4 ms·

IIUC this is one of those projects that the governments fund when the free market solution doesn't exist. Sure, Falcon 9 or Soyuz exists but those are foreign

by mrtksn 2y ago

IIUC this is one of those projects that the governments fund when the free market solution doesn't exist. Sure, Falcon 9 or Soyuz exists but those are foreign entities that might become unavailable due to politics, therefore a local solution must be developed even if its not the most cost effective. It also must help train and retain local talent and distribute funds to participating parties. So, it may be a bit expensive but in the end you get a rocket, a workforce who knows how to design and build rockets and they happen to spend the money they receive locally. IMHO they should invest in video production and art too, no one ever comes close to Space X in that department. edit: Wow, so much negativity for a successful launch.

bandyaboot 2y ago
I think they should invest in state of the art rocket technology foremost.
- mrtksn 2y ago
  Funding art can greatly help with justifying funding science and technology. Musk is very good at that, others should take a note.
grecy 2y ago
I agree that it makes sense for the EU to have it's own rocket and rocket talent, but the crazy part is the Ariane 6 was obsolete before it hit the design table. Clearly SpaceX have upturned the industry, but to still be so blind to the fact reuse is the future is wilful ignorance. I'm happy the government funds projects to keep expertise and local know-how, but it would be better if they weren't spending billions to be a decade (or two) obsolete.
- mrtksn 2y ago
  I don't know how obsolete it was since it appears to have decent performance numbers even if its not lading the boosters for re-use, but its a common theme when the government is involved. They like to play it safe(at least in perception) and comes with added rigidity since public funds are involved. Even the USA has these problems, when it comes to government contracts Musk and Bezos fight over it, the Boeing swoops in etc. Can you imagine how hard it is when it involves not only multiple businesses but also multiple countries? It works well when it has a market dominant customer base, like with Airbus, but when its the governments pushing things into existence its is usually optimised for other needs like contracts being given in such a way that stakeholders are happy.
  - grecy 2y ago
    > I don't know how obsolete it was Launch costs will be at an absolutely minimum twice as much, likely more like 3-5x. It will only be able to launch a handful of times per year. It is literally bringing a muzzle loader to a machine gun fight.
    - mrtksn 2y ago
      So? Some companies in Germany, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Austria, Switzerland and Sweden will get that money and they will train and employ people. More expensive but they don't have to ask anybody to fly this thing. You can ask Ukrainians how shitty it is when your supplier doesn't let you do things.
    - usrusr 2y ago
      But it isn't a fight. They want to beat the gravity well ("PvE", in video game terms), not SpaceX ("PvP"). And when they do have the capability to use their own expensive launch system in a pinch, they are free to buy launch capacity from the lowest bidder without becoming too dependent.
- fransje26 2y ago
  > but the crazy part is the Ariane 6 was obsolete before it hit the design table. No, that's re-writing history. When the design was started, SpaceX was still busy fumbling landings at sea, and it was not clear-cut that a reusable rocket could be developed and operated in a cost-efficient manner, and the development uncertainty was too high.
  - panick21_ 2y ago
    [flagged]
- jimbobthrowawy 2y ago
  ESA isn't part of the EU. The UK and Switzerland are members of it.
  - okl 2y ago
    Also, Canada is an associated member
- boricj 2y ago
  It's not blindness, it's institutional inertia. Ariane 6's design was selected in 2014. At the time, Falcon 9 1.0 was flying for 4 years, had less than 10t of payload and the first landing and recovery of a first stage wasn't for another year. Given than the Ariane program is about independent European access to space for institutional launches, efficiency and costs are secondary concerns. Each country pays for a share of a program and expects a corresponding industrial share. Launches aren't priced to expect a financial return, even if Ariane 5 was an unexpected success for geostationary commercial launches in its time. ArianeGroup produces three main things: Ariane 6, Vega and the M51 missile used on French SSBNs. It's there so that the French can lob nukes without asking the Americans (unlike the Brits) and that the Europeans can lob institutional satellites in space without asking anyone else. It's not there to be SpaceX, to be profitable or to be efficient.
  - panick21_ 2y ago
    After Ariane 4 there very much was hope for commercial success of Ariane 5. If anything it fell short, but was saved by robust GEO market. Going away from Ariane 5 style smaller rocket was a huge failure and its part of the seed that lead to the situation we have now. Had the Ariane 5 been a competitive design capable of competing with Soyuz on the low range and compete for big GEO birds on the high end, it would have been far better for European space policy. A design like Atlas 5. Capable of launching without boosters or with booster for GEO. That would have been smarter then using a combination of Soyuz and Ariane 5.
- numpad0 2y ago
  SpaceX fanboys be like "no reuse is lame and obsolete", but something like 3/4th of F9 launches are Starlink launches, so it's not like reuse has converted to sales that much or at all. Reuse supposedly saves massive cost too, but SpaceX isn't charging that much less to customers, and some competitors are aiming to undercut it by pure expendables, so that's kind of a dubious claim too. Those guys chanting such claims are just regurgitating marketing messagings.
  - teractiveodular 2y ago
    SpaceX launched 525 of the world's 626 spacecraft/satellites last year, and in terms of tonnage their dominance is ridiculous, just look at this: https://x.com/BryceSpaceTech/status/1796623202539434297 https://x.com/BryceSpaceTech/status/1796623202539434297 They're already cheaper than the competition, they have no need to sacrifice their own margin.
    - numpad0 2y ago
      At this point they're just littering LEO. I was thinking 1/4 being commercial payload, but literally 2/3 of 2023 SpaceX launches are Starlink launches. What viable business spare that much capacity for themselves?
      - teractiveodular 2y ago
        So your problem is that SpaceX is too successful at launching...? As for why they're using 2/3 of their launches for themselves, they're doing it because it makes money: https://www.satellitetoday.com/finance/2024/05/09/starlink-on-track-to-hit-6-6b-in-revenue-this-year-quilty-report-estimates/ https://www.satellitetoday.com/finance/2024/05/09/starlink-o...
  - panick21_ 2y ago
    > 3/4th of F9 launches are Starlink launches Everybody should pay attention to this! This is what we call the SpaceX distortion effect. 1/4th of F9 launches are a gigantic number of launches in the pre-SpaceX world. To act like '25% ony' therefore small, is just complete idiotic and misunderstanding of actual rocket industry. > so it's not like reuse has converted to sales that much or at all It has literally allowed for groundbreaking new communication systems that is producing billions of dollers per year. To just act like because they are not making money from selling launches, the launches don't matter is just purely idiotic. With the increase capacity somebody was gone build a LEO constellation. And SpaceX would have to be part of launching that constellation. Everybody is planning larger constellations. Its just that SpaceX got their first and actually owned that, rather then being the launch provider. > Reuse supposedly saves massive cost too, but SpaceX isn't charging that much less to customers, Why would SpaceX massively reduce prices if they have a full manifest and still win most launches? And just FYI, if there ever was a serious commercial thread, SpaceX can just lower prices easily. That why the actual smart people at Arianespace already in 2014 realized that they had no chance long term and by 2018 they knew that even the Ariane 6 wasn't go do it. That's why their marketing changed so much from 'competition' to 'independent access'. > and some competitors are aiming to undercut it by pure expendables They can talk about it if they want, nobody believes them its just marketing spin for people like you. Every serious company is working on reuse. Even ULA has comited to making their reuse system work because literally everybody knows that reuse is the only way to compete. Arianespace knows it and doesn't really try to compete. They got some commercial contracts thanks to massive subsidizes and the massive launch shortage that Starlink constellation brought. The other reusable system simply weren't on the market fast enough. Outside of that Ariane 6 doesn't have much commercial and the universal message from ESA/Arianespace is about forcing European institutions to use Ariane 6 because 'Europe'. Even in their marketing they have stopped claiming to be competitive. > so that's kind of a dubious claim too. > Those guys chanting such claims are just regurgitating marketing messagings. Its only dubious to people who need to categorically hate Musk and claim anybody who says anything good about SpaceX must be some Musk worshiper, rather then just somebody who looks at actual reality. You are parroting the worst most delusional pro-Europe nationalist PR spin and act like you are above the 'SpaceX fanboys'. Ironically not even the mainstream European PR agrees with your position anymore. You are like relic from pre-2020 still repeating the same delusional spin that made Europe the laughing stock of the global launch market. While literally every well financed rocket company in the world announced re-usability plans, RocketLab, ULA, Relativity, Blue Origin, NG-Firefly, many in China, Arianespace was still producing PR spin while their rocket was delayed and more and more Arianespace launches shifted to SpaceX. There is basically not a single large new rocket design in the works that doesn't have re-usability plans. Sadly the idea that anything is competitive when SpaceX launches 100+ times a year is so utterly deranged and delusional that even French burocrates have realized that their media PR was only serving to make them an international laughing stock. That why their PR strategy has radically shifted. Only the people who have to somehow 'own the fanboys' still hold on to that old Arianespace PR nonsense. Even the French space agencies who was pushing for 'Ariane Next' by 2028 (yes a delusional timeline) was literally proposing a rocket that is basically a Falcon 9 clone with methane fuel, down to the same engine configuration and engine cycle. Its almost as if the actual engineers knew what was up. But all of these people must be wrong, every rocket company in the world is wrong because 'some competitors are aiming to undercut it by pure expendables'. Sure buddy. The rise of non-reusable rockets is just around the corner they are about to make a big comeback soon. I can't wait for that dominate market force to emerge. SpaceX will truly be shook when the cheap mass produced expandable vehicles come online.
rdm_blackhole 2y ago
Ariane 6 is just pork barrel politics at this point. Will it launch? sure! Will it deliver some payloads in orbit? Of course. Is it already completely obsolete and completely overpriced? That goes without saying! They just took the wrong turn many years ago and they have decided that it was better to keep going than to admit that they made a mistake. If we assume it takes the same amount of time to produce a working version of Ariane Next(the European falcon 9) then it won't arrive before the the mid 2030s and by this point, I would expect Starship or another rocket to have taken over the entire market anyway. Finally, I want to say that the money that funds this is not magic money that appears out of thin air, it's taxes or debt that we are saddling the next generation with and it seems considering the debt levels in Europe that we should aim to be a tad bit more careful how we spend these budgets.
- mrtksn 2y ago
  The performance numbers are fine, it's not obsolete in the sense of usefulness. Anyway, this project is not a French project or a German project but combination of many, therefore it needs to serve the interest of all those, therefore its politically very complex, therefore the management can't act as Musk. If it flies and delivers stuff into the space, even at higher prices, its a huge success.
  - panick21_ 2y ago
    > If it flies and delivers stuff into the space, even at higher prices, its a huge success. Why do people keep repeating this nonsense. The goals of the project were outlined in 2014 when the project was greenlit. If anybody back then had suggested that 'If it flies and delivers stuff into the space, even at higher prices, its a huge success.' They would have been laughed out of the room. It directly contradicts the whole rational for the Ariane 6 that made it politically viable. If what you say was true, then Europe would be flying the Ariane 5 ME and developing a reusable launch vehicle of the future right now. You are just repeating ESA and Arianespace PR spin, when around 2020 it was clear their 2014 justification were nonsense, the just changed their PR and everybody just repeats it no matter that it directly contradicts the actual rational that was outlined for Ariane 6 in 2014.
wrs 2y ago
The first moon landing wasn’t going to have live video (heavy, contributes nothing to functionality or telemetry, so a total waste of fuel). Very late in the game, someone realized that it might be somewhat interesting to the rest of humanity. SpaceX grew up in the social media era so that was probably never a question!
panick21_ 2y ago
> So, it may be a bit expensive but in the end you get a rocket, They already had a rocket. It was called Ariane 5 and it was being evolved into Ariane 5 ME (that where Ariane 6 got its upper stage engine from). > a workforce who knows how to design and build rockets Instead of designing a new rocket that is essentially a minimal upgrade of the existing design, you actually get a workforce who knows how to design an actual modern rocket. Not a design that is inspired by Space Shuttle. > therefore a local solution must be developed even if its not the most cost effective ... they already had a local solution. > It also must help train and retain local talent and distribute funds to participating parties. You can do that by investing in future technology, not minimal upgrades over existing technology. The reality is simply. It will require 50+ launches for Ariane 6 to be worth it and likely more. And launches that were subsidized, like those they sold to Amazon don't really count. So the reality is, they could have continue Ariane 5 for a few more years, put some of the lighter payloads on commercial US rockets. And then invest those 5-6 billion $ into an actual modern rocket design. As it stands, with Ariane 6 Europe is now stuck with a 80s rocket design until likely 2040.
- mrtksn 2y ago
  What makes you think that this is old technology? That the boosters don't land upright for re-use?
  - panick21_ 2y ago
    There is a reason not a single modern commercial rocket startup uses a hydrolox core, solid boosters and a hydrogen upper stage. Late staging makes it impossible to ever develop real re-usability. The first stage engine, is very old and very expensive and slow to build. Its a gas-generator and not a very well optimized one. Solids are simply not competitive and only used by government launchers. Its an architecture that goes back to the Post-Apollo area. The believe in hydorgen fuel and solids is inspired by the Shuttle. Ariane 5 was literally design for a Shuttle clone type system. The Upper stage, while having an amazing modern engine (20 years in development), is actually just terrible in terms of structural design and is getting out-performed massively by Vulcan 5, Falcon 9 Upper stage and new entrance like Neutron. The system requires 3 different types of propulsion systems and all of them in low volume. Yeah why would that not be efficient. SpaceX on the other hand only uses two variants of the same engine. Despite re-usability that engine gets produced in high volumes. So for each $ invested in better engines, SpaceX improves its whole stack. Arianespace needs to optimize 3 radically different engine system to improve its whole stack. This partially explains why SpaceX radically out innovated Arianespace even in the same rocket generation. Go look at what the French Space agency proposed for their 'Ariane Next' design only a few years after Ariane 6 was agree on. It was basically a Falcon 9 design. Think of the Ariane 6 design like a WW1 bi-plane design evolved for use early in WW2 and we are now already going into post WW2 war jet fighters with systems like Starship/Raptor.
dotnet00 2y ago
These arguments about not risking losing capability and training a workforce are worn out, ArianeSpace's insistence on not earnestly working to innovate led to them already having had a gap in domestic capability. Similarly, they're just maintaining the workforce at great expense, but the private space booms in the US and China are actively growing the workforce on the back of mostly private capital. On top of that, it isn't as if ArianeSpace is just acting as a stopgap until a private provider is ready, they're actively opposing the rise of private providers. They're even lobbying to choke the European satellite industry by forcing them to be restricted to European launchers, regardless of availability or capability.
- leeter 2y ago
  > ArianeSpace's insistence on not earnestly working to innovate led to them already having had a gap in domestic capability Yes and no, there are plenty of EU space startups. What Ariane has done is starve them of government funding to build a competitive EU based market. So I'd say it's drawing the investment into a hole. Just a quick sample of EU space firms I'm aware of: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_Factory_Augsburg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_Factory_Augsburg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isar_Aerospace https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isar_Aerospace https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HyImpulse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HyImpulse
  - dotnet00 2y ago
    Yeah that's what I mean, Ariane isn't just standing in for something the market has no solution for, they're actively trying to stifle the solutions the market is working on. By gap in domestic capability I'm referring to how various ESA launches had to be shifted to Falcon 9 due to the retirement of Ariane 5, the delays to Ariane 6 and the already booked manifest for Ariane 6.
patall 2y ago
> IMHO they should invest in video production and art too, no one ever comes close to Space X in that department. Also missing the tension a bit, no explosions, no flaps buring and so on. It was kind of boring without that, everything working just fine.
- tekla 2y ago
  "In fact, everything was not working just fine"

by mrtksn 2y ago

bandyaboot 2y ago

I think they should invest in state of the art rocket technology foremost.

mrtksn 2y ago
Funding art can greatly help with justifying funding science and technology. Musk is very good at that, others should take a note.

grecy 2y ago

I agree that it makes sense for the EU to have it's own rocket and rocket talent, but the crazy part is the Ariane 6 was obsolete before it hit the design table. Clearly SpaceX have upturned the industry, but to still be so blind to the fact reuse is the future is wilful ignorance. I'm happy the government funds projects to keep expertise and local know-how, but it would be better if they weren't spending billions to be a decade (or two) obsolete.

mrtksn 2y ago
I don't know how obsolete it was since it appears to have decent performance numbers even if its not lading the boosters for re-use, but its a common theme when the government is involved. They like to play it safe(at least in perception) and comes with added rigidity since public funds are involved. Even the USA has these problems, when it comes to government contracts Musk and Bezos fight over it, the Boeing swoops in etc. Can you imagine how hard it is when it involves not only multiple businesses but also multiple countries? It works well when it has a market dominant customer base, like with Airbus, but when its the governments pushing things into existence its is usually optimised for other needs like contracts being given in such a way that stakeholders are happy.
- grecy 2y ago
  > I don't know how obsolete it was Launch costs will be at an absolutely minimum twice as much, likely more like 3-5x. It will only be able to launch a handful of times per year. It is literally bringing a muzzle loader to a machine gun fight.
  - mrtksn 2y ago
    So? Some companies in Germany, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Austria, Switzerland and Sweden will get that money and they will train and employ people. More expensive but they don't have to ask anybody to fly this thing. You can ask Ukrainians how shitty it is when your supplier doesn't let you do things.
  - usrusr 2y ago
    But it isn't a fight. They want to beat the gravity well ("PvE", in video game terms), not SpaceX ("PvP"). And when they do have the capability to use their own expensive launch system in a pinch, they are free to buy launch capacity from the lowest bidder without becoming too dependent.
fransje26 2y ago
> but the crazy part is the Ariane 6 was obsolete before it hit the design table. No, that's re-writing history. When the design was started, SpaceX was still busy fumbling landings at sea, and it was not clear-cut that a reusable rocket could be developed and operated in a cost-efficient manner, and the development uncertainty was too high.
- panick21_ 2y ago
  [flagged]
jimbobthrowawy 2y ago
ESA isn't part of the EU. The UK and Switzerland are members of it.
- okl 2y ago
  Also, Canada is an associated member
boricj 2y ago
It's not blindness, it's institutional inertia. Ariane 6's design was selected in 2014. At the time, Falcon 9 1.0 was flying for 4 years, had less than 10t of payload and the first landing and recovery of a first stage wasn't for another year. Given than the Ariane program is about independent European access to space for institutional launches, efficiency and costs are secondary concerns. Each country pays for a share of a program and expects a corresponding industrial share. Launches aren't priced to expect a financial return, even if Ariane 5 was an unexpected success for geostationary commercial launches in its time. ArianeGroup produces three main things: Ariane 6, Vega and the M51 missile used on French SSBNs. It's there so that the French can lob nukes without asking the Americans (unlike the Brits) and that the Europeans can lob institutional satellites in space without asking anyone else. It's not there to be SpaceX, to be profitable or to be efficient.
- panick21_ 2y ago
  After Ariane 4 there very much was hope for commercial success of Ariane 5. If anything it fell short, but was saved by robust GEO market. Going away from Ariane 5 style smaller rocket was a huge failure and its part of the seed that lead to the situation we have now. Had the Ariane 5 been a competitive design capable of competing with Soyuz on the low range and compete for big GEO birds on the high end, it would have been far better for European space policy. A design like Atlas 5. Capable of launching without boosters or with booster for GEO. That would have been smarter then using a combination of Soyuz and Ariane 5.
numpad0 2y ago
SpaceX fanboys be like "no reuse is lame and obsolete", but something like 3/4th of F9 launches are Starlink launches, so it's not like reuse has converted to sales that much or at all. Reuse supposedly saves massive cost too, but SpaceX isn't charging that much less to customers, and some competitors are aiming to undercut it by pure expendables, so that's kind of a dubious claim too. Those guys chanting such claims are just regurgitating marketing messagings.
- teractiveodular 2y ago
  SpaceX launched 525 of the world's 626 spacecraft/satellites last year, and in terms of tonnage their dominance is ridiculous, just look at this: https://x.com/BryceSpaceTech/status/1796623202539434297 https://x.com/BryceSpaceTech/status/1796623202539434297 They're already cheaper than the competition, they have no need to sacrifice their own margin.
  - numpad0 2y ago
    At this point they're just littering LEO. I was thinking 1/4 being commercial payload, but literally 2/3 of 2023 SpaceX launches are Starlink launches. What viable business spare that much capacity for themselves?
    - teractiveodular 2y ago
      So your problem is that SpaceX is too successful at launching...? As for why they're using 2/3 of their launches for themselves, they're doing it because it makes money: https://www.satellitetoday.com/finance/2024/05/09/starlink-on-track-to-hit-6-6b-in-revenue-this-year-quilty-report-estimates/ https://www.satellitetoday.com/finance/2024/05/09/starlink-o...
- panick21_ 2y ago
  > 3/4th of F9 launches are Starlink launches Everybody should pay attention to this! This is what we call the SpaceX distortion effect. 1/4th of F9 launches are a gigantic number of launches in the pre-SpaceX world. To act like '25% ony' therefore small, is just complete idiotic and misunderstanding of actual rocket industry. > so it's not like reuse has converted to sales that much or at all It has literally allowed for groundbreaking new communication systems that is producing billions of dollers per year. To just act like because they are not making money from selling launches, the launches don't matter is just purely idiotic. With the increase capacity somebody was gone build a LEO constellation. And SpaceX would have to be part of launching that constellation. Everybody is planning larger constellations. Its just that SpaceX got their first and actually owned that, rather then being the launch provider. > Reuse supposedly saves massive cost too, but SpaceX isn't charging that much less to customers, Why would SpaceX massively reduce prices if they have a full manifest and still win most launches? And just FYI, if there ever was a serious commercial thread, SpaceX can just lower prices easily. That why the actual smart people at Arianespace already in 2014 realized that they had no chance long term and by 2018 they knew that even the Ariane 6 wasn't go do it. That's why their marketing changed so much from 'competition' to 'independent access'. > and some competitors are aiming to undercut it by pure expendables They can talk about it if they want, nobody believes them its just marketing spin for people like you. Every serious company is working on reuse. Even ULA has comited to making their reuse system work because literally everybody knows that reuse is the only way to compete. Arianespace knows it and doesn't really try to compete. They got some commercial contracts thanks to massive subsidizes and the massive launch shortage that Starlink constellation brought. The other reusable system simply weren't on the market fast enough. Outside of that Ariane 6 doesn't have much commercial and the universal message from ESA/Arianespace is about forcing European institutions to use Ariane 6 because 'Europe'. Even in their marketing they have stopped claiming to be competitive. > so that's kind of a dubious claim too. > Those guys chanting such claims are just regurgitating marketing messagings. Its only dubious to people who need to categorically hate Musk and claim anybody who says anything good about SpaceX must be some Musk worshiper, rather then just somebody who looks at actual reality. You are parroting the worst most delusional pro-Europe nationalist PR spin and act like you are above the 'SpaceX fanboys'. Ironically not even the mainstream European PR agrees with your position anymore. You are like relic from pre-2020 still repeating the same delusional spin that made Europe the laughing stock of the global launch market. While literally every well financed rocket company in the world announced re-usability plans, RocketLab, ULA, Relativity, Blue Origin, NG-Firefly, many in China, Arianespace was still producing PR spin while their rocket was delayed and more and more Arianespace launches shifted to SpaceX. There is basically not a single large new rocket design in the works that doesn't have re-usability plans. Sadly the idea that anything is competitive when SpaceX launches 100+ times a year is so utterly deranged and delusional that even French burocrates have realized that their media PR was only serving to make them an international laughing stock. That why their PR strategy has radically shifted. Only the people who have to somehow 'own the fanboys' still hold on to that old Arianespace PR nonsense. Even the French space agencies who was pushing for 'Ariane Next' by 2028 (yes a delusional timeline) was literally proposing a rocket that is basically a Falcon 9 clone with methane fuel, down to the same engine configuration and engine cycle. Its almost as if the actual engineers knew what was up. But all of these people must be wrong, every rocket company in the world is wrong because 'some competitors are aiming to undercut it by pure expendables'. Sure buddy. The rise of non-reusable rockets is just around the corner they are about to make a big comeback soon. I can't wait for that dominate market force to emerge. SpaceX will truly be shook when the cheap mass produced expandable vehicles come online.

rdm_blackhole 2y ago

Ariane 6 is just pork barrel politics at this point. Will it launch? sure! Will it deliver some payloads in orbit? Of course. Is it already completely obsolete and completely overpriced? That goes without saying! They just took the wrong turn many years ago and they have decided that it was better to keep going than to admit that they made a mistake. If we assume it takes the same amount of time to produce a working version of Ariane Next(the European falcon 9) then it won't arrive before the the mid 2030s and by this point, I would expect Starship or another rocket to have taken over the entire market anyway. Finally, I want to say that the money that funds this is not magic money that appears out of thin air, it's taxes or debt that we are saddling the next generation with and it seems considering the debt levels in Europe that we should aim to be a tad bit more careful how we spend these budgets.

mrtksn 2y ago
The performance numbers are fine, it's not obsolete in the sense of usefulness. Anyway, this project is not a French project or a German project but combination of many, therefore it needs to serve the interest of all those, therefore its politically very complex, therefore the management can't act as Musk. If it flies and delivers stuff into the space, even at higher prices, its a huge success.
- panick21_ 2y ago
  > If it flies and delivers stuff into the space, even at higher prices, its a huge success. Why do people keep repeating this nonsense. The goals of the project were outlined in 2014 when the project was greenlit. If anybody back then had suggested that 'If it flies and delivers stuff into the space, even at higher prices, its a huge success.' They would have been laughed out of the room. It directly contradicts the whole rational for the Ariane 6 that made it politically viable. If what you say was true, then Europe would be flying the Ariane 5 ME and developing a reusable launch vehicle of the future right now. You are just repeating ESA and Arianespace PR spin, when around 2020 it was clear their 2014 justification were nonsense, the just changed their PR and everybody just repeats it no matter that it directly contradicts the actual rational that was outlined for Ariane 6 in 2014.

wrs 2y ago

The first moon landing wasn’t going to have live video (heavy, contributes nothing to functionality or telemetry, so a total waste of fuel). Very late in the game, someone realized that it might be somewhat interesting to the rest of humanity. SpaceX grew up in the social media era so that was probably never a question!

panick21_ 2y ago

> So, it may be a bit expensive but in the end you get a rocket, They already had a rocket. It was called Ariane 5 and it was being evolved into Ariane 5 ME (that where Ariane 6 got its upper stage engine from). > a workforce who knows how to design and build rockets Instead of designing a new rocket that is essentially a minimal upgrade of the existing design, you actually get a workforce who knows how to design an actual modern rocket. Not a design that is inspired by Space Shuttle. > therefore a local solution must be developed even if its not the most cost effective ... they already had a local solution. > It also must help train and retain local talent and distribute funds to participating parties. You can do that by investing in future technology, not minimal upgrades over existing technology. The reality is simply. It will require 50+ launches for Ariane 6 to be worth it and likely more. And launches that were subsidized, like those they sold to Amazon don't really count. So the reality is, they could have continue Ariane 5 for a few more years, put some of the lighter payloads on commercial US rockets. And then invest those 5-6 billion $ into an actual modern rocket design. As it stands, with Ariane 6 Europe is now stuck with a 80s rocket design until likely 2040.

mrtksn 2y ago
What makes you think that this is old technology? That the boosters don't land upright for re-use?
- panick21_ 2y ago
  There is a reason not a single modern commercial rocket startup uses a hydrolox core, solid boosters and a hydrogen upper stage. Late staging makes it impossible to ever develop real re-usability. The first stage engine, is very old and very expensive and slow to build. Its a gas-generator and not a very well optimized one. Solids are simply not competitive and only used by government launchers. Its an architecture that goes back to the Post-Apollo area. The believe in hydorgen fuel and solids is inspired by the Shuttle. Ariane 5 was literally design for a Shuttle clone type system. The Upper stage, while having an amazing modern engine (20 years in development), is actually just terrible in terms of structural design and is getting out-performed massively by Vulcan 5, Falcon 9 Upper stage and new entrance like Neutron. The system requires 3 different types of propulsion systems and all of them in low volume. Yeah why would that not be efficient. SpaceX on the other hand only uses two variants of the same engine. Despite re-usability that engine gets produced in high volumes. So for each $ invested in better engines, SpaceX improves its whole stack. Arianespace needs to optimize 3 radically different engine system to improve its whole stack. This partially explains why SpaceX radically out innovated Arianespace even in the same rocket generation. Go look at what the French Space agency proposed for their 'Ariane Next' design only a few years after Ariane 6 was agree on. It was basically a Falcon 9 design. Think of the Ariane 6 design like a WW1 bi-plane design evolved for use early in WW2 and we are now already going into post WW2 war jet fighters with systems like Starship/Raptor.

dotnet00 2y ago

These arguments about not risking losing capability and training a workforce are worn out, ArianeSpace's insistence on not earnestly working to innovate led to them already having had a gap in domestic capability. Similarly, they're just maintaining the workforce at great expense, but the private space booms in the US and China are actively growing the workforce on the back of mostly private capital. On top of that, it isn't as if ArianeSpace is just acting as a stopgap until a private provider is ready, they're actively opposing the rise of private providers. They're even lobbying to choke the European satellite industry by forcing them to be restricted to European launchers, regardless of availability or capability.

leeter 2y ago
> ArianeSpace's insistence on not earnestly working to innovate led to them already having had a gap in domestic capability Yes and no, there are plenty of EU space startups. What Ariane has done is starve them of government funding to build a competitive EU based market. So I'd say it's drawing the investment into a hole. Just a quick sample of EU space firms I'm aware of: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_Factory_Augsburg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_Factory_Augsburg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isar_Aerospace https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isar_Aerospace https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HyImpulse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HyImpulse
- dotnet00 2y ago
  Yeah that's what I mean, Ariane isn't just standing in for something the market has no solution for, they're actively trying to stifle the solutions the market is working on. By gap in domestic capability I'm referring to how various ESA launches had to be shifted to Falcon 9 due to the retirement of Ariane 5, the delays to Ariane 6 and the already booked manifest for Ariane 6.

patall 2y ago

> IMHO they should invest in video production and art too, no one ever comes close to Space X in that department. Also missing the tension a bit, no explosions, no flaps buring and so on. It was kind of boring without that, everything working just fine.

tekla 2y ago
"In fact, everything was not working just fine"