4 ms·

But do they have the capabilities to put satellites into orbit cost-effectively without supporting 'evil Elon'?

by bluescrn 2y ago

INTPenis 2y ago
This may come as a shock but European companies have been putting commercial satelites into orbit since the 70s.
- boxed 2y ago
  Yea, at enormous cost, and very slowly. Europe was also totally without any launch capacity for quite a while since Ariane 6 didn't work out great.
  - josefx 2y ago
    The Ariane 6 is mainly for larger payloads. Europe was still using Vega and Vega-C for satellites .
  - rsynnott 2y ago
    > Europe was also totally without any launch capacity for quite a while since Ariane 6 didn't work out great. As someone else mentioned, Vega C was operational during this period, but also, define 'quite a while'. Last Ariane 5 launch was in mid 2023, First Ariane 6 launch was in mid 2024. Eutelsat is a commercial company, of course, and doesn't have to use Arianespace/ESA stuff; they have in the past used Ariane 4 and 5, Proton, Falcon 9, and various Atlases and Deltas, and are a fairly obvious candidate customer for Blue Origin.
    - boxed 2y ago
      My bad. I should have said heavy lift capacity, not all capacity. I screwed that up.
  - Yeul 2y ago
    Independence has a price. Something European countries are very aware of.
benterix 2y ago
I don't think he is "evil" as in "wanting to make people suffer", just going through a peculiar period of his life and because of the power he has he is able to influence the lives of others more than earlier when he was just an interesting and at times funny Internet phenomenon. Apart from that, we do see the world change in front of our eyes so when your ex-allies are becoming unstable it's natural you are evaluating your options, it's not specifically about Musk in this case.
- louthy 2y ago
  This isn’t a ‘phase’, this is who he is [1] [1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/15/elon-musk-british-diver-thai-cave-rescue-pedo-twitter https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/15/elon-musk...
- Terr_ 2y ago
  > He was such a legend on Komarr. And yet when I finally met him, he seemed just an ordinary fellow. [...] He was not... what I expected." > Not a monster? Laisa was a polite Komarran; you had to give her credit for that. "Real monsters," observed Miles, answering her thought instead of her words, "often are just ordinary men. Only more confused in their thinking. [...]" -- Memory by Lois McMaster Bujold
  - wiredfool 2y ago
    Green Silk Rooms.
    - Terr_ 2y ago
      For everybody else: > "He was just a little villain. An old-fashioned craftsman, making crimes one-off. The really unforgivable acts are committed by calm men in beautiful green silk rooms, who deal death wholesale, by the shipload, without lust, or anger, or desire, or any redeeming emotion to excuse them but cold fear of some pretended future. But the crimes they hope to prevent in that future are imaginary. The ones they commit in the present--they are real." -- Shards of Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold
_fizz_buzz_ 2y ago
> cost-effectively becomes less relevant when national security is on the line.
- FirmwareBurner 2y ago
  Cost is very much relevant since money doesn't fall from the sky. Someone is still paying for it. @lm28469 I'll edit and answer for you here instead of an additional reply: Falling from the ECB's printers is not free money from "the sky", it's money created by additional inflation, which is a tax on all of us, especially on the poor, which in turn leads to a lower standard of living, desperation and votes towards political extremism. How can people be this economically illiterate is beyond me. You can't complain people are voting right when you're making them poorer through your economic policies. For every action there is a reaction.
  - lm28469 2y ago
    It falls from the ECB printers which isn't too different than from the sky
  - Sammi 2y ago
    No one said it was irrelevant.
- oldpersonintx 2y ago
  [dead]
askl 2y ago
Does "evil Elon" imply there's also a "good Elon"?
- bluescrn 2y ago
  There's a heck of a lot of good people doing great work at SpaceX and Tesla, and all the lashing out at Elon's companies is mostly going to hurt them, not the man himself.
Gud 2y ago
No, but they will soon with Rocket Labs Neutron rocket. Time will tell if moving Rocket Lab to the US was such a wise move. I hope they slowly start shifting their launches to Europe.

But do they have the capabilities to put satellites into orbit cost-effectively without supporting 'evil Elon'?

INTPenis 2y ago

This may come as a shock but European companies have been putting commercial satelites into orbit since the 70s.

boxed 2y ago
Yea, at enormous cost, and very slowly. Europe was also totally without any launch capacity for quite a while since Ariane 6 didn't work out great.
- josefx 2y ago
  The Ariane 6 is mainly for larger payloads. Europe was still using Vega and Vega-C for satellites .
- rsynnott 2y ago
  > Europe was also totally without any launch capacity for quite a while since Ariane 6 didn't work out great. As someone else mentioned, Vega C was operational during this period, but also, define 'quite a while'. Last Ariane 5 launch was in mid 2023, First Ariane 6 launch was in mid 2024. Eutelsat is a commercial company, of course, and doesn't have to use Arianespace/ESA stuff; they have in the past used Ariane 4 and 5, Proton, Falcon 9, and various Atlases and Deltas, and are a fairly obvious candidate customer for Blue Origin.
  - boxed 2y ago
    My bad. I should have said heavy lift capacity, not all capacity. I screwed that up.
- Yeul 2y ago
  Independence has a price. Something European countries are very aware of.

benterix 2y ago

I don't think he is "evil" as in "wanting to make people suffer", just going through a peculiar period of his life and because of the power he has he is able to influence the lives of others more than earlier when he was just an interesting and at times funny Internet phenomenon. Apart from that, we do see the world change in front of our eyes so when your ex-allies are becoming unstable it's natural you are evaluating your options, it's not specifically about Musk in this case.

louthy 2y ago
This isn’t a ‘phase’, this is who he is [1] [1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/15/elon-musk-british-diver-thai-cave-rescue-pedo-twitter https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/15/elon-musk...
Terr_ 2y ago
> He was such a legend on Komarr. And yet when I finally met him, he seemed just an ordinary fellow. [...] He was not... what I expected." > Not a monster? Laisa was a polite Komarran; you had to give her credit for that. "Real monsters," observed Miles, answering her thought instead of her words, "often are just ordinary men. Only more confused in their thinking. [...]" -- Memory by Lois McMaster Bujold
- wiredfool 2y ago
  Green Silk Rooms.
  - Terr_ 2y ago
    For everybody else: > "He was just a little villain. An old-fashioned craftsman, making crimes one-off. The really unforgivable acts are committed by calm men in beautiful green silk rooms, who deal death wholesale, by the shipload, without lust, or anger, or desire, or any redeeming emotion to excuse them but cold fear of some pretended future. But the crimes they hope to prevent in that future are imaginary. The ones they commit in the present--they are real." -- Shards of Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold

_fizz_buzz_ 2y ago

> cost-effectively becomes less relevant when national security is on the line.

FirmwareBurner 2y ago
Cost is very much relevant since money doesn't fall from the sky. Someone is still paying for it. @lm28469 I'll edit and answer for you here instead of an additional reply: Falling from the ECB's printers is not free money from "the sky", it's money created by additional inflation, which is a tax on all of us, especially on the poor, which in turn leads to a lower standard of living, desperation and votes towards political extremism. How can people be this economically illiterate is beyond me. You can't complain people are voting right when you're making them poorer through your economic policies. For every action there is a reaction.
- lm28469 2y ago
  It falls from the ECB printers which isn't too different than from the sky
- Sammi 2y ago
  No one said it was irrelevant.
oldpersonintx 2y ago
[dead]

askl 2y ago

Does "evil Elon" imply there's also a "good Elon"?

bluescrn 2y ago
There's a heck of a lot of good people doing great work at SpaceX and Tesla, and all the lashing out at Elon's companies is mostly going to hurt them, not the man himself.

Gud 2y ago

No, but they will soon with Rocket Labs Neutron rocket. Time will tell if moving Rocket Lab to the US was such a wise move. I hope they slowly start shifting their launches to Europe.