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> assuming you ignore Europe’s smallsat industry that’s constantly ridesharing with SpaceX. I'm not saying "build it and they will come" is a bad saying, my po
by pyrale 2y ago
> assuming you ignore Europe’s smallsat industry that’s constantly ridesharing with SpaceX.
I'm not saying "build it and they will come" is a bad saying, my point is that it's not a very good talking point when you try to sell stuff to European governments.
> SpaceX was working on high-frequency low-cost launch before Starlink was in anyone’s mind. The launch cadence caused Starlink, not the other way.
Before that, they had a sugar daddy billionaire.
Obviously, Arianespace doesn't have that.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> my point is that it's not a very good talking point when you try to sell stuff to European governments The European smallsat market already exists. The global launch market already exists. This isn’t build it and they’ll come, it’s they built it and they’re going there. > Before that, they had a sugar daddy billionaire. Obviously, Arianespace doesn't have that The ESA has poured more money into Arianespace than NASA and Elon combined have put into SpaceX. Again, Europe is running the track America would have it NASA hadn’t done COTS. That path would have precluded NASA SpaceX and left ULA with a monopoly where they could argue there was no other choice and no market for cheap, frequent launch. Again: Arianespace underwrites SpaceX’s transatlantic dominance. For all the things Elon rails at, notice his silence on Ariane.
- rqtwteye 2y ago"Before that, they had a sugar daddy billionaire. Obviously, Arianespace doesn't have that." Ariane have ESA as sugardaddy. And SLS has NASA. Both are consuming more more money than SpaceX with less results. The main difference is that nobody pushes them to be more ambitious.