7 ms·

Congratulation and great news ! For Europe, but also the world, space access is one of those frontiers we can (and I believe will) see truly opened in my lifeti

by nolok 1mo ago

Congratulation and great news ! For Europe, but also the world, space access is one of those frontiers we can (and I believe will) see truly opened in my lifetime and I find that truly awesome. Interestingly there still seems to be a difference in approach between "few launch, expected to go well" in europe and "many launch as trial and error" in the US, with other countries falling somewhere in between those two limits, it's often seen as a threat here of "if we don't do more more often we won't make any progress" but ignoring the economical side (and I think it's fair, given than even with massive subsidies SpaceX is not financially viable until it feed itself through Starlink) it's been a remarkable series of years for new European vehicules launch success. Also one thing I have to point: > Europe now has sovereign access to space. I understand what is meant here, and of course said company need to push that forward, but French Guyana is full french territory, it's not even a foreign territory. It's part of the EU (known as the outermost region of the European Union), EU law applies, it's citizens are EU citizens, EU citizens from other countries can freely move and work and live there ... It's technicaly more EU than Norway. But less Europe than Norway, sure. Still, on the context of "sovereign access", I would argue both side of that coin have their attributes, and for long term sovereignty I would prefer EU territory instead of "inside-europe-Belarus" for exemple.

3938848484 1mo ago
[flagged]
- nolok 1mo ago
  Eh hard disagree there, the way I see it there is no more squabble between France and Poland than there is between Texas and California or between Spain and Romania compared to New york and Virginia. In fact, I would say we have LESS of it. The only thing we need is to actually stop ignoring the forest for the tree and see that the world moved on beyond our petty local borders and we're lucky enough to have found a system where we're stronger together, to the point where we matter in the world and can't be ignored or pushed aside, while also protecting the core of each of our own cultural societies (langugage, history, ...), and only fools would let that go because they're too close minded to see it.
  - 3938848484 1mo ago
    [dead]
    - frikskit 1mo ago
      That was not a useful metaphor, but by all means try again (if you want) and teach us something interesting (and concrete) based on your unique experience.
    - embedding-shape 1mo ago
      Must be incredibly humbling experience to not realize EU is a union of independent countries and the US is a federation of states until you work for one of the delegations, wasn't it? Most of us pick up on that even without professional experience about it.
      - 3938848484 1mo ago
        [dead]
        embedding-shape 1mo ago
        > See the thing is when we studied law in Europe a long time ago we were sold on this dream that Europe would become like the United States Eeh, what school was this? I think most public schools (at least those me and people near me) attended, it was taught that EU is nothing like the US, as we're all individual countries and everyone wants to remain as such, but we still want to collaborate although we're somewhat different from each other, and been killing each other since forever. I guess that's why second world war and similar things are such a big part of our history lessons, rather than diving deep into the history of US or Australia or whatever. > It really takes the soul out of you. The way people work in the US and China is completely different. They DO things. Europeans just talk about doing things, and then talk behind each others backs. For me the difference is between politicians and people actually doing the work. And my personally experience points towards this split existing equally everywhere, in China, in the US, in Europe and everywhere else I've been. The higher up the political ranks you get, the more people like to talk, the less they like doing. I feel like this is very evident in the US too, looking at how productive and efficient companies are vs research labs living on grants vs federal government vs local governments, the scale is completely different, and same goes in Europe as well, at least from what I can tell. Evidentially, in the high ranks of the European Parliament, things are exactly the same as higher ranking politicians everywhere, they just like to talk and grandstand and pretend to know what they're talking about. But I think this is true in the US too, or in China, these sort of people just like talking and discussing things forever, for better or worse.
- embedding-shape 1mo ago
  > no motivation to work together. You have to be absolutely blind if you can't even read history going back just a few decades, which makes it evidently clear that we have more motivation to work together than pretty much any continent out there. Doesn't help that we all know that the two world wars we've had so far, has come from our continent, so yes, we have a lot of motivation to work together.
- KronisLV 1mo ago
  What a disillusioned take, I'm sorry for whatever chain of events and experiences lead to you having it. Personally, living in the Baltics, even a flawed and somewhat fragmented Europe is better than being under a Russian boot. So it's more of a "optimism and work towards a better future or perish" situation. That's an easy choice.
TitaRusell 1mo ago
French Guyana is in South America and our Burger friends have reinstated the Monroe doctrine.
- nolok 1mo ago
  Yeah but although the crazies in charge have been very negative toward our continent and my country (Frace), they've also steered very clear away from any seizing claim about any of our territory, despite going against anyone from Canada to Denmark to Spain to UK, to ... Deep down, we're an annoyingly arrogant little country with delusions of grandeur salivating at the thought to prove to our EU neighbors how strong we meant it when we said we would accept to oppose the US in case of military attack and I think they knew we may actually mean it and not back down when it start (see also: Denmark leak about how France was essentially willing to provide whatever to help defend Greenland). I'm not saying this in a "we're awesome" way, more like a hard case of the TACO, bullies avoid the ones who punch back. Nothing would be happening in Iran right now if they had not believed in advance Iran would lie down like Venezuela did after losing its leader, though most would say confusing the two situation makes no sense. Ultimately this is so much lost time and resources for nothing of value, it's so utterly disappointing...
  - wallst07 1mo ago
    Who is "(Frace)" and what are you talking about? You all need to watch actions more than what people say.
  - bojan 1mo ago
    > Deep down, we're an annoyingly arrogant little country with delusions of grandeur salivating at the thought to prove to our EU neighbors how strong we meant it when we said we would accept to oppose the US in case of military attack and I think they knew we may actually mean it and not back down when it start (see also: Denmark leak about how France was essentially willing to provide whatever to help defend Greenland). And the rest of Europe loves you for that! But we're also very worried if that'll all remain so if Le Pen or Mélenchon win next year.
sisve 1mo ago
Did you just compare Belarus and Norway now? Is Inside-Europe-Norway not better then Belarus? I would consider us (norway) a stable and good partner to the EU. Give us 25 years and we will join EU if it still exists:)
- nolok 1mo ago
  No, what you say is quite literally my argument; that the "Europe" is not the argument I value by itself for sovereignty
yostrovs 1mo ago
French Guyana is occupied territory. That's pretty clear. And so it should be deoccupied and the locals will decide whether to use their land as "sovereign' launch port by Europeans.
- cdavid 1mo ago
  The population rejected more autonomy with a large majority (>70 %) in the last referundum.
  - yostrovs 1mo ago
    It's not France. The locals like that France gives them goodies so they vote for more goodies and France gives more goodies so they vote accordingly.
    - deleted 1mo ago
      [deleted]
    - mpweiher 1mo ago
      So you are opposed to self-determination. Glad we cleared that up. Who then gets to decide? You?
      - bilbo0s 1mo ago
        >Who then gets to decide? You? It's a new world. He who has the biggest guns makes the rules. I don't like it, but in the Caribbean [probably throughout the world] these days, you really are dealing with the raw realities of power in a way you didn't have to previously. I doubt the EU has the stomach to confront Trump. And French Guiana is not Africa, there will be no China coming to save them.
        mpweiher 1mo ago
        I doubt that HN user yostrovs is Trump.
deleted 1mo ago
[deleted]
ifwinterco 1mo ago
[dead]
teiferer 1mo ago
> > Europe now has sovereign access to space. > I understand what is meant here, and of course said company need to push that forward, but French Guyana is full french territory, it's not even a foreign territory. Does French Guyana have a usable space rocket? Cause if not then you are completely missing the point of what "space access" means here. It's not about a spot from where to start the rockets. It's about being able to build them. No matter French Guyana or Norway or central Berlin. And that's obvious to everybody including yourself, so why you opened the French-nationalist angle here with lots of angry messages with all sorts of politics is unclear to everybody watching.
- mpweiher 1mo ago
  > Does French Guyana have a usable space rocket? Yes: the Ariane rockets. "French Guyana" is part of France, which is part of the EU. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Guiana https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Guiana https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_(rocket_family) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_(rocket_family)
  - teiferer 1mo ago
    Ok, then why don't they launch from Norway and why is the article considered news even though the whole European package already exists?
    - mpweiher 1mo ago
      1. Who is "they"? Isar Aerospace and Arianespace are distinct entities. 2. Isar Aerospace is the first fully private European company (a startup) to do this. Arianespace and the Ariane rockets have heavy state/ESA involvement. 3. It is the first launch to orbit from geographically European soil. French Guiana is politically part of France, but geographically obviously part of South America. 4. Why would everyone have to launch from the same place, in your esteemed opinion? Why are some US payloads launched from California, some from Florida, and soon some from Texas and Louisiana? 5. Are all launch locations equally suitable for all orbits? Are all orbits equally suitable for all missions? 6. Norway is a lot closer to the rest of Europe than French Guiana is. 7. Why was SpaceX newsworthy, particularly on a startup-centric site, when NASA already exists?
inemesitaffia 1mo ago
>massive subsidies Misinformation
- eblume 1mo ago
  I was curious, so I checked. I don't know if this is a reputable source: https://subsidytracker.goodjobsfirst.org/parent/space-exploration-technologies-spacex https://subsidytracker.goodjobsfirst.org/parent/space-explor... If that's correct, then yeah, I struggle to find much to be upset about with this list. $106M federal loan against what they've built feels, I don't know, about correct for a telecom. Light even. The tax abatement stuff sounds gross but not surprising. (There are other forms of subsidy than this list would show, though! So, yeah, always going to be an argument.)
  - inemesitaffia 1mo ago
    The ~$106 million was an EXIM loan for an Israeli satellite launch. (Export financing) https://www.exim.gov/news/ex-im-bank-approves-1054-million-loan-finance-spacex-launch https://www.exim.gov/news/ex-im-bank-approves-1054-million-l... Unless the solar was also supplied by SpaceX (possible;unlikely) that amount doesn't reflect what SpaceX got i.e SpaceX gets it's cash immediately and the debtor is the Israeli launch company. (Does that constitute a subsidy to SpaceX or the foreign company?) The launch failed and SpaceX was on the hook for the money or a replacement launch as covered here https://spaceflightnow.com/2017/10/26/israels-spacecom-books-launch-with-spacex-using-pre-paid-amos-6-credits/ https://spaceflightnow.com/2017/10/26/israels-spacecom-books... There was also financing for other launches like this https://spacenews.com/ex-im-bank-finances-spacex-launch-deal/ https://spacenews.com/ex-im-bank-finances-spacex-launch-deal... and I wonder why it wasn't included. I also wonder if Spacecom, the Israeli provider didn't get other EXIM loans for its launches. SpaceX has been trying to get actual federal subsidies for ages but has been failing. (RDOF, BEAD) As for the tax abatement, it's the exact tax abatement other companies have got in the past, not something custom created for SpaceX. SpaceX spent ~$7 million a day before swallowing xAi (monumental error IMO) I don't know what amount is supposed to be massive compared to its size.
NetMageSCW 1mo ago
SpaceX has hadn’t any subsidies in a long time and has had less in subsidies than Ariane or Isra, so what are you criticizing?
FpUser 1mo ago
>"I would prefer EU territory instead of "inside-europe-Belarus" for exemple." Unless Great Orange or his successor/s would start having ideas

by nolok 1mo ago

3938848484 1mo ago

[flagged]

nolok 1mo ago
Eh hard disagree there, the way I see it there is no more squabble between France and Poland than there is between Texas and California or between Spain and Romania compared to New york and Virginia. In fact, I would say we have LESS of it. The only thing we need is to actually stop ignoring the forest for the tree and see that the world moved on beyond our petty local borders and we're lucky enough to have found a system where we're stronger together, to the point where we matter in the world and can't be ignored or pushed aside, while also protecting the core of each of our own cultural societies (langugage, history, ...), and only fools would let that go because they're too close minded to see it.
- 3938848484 1mo ago
  [dead]
  - frikskit 1mo ago
    That was not a useful metaphor, but by all means try again (if you want) and teach us something interesting (and concrete) based on your unique experience.
  - embedding-shape 1mo ago
    Must be incredibly humbling experience to not realize EU is a union of independent countries and the US is a federation of states until you work for one of the delegations, wasn't it? Most of us pick up on that even without professional experience about it.
    - 3938848484 1mo ago
      [dead]
      - embedding-shape 1mo ago
        > See the thing is when we studied law in Europe a long time ago we were sold on this dream that Europe would become like the United States Eeh, what school was this? I think most public schools (at least those me and people near me) attended, it was taught that EU is nothing like the US, as we're all individual countries and everyone wants to remain as such, but we still want to collaborate although we're somewhat different from each other, and been killing each other since forever. I guess that's why second world war and similar things are such a big part of our history lessons, rather than diving deep into the history of US or Australia or whatever. > It really takes the soul out of you. The way people work in the US and China is completely different. They DO things. Europeans just talk about doing things, and then talk behind each others backs. For me the difference is between politicians and people actually doing the work. And my personally experience points towards this split existing equally everywhere, in China, in the US, in Europe and everywhere else I've been. The higher up the political ranks you get, the more people like to talk, the less they like doing. I feel like this is very evident in the US too, looking at how productive and efficient companies are vs research labs living on grants vs federal government vs local governments, the scale is completely different, and same goes in Europe as well, at least from what I can tell. Evidentially, in the high ranks of the European Parliament, things are exactly the same as higher ranking politicians everywhere, they just like to talk and grandstand and pretend to know what they're talking about. But I think this is true in the US too, or in China, these sort of people just like talking and discussing things forever, for better or worse.
embedding-shape 1mo ago
> no motivation to work together. You have to be absolutely blind if you can't even read history going back just a few decades, which makes it evidently clear that we have more motivation to work together than pretty much any continent out there. Doesn't help that we all know that the two world wars we've had so far, has come from our continent, so yes, we have a lot of motivation to work together.
KronisLV 1mo ago
What a disillusioned take, I'm sorry for whatever chain of events and experiences lead to you having it. Personally, living in the Baltics, even a flawed and somewhat fragmented Europe is better than being under a Russian boot. So it's more of a "optimism and work towards a better future or perish" situation. That's an easy choice.

TitaRusell 1mo ago

French Guyana is in South America and our Burger friends have reinstated the Monroe doctrine.

nolok 1mo ago
Yeah but although the crazies in charge have been very negative toward our continent and my country (Frace), they've also steered very clear away from any seizing claim about any of our territory, despite going against anyone from Canada to Denmark to Spain to UK, to ... Deep down, we're an annoyingly arrogant little country with delusions of grandeur salivating at the thought to prove to our EU neighbors how strong we meant it when we said we would accept to oppose the US in case of military attack and I think they knew we may actually mean it and not back down when it start (see also: Denmark leak about how France was essentially willing to provide whatever to help defend Greenland). I'm not saying this in a "we're awesome" way, more like a hard case of the TACO, bullies avoid the ones who punch back. Nothing would be happening in Iran right now if they had not believed in advance Iran would lie down like Venezuela did after losing its leader, though most would say confusing the two situation makes no sense. Ultimately this is so much lost time and resources for nothing of value, it's so utterly disappointing...
- wallst07 1mo ago
  Who is "(Frace)" and what are you talking about? You all need to watch actions more than what people say.
- bojan 1mo ago
  > Deep down, we're an annoyingly arrogant little country with delusions of grandeur salivating at the thought to prove to our EU neighbors how strong we meant it when we said we would accept to oppose the US in case of military attack and I think they knew we may actually mean it and not back down when it start (see also: Denmark leak about how France was essentially willing to provide whatever to help defend Greenland). And the rest of Europe loves you for that! But we're also very worried if that'll all remain so if Le Pen or Mélenchon win next year.

sisve 1mo ago

Did you just compare Belarus and Norway now? Is Inside-Europe-Norway not better then Belarus? I would consider us (norway) a stable and good partner to the EU. Give us 25 years and we will join EU if it still exists:)

nolok 1mo ago
No, what you say is quite literally my argument; that the "Europe" is not the argument I value by itself for sovereignty

yostrovs 1mo ago

French Guyana is occupied territory. That's pretty clear. And so it should be deoccupied and the locals will decide whether to use their land as "sovereign' launch port by Europeans.

cdavid 1mo ago
The population rejected more autonomy with a large majority (>70 %) in the last referundum.
- yostrovs 1mo ago
  It's not France. The locals like that France gives them goodies so they vote for more goodies and France gives more goodies so they vote accordingly.
  - deleted 1mo ago
    [deleted]
  - mpweiher 1mo ago
    So you are opposed to self-determination. Glad we cleared that up. Who then gets to decide? You?
    - bilbo0s 1mo ago
      >Who then gets to decide? You? It's a new world. He who has the biggest guns makes the rules. I don't like it, but in the Caribbean [probably throughout the world] these days, you really are dealing with the raw realities of power in a way you didn't have to previously. I doubt the EU has the stomach to confront Trump. And French Guiana is not Africa, there will be no China coming to save them.
      - mpweiher 1mo ago
        I doubt that HN user yostrovs is Trump.

deleted 1mo ago

[deleted]

ifwinterco 1mo ago

[dead]

teiferer 1mo ago

> > Europe now has sovereign access to space. > I understand what is meant here, and of course said company need to push that forward, but French Guyana is full french territory, it's not even a foreign territory. Does French Guyana have a usable space rocket? Cause if not then you are completely missing the point of what "space access" means here. It's not about a spot from where to start the rockets. It's about being able to build them. No matter French Guyana or Norway or central Berlin. And that's obvious to everybody including yourself, so why you opened the French-nationalist angle here with lots of angry messages with all sorts of politics is unclear to everybody watching.

mpweiher 1mo ago
> Does French Guyana have a usable space rocket? Yes: the Ariane rockets. "French Guyana" is part of France, which is part of the EU. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Guiana https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Guiana https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_(rocket_family) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_(rocket_family)
- teiferer 1mo ago
  Ok, then why don't they launch from Norway and why is the article considered news even though the whole European package already exists?
  - mpweiher 1mo ago
    1. Who is "they"? Isar Aerospace and Arianespace are distinct entities. 2. Isar Aerospace is the first fully private European company (a startup) to do this. Arianespace and the Ariane rockets have heavy state/ESA involvement. 3. It is the first launch to orbit from geographically European soil. French Guiana is politically part of France, but geographically obviously part of South America. 4. Why would everyone have to launch from the same place, in your esteemed opinion? Why are some US payloads launched from California, some from Florida, and soon some from Texas and Louisiana? 5. Are all launch locations equally suitable for all orbits? Are all orbits equally suitable for all missions? 6. Norway is a lot closer to the rest of Europe than French Guiana is. 7. Why was SpaceX newsworthy, particularly on a startup-centric site, when NASA already exists?

inemesitaffia 1mo ago

>massive subsidies Misinformation

eblume 1mo ago
I was curious, so I checked. I don't know if this is a reputable source: https://subsidytracker.goodjobsfirst.org/parent/space-exploration-technologies-spacex https://subsidytracker.goodjobsfirst.org/parent/space-explor... If that's correct, then yeah, I struggle to find much to be upset about with this list. $106M federal loan against what they've built feels, I don't know, about correct for a telecom. Light even. The tax abatement stuff sounds gross but not surprising. (There are other forms of subsidy than this list would show, though! So, yeah, always going to be an argument.)
- inemesitaffia 1mo ago
  The ~$106 million was an EXIM loan for an Israeli satellite launch. (Export financing) https://www.exim.gov/news/ex-im-bank-approves-1054-million-loan-finance-spacex-launch https://www.exim.gov/news/ex-im-bank-approves-1054-million-l... Unless the solar was also supplied by SpaceX (possible;unlikely) that amount doesn't reflect what SpaceX got i.e SpaceX gets it's cash immediately and the debtor is the Israeli launch company. (Does that constitute a subsidy to SpaceX or the foreign company?) The launch failed and SpaceX was on the hook for the money or a replacement launch as covered here https://spaceflightnow.com/2017/10/26/israels-spacecom-books-launch-with-spacex-using-pre-paid-amos-6-credits/ https://spaceflightnow.com/2017/10/26/israels-spacecom-books... There was also financing for other launches like this https://spacenews.com/ex-im-bank-finances-spacex-launch-deal/ https://spacenews.com/ex-im-bank-finances-spacex-launch-deal... and I wonder why it wasn't included. I also wonder if Spacecom, the Israeli provider didn't get other EXIM loans for its launches. SpaceX has been trying to get actual federal subsidies for ages but has been failing. (RDOF, BEAD) As for the tax abatement, it's the exact tax abatement other companies have got in the past, not something custom created for SpaceX. SpaceX spent ~$7 million a day before swallowing xAi (monumental error IMO) I don't know what amount is supposed to be massive compared to its size.

NetMageSCW 1mo ago

SpaceX has hadn’t any subsidies in a long time and has had less in subsidies than Ariane or Isra, so what are you criticizing?

FpUser 1mo ago

>"I would prefer EU territory instead of "inside-europe-Belarus" for exemple." Unless Great Orange or his successor/s would start having ideas