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Are the Europeans wworried that "between now and 2030s" the US will cut off their access to space? I understand things can go wrong and it's good to have a bac

Are the Europeans wworried that "between now and 2030s" the US will cut off their access to space? I understand things can go wrong and it's good to have a backup plan in the long term... But that's not that many years out. You can go without access for a few years .. It seems like a tiny risk

PedroBatista 2y ago
Looking at the geopolitical situation both next door and across the pond the answer is a yes. Also keeping the expertise and the people is a critical factor.
jltsiren 2y ago
The US has been an unreliable partner since Bush Jr. became the president. Every 4 years, there is a real risk that things will go wrong.
- Beretta_Vexee 2y ago
  It's more complicated than that. Even before W Bush, the United States didn't hesitate to twist the arm of its partners in economic matters. France and the USA may be allies, but economic relations have been complicated for over 40 years. The USA has no hesitation in interfering with or sabotaging the French economy (aukus subs, alstom, airbus defense, galileo), claiming that its law is extraterritorial in order to condemn company directors, and all the drity tricks imaginable. This is what led many European companies and gouv in the 90's and 00's to prefer partnerships with Chinese and Russsian companies. Even the British, with their special relationship, have completely isolated their nuclear industry from all US companies for fear of being screwed and at the same time signed partnership with CGN in China.
  - pfdietz 2y ago
    That's what happens when your group of nations freeloads on a superpower for their defense.
nabla9 2y ago
Not really, but European countries launch military payloads and other strategic stuff like Galileo satellites and communication satellites. All are friends with NATO, but that does not exclude spying and all kinds of shenanigans. US spies non-Five Eye countries mercilessly. They get caught sometimes. Like the systematic wiretapping trough Danish cables from 2012-2014.
Beretta_Vexee 2y ago
> Are the Europeans wworried that "between now and 2030s" the US will cut off their access to space? Ariane Group is first and foremost a defense company owned by the French state, Germany and several other European countries. Ariane group designs and manufactures French ICBMs. This is a significant part of its business. The French government wants a sovereign means of putting heavy military satellites into orbit (twice the weight of the Hubble telescope). The French state will never let its intelligence, early warning and nuclear deterrent depend on the United States.
dividedbyzero 2y ago
In the event of another Trump presidency (or a successor in spirit) getting cut off for military purposes is probably more like expected, and in a post-NATO world Russia might get a lot more aggressive towards western Europe. That's probably what is behind most such time horizons right now, but even in the mid to long term, rocket tech will remain highly strategic (e.g. for nuclear weapon delivery), and capabilities like that need to be built up well before any conflict escalates.
- protomolecule 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - jcranmer 2y ago
    If your dream is to restore Russia to its imperial greatness, there's an awful lot of EU countries that need to be gobbled up along the way, so France is quite likely to be willing to help a Russian-Estonia war even without NATO. NATO is only a threat to Russia insofar as it poses an obstacle to Russia gobbling up its neighbors.
    - protomolecule 2y ago
      If.
  - nick__m 2y ago
    NATO is purely defensive, it won't invade Russia. It only threatens Putin's empire rebuilding dreams. Without NATO he is free to rebuild and expand Russia's empire.
    - protomolecule 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - racional 2y ago
boricj 2y ago
The French mantra is strategic autonomy. We are allies with the USA, we are not vassals of the USA and we do not want to depend on anybody else to defend our own interests or our own agenda. This is why the French army has independent expeditionary and nuclear deterrent capabilities and why nearly all of our military kit is designed and produced either locally or in partnership with nearby European countries. It's not that we don't trust the Americans per se (although opinions may differ on that topic), but we don't want to have to. ArianeGroup also manufactures the M51 missile that goes inside our SSBNs and unlike the Brits we do not accept depending on Americans supplying us with the missiles for our nuclear deterrent.
- contrarian1234 2y ago
  It seems just a ton of money and R&D down the drain developing something already obsolete for some tiny and very theoretical advantage. It seems more sensible to lose a tiny bit of independence for a small window of time and instead use the money to develop an actual state of the art rocket.
  - boricj 2y ago
    De Gaulle would be rolling in his grave hearing this. The point is not about economic efficiency. The point is that we're not one embargo on foreign components or systems away from crippling our capabilities and surrendering our ability to act independently. The Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier almost got immobilized back in the early 2000s due to withholding of spare parts from the USA because they were pissed we called bullshit on their Iraq WMD claims. The USA routinely uses ITAR as a pressuring tactic to stop European weapon sales to foreign countries, which is why we're actively scrubbing every last ITAR component from all of our weapon systems. Just because we're allies doesn't mean that the other party has or will have our best interests at heart. The Americans have proven to be quite temperamental and under-handed when our strategic objectives aren't aligned with theirs.
  - mrmlz 2y ago
    It is absolutely not a "theoretical advantage". America is not an altruistic partner when it comes to strategic products.
badcppdev 2y ago
Sometimes nation states might disagree on what should be done in certain circumstances. An example of this is 39 years ago on this day the French government blew up a civilian boat in New Zealand [0]. Crazy but true. Having independent capabilities is part of being a sovereign rather than vassal state. 0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_Rainbow_Warrior https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_Rainbow_Warrior
yourusername 2y ago
>Are the Europeans wworried that "between now and 2030s" the US will cut off their access to space? Both US presidential candidates are not mentally well. Who knows what they might do.

PedroBatista 2y ago

Looking at the geopolitical situation both next door and across the pond the answer is a yes. Also keeping the expertise and the people is a critical factor.

jltsiren 2y ago

The US has been an unreliable partner since Bush Jr. became the president. Every 4 years, there is a real risk that things will go wrong.

Beretta_Vexee 2y ago
It's more complicated than that. Even before W Bush, the United States didn't hesitate to twist the arm of its partners in economic matters. France and the USA may be allies, but economic relations have been complicated for over 40 years. The USA has no hesitation in interfering with or sabotaging the French economy (aukus subs, alstom, airbus defense, galileo), claiming that its law is extraterritorial in order to condemn company directors, and all the drity tricks imaginable. This is what led many European companies and gouv in the 90's and 00's to prefer partnerships with Chinese and Russsian companies. Even the British, with their special relationship, have completely isolated their nuclear industry from all US companies for fear of being screwed and at the same time signed partnership with CGN in China.
- pfdietz 2y ago
  That's what happens when your group of nations freeloads on a superpower for their defense.

nabla9 2y ago

Not really, but European countries launch military payloads and other strategic stuff like Galileo satellites and communication satellites. All are friends with NATO, but that does not exclude spying and all kinds of shenanigans. US spies non-Five Eye countries mercilessly. They get caught sometimes. Like the systematic wiretapping trough Danish cables from 2012-2014.

Beretta_Vexee 2y ago

> Are the Europeans wworried that "between now and 2030s" the US will cut off their access to space? Ariane Group is first and foremost a defense company owned by the French state, Germany and several other European countries. Ariane group designs and manufactures French ICBMs. This is a significant part of its business. The French government wants a sovereign means of putting heavy military satellites into orbit (twice the weight of the Hubble telescope). The French state will never let its intelligence, early warning and nuclear deterrent depend on the United States.

dividedbyzero 2y ago

In the event of another Trump presidency (or a successor in spirit) getting cut off for military purposes is probably more like expected, and in a post-NATO world Russia might get a lot more aggressive towards western Europe. That's probably what is behind most such time horizons right now, but even in the mid to long term, rocket tech will remain highly strategic (e.g. for nuclear weapon delivery), and capabilities like that need to be built up well before any conflict escalates.

protomolecule 2y ago
[flagged]
- jcranmer 2y ago
  If your dream is to restore Russia to its imperial greatness, there's an awful lot of EU countries that need to be gobbled up along the way, so France is quite likely to be willing to help a Russian-Estonia war even without NATO. NATO is only a threat to Russia insofar as it poses an obstacle to Russia gobbling up its neighbors.
  - protomolecule 2y ago
    If.
- nick__m 2y ago
  NATO is purely defensive, it won't invade Russia. It only threatens Putin's empire rebuilding dreams. Without NATO he is free to rebuild and expand Russia's empire.
  - protomolecule 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - racional 2y ago

boricj 2y ago

The French mantra is strategic autonomy. We are allies with the USA, we are not vassals of the USA and we do not want to depend on anybody else to defend our own interests or our own agenda. This is why the French army has independent expeditionary and nuclear deterrent capabilities and why nearly all of our military kit is designed and produced either locally or in partnership with nearby European countries. It's not that we don't trust the Americans per se (although opinions may differ on that topic), but we don't want to have to. ArianeGroup also manufactures the M51 missile that goes inside our SSBNs and unlike the Brits we do not accept depending on Americans supplying us with the missiles for our nuclear deterrent.

contrarian1234 2y ago
It seems just a ton of money and R&D down the drain developing something already obsolete for some tiny and very theoretical advantage. It seems more sensible to lose a tiny bit of independence for a small window of time and instead use the money to develop an actual state of the art rocket.
- boricj 2y ago
  De Gaulle would be rolling in his grave hearing this. The point is not about economic efficiency. The point is that we're not one embargo on foreign components or systems away from crippling our capabilities and surrendering our ability to act independently. The Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier almost got immobilized back in the early 2000s due to withholding of spare parts from the USA because they were pissed we called bullshit on their Iraq WMD claims. The USA routinely uses ITAR as a pressuring tactic to stop European weapon sales to foreign countries, which is why we're actively scrubbing every last ITAR component from all of our weapon systems. Just because we're allies doesn't mean that the other party has or will have our best interests at heart. The Americans have proven to be quite temperamental and under-handed when our strategic objectives aren't aligned with theirs.
- mrmlz 2y ago
  It is absolutely not a "theoretical advantage". America is not an altruistic partner when it comes to strategic products.

badcppdev 2y ago

Sometimes nation states might disagree on what should be done in certain circumstances. An example of this is 39 years ago on this day the French government blew up a civilian boat in New Zealand [0]. Crazy but true. Having independent capabilities is part of being a sovereign rather than vassal state. 0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_Rainbow_Warrior https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_Rainbow_Warrior

yourusername 2y ago

>Are the Europeans wworried that "between now and 2030s" the US will cut off their access to space? Both US presidential candidates are not mentally well. Who knows what they might do.