> I think themgt is correct to say the creation of contracts like that in Europe could provide European rocket companies the same kind of opportunity Europe h

> I think themgt is correct to say the creation of contracts like that in Europe could provide European rocket companies the same kind of opportunity Europe has literally just spend 5 billion $ on a SINGLE rocket. Its not hard to understand why they don't have money for anything else. SpaceX was saved by COTS because they were able to borrow money against that contract. And it really only included a couple 100 million to develop the initial Falcon 9. The waste majority of the money was for Dragon. And they could do it that cheaply and fast because they had the legacy of the Falcon 1 and its infrastructure to build off. And that was mostly developed privately. At the end of the day SpaceX underbid on COTS and actually didn't make money, it only helped them develop things that would make money other ways.