweden. The Themis program ("reusable space launcher demonstrator") will actually do some of their tests there. I wonder how much of the "lag" in European space launcher innovation is due to the logistics of having to haul everything half a planet away to Kourou over an ocean for the actual launches. Hopefully having a mainland facility will improve things.
- fhars 4y ago
  Latitude. Gibraltar is on the same latitude as North Carolina. Most of the suitable locations are in French Guayana, where the ESA launch site actually happens to be located.
- panick21_ 4y ago
  Because you have to launch West and West of Europe there is mostly land. For polar launches Europe is positioned just fine. It makes more sense to use French colonies in South America. Those are perfectly positioned.
seydor 4y ago
Isn't French guyana one of the best places?
- panick21_ 4y ago
  For many orbits yes. But it has some disadvantages because of how wet it is. Lots of rain lots of humidity. But it certainty no reason to think its holding them back all that much. If SpaceX had a private launch site like that they would likely go crazy.

WhereIsTheTruth 4y ago

Something is fishy: [1] - SpaceX Accuses Europe's Ariane Of Unfair Competition [2] - Europe eyes Musk’s SpaceX to replace Russian rockets I feel like EU's industry is being held back on purpose Yet SpaceX benefits lot of subsidies from the US government, as well as Tesla, hmm, methinking [1] - https://worldcrunch.com/business-finance/exclusive-spacex-accuses-europe39s-ariane-of-unfair-competition https://worldcrunch.com/business-finance/exclusive-spacex-ac... [2] - https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/12/europe-eyes-musks-spacex-to-replace-russian-rockets.html https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/12/europe-eyes-musks-spacex-to-...

lyu07282 4y ago
EU has been self-sabotaging for decades, but it usually is just caused by economic liberalism / pragmatism. Although there is of course a strong connection between european leadership and the "Atlantik Bruecke" (atlantic bridge) which is an extremely powerful and influential atlanticist organization, it isn't always failing in favor of US economic interests. Germany did surrender its advantage in solar energy technology to China for example, there is no need for any explanation other than (neoliberal) ideology and incompetence. https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/last-major-german-solar-cell-maker-surrenders-chinese-competition https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/last-major-german-solar...
- imtringued 4y ago
  This reminds me that the EU follows neoclassical economics much closer than the US. https://unherd.com/2021/11/the-cruelty-of-eu-austerity/ https://unherd.com/2021/11/the-cruelty-of-eu-austerity/ Meanwhile when you read e.g. some of the extremist opinions like mises.org blog posts, apparently Europe is infested with socialism and anti-capitalism and isn't doing enough. I mean geez. Greece did the hardest austerity program in history, with possibly the fastest collapse of a growing economy. It used to grow 5% a year during the corruption years, during which people accused Greece of excessive borrowing to pay pension funds and other non productive spending. Now that they did the responsible thing GDP dropped by 50% and GDP growth has stagnated and the debt level is even higher than before as a percentage of GDP. This obviously makes "proper capitalism" look bad to citizens and now you can simply accuse them of being "socialists" who ruined their own country. Great track record. It kind of reminds me of horseshoe theory. Extreme communists and capitalists are more alike to each other than to the center. Communists that fail to achieve their dreams go and hunt the capitalists. Capitalists that fail to achieve their dreams hunt socialists. I don't know if you can call it pragmatism. It would be economic pragmatism if you try to take the best ideas and combine them into something that actually works.

robomartin 4y ago

This is what happens when someone is ten years ahead of everyone else in development. And, to make it worse, when, during those ten years, everyone ridiculed what they were doing. In some ways this is exactly what "The Innovator's Dilemma" is about, isn't it? Would it make sense for SpaceX to become like Boeing and sell/lease reusable rockets to others? Elon was well-known for always using the reusable airliner argument when explaining why reusable rockets were important.

beembeem 4y ago

I don't claim to know too much about Arianespace, but I wonder if this has any connection to the Russia situation and not being able to launch Soyuz rockets due to sanctions. https://spacenews.com/arianespace-and-oneweb-reach-settlement-for-suspended-launches/ https://spacenews.com/arianespace-and-oneweb-reach-settlemen...

0xDEF 4y ago
Has nothing to do with Russia. This is about the future European Ariane 7 rocket that is meant to be fully reusable like the reusable SpaceX rockets.
panick21_ 4y ago
No it doesn't. Ariane 6 was planed to take over many of the launches from Soyuz that ArianeGroup would usually launch anyway, even before re-usability. Both Ariane 6 delay and Russia situation are leading to many launches moving to Falcon 9.

nordsieck 4y ago

It's interesting to see them say 2030s now. When the plans for "Ariane Next" first came out, they were aiming for 2028. Sounds like the program has already slipped quite a bit. Ariane Group is going to be in for a rough time every year beyond ~2026 that they delay. By then most of Starship (SpaceX), New Glenn (Blue Origin), Terran R (Relativity), and Neutron (Rocket Lab) should be operational - all of which will at least reuse the 1st stage. Of course, they'll be able to fall back on institutional payloads to maintain a minimum level of funding. But that's not a great place for the program to be in terms of funding. Or politics. This whole situation is really tragic. The design of Ariane 6 was finalized in 2016 - after SpaceX had successfully landed a Falcon 9 for the first time. While I realize that that would have been quite late in the design process for the rocket, it really shows the weakness of Ariane Group when it comes to assessing the competitive landscape and making difficult decisions. To be fair, it is hard on the king to wear the crown for too long. Europe and Russia had a long run; we'll see how well SpaceX carries the burden.

BitwiseFool 4y ago
Admittedly I don't know much about the economics of rocketry, but the Ariane 6 doesn't seem much different from the Ariane 5 and I can't imagine it actually brings much to the table in terms of performance or cost savings, especially in light of how involved the development of it was.
- nordsieck 4y ago
  > the Ariane 6 doesn't seem much different from the Ariane 5 and I can't imagine it actually brings much to the table in terms of performance or cost savings, especially in light of how involved the development of it was. My understanding is that Ariane 6 was explicitly designed to reduce production costs compared to Ariane 5, in large part due to competitive pressure from SpaceX. > With the new Ariane 6 slated to enter service in 2020, ArianeGroup promises to cut per-kilogram launch cost by 40 to 50 percent compared to Ariane 5. https://spacenews.com/arianegroup-cfo-pierre-godart-on-ariane-6-cost-savings-micro-launchers-and-reusability https://spacenews.com/arianegroup-cfo-pierre-godart-on-arian... (2017) I guess, we'll see if they achieve that goal. Although rocket pricing is notoriously opaque.

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seydor 4y ago

I don't get why these statements emphasize the antagonism with the US. A lot of europeans see europe as extended US market by now, and promising european businesses will move to the US for faster growth. Ariane is a company , and of course they will find it hard to beat the 'Amazon of space'. Their reusables would be for the world, not just for europe. Europe already uses reusables if it uses spacex

TulliusCicero 4y ago
Seems pretty obvious why to me. Europe wants strategic independence in this area, but SpaceX is radically more cost effective and will remain so for the foreseeable future. That means that European companies that want to launch satellites will probably choose SpaceX, they won't want to throw money away.
- moffkalast 4y ago
  Meanwhile the US government is arguably doing the same with SLS. Nobody's expecting it to ever be cost effective for anything, but it provides said strategic independence.
  - imtringued 4y ago
    SLS is cost effective in the segment of successfully going to the moon and coming back.
    - moffkalast 4y ago
      If Starship succeeds (which is what we're assuming in these discussions here anyway) then no, not even close. Crew Dragon + Starship transfer vehicle and lander would probably come in at a tenth the cost. Nevermind that the SLS programme assumes that Starship will succeed, otherwise they literally have no lander. So if SLS is to accomplish its goals it'll do so only in a world where it's obsolete.

panick21_ 4y ago

Anybody who is watching this industry knew this. Ariane 6 is really just a slight upgrade over Ariane 5. The Ariane 5 ME is mostly what the parts that are now in Ariane 6 came from, otherwise Ariane 6 would have taken much longer. This was approved in 2014, and the rocket wont be really operational until 2024. So 10 years for a really simply upgrade. Some of the parts now on the Ariane 6 have been in development for 20+ years. Even if right now, Europe decided to do a huge new rocket projects, it would be 10 years minimum. But this is not likely going to happen. Many didn't even want to spend the money for Ariane 6. An agreement on a real large reusable rocket is politically not feasible anytime soon, an no country, not even France is gone do it alone. Of course a real reusable rocket is gone cost more the develop then the Ariane 6, a slight upgrade over Ariane 5. Ariane 6 cost 5 billion and that ignores a lot different costs for infrastructure and development of sub-components over the last decades. So a decade is actually an incredibly optimistic prediction, 2 decades is more likely and that is far from certain. And even if they do so, they will never have a large share of the market. They will battle a whole host of other companies, RocketLab, ULA, Relativity for things that SpaceX will be excluded from (Amazon and so on).

kranke155 4y ago
Honestly as an European - this is not on the table of high priorities right now. Let Musk figure out between F9 and Starship how it’s best to produce rockets for the next half century, then copy and remake the same thing here. The EU having independent access to space is a point of pride, not a continental emergency.
- panick21_ 4y ago
  Ironically even the US launched mostly with Russian engines for quite a while. And Arianespace was launching more russian rockets then European ones.

nunuvit 4y ago

> Aside from Arianespace, Europe is currently fostering a number of private rocket companies, including Rocket Factory Augsburg, Isar Aerospace, PLD Space and Skyrora, with some of these rockets to be reusable. However the rockets in development are light-lift, whereas Ariane 6 and its possible successor are much more capable, medium-heavy-lift rockets. The real problem is that there's no prototype path for Ariane. SpaceX had the grasshopper and others. The original space race was very incremental. Hopefully the smaller companies will succeed with their more manageably sized rockets. Then they'll have to fight an uphill political battle against the big incumbents, just like SpaceX did. Ariane could make prototypes too, but they probably won't.

panick21_ 4y ago
There is no point in making prototypes for Ariane 6. What would they be testing. Its mostly just incremental updates in existing technology, if that. The only really fundamentally new thing is the upper stage engine and that's hard to prototype launch.
- nunuvit 4y ago
  It's more about the humans than the hardware. Schedules slip for many reasons. Landing and reusing a rocket is new to them. There's nothing like reality to force people to be realistic and get experience.
  - panick21_ 4y ago
    I'm confused. Ariane 6 has nothing to do with rocket landings. Ariane 6 was never and could never be a reusable rocket.
    - deleted 4y ago
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    - nunuvit 4y ago
      I just realized you said 6. I was connecting to the theme of the article, which is reusables after 6.

solarkraft 4y ago

Oh boy. If this is true we've already lost the current-generation space race. I don't see any other company that can fill their gap.

sdfghswe 4y ago

As a European living in the US, one thing that I prefer about US culture is that it seems that at least comparatively, Americans are more willing to scrap what they have a start over (that's how I see spaceX). Europeans never ever do that. Incrementalism is great in some situations, and bad in others.