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> 14:42: It's a shame—it's obviously historic as the first attempt at an orbital rocket launch from Europe. And I pointed out, yeah, Germany was pretty much the

> 14:42: It's a shame—it's obviously historic as the first attempt at an orbital rocket launch from Europe. And I pointed out, yeah, Germany was pretty much the first to build big liquid-fueled rockets, yet somehow, Western Europe has never launched a rocket to orbit. They've been beaten by Asia, Russia, North America, South America, Africa, and Australasia. Rockets have been launched from all those continents, but Western Europe has not had an orbital rocket launch in all its glorious history. This is such an interesting point. Europe has thrived, and yet also stagnated in some ways, in the post-WWII story arc. I am biased as a fan of of space launch and Europe, but this feels like a positive moment.

0_____0 2y ago
ESA has had loads of orbital launches. Arianespace is a French company and the world's first commercial space launch co. Not sure it's reasonable to discount EU as stagnated. There are few places in EU that make sense to launch from - the ideal launch site is from the equator, from land, with an empty ocean to the East to launch over. Look at the EU geographically and you can see why the European launches would chose a non EU site. Now with the US and Russia both becoming poor candidates geopolitically, I suppose it makes sense to explore local options, even if they're less efficient/safe/convenient.
- ekimekim 2y ago
  I'm surprised they don't see more activity for polar orbits. You want to launch north-west or south-west and into ocean, northern scandanavia seems perfect for that.
  - input_sh 2y ago
    Going westwards means going against Earth's rotation, requiring extra fuel and what not. That's why almost every rocket goes eastwards.
    - dguest 2y ago
      Polar orbits have to go west, because they have to counter the earth's rotation if they aim to cross over the pole. Further north means less rotation to counter.
- rsynnott 2y ago
  > Now with the US and Russia both becoming poor candidates geopolitically, I suppose it makes sense to explore local options, even if they're less efficient/safe/convenient. I don't think that's the reason. The ESA exclusively uses a spaceport in French Guiana, which is politically in France and in the EU, but is not geographically in Europe. This company plans to use the Guiana spaceport, too, for equatorial launches (using the old Diamant launch facility). But the Norway site is fine for _polar_ launches.
- qwytw 2y ago
  > it's reasonable to discount EU as stagnated In this case it is. It peaked in the 1990s with resurgency after Ariane 5 came out but it hasn't been competitive for many years now. Arianespace was kind of the SpaceX of the 80s and 90s and IIRC they had the majority of the market for a few years. Unfortunately Europe got permanently got stuck in the early 2000s in quite a few ways.
HyprMusic 2y ago
It's not that Europe has never developed the tech... the UK developed and launched an orbital rocket in the 60s/70s but it had to be shipped to Australia to be launched. I can't remember the specifics but I recall reading that Europe just isn't a geographically optimal place to launch rockets. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Arrow https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Arrow
- facile3232 2y ago
  It's more than suitable if you don't care where the debris lands.
  - lupusreal 2y ago
    Like China.
- qwytw 2y ago
  > has never developed the tech Well... an European company controlled > 50% of the commercial orbital launch market back in the late 80s and 80s. That might have been tricky to achieve without developing the tech first.
rsynnott 2y ago
Europe launches lots of rockets. Just not _from_ (geographical) Europe, because Europe is a bad place to launch equatorial orbit rockets from; it's too high latitude, and there's too much stuff for bits of the rocket to fall on (most launches are equatorial/equatorial-ish, and for those launching east is desireable, but obviously not practical in most of Europe). European rockets are launched from French Guiana (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guiana_Space_Centre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guiana_Space_Centre), which is part of France, and politically in Europe (it's in the EU), but not geographically in Europe. The Norway site is reasonable for polar orbit rockets, but this company appear to plan to use the existing ESA spaceport in Guiana for equatorial launches.
- themgt 2y ago
  Orbital launches in 2024: USA: 158 China: 68 Russia: 17 Japan: 7 India: 5 Iran: 4 Europe: 3 North Korea: 1 https://spacestatsonline.com/launches/country https://spacestatsonline.com/launches/country
  - pb7 2y ago
    This is just another of many examples of Europe's decline in global relevance. It's what happens when your chief innovation is regulation.
    - perihelions 2y ago
      I don't know if it's regulation, or a combination of the other business factors HN brings up in the discussions about European startups. But the symptoms are alarming. Forget the graphs of past launches—look towards the future: check up how many newspace startups are being founded in each region, and how many are in the reusable launcher race. The EU has zero. (Isar isn't working towards reusable rockets). There are, as far as I find, fat-0 European startups working on it. USA has, by my subjective count, five—SpaceX, Blue Origin, Rocket Labs, Relativity Space, and Stoke Space. That's just the big ones. China has—I'm too lazy to count right now, there are seriously too many search results. Deep Blue and Landspace seem to be the most talked-about ones (at least in the West). And—not only are they in serious competition to replicate Starlink, they have two groups in a race competing on that (Guowang, and Thousand Sails). https://www.wsj.com/world/china/chinas-own-elon-musks-are-racing-to-catch-up-to-spacex-74b02a95 https://www.wsj.com/world/china/chinas-own-elon-musks-are-ra... The 27 countries of the EU put together have 0. What the heck is failing in the EU?
ge96 2y ago
There was another famous rocket crash where it just tipped over, I think it had an overflow problem Oh yeh it's Ariane flight V88

0_____0 2y ago

ESA has had loads of orbital launches. Arianespace is a French company and the world's first commercial space launch co. Not sure it's reasonable to discount EU as stagnated. There are few places in EU that make sense to launch from - the ideal launch site is from the equator, from land, with an empty ocean to the East to launch over. Look at the EU geographically and you can see why the European launches would chose a non EU site. Now with the US and Russia both becoming poor candidates geopolitically, I suppose it makes sense to explore local options, even if they're less efficient/safe/convenient.

ekimekim 2y ago
I'm surprised they don't see more activity for polar orbits. You want to launch north-west or south-west and into ocean, northern scandanavia seems perfect for that.
- input_sh 2y ago
  Going westwards means going against Earth's rotation, requiring extra fuel and what not. That's why almost every rocket goes eastwards.
  - dguest 2y ago
    Polar orbits have to go west, because they have to counter the earth's rotation if they aim to cross over the pole. Further north means less rotation to counter.
rsynnott 2y ago
> Now with the US and Russia both becoming poor candidates geopolitically, I suppose it makes sense to explore local options, even if they're less efficient/safe/convenient. I don't think that's the reason. The ESA exclusively uses a spaceport in French Guiana, which is politically in France and in the EU, but is not geographically in Europe. This company plans to use the Guiana spaceport, too, for equatorial launches (using the old Diamant launch facility). But the Norway site is fine for _polar_ launches.
qwytw 2y ago
> it's reasonable to discount EU as stagnated In this case it is. It peaked in the 1990s with resurgency after Ariane 5 came out but it hasn't been competitive for many years now. Arianespace was kind of the SpaceX of the 80s and 90s and IIRC they had the majority of the market for a few years. Unfortunately Europe got permanently got stuck in the early 2000s in quite a few ways.

HyprMusic 2y ago

It's not that Europe has never developed the tech... the UK developed and launched an orbital rocket in the 60s/70s but it had to be shipped to Australia to be launched. I can't remember the specifics but I recall reading that Europe just isn't a geographically optimal place to launch rockets. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Arrow https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Arrow

facile3232 2y ago
It's more than suitable if you don't care where the debris lands.
- lupusreal 2y ago
  Like China.
qwytw 2y ago
> has never developed the tech Well... an European company controlled > 50% of the commercial orbital launch market back in the late 80s and 80s. That might have been tricky to achieve without developing the tech first.

rsynnott 2y ago

Europe launches lots of rockets. Just not _from_ (geographical) Europe, because Europe is a bad place to launch equatorial orbit rockets from; it's too high latitude, and there's too much stuff for bits of the rocket to fall on (most launches are equatorial/equatorial-ish, and for those launching east is desireable, but obviously not practical in most of Europe). European rockets are launched from French Guiana (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guiana_Space_Centre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guiana_Space_Centre), which is part of France, and politically in Europe (it's in the EU), but not geographically in Europe. The Norway site is reasonable for polar orbit rockets, but this company appear to plan to use the existing ESA spaceport in Guiana for equatorial launches.

themgt 2y ago
Orbital launches in 2024: USA: 158 China: 68 Russia: 17 Japan: 7 India: 5 Iran: 4 Europe: 3 North Korea: 1 https://spacestatsonline.com/launches/country https://spacestatsonline.com/launches/country
- pb7 2y ago
  This is just another of many examples of Europe's decline in global relevance. It's what happens when your chief innovation is regulation.
  - perihelions 2y ago
    I don't know if it's regulation, or a combination of the other business factors HN brings up in the discussions about European startups. But the symptoms are alarming. Forget the graphs of past launches—look towards the future: check up how many newspace startups are being founded in each region, and how many are in the reusable launcher race. The EU has zero. (Isar isn't working towards reusable rockets). There are, as far as I find, fat-0 European startups working on it. USA has, by my subjective count, five—SpaceX, Blue Origin, Rocket Labs, Relativity Space, and Stoke Space. That's just the big ones. China has—I'm too lazy to count right now, there are seriously too many search results. Deep Blue and Landspace seem to be the most talked-about ones (at least in the West). And—not only are they in serious competition to replicate Starlink, they have two groups in a race competing on that (Guowang, and Thousand Sails). https://www.wsj.com/world/china/chinas-own-elon-musks-are-racing-to-catch-up-to-spacex-74b02a95 https://www.wsj.com/world/china/chinas-own-elon-musks-are-ra... The 27 countries of the EU put together have 0. What the heck is failing in the EU?

ge96 2y ago

There was another famous rocket crash where it just tipped over, I think it had an overflow problem Oh yeh it's Ariane flight V88