[HN Gopher] Arianespace CEO: Europe won't have reusable rockets ...
___________________________________________________________________
Arianespace CEO: Europe won't have reusable rockets for another
decade
Author : carabiner
Score : 135 points
Date : 2023-05-05 05:58 UTC (17 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.space.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.space.com)
| sdfghswe wrote:
| As a European living in the US, one thing that I prefer about US
| culture is that it seems that at least comparatively, Americans
| are more willing to scrap what they have a start over (that's how
| I see spaceX). Europeans never ever do that. Incrementalism is
| great in some situations, and bad in others.
| WhereIsTheTruth wrote:
| Something is fishy:
|
| [1] - SpaceX Accuses Europe's Ariane Of Unfair Competition
|
| [2] - Europe eyes Musk's SpaceX to replace Russian rockets
|
| I feel like EU's industry is being held back on purpose
|
| Yet SpaceX benefits lot of subsidies from the US government, as
| well as Tesla, hmm, methinking
|
| [1] - https://worldcrunch.com/business-finance/exclusive-spacex-
| ac...
|
| [2] - https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/12/europe-eyes-musks-spacex-
| to-...
| lyu07282 wrote:
| EU has been self-sabotaging for decades, but it usually is just
| caused by economic liberalism / pragmatism. Although there is
| of course a strong connection between european leadership and
| the "Atlantik Bruecke" (atlantic bridge) which is an extremely
| powerful and influential atlanticist organization, it isn't
| always failing in favor of US economic interests. Germany did
| surrender its advantage in solar energy technology to China for
| example, there is no need for any explanation other than
| (neoliberal) ideology and incompetence.
|
| https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/last-major-german-solar...
| WhereIsTheTruth wrote:
| I'm not talking about that, Ariane is still a thing, it's the
| expectation that comes from the US that they should instead
| fund SpaceX and give up their industry, it's different, and
| that's what I find fishy
|
| The comments here doesn't help
| panick21_ wrote:
| Your just spouting ArianeGroup propaganda. They can't win
| technically so they have to convince the ignorant and
| politicians that its not their fault.
|
| AraineGroup spend like 5 years screaming about unfair
| competition and at some point SpaceX was sick of it and
| returned the favor [2]. But SpaceX never really cared much
| because they hardly see ArianeGroup as competition. They were
| just sick of their insesent public statements and lies that
| they were spouting about SpaceX.
|
| There is a reason ArianeGroup never tried to bring any of this
| before WTO, because they knew they would lose and had no ground
| to stand on.
|
| > I feel like EU's industry is being held back on purpose
|
| Yes by incompetent ArianeGroup monopoly.
|
| > Yet SpaceX benefits lot of subsidies from the US government
|
| Government funding for Falcon 9, 300M$. Government funding for
| Ariane 6 5B$. How unfair of the US.
|
| SpaceX isn't 'eyeing' to replace Russian rockets. They have
| been doing that for decades, first with Proton. Now with Soyuz.
| OneWeb launches have already flown on SpaceX multiple times and
| a few other will follow.
| WhereIsTheTruth wrote:
| Propaganda? eh c'mon let's not bring conspiracy theories
|
| > Yes by incompetent ArianeGroup monopoly.
|
| Incompetent? what kind of propaganda is that?
|
| Shall i remind you who was scared to launch James Webb
| telescope? and who successfully did?
|
| What about Artemis? NASA ain't candid either :)
|
| Why would the US ban Chinese 5G, they don't have it
| themselves?
|
| Sometimes it is about maintaining sovereignty and building
| your own industry
|
| You can't just rely on foreigners, look what happens for the
| green transition, both the EU/US are stuck
|
| Falcon 9? what about everything else? you are being
| disingenuous on purpose
|
| Another one: https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/07/will-
| the-ukraine-war...
|
| Whos spreading propaganda?
| panick21_ wrote:
| > Propaganda? eh c'mon let's not bring conspiracy theories
|
| You can call if 'PR' if you want to make yourself feel
| better. But its the same thing.
|
| Its representatives of a company making lots of false
| public statements. To mislead people who don't know better.
|
| > Shall i remind you who was scared to launch James Webb
| telescope?
|
| LITERALLY NOBODY. All this comment does is reveal that you
| don't know anything about the space industry.
|
| > and who successfully did?
|
| Funding the launch was part of ESA investment into the
| James Webb project. NASA always partnered with other
| countries on big projects and they do different parts. In
| the case of James Webb Europe was to provide launch and
| therefore Europe picked the launch vehicle, obviously the
| picked Ariane 5.
|
| NASA has certification for launch vehicles, and there are
| different levels. To launch the most expensive science
| mission, such as James Webb, you need the highest level of
| certification NASA has.
|
| When a launch vehicle was started to be planned for both
| Atlas 5, Delta 4 and Delta 4 Heavy had the necessary
| certification. I assume only D4H would have the required
| power (but I'm not certain on that). So had launch not been
| assigned to ESA, James Webb would have been launched on
| Delta 4 Heavy. And ULA would of course not have been
| 'afraid' to launch it, as they have launched most major
| NASA missions of the last couple decades.
|
| Falcon 9 has achieved this same certification, I don't
| remember when exactly, late 2010s. So SpaceX, if something
| like James Webb would be competing for that missions. In
| fact currently its the only rocket that is not sold out
| with that certification. Falcon Heavy also has this
| certification and will launch things like Europa Clipper.
|
| The idea that SpaceX or ULA were to 'afraid' is so
| moronically dumb that I can't even fathom where you got
| this absurd idea from.
|
| After that the rest of your post is just whataboutism that
| has nothing to with my correction to your original comment.
|
| > Whos spreading propaganda?
|
| Not me, almost everything I said is plain fact. The only
| thing that is questionable is if 'incompetent' is the right
| word to describe ArianeGroup. Maybe that word is to harsh,
| replace that word with 'noncompetitive'.
| nunuvit wrote:
| > Aside from Arianespace, Europe is currently fostering a number
| of private rocket companies, including Rocket Factory Augsburg,
| Isar Aerospace, PLD Space and Skyrora, with some of these rockets
| to be reusable. However the rockets in development are light-
| lift, whereas Ariane 6 and its possible successor are much more
| capable, medium-heavy-lift rockets.
|
| The real problem is that there's no prototype path for Ariane.
| SpaceX had the grasshopper and others. The original space race
| was very incremental.
|
| Hopefully the smaller companies will succeed with their more
| manageably sized rockets. Then they'll have to fight an uphill
| political battle against the big incumbents, just like SpaceX
| did.
|
| Ariane could make prototypes too, but they probably won't.
| panick21_ wrote:
| There is no point in making prototypes for Ariane 6. What would
| they be testing. Its mostly just incremental updates in
| existing technology, if that.
|
| The only really fundamentally new thing is the upper stage
| engine and that's hard to prototype launch.
| nunuvit wrote:
| It's more about the humans than the hardware. Schedules slip
| for many reasons. Landing and reusing a rocket is new to
| them. There's nothing like reality to force people to be
| realistic and get experience.
| panick21_ wrote:
| I'm confused. Ariane 6 has nothing to do with rocket
| landings. Ariane 6 was never and could never be a reusable
| rocket.
| [deleted]
| nunuvit wrote:
| I just realized you said 6. I was connecting to the theme
| of the article, which is reusables after 6.
| tekla wrote:
| Elon running a company running laps around the entire worlds
| space industry. Obscenely impressive.
| foderking wrote:
| also running laps around ev
| sofixa wrote:
| That's no longer true, pretty much any big car manufacturer
| outside of Toyota has caught up. Not only that, they provide
| much wider variety of vehicles (from the Renault Zoe and
| Dacia Spring all the way to massive pickups like the Ford
| F-150 Lightning).
| bequanna wrote:
| Check the margins. Tesla actually makes money on EV.
|
| Tesla could lower prices to undercut most of their
| competition and still make money.
| moffkalast wrote:
| Maybe then the prices would actually match their build
| quality.
| throwaway50614 wrote:
| Tesla has the lowest prices of all EVs and also the best
| quality. Not even Mercedes or Audi EVs are better in any
| metric including build quality and safety, regardless of
| the absurd price.
| moffkalast wrote:
| Some brief Google searches:
|
| > The 2023 Nissan Leaf has a base MSRP of $27,800
|
| > Volkswagen e-Golf SE CVT, 5 seats: $31,895 (OTR)
|
| > The 2022 Hyundai Ioniq hybrid has a $23,600 starting
| price, which is among the lowest in the Hybrid Cars class
|
| > 2022 Chevrolet Bolt EUV should remain close to the
| current model that ranges from $28,795 to $33,295 (with
| destination).
|
| > The price range for the Renault Zoe varies based on the
| trim level you choose. Starting at $33,990 and going to
| $40,480 for the latest year the model was manufactured.
|
| > Currently, the Rear-Wheel Drive trim of the Tesla Model
| 3 starts at an MSRP of $40,240 with zero upgrades
|
| Riiiight. Totally the lowest prices. Note that outside
| the US market they also tack on import/customs fees,
| making them ridiculously overpriced.
|
| They may be pretty good at not rolling over, but so is
| any other EV with a low mounted battery. As for the build
| quality, the panel line jokes are basically popular
| culture by now. I'm sure legacy manufacturers can at
| least build a car body to spec. And include things like
| dials and buttons, which apparently aren't cost effective
| enough to Tesla's liking for the Model 3.
| zpeti wrote:
| Except ford is losing a ton of money on EVs. I think
| yesterday a report came out their margins are -44% on EVs.
|
| While they might be selling some EVs, they're pretty far
| from what Tesla is doing as a business.
| misiti3780 wrote:
| Im not saying Tesla will always be the leader, but anyone
| who says they're not now just needs to try to take a long
| road trip in a mach-e vs a model-y. It will be completely
| clear who is winning in EVs, from comfortable through the
| technology and supercharging.
| 0zemp2c wrote:
| Ford and GM can't ever follow through on their own BS and
| become "electric only"
|
| What is GM's cash cow? Pickups and the
| Tahoe/Yukon/Suburban/Escalade platform...pretty much the
| polar opposite of "environmentally conscious" products
|
| Ford? Same thing, monster F150s
|
| These companies aren't killing their cash cows
|
| Indeed, I expect both companies to dramatically tone down
| the rhetoric on EVs soon and just refer to them as
| "alternatives"
|
| Or even worse, start PR campaigns highlighting the
| inconveniences (charging times etc) of EVs
| panick21_ wrote:
| Yeah by listing models, but based on actual numbers of BEV
| sold, Tesla is way ahead and still growing fast. And unlike
| almost all of the others, Tesla is making money on EV.
|
| Ford for example is losing 100s of millions on their EV
| business. This quarter they had a negative margin of 102%
| while selling 3% as many cars as Tesla.
| [deleted]
| chroma wrote:
| In the US, Tesla sells 2x more EVs than all the other
| manufacturers combined.[1] In Europe, Tesla is the most
| popular EV manufacturer, though Volkswagen is very close
| behind. Until April of 2022, Tesla was paying a 10% tariff
| on their Model 3/Ys in the EU. Now that they have a factory
| in Berlin, they're reducing prices and sales are growing
| faster than any other manufacturer.[2]
|
| 1. https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/04/gm-overtakes-ford-in-us-
| ev-s...
|
| 2. https://www.barrons.com/articles/tesla-price-cuts-stock-
| euro...
| sneak wrote:
| And yet somehow people believe he won't be able to hire a
| team to operate and scale an already-extant shitposting
| website. The cognitive dissonance is pretty amazing.
| _hypx wrote:
| This is why people keep on insisting that large scale
| accounting fraud is happening at all of his companies.
| Every time Musk does something within our "field of
| expertise" he looks like a buffoon. But magically, he's
| suppose to be a genius outside of it. That does not add up.
| theodric wrote:
| Credit goes to Elon for picking an extremely competent COO in
| Gwynne Shotwell to handle the actual running of the operation
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwynne_Shotwell
| aero-glide2 wrote:
| This is often repeated on the internet but I see no reason to
| credit a single person.
| machdiamonds wrote:
| Credit goes to Elon for being an amazing chief engineer, but
| also the rest of the entire SpaceX team.
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/k1e0ta/eviden.
| ..
| wildekek wrote:
| Europe's lack of proper launch locations inhibits startups from
| attracting talent. So ESA sticks with Airbus since that's the
| only option.
| anonymousDan wrote:
| Given it's size, I find it strange it doesn't have launch
| locations like the US. Why is that the case - latitude?
| Population density.
| fhars wrote:
| Latitude. Gibraltar is on the same latitude as North
| Carolina. Most of the suitable locations are in French
| Guayana, where the ESA launch site actually happens to be
| located.
| panick21_ wrote:
| Because you have to launch West and West of Europe there is
| mostly land.
|
| For polar launches Europe is positioned just fine.
|
| It makes more sense to use French colonies in South America.
| Those are perfectly positioned.
| seydor wrote:
| Isn't French guyana one of the best places?
| panick21_ wrote:
| For many orbits yes. But it has some disadvantages because of
| how wet it is. Lots of rain lots of humidity.
|
| But it certainty no reason to think its holding them back all
| that much.
|
| If SpaceX had a private launch site like that they would
| likely go crazy.
| machdiamonds wrote:
| SpaceX's first launch site was at Omelek Island. It appears
| that the challenging environment may have contributed to
| one of the failures.
|
| "Why the nut cracked is still a bit of a mystery. Musk said
| the "prevailing thought" among investigators, which
| included a mix of government and SpaceX personnel, is that
| the heat and humidity on Omelek Island was a factor. Though
| the nut was anodized to guard against corrosion, Musk said,
| it may have been scratched at some point, compromising its
| protection against the elements. "We had a series of
| countdowns [during which] the rocket was exposed for quite
| a bit of time," Musk said. "And the vehicle hangar for
| about three months was not climate controlled."
|
| Another possible contributing factor, Musk said, is that
| there was an adverse reaction--so-called galvanic corrosion
| --between the aluminum nut and the pipe fitting itself,
| which was made of stainless steel.
|
| Musk said SpaceX will replace the $5-a-piece aluminum nuts
| with less-expensive stainless steel nuts to avoid that
| problem in the future."
|
| https://www.space.com/2643-falcon-1-failure-traced-busted-
| nu...
| danpalmer wrote:
| I feel we're setting up for a SpaceX monopoly if they nail
| Starship reusability.
|
| The only meaningfully reusable rocket right now is the Falcon 9,
| and while that significantly reduces the already cheap launch
| costs, it doesn't really change them by an order of magnitude,
| and with so many other costs, it doesn't make that much more
| possible that was previously impossible.
|
| Arguably Starlink is possible now and wouldn't have been before,
| but there are other similar (fewer satellites) constellations not
| relying on F9 being that much cheaper. Also arguably there are
| more smallsats going into orbit, but I think RocketLab has done
| roughly as much for them as the F9 has so far.
|
| As for other providers, ULA hasn't got a lot of re-usability
| built in, at least not to the extent that Starship
| (theoretically) or maybe even F9 has. RocketLab is starting
| reusability work, but is a way off anything good. Blue Origin are
| continuing to... well... who knows.
|
| I don't think anyone other than SpaceX are going to have usefully
| reusable rockets for another decade. I'm also not sure SpaceX are
| going to be more than 8 years ahead anyway because I don't think
| Starship will be delivering on its promises for at least another
| few years.
| MangoCoffee wrote:
| >I feel we're setting up for a SpaceX monopoly if they nail
| Starship reusability
|
| NASA gave contracts to BlueOrigin, ULA and others beside
| SpaceX. ULA was the only rocket provider to Pentagon for a long
| time before SpaceX come along. Jeff is as rich as Elon and he
| did pump money into BlueOrigin every year. if SpaceX did a
| better job then SpaceX deserved the market shares.
| George83728 wrote:
| > _Jeff is as rich as Elon and he did pump money into
| BlueOrigin every year._
|
| And notably, Blue Origin has been in business for two years
| longer than SpaceX, but has far less to show for it.
| jcfrei wrote:
| They will definitely have a monopoly for the next 10 years. But
| beyond that I doubt it - economies of scale don't matter that
| much (yet) in rockets which gives other companies a chance to
| grow.
| chasd00 wrote:
| one thing SpaceX did that doesn't get a lot of intention is
| reignite innovation in aerospace. If SpaceX gets overtaken by
| a competitor imagine the technology that had to be developed
| to accomplish dethroning SpaceX. Many of these launch
| companies sprouting up wont make it for one reason or the
| other but it won't be because of lack of inspiration.
| chroma wrote:
| > The only meaningfully reusable rocket right now is the Falcon
| 9, and while that significantly reduces the already cheap
| launch costs, it doesn't really change them by an order of
| magnitude, and with so many other costs, it doesn't make that
| much more possible that was previously impossible.
|
| SpaceX's charges around $1,200/lb to low earth orbit. Soyuz
| costs around $8,000/lb. The space shuttle was $30,0000/lb.
| Because of SpaceX's lower launch costs, they now put more mass
| into LEO than the rest of the world combined.
| panick21_ wrote:
| No we are not. Because players like Amazon literally just spend
| like 5 billion on launches for SpaceX competitors. And many
| other constellation will do the same.
|
| The government already is forced to have at least 2 providers
| and they want more not less.
|
| Other governments, Europe, India and China will not simply give
| up.
|
| And while talking about entities with absurd money, Bezos has
| spend a decade now funding Blue origin he will not just give
| up.
|
| Venture capitalist are still funding many new rocket companies.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| Does anyone know what's up with Blue origin? Bezos pumps a
| solid billion into them every year but it doesn't seem like
| they're anywhere?
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| BO has a more traditional approach to design than SpaceX's
| iterative process. They spend more time on simulation and
| analysis than on real world testing. Right now it appears
| that the SpaceX approach returns better results though they
| do have to deal with the peanut gallery using tests that end
| in explosions as an opportunity to attack the company instead
| of acknowledging that it's part of the process. If Blue
| Origin has a rocket explode, that's a much bigger blow to
| them as RUDs are not a significant part of their process. It
| also means their process is far less observable to outsiders,
| so a year or two from how, they might have New Glenn rockets
| in regular operation and for most, that will seemingly come
| out from nowhere.
| chasd00 wrote:
| I don't think SpaceX's iterative approach would work
| without extremely efficient production lines and know-how.
| In software everyone can take an iterative approach because
| you're just typing on a keyboard, you don't have to produce
| a physical laptop at the end of every sprint.
|
| IMO SpaceX brought a lot of the production lessons learned
| from Tesla and applied it to rocket and engine production.
| That knowledge and wisdom from making Tesla production
| lines work isn't available at Blue Origin so I don't think
| a SpaceX rapid dev approach could work there.
| panick21_ wrote:
| SpaceX also does a lot of simulation. They are known to
| have really good simulation team. And were very early on
| doing simulation on GPUs and such. And that was 10 years
| ago. By now they are likely far further along.
|
| > so a year or two from how, they might have New Glenn
| rockets in regular operation and for most, that will
| seemingly come out from nowhere.
|
| They will be lucky to have launched their rocket more then
| once in the next 2 years.
| [deleted]
| antoniuschan99 wrote:
| BE-4 engine delay. It delayed New Glenn and also ULA Vulcan.
| Vulcan is slated to start launching Amazon Kuiper Sats. And
| Rocketlabs Peter Beck is saying these constellations are
| slated to start going up en masse starting ~2026
| panick21_ wrote:
| By now Bezos is spending more then 1 billion per year.
|
| BlueOrigin is a huge company already, and the basically make
| no money what so ever. 1 billion might cover labor cost. But
| given the infrastructure they are building and the actual
| rockets and so on, it has to be significantly more then 1
| billion.
|
| Well they are making slow progress on a hugely complex
| rocket, New Glenn. The might fly it in the next 2 years.
| crop_rotation wrote:
| Europe won't have lots of cutting edge technology for a long long
| time. Sometimes I feel European policymakers think they have to
| make policies for a prosperous society where the prosperity is
| taken for granted. But if Europe keeps lagging technologically,
| the living standards will drop. Europe needs to strike a balance.
| el_mocambo wrote:
| The EU bureaucracy is a catastrophy for European innovation.
| The more EU there has been, the crappiest the ability to create
| wealth/innovate has become. Europhiles like to boast about
| Airbus or Ariane as "European projects" but they are not, they
| are inter-states collaboration, and were create when EU
| commission didn't exist with its vast bureaucracy and it's
| never ending forms to fill. Can you name one Brussels backed
| project that went somewhere?
| moffkalast wrote:
| Speaking as one of those Europhiles, EU grants are on average
| a pretty great thing, you can see the effect first hand just
| walking around any random town with EU project plaques
| everywhere. If anything, the EU itself is doing the most to
| fund practical projects and the excessive bureaucracy does
| serve as somewhat of a safeguard against the rampant
| embezzling that is otherwise the norm.
|
| The problem with innovation here is extensive, both legal and
| cultural. Some countries are downright hostile to startups.
| In the US it takes what, $200 to open an LLC? In Germany you
| better have 25000EUR ready for an equivalent entity. The
| amount of regulations one has to adhere to is far more
| extensive, taxes are borderline absurd, there's basically no
| venture capital to speak of, so any actually successful
| company is immediately absorbed by some American megacorp
| with fat stacks laying around (e.g. Wolt Delivery bought by
| DoorDash).
|
| Most of the people who lived under socialist systems also
| grew up in a culture where entrepreneurship was the pinnacle
| of egoistic greed which probably doesn't really help.
| [deleted]
| throwawayrocket wrote:
| Even worse they preach developing world not to fund
| space/advanced industries
| saberience wrote:
| You're acting like Europe is living in the dark ages. Don't
| forget Europe also has companies like Arm and ASML, without
| which neither Apple nor Intel would be able to make processors.
| dejv wrote:
| Don't forget precision machinery of all kinds: from
| industrial CNCs, medical instrumentation or electron
| microscopes.
| rektide wrote:
| ASML is where it is because Apple and Intel dumped a ton of
| money into it. Intel especially back when they were doing
| fine, before the current rockier years.
| https://www.reuters.com/article/us-intel-asml/intel-funds-
| ne...
|
| Still an incredible company. Absolutely. But worth pointing
| out how strongly they were driven to sucess by external
| factors.
| saberience wrote:
| If it was just based on money, why wouldn't Intel do it
| themselves, or anyone else for that matter? ASML is
| basically a monopoly, there is clearly big money to be made
| if someone else could make those machines.
|
| I think you're doing disservice to the engineers and
| researchers at ASML suggesting they are only there because
| the US sent them money.
| dralley wrote:
| Because the only way to make it profitable for anyone is
| to get the economies of scale of everyone behind the same
| development. Intel, Samsung and TSMC all invested a lot
| of money in ASML to get EUV over the finish line.
| belter wrote:
| The IPhone would never be possible without China. Or each
| model would cost $10,000.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> ASML is where it is because Apple and Intel dumped a ton
| of money into it._
|
| And also because the US gave them the EUV tech on a silver
| platter to disrupt the Japanese competition and prop-up a
| company with domestic presence on US soil.[1]
|
| So, as much as it hurts EU fanboys and chip hipsters to
| hear this, ASML isn't the result of some magic tech formula
| developed on EU soil, but the result of a perfect storm of
| strategic acquisitions on exclusivity to the right tech and
| the right suppliers at the right time.
|
| [1] https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/65642319
| brnt wrote:
| > And also because the US gave them the EUV tech on a
| silver platter
|
| Things Americans tell themselves ...
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| 1. I'm European
|
| 2. That's the truth. If you can't accept it and wish to
| stay ignorant, then I can't help you.
| brnt wrote:
| 2. I can't help it that you don't show any proof and
| clearly were not involved.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> I can't help it that you don't show any proof_
|
| I posted the source here 3 times. Not my fault you don't
| read it.
|
| _> and clearly were not involved._
|
| Did nearly a decade in the semi industry in Europe with
| stints in Israel, Singapore and the US.
|
| But you keep taking the blue pill and believe whatever
| you want to believe, I don't have time to convince random
| nay-sayers online and I'm not doxing myself to win an
| argument with a troll.
| MangoCoffee wrote:
| "The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has announced an
| agreement with ASM Lithography (Einhoven, Netherlands)
| that would allow the company to participate in the
| extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography development effort
| now underway in Livermore, Calif."
|
| https://www.eetimes.com/u-s-gives-ok-to-asml-on-euv-
| effort/
| sveme wrote:
| Care to elaborate? Do you have a source for that? As far
| as I know the EUV lenses part was done by Zeiss and the
| EUV sources part by Trumpf.
| dralley wrote:
| Cymer (an American company that ASML bought out) makes
| the EUV source. Trumpf makes the CO2 laser that feeds the
| EUV source.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> As far as I know_
|
| Then you don't know the full story.
|
| Important is who has the IP and license for the EUV
| technology that has proven to produce the highest yields.
| The only reason ASML won EUV lithography and its
| competitors Canon and Nikon lost, is that US decided to
| license its domestic EUV tech developed by Sandia Labs to
| ASML, and denied it to Canon and Nikon, purely because
| ASML acquired Silicon Valley Group Inc, US's leading
| lithography supplier at the time, giving ASML a strategic
| US presence on US soil, versus their Japanese
| competitors.[1] Also, light sources are made by CYMER[2],
| another US supplier that ASML bought.
|
| Nikon and Canon could also contrat Zeiss and Trumpf for
| the same parts that ASML gets but they don't have access
| to Sandia's and CYMER's EUV tech which is better than the
| EUV tech they developed in house.
|
| So you see, ASML is not some European wonder as the chip
| hipsters would want to believe, since it wouldn't own the
| EUV market today if it weren't for strategic acquisitions
| on US soil that gave them the EUV monopoly they enjoy
| today.
|
| [1] https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/65642319
|
| [2] https://www.cymer.com/light-source-technology/
| sveme wrote:
| That's a bit like saying that Google would not exist
| without the contributions by Leo Katz. Or that Sandia's
| EUV tech would not exist without Ernst Abbes
| contributions. Everything's build on top of something.
|
| But for some reasons all your posts seem to be intended
| to downplay anything coming from Europe. Which is fine,
| everyone needs a resident contrarian.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| I'm not downplaying anything, I'm being a realist among
| the hype that EU is some tech powerhouse when it's
| objectively much weaker than the EU fanboys would like to
| believe.
|
| The US could have sold the EUV tech to Canon or Nikon and
| the Japanese would have owned the EUV industry, but the
| Dutch ASML played the political game better and won the
| deal but selling US tech doesn't make it an EU
| innovation.
|
| And you can't compare licensed or bought tech to
| individual contributions from indvidual persons.
|
| The US still owns the EUV tech ASML is using and has veto
| rights on what it can do with it and who it can sell it
| too. ASML would love to sell EUV steppers to China and
| make bank since China is desperate to ramp up its
| domestic fab industry, but US says "NO" and it must
| comply. The NL or the EU didn't veto the sale, the US
| did, and ASML complied because the US Gov have ASML by
| the balls since it's now also partly a US company
| monetizing US tech.
| saberience wrote:
| Why would the USA "sell the EUV tech" to a European
| company if any American company could do it? It makes no
| fucking sense. The only thing that makes sense is that
| there was no American company to "sell the tech" to.
| You're living in cloud cuckoo fantasy land if you think
| the US simply had EUV fully developed and just happily
| donated it to a Europany company out of the goodness of
| their hearts.
|
| If the tech was so easy and America held all the cards,
| the machines would be made in America, end of story.
| TinkersW wrote:
| This video covers EUV development in Japan and US:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_OOta7Y6Ik
|
| Yes it was developed by the US.
| foobiekr wrote:
| I mean, all they have to do is read ASML's own writeup of
| this [1]. It's basically US-developed tech, US-funded and
| political-tactical partnerships. I just don't understand
| the confusion.
|
| [1] https://www.asml.com/en/news/stories/2022/making-euv-
| lab-to-...
| MangoCoffee wrote:
| "U.S. gives ok to ASML on EUV effort"
|
| https://www.eetimes.com/u-s-gives-ok-to-asml-on-euv-
| effort/
| lm28469 wrote:
| It can drop for a while before reaching the US one
| nivenkos wrote:
| Compare European and US salaries sometime, you have no idea
| how lucky you are.
|
| There's a reason tens of thousands of European engineers,
| doctors, lawyers, developers, etc. are desperate to move to
| the US.
| panick21_ wrote:
| I rather get a little less money and not live in a car
| depended sprawl with cities full of homeless and no public
| transport.
| edgyquant wrote:
| It's not luck, it's the result of long term policy.
| Certhas wrote:
| This is such a weird take. The global high tech economy is
| tightly intertwined. The EU is an integral part of that, and in
| many areas is doing perfectly fine. Further European
| policymakers have for the last two decades done an overal
| excellent job integrating eastern Europe into the Western
| economic model. Of course first credit belongs to the states
| themselves, but the border between Germany and Poland used to
| be one of the largest GDP per Capita drops in the world. Now
| the difference is marginal. This has happened inside one
| generation. To accuse them of legislating only for already
| prosperous societies bears no resemblance to reality.
|
| The Internet and digitalization revolution enabled a few US
| companies to capture vast amounts of value worldwide simply by
| being first by having access to the first emerging market for
| the new tech (and being ruthlessly business savvy). The US
| being rich and an optimistic consumption culture made that
| happen. Some of that windfall has been redirected to fun things
| like boosting Rocket tech, or useful things like boosting EV
| tech.
|
| Speaking of the latter, I remember a few years ago a lot of
| people on here were claiming that the US and specifically Tesla
| had an unassailable lead in Battery Tech. That didn't exactly
| last long, did it?
|
| But the idea that the US is uniquely poised to dominate the
| tech landscape for the next decades is silly, doubly so based
| on some relatively niche tech like rockets. As a European I am
| worried about the strategic tech competition with China, not
| the US. And I am worried that the EU is not doing enough to tax
| the profits being generated here, (cough, Ireland,
| Luxembourg...).
|
| ... and btw, it's all built on Linux, which was given away for
| free by some European guy.
| genezeta wrote:
| ESA -and Europe in general, sure, but particularly ESA- also
| has a massive bureaucratic problem.
| batmansmk wrote:
| Not saying you are wrong, US is lagging behind as well on many
| other sectors as well compared to the rest of the world;
| manufacturing, transportation, green tech, participative
| democracy, integrated administrations to quote a few. Reusable
| rockets make launching stuff cheaper, but integrated
| Administrations save you millions of admin jobs that could be
| redeployed to more game changing missions. Imagine not having
| to declare your tax, or have bookkeeping, or file mountains of
| documents to renew a visa.
| throwaway06069 wrote:
| > Imagine not having to declare your tax, or have
| bookkeeping, or file mountains of documents to renew a visa.
|
| I think you live in some parallel universe EU
| pjc50 wrote:
| The only one of these that might have a point is the tax one.
| And possibly simpler health insurance systems.
|
| (Schengen provides visa-free travel and living intra-EU, but
| if you're from outwith the EU prepare for a mountain of
| paperwork)
| GrigoriyMikh wrote:
| I work a regular full time job in Germany. Plus do some
| investing and gigs. Declaring taxes every year. It's not
| fun at all, basically you have to prepare for it the whole
| year(keep track of your transactions, expenses). So i don't
| see the point about "not declare your taxes". I guess, it's
| valid only for the most unproductive people in society.
| Generally, i have an impression that Germany benefits the
| most unproductive(i.e. edge case poor and super-rich).
| While putting all the pressure on the middle class.
| ambicapter wrote:
| > benefits the most unproductive(i.e. edge case poor and
| super-rich). While putting all the pressure on the middle
| class.
|
| People say this about every country. I think it's just
| that countries benefit the poor more than they
| "contribute" b/c they have the least ability to do so and
| people want their governments to be progressive. On the
| flipside, everything is always easy for the super-rich,
| because they have tons of resources to employ armies of
| people that enable them to benefit from every loophole
| possible.
| rr808 wrote:
| Europe needs more babies more than anything. Economically it
| has many great companies, maybe not so high tech.
| solarkraft wrote:
| Oh boy. If this is true we've already lost the current-generation
| space race. I don't see any other company that can fill their
| gap.
| [deleted]
| robomartin wrote:
| This is what happens when someone is ten years ahead of everyone
| else in development. And, to make it worse, when, during those
| ten years, everyone ridiculed what they were doing.
|
| In some ways this is exactly what "The Innovator's Dilemma" is
| about, isn't it?
|
| Would it make sense for SpaceX to become like Boeing and
| sell/lease reusable rockets to others? Elon was well-known for
| always using the reusable airliner argument when explaining why
| reusable rockets were important.
| beembeem wrote:
| I don't claim to know too much about Arianespace, but I wonder if
| this has any connection to the Russia situation and not being
| able to launch Soyuz rockets due to sanctions.
|
| https://spacenews.com/arianespace-and-oneweb-reach-settlemen...
| 0xDEF wrote:
| Has nothing to do with Russia. This is about the future
| European Ariane 7 rocket that is meant to be fully reusable
| like the reusable SpaceX rockets.
| panick21_ wrote:
| No it doesn't. Ariane 6 was planed to take over many of the
| launches from Soyuz that ArianeGroup would usually launch
| anyway, even before re-usability.
|
| Both Ariane 6 delay and Russia situation are leading to many
| launches moving to Falcon 9.
| seydor wrote:
| I don't get why these statements emphasize the antagonism with
| the US. A lot of europeans see europe as extended US market by
| now, and promising european businesses will move to the US for
| faster growth. Ariane is a company , and of course they will find
| it hard to beat the 'Amazon of space'. Their reusables would be
| for the world, not just for europe. Europe already uses reusables
| if it uses spacex
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| Seems pretty obvious why to me. Europe wants strategic
| independence in this area, but SpaceX is radically more cost
| effective and will remain so for the foreseeable future. That
| means that European companies that want to launch satellites
| will probably choose SpaceX, they won't want to throw money
| away.
| moffkalast wrote:
| Meanwhile the US government is arguably doing the same with
| SLS. Nobody's expecting it to ever be cost effective for
| anything, but it provides said strategic independence.
| samwillis wrote:
| And likely neither will Russia, China, India, Japan or anyone
| other than the US - with maybe the exception of New Zealand.
|
| The writing has been on the wall for where rockets were going for
| ten years, policy makers absolutely have failed, but let's not
| pretend it's only Europe who have got it wrong.
|
| Also, the negativity these sort of headlines bring to "tech" in
| Europe as a whole are also unhelpful. Europe is absolutely at the
| cutting edge of technology.
| marian_ivanco wrote:
| China is definitely working hard to have it, maybe copy-paste
| approach but it is. We in Europe are definitely not cutting
| edge in general, maybe robotic space exploration but this is
| changing also rapidly. The problem is Arianespace and France.
| It's the similar issue to HLS. It's just a way to distribute
| money without any meaningful vision. Years of denial and
| ridiculing of SpaceX. The sad part is there is still no vision
| even when the world moved on.
| weneedasfollows wrote:
| Maybe a EU level spending package of 1 trillion, for a
| resilient and equitable space exploration would solve the
| problem
| mutatio wrote:
| Sarcasm I assume? This would merely be a redistribution of
| taxpayers money with no end product. EU has form in this.
| bluescrn wrote:
| Why not, the money printers are still warm, just hit the
| 'solution to anything!' button again?
| jlpom wrote:
| Robotic space exploration, like our rover that crashed on
| Mars not a long ago?
| ragebol wrote:
| How about Rosetta en Philae?
|
| But yes, also that rover.
| throwawayrocket wrote:
| New zealand will be the no 2 space power in the near future.
| Thanks to Ex PM Jacinda Ardern, brightest woman of the world.
| boeingUH60 wrote:
| Rocket Lab is now a US-based company. I get that many people
| like Jacinda Ardern, but attributing Rocket Lab's success to
| her is just weird.
|
| Rocket Lab couldn't even get enough funding in New Zealand,
| which is why they had to relocate to the USA.
| scanny wrote:
| Why is that? Also isn't Rocketlab a US owned company ?
| RowanH wrote:
| Founded by a Kiwi. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_Lab
|
| [Edit not sure what it's got to do with Jacinda though..]
| vosper wrote:
| Rocket Lab's success has basically nothing to do with Jacinda
| Ardern?
| throw-4e451c8 wrote:
| And South Africa the no 1 space power, I guess. SpaceX was
| founded by someone from there.
| 8note wrote:
| > The writing has been on the wall for where rockets were going
| for ten years, policy makers absolutely have failed,
|
| Policy makers made it happen in the states through what they
| funded.
| panick21_ wrote:
| > with maybe the exception of New Zealand.
|
| This has to be said over and over again. RocketLab is an US
| company.
|
| And RocketLab large Neutron rocket will launch from the US and
| will be built in the US.
|
| > Europe is absolutely at the cutting edge of technology.
|
| Not in rocket technology.
| soperj wrote:
| It was founded in New Zealand, with a New Zealand
| headquarters, by a New Zealander.
| panick21_ wrote:
| > It was founded in New Zealand
|
| Yes I know. But that is literally irrelevant.
|
| > New Zealand headquarters
|
| No its not.
|
| The US is where their head quarters is, its where their
| engine production is, and lots of other subsystems too, it
| where much of its sat division is, its where they are
| developing the Neutron rocket. One if its two launch pads
| is in the US.
|
| RocketLab is an American company that builds some
| structures in New Zealand and has a launch pad there.
|
| I don't know why its so fucking hard for people to operate
| Wikipedia.
|
| I am not saying this to discredit RocketLab, its a simple
| statement of fact.
| dotnet00 wrote:
| Rocketlab HQ is in California, their condition for being
| allowed to launch from New Zealand is that only US persons
| deal with the ITAR stuff. They are an American company.
| soperj wrote:
| It is now, for business purposes. It was started in New
| Zealand by a New Zealander with New Zealand investors. It
| even got an investment from the NZ government. Their
| first rocket was named after the Maori word for 'Space'.
| Before acquiring SolAero last year, they had 525
| employees in New Zealand and 150 in the rest of the
| world. January this year was the first time they actually
| launched from the US. All normal things for American
| companies clearly...
| AnonMO wrote:
| [dead]
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| It's a straight up fact that the holding company for
| RocketLab, Rocket Lab USA, traded on NASDAQ as KRLB, is a
| US company.
|
| Stop injecting nationalistic cheerleading into places
| it's not necessary.
| soperj wrote:
| Lol. Not from New Zealand. It's like saying Burger King
| is Canadian now that it merged with Tim Horton's and the
| headquarters is in Toronto. I didn't even inject this
| into the conversation, I was responding to someone saying
| "over and over again" that it was an American company,
| like it matters when over 90% of it's launches are still
| in the country that it was founded in.
| pb7 wrote:
| >Europe is absolutely at the cutting edge of technology.
|
| What technology? Do you have any examples, especially enough to
| make such a broad statement?
| farseer wrote:
| This European machine has no equivalent in the World. You are
| prolly using a product made by this beast.
|
| https://www.asml.com/en/products/euv-lithography-
| systems/twi...
| Am4TIfIsER0ppos wrote:
| Is that germany's earth eating machine? Oh! It's a sillicon
| wafer machine.
| giobox wrote:
| ASML is the obvious answer, but the list drops off sharply
| IMO after this, especially in comparison to the US. Also,
| around half of ASML's headcount is located outside of
| Europe.
| throwaway50614 wrote:
| Not just headcount, also - and most importantly - the
| patents and IP.
| lenkite wrote:
| I think its perfectly fine that a private space company
| massively funded by billionaires and massive investment funds
| show the way before government space companies tread the path.
| Expecting govt funded organizations to innovate will only
| happen in times of nation-to-nation competition or in times of
| War. Usually, risky innovation is frowned upon and there is
| little understandings of mistakes. Learning from many failures
| - the SpaceX approach - is not tolerated for tax-payer funded
| companies.
|
| And doing it in a decade or two is actually fine. Tech will
| stabilize by then and there will be more skilled people to
| hire. Why the rush ?
| sofixa wrote:
| Pardon my French, but complete and utter nonsense.
|
| > Michael Griffin. Griffin later estimated that SpaceX was
| around 85% funded by the federal government, mostly through
| his NASA awards, with the remaining 15% funding split between
| Elon Musk and other private investors. He felt the amount of
| government funding was "excessive in his view" compared with
| what he originally envisioned for the commercial space
| program.
|
| From SpaceX's Wikipedia page. The Falcon 1 which was
| expandable, nothing special and cost ~$100 million was
| privately funded, the rest relied on _very_ generous
| subsidies. (Regardless of Musk 's posturing and outright
| lies)
|
| On the contrary, outlandish and expensive (like aerospace)
| moonshot bets with uncertain financial benefits often happen
| due to government help, even in times of "unlimited money"
| which are far from the norm. For starters, Tesla and SpaceX
| both only happened due to US government subsidies; Airbus,
| the by far best civilian airplane manufacturer today, only
| exists because of European government pressure and funding.
| Bombardier only managed to design the C-series with Canadian
| government funds. All recent developments in renewables were
| off the back of massive subsidies for their adoption.
| chasd00 wrote:
| the "government funding" of spacex is kind of a misnomer.
| It wasn't like a grant or some handout. It was payment for
| a product and service.
| zpeti wrote:
| A subsidy is not the same thing as NASA ordering private
| contracts for actual "products"
|
| Spacex didn't get money handed to them (unlike the corn and
| oil industries). It got orders to complete certain tasks
| that NASA thought it might do better than itself. Boeing
| and many others got these types of orders too. It explains
| nothing about why spacex succeeded.
|
| This "Elon did spacex thanks to government" is a serious
| misrepresentation of what happened, and if it was true, why
| is the government funded EU space program struggling so
| much?
| raverbashing wrote:
| The secret of SpaceX was that they got paid, but the
| government didn't manage the program (which is common
| with those other programs like SLS, Arianne, etc)
|
| Also being in a position of 'up-and-comer' you definitely
| don't want to stay behind
|
| But that being said, being reusable is great, but not a
| "be all, end all" objective. Sure, it can make launches
| cheaper, but not even Falcon 9 is reusable if they need
| to get to higher orbits (I believe the last F9H launch
| was fully expended)
| sofixa wrote:
| > Spacex didn't get money handed to them (unlike the corn
| and oil industries). It got orders to complete certain
| tasks that NASA thought it might do better than itself.
| Boeing and many others got these types of orders too.
|
| According to the WTO, those are overgenerous and the same
| as subsidies (check Airbus' cases against Boeing for
| illegal subsidies).
|
| > It explains nothing about why spacex succeeded
|
| Indeed, just money (even government money) is not
| sufficient. Never said it was, only that it is a flat out
| lie to say only private funding can innovate and that
| SpaceX/Tesla did it all on their own and Musk is a self-
| made man/billionaire.
| panick21_ wrote:
| > According to the WTO, those are overgenerous and the
| same as subsidies (check Airbus' cases against Boeing for
| illegal subsidies).
|
| Interesting that you have to point to Boeing because no
| such case exists for SpaceX.
|
| And all of those contracts for SpaceX were cheaper then
| what Arianespace could have offered, or any US
| competitor.
|
| You are just parating lies that ArianeGroup has been
| spouting for a decade because they have no technical way
| to compete. Its literally just false propaganda.
|
| The reality is ArianeGroup has and had subsidies far,
| far, far larger then what SpaceX had. The total cost of
| the original Falcon 9 was maybe 400M and maybe 300M of
| that was part of the governments program to get private
| supply for ISS (that the Europeans handed over to the US
| and SpaceX to do because they couldn't do it cheaply).
|
| In comparison Ariane 6 is costing the government 4
| billion $ minimum, likely more.
|
| If anybody has grounds to complain with the WTO its
| SpaceX.
| throwawaymaths wrote:
| > According to the WTO, those are overgenerous
|
| SpaceX offers payloads to space at an _order of magnitude
| lower price_ than its competitors.
|
| Infinity times cheaper in the case of the CRS contract,
| where the competitor has to date delivered 0 kg of human
| mass to space
| jackmott42 wrote:
| SpaceX costs might be an order of magnitude cheaper, but
| their prices are not, yet.
| panick21_ wrote:
| > Falcon 1 which was expandable, nothing special and cost
| ~$100 million was privately funded
|
| Nothing special just the first privately funded rocket to
| make it to orbit. The first new rocket engine developed in
| the US for decades.
|
| > (Regardless of Musk's posturing and outright lies)
|
| Musk has always acknowledged and publicly called out for
| the COTS contracts as being incredibly important and even
| saving SpaceX.
|
| > For starters, Tesla and SpaceX both only happened due to
| US government subsidies
|
| Both of those are wrong. Tesla was almost 10 years in
| before they received a public loan, and the accepted it
| because it was a slightly better deal then they could have
| gotten privately but they had other funding options.
|
| SpaceX Falcon 1 didn't happen because of the government.
| The governments contract did accelerate the Falcon 9
| project however.
| orbital-decay wrote:
| _> Nothing special just the first privately funded rocket
| to make it to orbit._
|
| That would be Pegasus in 1990, though.
|
| _> The first new rocket engine developed in the US for
| decades._
|
| There were plenty of engines developed in the US in that
| timeframe. Merlin in particular was a "spiritual
| successor" of the Fastrac, and Kestrel was implemented by
| the former Beal Aerospace engineers who worked on BA-2
| before being hired by SpaceX.
| peterfirefly wrote:
| Pegasus didn't have much of a path towards bigger
| payloads, though.
|
| (It's launched from underneath an airplane.)
| panick21_ wrote:
| > That would be Pegasus in 1990, though.
|
| Fair point.
|
| > There were plenty of engines developed in the US in
| that timeframe.
|
| Engines that actually flew or at least fully finished
| development. As far as I know there are none.
| cyclecount wrote:
| "Massively funded by billionaires" in this case means that
| the spoils of this research will be privately owned, yes. But
| the taxpayer is still paying for about 80% of each rocket
| that explodes. SpaceX's true innovation is in achieving
| massive subsidies on collecting this data.
| omnimus wrote:
| This is the american way. What is surprising to me is that
| nobody is upset about this. United states presents itself
| as bastion of freedom and lean gov with minimum taxes. Yet
| the taxes are comparably pretty high and the gov money
| seems to go only up to rich companies and individuals who
| pretend like this money doesn't exist.
| danielrpa wrote:
| I'm not sure that America presents itself as a "bastion
| of...lean government with minimum taxes". It's so
| obviously not true that I'd like to see any statement
| from the US government in front of International forums
| or through diplomatic channels in that regard. So if the
| government is presenting itself this way consistently,
| I'd like to see where this presentation is taking place
| (vs promoting liberal values in abstract).
|
| However, reduction of taxes and government intervention
| is a common talking point in _internal_ politics. All
| things considered, the US has done a better job than, let
| 's say, Europe and Asia in keeping the government out of
| economic affairs. No sane American libertarian would say,
| though, that the government has been _successful_ at
| being "lean with minimum taxes", however it's doing
| better than most other major countries.
|
| Having lived abroad and personally knowing many people
| living across the world, I can say that keeping taxes
| "low-ish" and the market "free-ish" is rarely a topic of
| conversation in the mainstream political debate outside
| the US.
| omnimus wrote:
| It is presented like this in popular culture. At least
| from my consumption of it. I am not even sure you can say
| US gov is less involved in economic affairs than the govs
| of the rest of the world. The taxpayer money has to go
| somewhere and in other countries it seems to go more
| towards infrastructure, social causes, healthcare. In US
| it goes where? Defense and business development? So they
| are probably more involved in economic affairs.
|
| It's true that in europe lower taxes are not a topic.
| Nobody really expects to pay less taxes. They expect
| better services and guarantees.
| cyclecount wrote:
| Nobody is upset because nobody is aware (this is
| hyperbole; obviously some people are aware and upset).
| But from my time in the states, it is very clear how
| effective US propaganda is. Working Americans don't
| realise they are paying a huge amount in taxes, and
| believe they can't have nice things like healthcare and
| retirement.
| panick21_ wrote:
| This is literally just wrong. This is literally publicly
| available data:
|
| https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/option
| -...
|
| The government is paying half. And that only for the
| specialized Moon Lander version. And it requires SpaceX to
| do a whole lot of things to.
|
| Government pay nothing for the infrastructure SpaceX
| developed, for the Raptor engine they have developed over
| the last decade and so on.
|
| This 80% number is complete nonsense.
|
| If you want to make grand statements, at least do a minimal
| amount of research.
|
| Edit: And in case you are talking about Falcon 9 the claim
| is even more wrong.
| nordsieck wrote:
| > But the taxpayer is still paying for about 80% of each
| rocket that explodes.
|
| [Citation needed]
|
| The only support NASA has given SpaceX for Starship is the
| HLS contract[1]. And that is a firm, fixed-price milestone
| based contract. NASA doesn't pay for any failures there.
|
| ---
|
| 1. Technically not true - there is a very minor fuel
| transfer demonstration contract. But that, too, only pays
| out on success.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| Even accounting for exploded rockets (which make up a
| minority of SpaceX's 234 launches), I'd argue it's still a
| better deal for the taxpayer than cathedral-style rocket
| programs which will cost taxpayers even more despite
| launching a fraction as often and producing data of minimal
| usefulness due to the lack of new ground being tread.
| larkost wrote:
| While I think that that the setup around SpaceX is better
| than etc format we have done before, I don't think it is
| much less of a "cathedral" model. Really the only changes
| in that model are that now there is a second "cathedral"
| (SpaceX) next to the other one (United Launch Services),
| and that "cathedral" is managed a bit differently (less
| direct government/service-buyer control). Both are
| controlled top-down.
|
| It is nice that there are other players around this space
| (Blue Origin, Rocket Lab, etc...), but all of them are
| currently aiming at much smaller payloads (than Falcon
| 9), or sub-orbital payloads. Those are different spaces.
| nordsieck wrote:
| > It is nice that there are other players around this
| space (Blue Origin, Rocket Lab, etc...), but all of them
| are currently aiming at much smaller payloads (than
| Falcon 9)
|
| Of SpaceX's future competitors, almost all of them are
| aiming at larger payloads than Falcon 9.
|
| * Vulcan: larger or smaller depending on how many SRBs
|
| * New Glenn: larger
|
| * Terran R: larger
|
| * Neutron: smaller
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| Perhaps my choice of terminology was wrong... when I said
| "cathedral style" I was intending to reference extremely
| expensive long-tail projects that aim for perfection on
| the first go, similar to SLS -- a generational
| masterpiece, much like a cathedral, as opposed to a
| cheaper, quicker, more iterative approach that aims to be
| useful while growing out of its early stage limitations.
| next_xibalba wrote:
| > Europe is absolutely at the cutting edge of technology.
|
| Lolwut!?
|
| Which technology? Certainly not space tech. Certainly not AI.
| To what, then, are you referring?
| questime wrote:
| 30,000$ Handbag technology, 100,000$ watch technology etc.
| epups wrote:
| SAP (got this answer from a German once)
| mardifoufs wrote:
| I think Europe is at or near technological cutting edge....
| But absolutely not because of SAP. SAP is a big tech
| corporation but they are the definition of enterprise tech.
| And that's rarely on the cutting edge of anything.
| fafzv wrote:
| You are replying to a joke, or so I hope
| moffkalast wrote:
| That's like being the best at being boring.
| dahwolf wrote:
| Actual tech. Not the funny ad tech from SV.
|
| Top 10 most innovate countries: Europe takes 7 positions,
| including #1.
|
| Machines for manufacturing: Europe. Machines to produce
| semiconductors: Europe. Healthtech (Siemens, Philips):
| Europe. Food tech and agriculture (Foodvalley): Europe. Water
| management, port management: Europe. Aviation: Europe.
|
| Your world is built on leading Europe tech. Admittedly, the
| software isn't. Which is easy to tell because software is in
| a shit state.
| George83728 wrote:
| All manner of cutting edge industrial and manufacturing
| technology. Not the glamorous consumer-facing stuff, but
| stuff like industrial automation equipment and software from
| the likes of Siemens, ASML's EUV lithography tech, etc.
| EliRivers wrote:
| Indeed. I understand that if you want the world's most
| advanced chip-making machines, it's ASML or nobody.
| Reason077 wrote:
| > _"with maybe the exception of New Zealand"_
|
| While much of Rocket Lab's team is still based in New Zealand,
| they are now a US-based company and their Neutron reusable
| medium-lift rocket will be built in the US and launch from the
| Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) in Virginia.
|
| As far as I know they do not have any plans to launch reusable
| rockets from New Zealand.
| dogma1138 wrote:
| I don't think RocketLab had plans to ever commercially launch
| rockets out of NZ.
|
| Its latitude is really not optimal for anything other than
| polar orbits and it's too far from any potential customers
| which would increase the cost considerably.
| Reason077 wrote:
| > _" I don't think RocketLab had plans to ever commercially
| launch rockets out of NZ."_
|
| Not only do they have plans to, they have _already_
| launched multiple commercial missions on their Electron
| rocket from NZ!
|
| > _" Its latitude is really not optimal for anything other
| than polar orbits"_
|
| I don't think latitude is the major reason. Rocket Lab's
| Ahuriri Point launch site is at about 39.2 deg S, not that
| much different to the Wallops Island, Virginia site at 37.8
| deg N. Baikonur Cosmodrome, by comparison, is at 46 deg N!
|
| > _" it's too far from any potential customers which would
| increase the cost considerably."_
|
| Yeah, this is the real issue.
| skykooler wrote:
| It seems to me that if you're spending millions of
| dollars on a satellite launch, the cost of shipping your
| satellite to New Zealand is tiny in comparison.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| I think the concern is the possibility of damage in
| transit. I think most of the ESA & NASA's scientific
| missions effectively get final assembly on site, followed
| by a pre-launch check, then clearance to be placed in the
| final stage's payload chamber.
| syedkarim wrote:
| The Ariane 5 launches from South America. The rocket and
| the payload are shipped from Europe to French Guiana.
| Reason077 wrote:
| Yeah, but that's because there isn't a suitable launch
| site in France or elsewhere on the European continent.
| Rocket Lab do have launch sites in the USA, so why go to
| all the trouble of shipping everything to New Zealand?
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| I'm reasonably certain the Ariane rockets are not shipped
| in final form to South America: https://www.esa.int/Scien
| ce_Exploration/Space_Science/Rosett...
| jackmott42 wrote:
| Their current rocket is a smallsat launcher, it isn't
| that expensive.
| panick21_ wrote:
| Polar orbit is actually what small sats are launched to
| most often.
|
| And the distance doesn't really matter much. Its not that
| expensive.
|
| The reason to go the the US, is US military launch more
| then anything else.
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| Also, the US administration didn't got it right, because Nasa
| didn't do it. They had spacex to do it for them, while half of
| american society is insulting the elon musk.
|
| Let's not pretend any administration got it right.
|
| Just like the french administration had nothing to do with
| Pasteur creating the vaccine against rabies, the German
| administration has nothing to do Gutenberg creating the press
| and italian administration has nothing to do with Salvatore
| Sanfilippo creating redis.
|
| At best, administrations from the past may be somewhat credited
| to foster an environment favorable for something like this to
| happen.
|
| And even that is a stretch, given most administrations don't
| design anything, but rather react politically to whatever is
| the current situation.
| Laremere wrote:
| SpaceX was nearly bankrupt when NASA awarded them $1.6
| Billion to deliver cargo to the ISS, saving the company when
| it only had one successful launch. Then later on for the
| commercial crew program they selected SpaceX along with the
| (then perceived to be) safer bet of Boeing. Not to mention
| all of the other launches SpaceX has done for NASA or other
| government organizations.
| robomartin wrote:
| This is an important comment. Governments, politicians, love
| to take credit for what other people accomplish, when, in
| reality, at best, they might provide money.
|
| Imagine a scenario where you start a company that solves a
| really difficult problem --taking years of hard work-- and
| then a VC who provided funding takes credit for the effort.
| Even worse, the news organizations give the VC credit for the
| results. That's what politicians do.
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| In general, but Kennedy set the goal for a manned Moon
| mission, which was a very expensive and risky undertaking.
| LBJ and Nixon kept what Kennedy started going, but had
| Nixon won in 1960, it's doubtful that he would have focused
| on the same goals for space.
| robomartin wrote:
| Sure, yet, they didn't "do it". They provided the means.
| They can take credit for that, justly so. They cannot
| take credit for the work of the massive numbers of people
| who did the actual work that got it done.
|
| I feel that's a very important distinction. It's like
| taking credit for cooking a meal at a restaurant just
| because you paid for it.
|
| The other side of it is what politicians do when things
| go wrong: They blame the people doing the work. Well, if
| they take credit for the success they should be equally
| liable for all failure. That, of course, will never
| happen.
|
| Same thing with the economy. When things get better, they
| did it. When things are bad, the prior administration was
| at fault. They all do this, regardless of which political
| party they might align with. You know, just like three
| year old kids.
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| The Obama administration should be credited for ending the
| government's monopoly on leading the direction of space
| endeavors. And Trump's administration mostly followed that
| course and stayed out of private aerospace's way. It's only
| been the current administration (ironic given Biden's
| connection to Obama being his VP) that's tried to reverse
| course and return to the cost-plus MIC paradigm that
| entrenched players loved so much.
| peterfirefly wrote:
| COTS began under W.
| dotnet00 wrote:
| Lets also not forget that even then, much of the
| administration had to be dragged kicking and screaming into
| opening things up for private space enterprise. It took a
| lot of effort from a handful of people to make the
| government even give it a chance.
|
| Recently I learned that the opposition to the idea was so
| harsh that an FBI investigation lasting 4 years was even
| kicked off based on a theory about how Obama, Musk and
| NASA's deputy admin Lori Garver were conspiring with
| foreign powers to destroy the US space program.
| aaronblohowiak wrote:
| > Let's not pretend any administration got it right
|
| Well allowing and encouraging commercial space missions to
| unlock private sector was politically challenging and a huge
| win; not something you'd see in many other jurisdictions
| peterfirefly wrote:
| > At best, administrations from the past may be somewhat
| credited to foster an environment favorable for something
| like this to happen.
|
| That is exactly what they did and lots of politicians tried
| to prevent it.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_Orbital_Transportat.
| ..
|
| We need something similar in the EU... and we definitely need
| less France in the EU.
| bluescrn wrote:
| The US won't have the tech in 10 years either if current levels
| of political tribalism continue.
|
| Seems that a lot of people want to see Elon destroyed over
| Twitter/politics. See the incredibly negative reaction to the
| Starship launch attempt compared to the much more positive
| reaction to previous test flights that ended with a boom.
|
| And if they destroy our current best hope for the future of
| space exploration in the process of going after Elon, they
| don't care, it's 'a win for the environment', or acceptable
| collateral damage to take down an 'evil multibillionaire'
|
| (Maybe Elon should even consider stepping away from SpaceX? -
| but then projects as ambitious/risky as Starship would likely
| be dropped)
| usefulcat wrote:
| Elon is a great salesman, but I think SpaceX is far enough
| along that it would be fine without him. Maybe better than
| fine, given how reckless he can be.
| chasd00 wrote:
| i remember an interview with Tom Mueller (sorry no link)
| where he was talking about Musk and how he insisted on face
| sealing pintle injectors for the Merlin engine. Everyone
| was telling him it couldn't be done but, as Tom put it, "it
| turns out, it got done."
|
| may not have that exactly right but hte point is Elon, at
| least in the early days of SpaceX, was definitely more than
| a salesman.
| panick21_ wrote:
| Its so fucking dumb to call Musk a salesman. Sales were
| handled by Shotwell and SpaceX had other expert at dealing
| with costumers. Sales is about the last thing Musk does for
| SpaceX.
| usefulcat wrote:
| I didn't mean to imply that he is or was literally A
| Salesman For SpaceX. I meant that he's good at promoting
| things, and even in inspiring feverish loyalty amongst
| his followers.
| panick21_ wrote:
| So who did the actual leading of these company, if Musk
| was just promoting things. Who made the important
| technical and financial choices? Who hired the important
| people?
|
| Maybe its more accurate to say that Musk is simply good
| at leading technical companies?
|
| > feverish loyalty amongst his followers
|
| You mean his employees? Most of them don't seem feverish.
|
| And if you mean people that are not his employees how
| does that have anything to do with SpaceX?
| kibwen wrote:
| You said it yourself: Shotwell does. Elon Musk does as
| much for SpaceX as Ronald McDonald does for McDonald's.
| bottlepalm wrote:
| No, it is Elon. He makes all the final decisions,
| business and technical. Gwynne is working on Starship now
| because Elon decided it.
| panick21_ wrote:
| Its always funny when Musk haters have to scratch out
| arguments to not give him credit. Funny how neither
| Shotwell or any other of the leaders of SpaceX would
| agree with you. But I guess you know better.
| IMTDb wrote:
| His recklessness is exactly what got him results. He is
| basically saying "fuck it lets blow up rockets until it
| works". And it does end up working because he was able to
| surround himself with people that are able to integrate
| teaching from each "failed" launch and improve the product.
| The day SpaceX swaps a reckless CEO for a careful one is
| the day they will stop blowing up rockets. It is also the
| day the competition will start to catch up.
| usefulcat wrote:
| I agree that a certain amount of RUD is both expected and
| quite good for SpaceX. I mean, clearly they're doing
| quite well, so it seems pretty obvious that this is true?
|
| When I said 'reckless', I was referring more to the
| repeated WTFs in his handling of the twitter acquisition,
| including but not limited to the acquisition itself.
| golemotron wrote:
| Yes. It's hilarious seeing proponents of agile who are
| not able to recognize it when it is applied in a non-
| software context. "Haha look at the fool! He can't get it
| right the first time."
| andrewflnr wrote:
| How sure are you that the proponents of agile and those
| criticizing Elon are the same people? In my limited
| experience, they are definitely not.
| thepasswordis wrote:
| >salesman
|
| Yeah he was somehow able to start both Tesla, a wildly
| successful paradigm shifting hard tech company, and then go
| on to start SpaceX, an even more paradigm shifting, wildly
| successful hard tech company that has absolutely blown out
| every single competitor on earth to the point of
| embarrassment.
|
| What does it take for people to just accept that he's a
| genius? Is that seriously so difficult? Clearly he's doing
| _something_ and it isn't sales.
| jshier wrote:
| He started neither of those companies.
| throwaway50614 wrote:
| [flagged]
| throwaway50614 wrote:
| [flagged]
| thepasswordis wrote:
| Oh really? I thought he started Tesla. So what was Tesla
| before he bought it? A successful car company producing
| cars?
| bluescrn wrote:
| Without Elon, SpaceX could surely succeed as a business,
| making good money from launch services and Starlink.
|
| They wouldn't get to Mars, though. Starship needs the
| 'recklessness' of being prepared to fail rapidly,
| repeatedly, dramatically, and incredibly publicly, while
| learning from each failure.
|
| So far they've managed to ensure that no humans have been
| injured during launch/landing failures (although the
| delayed flight termination of the recent launch was
| worrying, and should probably be more of a concern than the
| launch site damage)
| kibwen wrote:
| A focus on Mars could itself bankrupt SpaceX. There's no
| money to be made from a Mars base. If it distracts from
| pursuing prospects that actually have economic demand, it
| will be a disadvantage that competitors will exploit.
| lutorm wrote:
| Well, a focus on being able to _get to_ Mars basically
| means "figure out how to launch stuff extremely
| cheaply". I think they've been clear that SpaceX is not
| going to build a Mars base, they just count on it
| happening once you've driven the cost for getting stuff
| to Mars sufficiently low. And if you can launch enough
| things into orbit that a Mars base is feasible, you'll
| certainly beat everyone else on commercial launches, too.
|
| SpaceX plows all its profits into this goal. (Its
| shareholders aren't getting any returns, not for a long
| time. The SpaceX investors are playing an extremely long
| game.) And if you constantly use all your profits to
| improve your capability, you have a huge long-term
| advantage over companies that exist to make a profit for
| their shareholders.
| cronix wrote:
| > Without Elon, SpaceX could surely succeed as a
| business, making good money from launch services and
| Starlink.
|
| Sure, now that he's pushed them to where they are with
| his vision. Would we even be talking about landable
| rockets today without his involvement?
| krastanov wrote:
| Was the last Starship launch actually covered or reacted to
| differently? New York Times basically said "it exploded but
| experts agree that this was an important step forward" and
| all coverage and reactions I saw were "gosh, this is awesome,
| better luck next time". The negative comments I saw were the
| same I have been seeing since Falcon 9 was learning how to
| land.
| pinkwinds wrote:
| Not sure if this will add much, but I've never seen any
| negative comments before this - perhaps because I'm not
| really in this space (no pun intended) and don't follow
| these events. I saw plenty this time around.
| panick21_ wrote:
| > See the incredibly negative reaction to the Starship launch
| attempt compared to the much more positive reaction to
| previous test flights that ended with a boom.
|
| You are rewriting history. The same fucking thing happens
| everytime a rocket explodes. The same reaction happened with
| the earlier test flights again.
|
| Some dumb idiots in the media and twitter right bullshit. A
| few dumb politicans try to cash in and do a bunch of saber
| rattling in congress.
|
| Same game over and over, it doesn't matter and doesn't change
| anything.
|
| SpaceX or Musk will not be destroyed by this nonsense.
| andrewflnr wrote:
| Eh, I do think the dumb flak was worse with this one,
| possibly only because it got wider press than previous
| launches, but that itself might be due to tribal concerns,
| with Musk generally having more eyes on him. I've been sort
| of following SpaceX for years, and I definitely saw more
| dumb stuff about the recent test than any previous one.
| stirlo wrote:
| While I tend to agree I think even those in the know were
| in shock about the amount of damage to the pad. And
| subsequent disclosure by musk that control was lost at
| ~30s is also rather shocking compared expectations of an
| issue occurring later at stage separation or reentry.
| CydeWeys wrote:
| Who cares what some people want to see? All that matters is
| what they can actually help to make happen. And Elon being
| "destroyed" is only gonna happen through his own actions.
| He's his own worst enemy, and yes, buying Twitter and all of
| his subsequent actions with it were a huge mistake, a big
| unforced error. He's turned a lot of people against him, and
| for what. Hell, I'm very enthusiastic about space travel and
| yet he's even turned me against him somewhat, as I absolutely
| hate the waves of layoffs across tech his actions have
| precipitated. Him and Zuck basically gave everyone else
| "permission" too, and us tech workers have suffered severely
| for it.
| whatwhaaaaat wrote:
| For saving discourse on the internet. You don't have to
| agree with his positions but there is no denying he has
| brought back the ability to discuss sensitive topics
| without a throng of zealots having their reports result in
| quick censoring.
|
| It's like you all forgot we just spent three years calling
| anyone who disagreed on an untested therapeutic that
| doesn't even work a racist.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| > It's like you all forgot we just spent three years
| calling anyone who disagreed on an untested therapeutic
| that doesn't even work a racist.
|
| Please be more specific because I have no idea what
| you're referring to.
| mikeyouse wrote:
| None of that is remotely reflective of reality.
| hersko wrote:
| What do you mean? Alex Berenson was kicked off of twitter
| in the summer of 2021 because of factually correct tweets
| about covid [1].
|
| [1]
| https://twitter.com/davidzweig/status/1607382645603704834
| golemotron wrote:
| That's sort of shooting the messenger. Tech was overvalued
| for a long time. A lot of make-work.
| dotnet00 wrote:
| The wave of layoffs in tech had started before his layoffs
| at Twitter. By the time the Twitter layoffs started people
| here were already talking about how tech companies in
| general were about to have large waves of layoffs.
| aksss wrote:
| You're blaming Musk for a wave of layoffs in the tech
| industry? That he gave permission to other companies to do
| it? Are you saying the layoffs made good business sense but
| somehow these companies were prevented from doing so? What
| was preventing them? Was that factor "correct" or
| "healthy"?
| [deleted]
| stainablesteel wrote:
| the media wants to see elon go down
|
| every time i touch grass while talking about elon people are
| always amazed with him, why is that?
| debatem1 wrote:
| What does "touch grass" in this context mean?
|
| If you mean "every time I am smoking a joint and talking
| about Elon" I guess I'm not surprised. If you mean "every
| time I go outside and talk to people about Elon" I
| definitely am. There are large parts of my (quite liberal)
| state where a Tesla gets a pretty negative reaction.
| stainablesteel wrote:
| i'm basically saying every time i go out and am included
| in a discussion involving elon. for the past 2 years this
| has been my experience, i've been traveling throughout 3
| different very liberal cities and i don't find people who
| are as disgusted with his as the media implies. i think
| that echo chamber is a small one meant to deceive people.
|
| if he was such a bad person, why is he doing so much good
| in the world?
| [deleted]
| jackmott42 wrote:
| Elon brought that on himself. Fortunately SpaceX will be fine
| even without him at this point.
| consumer451 wrote:
| Elon going all-in on politics is one of the most
| disappointing and surprising events in my adult life.
| Certainly a good lesson in hero worship though. Agreed on
| SpaceX at this point. Although it would be different, not
| sure there is a business case for Mars for example.
| panick21_ wrote:
| What do you mean going 'all-in' on politics. He still
| doing the exact same thing as before, running SpaceX and
| Tesla.
|
| By 'all-in' you mean make a few statements on twitter
| about his opinion? Because that is very different
| definition for 'all-in' then I have. Going 'all-in' would
| be to try to get elected president or some dumb shit like
| that.
| jackmott42 wrote:
| He spent 44 billion to be a right wing twitter troll.
| consumer451 wrote:
| > He still doing the exact same thing as before, running
| SpaceX and Tesla.
|
| I think we are living in different realities, which is
| the new normal I suppose. You missed one company he has
| recently purchased. You know, the one that is 100%
| political in nature? Jeez, just imagine the space
| telescopes or moon bases he could have invested in, but
| instead we got Twitter allowing self-described Nazis back
| on the platform. What a tragic waste of Musk's resources,
| both mental and financial.
|
| What I meant by "all-in" was jumping headlong into the
| hyper-partisan political fray - and loudly choosing a
| side!
|
| Musk 2021: Elon Musk said he prefers to stay out of
| politics [0]
|
| Musk 2022: Elon Musk says he'll vote Republican, bashes
| Democrats [1]
|
| [0] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/09/elon-musk-tesla-
| spacex-spend...
|
| [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/18/elon-musk-says-hell-
| vote-rep...
| panick21_ wrote:
| Yes running Twitter and Boring as well, but practically
| the waste majority of his time is Tesla and SpaceX.
|
| I believe Musk fought buying Twitter would be both good
| politically and he could lead the company more
| successfully. Hence he wanted to get out of it when it
| was clear that it was a huge as shares dropped.
|
| > Musk 2022: Elon Musk says he'll vote Republican, bashes
| Democrats [1]
|
| I'm not disagreeing that Musk go more political, but
| calling it 'all-in' is LITERALLY wrong.
|
| All-in would be doing politics as his primary occupation.
| HelloMcFly wrote:
| Elon Musk went all-in on the culture war of American
| politics and has vocally sided with the political party
| on an authoritarian and minoritarian track. He has put
| his thumb on the scale on more ways than one, including
| seemingly bad-faith actions e.g. his banning of
| journalists and unbanning of much less savory characters.
|
| He's not running for office, but he's inserted himself
| part of the larger political narrative.
| panick21_ wrote:
| Again, this word 'all-in' simply doesn't mean what you
| think it means.
|
| He is not doing a TV show on Fox News 5 days a weak, he
| isn't running for president.
|
| He occasionally tweets something that is political or
| runs arguable runs Twitter in a political (not sure if
| its possible to run Twitter in a politically neutral
| way).
|
| His actual job that he spends 95% of his time on is
| running SpaceX and Tesla, just like before he bought
| Twitter.
| aksss wrote:
| I think you find some of these people "getting political"
| because they've been cornered and/or burned by
| media/government/politicians/ngos, badly. It destroys a
| lot of illusions they have/had about establishment
| politicians/media. Once you see through it - the cynical
| opportunism, hypocrisy, double standards, and assumption
| of power, abuse of groupthink - it's not something you
| unsee. And the multi-modal pressure campaigns of that
| cabal to try and force compliance cause a certain
| personality type to push back harder rather than bend
| over (especially if they have fu money). There's a list
| of people in the public sphere like this in the last ten
| years - Musk, Rogan, Brett Weinstein, Peterson, and I
| dare say Trump was one too. Contrarian voices. Love 'em
| or hate 'em because reasons, but I think their
| individualist, critical, and contrarian voices are a
| necessary feature rather than a bug.
|
| Edit: that's not to say you need to treat these people as
| heroes - I'm reflexively suspicious of that because human
| nature will always be what it is, but I applaud their
| ability to give the finger to convention, that's all.
| zpeti wrote:
| > Europe is absolutely at the cutting edge of technology.
|
| Cutting edge of technology is industry creating or industry
| changing technologies. The US has dominated these since the
| 80s, but arguably even before that with railways, and after all
| the atom bomb was invented by immigrants in the US.
|
| The web, social media, smartphones.
|
| And now space industries and generative AI.
|
| And why is this?
|
| Lots of network effects, but also places like the EU have it
| completely backwards in terms of policy. Policy doesn't create
| innovation. It might support it, but real innovation comes from
| freedom and letting innovative people roam free. The US
| government is doing it best to stop this but still hasn't
| managed it luckily.
|
| I just don't see how europe is at the cutting edge of anything,
| any companies they lead their field are downstream of leading
| US industries.
|
| I don't know if it's possible to recreate what the US does.
| Probably not. But what EU bureaucrats try and do basically
| fails every time.
| kranke155 wrote:
| deepMind was only recently overtaken by OpenAI. And I'd chalk
| that up as a maybe.
|
| Europe does have a lot of midtier industrial companies that
| do world-tier work. This includes Defense, Air transport
| (Airbus), Automotive, Pharmaceutical (BioNTech RNA vaccine
| coming from EU work) and I'm sure many other sectors.
| [deleted]
| orbital-decay wrote:
| _Everybody_ except SpaceX is struggling to make their launch
| vehicles reusable, _including_ the US companies. And even
| SpaceX hasn 't been able to get the full reusability, not for
| the lack of trying. Which hints at that the reusability might
| be a niche solution that worked for SpaceX in particular, and
| _maybe_ for some other companies which have been particularly
| lucky to be in a sweet spot and have a combination of factors.
| Policy is one of them, sure - but not the only one.
|
| I'd also like to remind that the reusability isn't limited to
| the SpaceX style VTVL. There are also potentially promising
| things like VTHL flyback boosters, but they are untested and
| nobody is currently positioned to throw money away to test
| smart solutions hypothesized in 60s, because the margins for
| the failure are non-existent in the industry.
| dotnet00 wrote:
| To say that "SpaceX hasn't been able to get full reusability,
| not for lack of trying" is a huge stretch when they've only
| just gotten around to the first orbital flight tests of the
| vehicle they designed for that purpose.
|
| Similarly, the only other company that has even tried to make
| a proven launch vehicle reusable is Rocketlab. So suggesting
| that others are struggling, when they either haven't even
| tried yet or are still working on getting to orbit, is
| ridiculous.
|
| On top of that, the argument that reusability doesn't work
| for others for any reasons other than policy also doesn't
| really fit. Launch prices for all other rockets are higher,
| even the ones developed to better compete with F9 are only in
| the ballpark of its launch price and completely uncompetitive
| on launch cost and cadence.
| orbital-decay wrote:
| _> To say that "SpaceX hasn't been able to get full
| reusability, not for lack of trying" is a huge stretch when
| they've only just gotten around to the first orbital flight
| tests of the vehicle they designed for that purpose._
|
| I was referring to the original plan for the Falcon 9 to be
| fully reusable, which didn't work out for the second stage.
|
| _> others ... either haven 't even tried yet or are still
| working on getting to orbit_
|
| That's exactly my point, though. They either didn't figure
| out how to make it work economically in their particular
| case, or spent too many years building a working system
| with a slow methodology. Sure, reusing the hardware
| provides clear benefits and everybody understands that, but
| only if you can pull it off and make the ends meet.
| Evidently not everybody can do that, even in the US where
| they have the same policy as others. So clearly the policy
| is not the only differentiator.
|
| For non-US companies this is especially true - besides the
| good policy, you have to have the infra (supply chain
| closeness and quick turnarounds, quick transportation
| network which is a special pain point for Russian
| cosmodromes and the issue for French Guiana or any
| potential sea launch systems as well), good location (east-
| facing shore close to the equator with good trajectory
| options - Russia and Europe don't have that), access to the
| markets (Russia is cut off and China doesn't have the
| proper access to the global launch market). Russian
| launchers in particular also have different cost breakdown
| traditionally (expensive compact upper stages; that's why
| the IRDT mission was trying to return the _upper_ stage in
| 2001-2004 to explore the reusability possibility; AFAIR the
| experiment partially succeeded, but they still weren 't
| able to make the ends meet with that).
|
| In fact, the only other country which has more or less
| everything in place for the SpaceX-style floating platform
| landing reusability (you can't compete in VTVL by only
| having the landing pad flyback) is Japan, but they're too
| heavily invested into "cheap" LH2 on the country level to
| make a mental switch to the reusable systems.
| dabluecaboose wrote:
| > Europe is absolutely at the cutting edge of technology.
|
| Unless that technology is launch vehicles, in which case
| they'll whinge and whine and eventually contract someone else
| to do it for them and pretend they have a competent space
| program.
| kranke155 wrote:
| Why are you saying this as if the US public sector made a
| reusable rocket? As far as I know, the US public sector
| (mostly?) funded SLS.
| jackmott42 wrote:
| All rockets in the US have been built by private companies.
| All of them have had some degree of public funding, even
| Falcon9 and Starship.
| simonh wrote:
| That's true, but what matter for technology development is
| who is specifying the design criteria. For most of the
| history of US rocket development it's been NASA. They
| designed the Saturn V, the Shuttle, SLS, and sub-contracted
| out manufacturing to private industry. The contractors
| certainly had a lot of input into the detailed design of
| the rockets, but the overall criteria and design concept
| were defined by NASA.
|
| With COTS NASA switched to contracting out for launch
| capacity without defining how it must be achieved. This
| allowed SpaceX the freedom to engineer their rockets as
| they saw fit.
| nordsieck wrote:
| It's interesting to see them say 2030s now. When the plans for
| "Ariane Next" first came out, they were aiming for 2028. Sounds
| like the program has already slipped quite a bit.
|
| Ariane Group is going to be in for a rough time every year beyond
| ~2026 that they delay. By then most of Starship (SpaceX), New
| Glenn (Blue Origin), Terran R (Relativity), and Neutron (Rocket
| Lab) should be operational - all of which will at least reuse the
| 1st stage.
|
| Of course, they'll be able to fall back on institutional payloads
| to maintain a minimum level of funding. But that's not a great
| place for the program to be in terms of funding. Or politics.
|
| This whole situation is really tragic. The design of Ariane 6 was
| finalized in 2016 - after SpaceX had successfully landed a Falcon
| 9 for the first time. While I realize that that would have been
| quite late in the design process for the rocket, it really shows
| the weakness of Ariane Group when it comes to assessing the
| competitive landscape and making difficult decisions.
|
| To be fair, it is hard on the king to wear the crown for too
| long. Europe and Russia had a long run; we'll see how well SpaceX
| carries the burden.
| panick21_ wrote:
| > When the plans for "Ariane Next" first came out
|
| Those were not plans, just one space agencies ideas.
|
| > they were aiming for 2028
|
| That was just political marketing, had nothing todo with
| reality and was never even remotely possible.
|
| > To be fair, it is hard on the king to wear the crown for too
| long.
|
| The were not really the king. For GEO missions yes, but for LEO
| Soyuz was always cheaper. And yes ArianeGroup was launching
| them, but its hardly their technical capabilities that made
| that possible.
| EveYoung wrote:
| I think it's unrealistic to expect a multi-national government
| funded organisation to offer a commodity service at a
| competitive price. With all the conflicting national interests
| and bureaucracy that come with this funding model, how should
| they compete with much leaner, commercial organisations that
| are only responsible to their shareholders? But does it really
| matter? If the main objective of the Ariane Group is to offer
| Europe independence by providing access to space, I think
| that's worth a premium.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| We should demand more and should not accept subpar
| performance.
|
| This is somewhat like Nokia vs Apple, only worse because of
| the bureaucratic EU-wide red tape involved.
|
| Yes, Europe should have its own space industry and be
| independent. But we should not accept rubbish or "paying a
| premium". We should demand more and aim at the top. Europe
| deserves it and can achieve it.
|
| SpaceX has rocked the boat and thay should be an opportunity
| for drastic changes, especially in view of this fiasco.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| > If the main objective of the Ariane Group is to offer
| Europe independence by providing access to space, I think
| that's worth a premium.
|
| I mean in that case, wouldn't the superior option be having a
| more cost competitive private launch provider in Europe? that
| way you'd get both European independence _and_ lower prices.
| Surely there 's a way to foster that situation, since that's
| what the US has.
| kranke155 wrote:
| Having the EU work this out would be hard since pork barrel
| is kind of part of the way the whole thing is done. You
| need to have multiple production points, factories etc in
| order for the EU to do anything like this.
|
| I just don't see how they would do this.
| brookst wrote:
| Exactly this. The diversity of interests means EU will
| never be as operationally efficient, and therefore as low
| cost, as SpaceX.
|
| EU's strength is that diversification. They should lean
| into that and find a way (?) to benefit commercially. I
| don't know quite what that is, but someone needs to come
| up with something. Because the inefficiency is baked in.
| nordsieck wrote:
| > I think it's unrealistic to expect a multi-national
| government funded organisation to offer a commodity service
| at a competitive price.
|
| Except that they used to. They certainly beat the pants off
| of ULA (nee Boeing/Lockheed Martin) when it came to
| competitive GEO/GTO launches.
|
| > But does it really matter? If the main objective of the
| Ariane Group is to offer Europe independence by providing
| access to space, I think that's worth a premium.
|
| It's a lot nicer to have a European rocket program that
| happens to make lots of money on the commercial market so
| that the member states basically don't have to fund it.
|
| The current situation, where ArianeSpace doesn't win that
| many contracts, so it has to be heavily subsidized by member
| states is much more difficult. When it comes to politics,
| there are always more hungry mouths than there is available
| bread.
| panick21_ wrote:
| > Except that they used to.
|
| If everybody is a fool, and you are the best of them you
| can be successful. But once the race really starts and its
| not just US govenrment funded monopoly against European
| government funded monopoly, its gone be difficult.
|
| > The current situation
|
| Ariane 5 had some commercial success but rocket development
| was always funded by member states.
| panick21_ wrote:
| > it's unrealistic to expect a multi-national government
| funded organisation
|
| Maybe then those organizations should admit that rather then
| lie about it. ArianeGroup always justified Ariane 6 early on
| by claiming with it they would be competitve with SpaceX.
|
| Of course they thought about competitive with SpaceX in 2014,
| not 2024 when Falcon 9 flies weekly and Starship is deep in
| development.
|
| > If the main objective of the Ariane Group is to offer
| Europe independence by providing access to space, I think
| that's worth a premium.
|
| Maybe then they should have had a clear strategy around
| achieving this goal effectively rather then deluding
| themselves.
|
| Europe having Ariane 6 and Vega rocket for example make no
| sense. They could have one engine, for example Merlin
| 'European Version' and use it as the only engine one all
| their rockets.
|
| However they have an incredibly complex bespoke first stage
| engine, and complex bespoke second stage engine. And lots of
| different solid rockets and so on.
|
| If they had planned for making the most expensive possible
| thing to achieve independence they certainly managed it.
| b3orn wrote:
| > Europe having Ariane 6 and Vega rocket for example make
| no sense. They could have one engine...
|
| It absolutely makes sense, Vega is basically an Ariane 5
| solid rocket booster that was turned into an actual rocket,
| both are/were made by Avio who now make the Ariane 6
| boosters.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| They should've skipped Ariane 6 and do Ariane 5ME instead
| and make the next vehicle a reusable one. Ariane 6
| doesn't really buy them anything more than Ariane 5ME,
| just buys more risk and more development cost (this
| latter thing may actually have been the unstated INTENT
| of some stakeholders...).
| panick21_ wrote:
| And yet if you actually go and look at the cost of the
| Vega series of rockets its very expensive. Just using the
| same expensive stuff multiple times doesn't make it a
| good policy.
|
| And then you keep reading and realize that Vega is not
| just a solid booster, but a 4 stage rocket.
| dotnet00 wrote:
| It's worth remembering that when F9 had successfully
| demonstrated reusability, they were still running from reality
| and arguing that reusability wasn't worth pursuing. Kind of
| like with ULA, they aren't merely bad at assessing the
| competitive landscape, they actively blind themselves to it.
| nordsieck wrote:
| That's certainly what they were saying to the press. It's
| hard to know to what degree they actually believed the things
| they were saying.
|
| Although, if actions speak louder than words, choosing to go
| ahead with Ariane 6 is pretty strong confirmation.
| dotnet00 wrote:
| I think I would agree that they might've been doing
| something else internally if they were simply saying that
| F9 wasn't effective to reuse (like ULA had said at one
| point).
|
| But they had been arguing that it wasn't worth pursuing for
| themselves, arguing that they didn't need to launch that
| often. That, to me, comes off as a bit more honest since
| they're not really saying anything positive about
| themselves.
| InTheArena wrote:
| I don't have much faith in anything beyond Starship and New
| Glenn. I've been hearing things at Rocket Lab are a mess right
| now, and relativity and rocket lab basically both are pivoting
| because SpaceX has made their original launch plans moot.
|
| China will in the next 1-3 years launch a reusable rocket. Bold
| prediction, but their combination of massive money, engineering
| howto and shameless industrial theft makes it a no-brainer.
|
| In terms of other launchers, I can see whoever buys ULA
| launching something reusable in the next decade, as well as
| ariane space.
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| Admittedly I don't know much about the economics of rocketry,
| but the Ariane 6 doesn't seem much different from the Ariane 5
| and I can't imagine it actually brings much to the table in
| terms of performance or cost savings, especially in light of
| how involved the development of it was.
| panick21_ wrote:
| This is true, read my top level post for more information.
|
| The Ariane 6 is basically an evolved version of what was the
| Ariane 5 ME. Many of the things that are now Ariane 6 were
| developed for Ariane 5 upgrades.
|
| The new upper and lower stage engines are both just upgraded
| Ariane 5 engines.
|
| However they realized they could never compete with the
| Ariane 5 core against Falcon 9 (in 2014) they changed some
| political design processes and made the rockets more
| flexible.
|
| The most relevant difference between Ariane 5 and Ariane 6 is
| that Ariane 5 always had to huge solid boosters, while the
| Ariane 6 has 2 or 4 depending on the mission.
|
| That makes is possible for the Ariane 6 with 2 boosters to be
| in the competition for LEO missions. Something Ariane 5
| wouldn't have been able to do.
|
| But you are right, the 5 billion $ it cost to develop Ariane
| 6 will required it to fly for decades to make it worth doing
| compared to Ariane 5 ME.
| nordsieck wrote:
| > the Ariane 6 doesn't seem much different from the Ariane 5
| and I can't imagine it actually brings much to the table in
| terms of performance or cost savings, especially in light of
| how involved the development of it was.
|
| My understanding is that Ariane 6 was explicitly designed to
| reduce production costs compared to Ariane 5, in large part
| due to competitive pressure from SpaceX.
|
| > With the new Ariane 6 slated to enter service in 2020,
| ArianeGroup promises to cut per-kilogram launch cost by 40 to
| 50 percent compared to Ariane 5.
|
| https://spacenews.com/arianegroup-cfo-pierre-godart-on-
| arian... (2017)
|
| I guess, we'll see if they achieve that goal. Although rocket
| pricing is notoriously opaque.
| grecy wrote:
| That's just it, for decades the "new" version of a rocket
| only had very small incremental changes and didn't raise the
| bar much at all. That's how commercial aerospace has worked
| for a very long time.
|
| Much like the Toyota Camry which has been the best selling
| sedan in the US _every single year since 2000_.[1] It gets a
| slight incremental change each year, but no ground-breaking
| changes or utterly re-thinking what a car is.
|
| Guess what sedan is now out-selling all other sedans? [2]
|
| (Hint: not the one that has been getting incremental updates
| since well before 2000)
|
| [1] https://alansfactoryoutlet.com/the-best-selling-car-
| model-ev...
|
| [2] https://www.caranddriver.com/news/g43553191/bestselling-
| cars...
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| > (Hint: not the one that has been getting incremental
| updates since well before 2000)
|
| According to your article that's exactly what it is.
|
| Did you mean to link something else?
| [deleted]
| jorvi wrote:
| That's a pretty disingenuous comparison. It's like taking a
| single Android manufacturer's sales, putting it up against
| the iPhone and saying "look how hard the iPhones outsell
| it!".
|
| Once we stack all the non-Tesla sedans together, it paints
| a much different picture probably.
|
| And that's not mentioning that companies get big subsidies
| for electrification, and Tesla purchases themselves get
| credits on top of that (although I am unfamiliar if they
| stack).
|
| I think Teslas are pretty great and Tesla as a company
| likely pushed electrification ahead by a decade or so, but
| people seriously need to stop drinking the kool-aid.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| ICEs probably have larger subsidies if we look at the
| entire life cycle, externalized healthcare costs, fissile
| fuel infrastructure, etc.
| zardo wrote:
| > Guess what sedan is now out-selling all other sedans? [2]
|
| Have they changed the article? It's the Toyota Camry. The
| better selling vehicles are trucks and SUV/CUVs.
| kibwen wrote:
| The article even says "We think hell will freeze over
| before the Toyota Camry relinquishes its spot as the
| bestselling non-SUV in the country. It maintained its
| place with a 7 percent increase over last year."
| Robotbeat wrote:
| Don't forget Firefly's MLV/Antares300 (F9 style, kerolox
| reusable first stage), and Stoke's full RLV (smaller, mere
| medium class a bit more payload than Vega/Vega-C, but still
| potentially important). These companies have hardware in
| testing now as well.
| antoniuschan99 wrote:
| Stoke has the most interesting design right now! But
| extremely early stage too
| mathverse wrote:
| Europe is failing because it's not a single entity. It's a loose
| cooperation between many countries.
|
| Insane amount of talent is wasted because of "so called" european
| language and cultural racism.
|
| Companies are still "national" instead of european and talent is
| not appreciated. Taxes are sky high and so is national, cultural
| racism. You think a brilliant bulgarian scientist is treated the
| same by his French colleagues?
|
| Until this changes and europeans will start treat their fellow
| europeans fairly nothing will improve.
| panick21_ wrote:
| The US was 1 country and was beaten by Europe for 2 decades in
| space.
|
| The US is winning now because they hit the jackpot with Elon
| Musk and SpaceX. Without SpaceX Europe would still be winning
| against the US in terms of rockets.
|
| Now granted, one can argue that Elon Musk and SpaceX wouldn't
| have been possible in Europe, and that is partly true as well.
|
| But US still got lucky that SpaceX happened right when they
| wanted private supply of ISS.
| GrigoriyMikh wrote:
| I think that's the best explanation of the current situation in
| Europe.
|
| Just look at Germany, biggest economy in EU. It's treating it's
| migrant workers as slaves. Feeding failing pension system from
| them. Not giving any rights for innovation(you can't start
| business without German national cofounder) or even any
| motivation to innovate(high taxes, anti-success culture, strict
| residence laws).
|
| When you mention any problems with Germany to Germans, they're
| so protective and unwilling to change that their only response
| is "go back home if you don't like it here".
| jimkoen wrote:
| > you can't start business without German national cofounder
|
| That's an outright lie, you need a Visa though if you're not
| a citizen from a Schengen country.
|
| > strict residence laws
|
| Ever tried to get a Greencard? And if you have the financial
| backing, up until the start of the Ukraine war there were
| plenty of states with a golden visa program.
|
| I think you're being too harsh on german and european
| policymakers. I agree, the climate for startups is abysmal
| and the room for improvement is huge, but in terms of being
| inclusive EU is leading over the US.
| GrigoriyMikh wrote:
| > you need a Visa though if you're not a citizen from a
| Schengen country
|
| Ok, let me be clear. I have a temporary residence in
| Germany. Before, i had a worker visa. I'm not allowed to
| start my own business with temporary residence here. Only
| if i have a German co-founder.
|
| > but in terms of being inclusive EU is leading over the US
|
| I'm not 100% sure about US. Although, i have 3 friends
| there who don't experience problems that i have in Europe.
| But in Germany, specifically, banking and government
| bureaucracy machine became outright nationalistic. My bank
| account have been blocked because of my nationality. I had
| problems when i was changing my registration address,
| because of my nationality. No i'm struggling with tax
| office(changing my tax class) because of my
| nationality(specifically, i have some papers from my
| country).
|
| And i heard similar complains about Spain and Poland(it's
| actually refusing to give worker visas to Russians, even if
| they already reside in EU). EU is pure nazi at this point.
| But majority of people ignore it, because it's, apparently,
| not nazi to be against Russians at this moment.
| jimkoen wrote:
| > Ok, let me be clear. I have a temporary residence in
| Germany. Before, i had a worker visa. I'm not allowed to
| start my own business with temporary residence here. Only
| if i have a German co-founder.
|
| https://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/en/visa-
| service/buergerservi...
|
| Not seeing any point here that forces you to have a
| german cofounder. It honestly sounds like you're
| experiencing difficulties working as a freelancer on a
| temporary residence permit, which I think is the case all
| around the world. I'd be glad for US natives to chime in,
| but from what I've read it's similar there.
|
| From the remainder of your comment I take that you're
| russian/belarussian? If you have a permanent residence
| you're free to give up your citizenship, but yeah, it's
| not in the best interest for western states to make
| living amenable for you, due to state security. I'm
| pretty sure that regardless of my oppinion, you'd face
| similar difficulties in the US and elsewhere.
|
| If germany is so hostile, why not migrate?
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| > When you mention any problems with Germany to Germans,
| they're so protective and unwilling to change that their only
| response is "go back home if you don't like it here".
|
| Lived in Germany for five years, 100% agree with this. The
| Germany Defense Squad is very real.
|
| Germans are way pricklier about criticism of their country
| compared to Americans, which surprised me somewhat, given
| Americans' reputation for superpatriotism.
|
| That's not to say you won't ever see the same kind response
| from some Americans (especially those further right), but
| what surprised me is that even centrist or center-left
| Germans of the kind you'll see on Reddit were so defensive,
| while centrist and center-left Americans are practically
| lashing themselves with a cat o' nine tails over how dumb the
| US is on many issues, and heartily agreeing with foreigners
| on criticism.
| fathyb wrote:
| I want Europe to succeed and that's why I'm staying here, but I
| have to agree that the racism situation in France is really
| bad. It's the main reason I won't work for a company here.
| bequanna wrote:
| It is racism or just the French acting how most view them:
| unfriendly, unhelpful, dismissive?
| fathyb wrote:
| I was born and raised here, I don't think it's cultural
| differences.
| throwaway40506 wrote:
| If they act like that only to certain ethnicities, then
| that's called racism.
| sofixa wrote:
| Could you expand on what you mean the "racism situation in
| France"? The cheap populism politicians or something else?
| [deleted]
| fathyb wrote:
| It wasn't something subtle with room for interpretation,
| but outwards intolerance (not just racism) from the people
| themselves. It's generally passed off as a joke (ie. saying
| don't blow it up or don't steal anything jokingly to a
| muslim), but repeated multiple times a week. It doesn't
| seem to be specific to one region or industry.
|
| The French word to describe the culture I was exposed to at
| work would be "beauf". What kind of talented person would
| take a pay cut to work in such an environment?
| el_mocambo wrote:
| Why on earth would Europe be "a single entity" ?! The more you
| are forcing it to be (like pretty much a Soviet
| administration), the less it is working...
|
| All the "European success stories" are things that were created
| by what you call "loose cooperation between many countries",
| like Airbus, which is indeed the way to go.
| sofixa wrote:
| > You think a brilliant bulgarian scientist is treated the same
| by his French colleagues?
|
| As a Bulgarian who lives and works in France, yes. Ffs multiple
| very high profile French authors, thinkers, theatre directors
| are originally Bulgarian (Tzvetan Todorov, Galin Stoev come to
| mind, there's also a lady whose name I can't recall) so even in
| _very_ conservative areas they 're accepted, let alone in
| scientific areas.
| mafribe wrote:
| > _lady whose name I can 't recall_
|
| Julia Kristeva? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Kristeva
| throwaway40506 wrote:
| As a person from another Eastern EU country who worked in
| German and French corporations, _absolutely no_. The people
| at my current US employer treat me very, very differently. I
| 'm never going back.
|
| Even just the casual dismissal of my attempts to ask to speak
| a common language (English) - them switching to German/French
| whenever there was at least one other speaker of the language
| - even though the firms declared the working language is
| English...
|
| Where I live if a person who doesn't speak our language comes
| into the room we all switch to English so the person can feel
| welcome.
|
| Stuff like credit cards issued in my country simply not
| working and them saying things like "yeah well we don't trust
| these eastern banks" with the typical "zomg another poor
| schmuck"-look...
| sofixa wrote:
| > Stuff like credit cards issued in my country simply not
| working and them saying things like "yeah well we don't
| trust these eastern banks" with the typical "zomg another
| poor schmuck"-look...
|
| That sounds like Germany and their obsolete banking system.
| No idea how things are there, but in France that hasn't
| been anything resembling my experience. Yeah I get the
| occasional "I detected a small accent there, where are you
| from? Oh cool, you speak very good French!" which doesn't
| bother me, but that's pretty much it. And for what it's
| worth, some Bulgarian banks are shit and don't work with
| French bank cards for whatever reason (naming and shaming:
| Unicredit Bulbank flat out told me they don't work with
| "some German banks" when my French card was not working on
| a POS terminal from them).
|
| > Even just the casual dismissal of my attempts to ask to
| speak a common language (English) - them switching to
| German/French whenever there was at least one other speaker
| of the language - even though the firms declared the
| working language is English...
|
| > Where I live if a person who doesn't speak our language
| comes into the room we all switch to English so the person
| can feel welcome.
|
| Yep, French people have that bad habit. It's mostly out of
| shame in my view though - their English is usually not
| perfect, and they don't feel comfortable expressing
| themselves in it, running back to their comfort zone at any
| opportunity. It's shitty towards people who don't speak
| their language.
| Guillaume86 wrote:
| About the french refusing to speak english, I think
| there's also some kind of language superiority complex
| (and I say that as a native french speaker).
|
| Even online in english spaces (big subreddits for
| example), I see french people switching back to french in
| the middle of a thread if they recognize each other,
| really rude IMO.
| panick21_ wrote:
| Anybody who is watching this industry knew this. Ariane 6 is
| really just a slight upgrade over Ariane 5. The Ariane 5 ME is
| mostly what the parts that are now in Ariane 6 came from,
| otherwise Ariane 6 would have taken much longer.
|
| This was approved in 2014, and the rocket wont be really
| operational until 2024. So 10 years for a really simply upgrade.
| Some of the parts now on the Ariane 6 have been in development
| for 20+ years.
|
| Even if right now, Europe decided to do a huge new rocket
| projects, it would be 10 years minimum. But this is not likely
| going to happen. Many didn't even want to spend the money for
| Ariane 6. An agreement on a real large reusable rocket is
| politically not feasible anytime soon, an no country, not even
| France is gone do it alone.
|
| Of course a real reusable rocket is gone cost more the develop
| then the Ariane 6, a slight upgrade over Ariane 5. Ariane 6 cost
| 5 billion and that ignores a lot different costs for
| infrastructure and development of sub-components over the last
| decades.
|
| So a decade is actually an incredibly optimistic prediction, 2
| decades is more likely and that is far from certain.
|
| And even if they do so, they will never have a large share of the
| market. They will battle a whole host of other companies,
| RocketLab, ULA, Relativity for things that SpaceX will be
| excluded from (Amazon and so on).
| kranke155 wrote:
| Honestly as an European - this is not on the table of high
| priorities right now. Let Musk figure out between F9 and
| Starship how it's best to produce rockets for the next half
| century, then copy and remake the same thing here.
|
| The EU having independent access to space is a point of pride,
| not a continental emergency.
| panick21_ wrote:
| Ironically even the US launched mostly with Russian engines
| for quite a while. And Arianespace was launching more russian
| rockets then European ones.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-05-05 23:02 UTC)