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> to review startups' business plans How exactly do you imagine a government contract working if it's not reviewed before being granted? > That they're still

by arlort 1y ago

> to review startups' business plans How exactly do you imagine a government contract working if it's not reviewed before being granted? > That they're still ambivalent whether they should pursue reusability or not So they shouldn't verify if a proposal is credible because that's too much bureaucracy but they should dictate to the companies how they want to approach the problem rather than letting each company make their own plans and see who comes up with the best proposal?

rapsey 1y ago
The government should be a regulator and set ground rules. It should provide a market and clear requirements. Then leave private business alone to meet those requirements. If they need funding, leave the business to the VC industry.
- jeeeb 1y ago
  They’re offering to fund 160 million euros to bootstrap private enterprises providing launch services to the ESA. Of course they want to review the business plan to make sure it’s viable before dropping a bundle of government money on some random company.
  - ghaff 1y ago
    To compare, meanwhile Astra just $80 million to relaunch (so to speak).
  - rapsey 1y ago
    Which is completely the wrong way of doing it. They are the market. So define it and leave it to private industry to fund and develop the capabilities to meet their requirements. If they say, we are willing to spend X amount of money on Y number of launches. You can rent our launch sites for tests. Here is a list of requirements. They would see incredible results. But no europe must micromanage and do things in their own bureaucratic way that has always failed.
- croes 1y ago
  That doesn’t really work if you try to create competitors to already established companies in a limited market
- inglor_cz 1y ago
  The EU is mostly stringent on the environment, and single-use rockets are pretty bad for the environment: all the metal and sophisticated parts must be produced, only to be thrown into the ocean. I would expect reusability to be a requirement based on that factor alone. You ca produce carbon-neutral fuel, but there is a lot of environmental load involved in production of the very rockets.
  - jeroen79 1y ago
    reusability is mainly done for cost instead of environment, but you need to launch a lot to re-cup the costs, and esa is not a commercial org like spacex. I do think the ESA rockets use a more eco friendly fuel then others, that is probably more important then some metal on the seabed.
    - perihelions 1y ago
      Solid rocket fuel is one of the less eco-friendly things that exists. A fully-stacked Ariane 6 is, by mass, 11% chlorine.
perihelions 1y ago
- "they should dictate to the companies how they want to approach the problem" No; I mean they should define the problem they need solved. If they're too unfocused to define that problem as "mass-produced reusable rockets", that's a strong signal they've already lost. There's a dozen newspace startups pursuing reusability, and it's Europe's loss that none of them are in Europe.
- verzali 1y ago
  No, the problem should be "find a way to launch x tons for <€Y, and be able to do that z times a year". If mass produced reusable rockets are the best solution then companies will propose that.
  - Teever 1y ago
    Do you actually think that there are any viable alternatives to reusable rockets as a solution to this problem?
    - verzali 1y ago
      There could be? People are smart, maybe someone would come up with a viable approach. Point is, if reusable rockets are the only viable approach, then everyone will use that approach to meet the requirement.
notahacker 1y ago
> How exactly do you imagine a government contract working if it's not reviewed before being granted? This. ESA's grant approval process is, to its credit, usually considerably more focused on technical excellence than handwavy projections and box ticking common in other government grant applications and tenders, and whilst PSS forms may be a PITA, you'd think a company destined to solve the hard physics and unit economics problems of building a viable commercial launch service could figure out how to fill them in when given a EUR160m incentive to do so. The European Launcher Challenge is based off the NASA COTS programme that originally funded the Falcon 9 (just with less money, because Europe, which is a bigger problem than straw bureaucrats) Don't know why people seem to think SpaceX got that money through NASA's magical genius American foresight anticipating Starlink, as opposed them being impressed with how SpaceX complied with their requests for very detailed milestone based plans (which two companies that failed to make progress also managed...)

by arlort 1y ago

rapsey 1y ago

The government should be a regulator and set ground rules. It should provide a market and clear requirements. Then leave private business alone to meet those requirements. If they need funding, leave the business to the VC industry.

jeeeb 1y ago
They’re offering to fund 160 million euros to bootstrap private enterprises providing launch services to the ESA. Of course they want to review the business plan to make sure it’s viable before dropping a bundle of government money on some random company.
- ghaff 1y ago
  To compare, meanwhile Astra just $80 million to relaunch (so to speak).
- rapsey 1y ago
  Which is completely the wrong way of doing it. They are the market. So define it and leave it to private industry to fund and develop the capabilities to meet their requirements. If they say, we are willing to spend X amount of money on Y number of launches. You can rent our launch sites for tests. Here is a list of requirements. They would see incredible results. But no europe must micromanage and do things in their own bureaucratic way that has always failed.
croes 1y ago
That doesn’t really work if you try to create competitors to already established companies in a limited market
inglor_cz 1y ago
The EU is mostly stringent on the environment, and single-use rockets are pretty bad for the environment: all the metal and sophisticated parts must be produced, only to be thrown into the ocean. I would expect reusability to be a requirement based on that factor alone. You ca produce carbon-neutral fuel, but there is a lot of environmental load involved in production of the very rockets.
- jeroen79 1y ago
  reusability is mainly done for cost instead of environment, but you need to launch a lot to re-cup the costs, and esa is not a commercial org like spacex. I do think the ESA rockets use a more eco friendly fuel then others, that is probably more important then some metal on the seabed.
  - perihelions 1y ago
    Solid rocket fuel is one of the less eco-friendly things that exists. A fully-stacked Ariane 6 is, by mass, 11% chlorine.

perihelions 1y ago

- "they should dictate to the companies how they want to approach the problem" No; I mean they should define the problem they need solved. If they're too unfocused to define that problem as "mass-produced reusable rockets", that's a strong signal they've already lost. There's a dozen newspace startups pursuing reusability, and it's Europe's loss that none of them are in Europe.

verzali 1y ago
No, the problem should be "find a way to launch x tons for <€Y, and be able to do that z times a year". If mass produced reusable rockets are the best solution then companies will propose that.
- Teever 1y ago
  Do you actually think that there are any viable alternatives to reusable rockets as a solution to this problem?
  - verzali 1y ago
    There could be? People are smart, maybe someone would come up with a viable approach. Point is, if reusable rockets are the only viable approach, then everyone will use that approach to meet the requirement.

notahacker 1y ago

> How exactly do you imagine a government contract working if it's not reviewed before being granted? This. ESA's grant approval process is, to its credit, usually considerably more focused on technical excellence than handwavy projections and box ticking common in other government grant applications and tenders, and whilst PSS forms may be a PITA, you'd think a company destined to solve the hard physics and unit economics problems of building a viable commercial launch service could figure out how to fill them in when given a EUR160m incentive to do so. The European Launcher Challenge is based off the NASA COTS programme that originally funded the Falcon 9 (just with less money, because Europe, which is a bigger problem than straw bureaucrats) Don't know why people seem to think SpaceX got that money through NASA's magical genius American foresight anticipating Starlink, as opposed them being impressed with how SpaceX complied with their requests for very detailed milestone based plans (which two companies that failed to make progress also managed...)