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No, access to space is too strategically important to ever delegate. It’s not something you can buy. Even before the Trump debacle, the USA were extremely unre

No, access to space is too strategically important to ever delegate. It’s not something you can buy. Even before the Trump debacle, the USA were extremely unreliable when it came to satellite images for exemple. Do you remember the fake images passed as Irak developing weapons of mass destruction? Because I certainly do. Europe needs their own launcher in the same way it needs its own defence industry. It’s just sad that it took so long for some members to finally realise that provided they actually did.

JumpCrisscross 1y ago
> access to space is too strategically important to ever delegate New York isn't "delegating" its space access to California, Texas and Florida. (Same as America never saw itself delegating shipbuilding to our Japanese and Korean allies.) I'm not arguing Europe isn't acting rationally. Just that this is the cost of strategic independence. Everyone shares a burden of duplication and diseconomies of scale. It really isn't that long ago that NATO members--America included--didn't think that way.
- pjc50 1y ago
  Interestingly, NY and some other states have de-delegated some health collaboration because they can no longer trust the CDC: https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/northeast-us-states-form-health-alliance-response-federal-vaccine-limits-2025-09-18/ https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/... Politics of division will end up with fragmentation. But yes, Europe does need its own space capability as part of its own military capability in order to remain an independent block without undue external pressure. Conversely, that subordinates the independence of countries within the block, which is why things like an "EU military" haven't got off the ground until now.
  - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
    Yup. If that happens in America between states, it further underlines the argument. We're in a world where soveriegnty must be protected. But in this we lose the peace dividends of comparative advantage and economies of scale.
fransje26 1y ago
> Do you remember the fake images passed as Irak developing weapons of mass destruction? I remember Colin Powell giving a presentation at the UN holding a glass vial of "proof" Irak had WMDs.. What a good thing he didn't drop it, otherwise they would all be "dead"..

JumpCrisscross 1y ago

> access to space is too strategically important to ever delegate New York isn't "delegating" its space access to California, Texas and Florida. (Same as America never saw itself delegating shipbuilding to our Japanese and Korean allies.) I'm not arguing Europe isn't acting rationally. Just that this is the cost of strategic independence. Everyone shares a burden of duplication and diseconomies of scale. It really isn't that long ago that NATO members--America included--didn't think that way.

pjc50 1y ago
Interestingly, NY and some other states have de-delegated some health collaboration because they can no longer trust the CDC: https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/northeast-us-states-form-health-alliance-response-federal-vaccine-limits-2025-09-18/ https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/... Politics of division will end up with fragmentation. But yes, Europe does need its own space capability as part of its own military capability in order to remain an independent block without undue external pressure. Conversely, that subordinates the independence of countries within the block, which is why things like an "EU military" haven't got off the ground until now.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago
  Yup. If that happens in America between states, it further underlines the argument. We're in a world where soveriegnty must be protected. But in this we lose the peace dividends of comparative advantage and economies of scale.

fransje26 1y ago

> Do you remember the fake images passed as Irak developing weapons of mass destruction? I remember Colin Powell giving a presentation at the UN holding a glass vial of "proof" Irak had WMDs.. What a good thing he didn't drop it, otherwise they would all be "dead"..