A German rocket startup seeks to disrupt the European launch industry:
"For our customers, it's a pain to go to Russia, the United States, or India."
Some space entrepreneurs in Germany believe that the European launch industry—which principally consists of the state-backed Arianespace corporation—is ripe for disruption.
The industry, they say, mirrors that of the United States more than a decade ago, before SpaceX emerged onto the scene and began to disrupt the near-monopoly held by United Launch Alliance. SpaceX successfully launched its first Falcon 1 rocket in 2008, and the company followed that with the Falcon 9 booster less than two years later. Since then, it has forced competitors to innovate and put downward pressure on launch prices.
"Europe is where the US launch industry was 15 years ago," said Daniel Metzler, co-founder and chief executive of the Munich-based Isar Aerospace rocket company, in an interview.
If the company's attitude seems a bit brash, seeking to challenge the existing order of the European launch industry, perhaps it is not surprising given the company's advisors. They are led by Bulent Altan, an aerospace engineer who joined SpaceX in 2004 out of Stanford University. Atlan[sic] played a key role in the development of the avionics system that guided the Falcon 1 and later Falcon 9 rockets in flight. And he spent his pre-college years in Germany.
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 24 2020, @08:04AM (2 children)
Are they going to start with the V1's, or go straight to the V2's? According to Brits who survived the Blitz, you could hear the V1's coming, but the V2's were supersonic, so you only heard them after they impacted. But as usual, literature is the best inroad to the details. I highly recommend Pynchon's "Gravity's Rainbow" for background on German rockets, and so much more.
(Score: 2) by inertnet on Thursday September 24 2020, @03:53PM
The V1 had a very typical sound. People used to stop what they were doing and listen for the V1 to continue its path. Because if the engine would stop, the rocket would come falling down and could kill you. People feared of the engine sound, but even more the silence when it stopped.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday September 24 2020, @04:05PM
Can't SpaceX Falcon 1's, or Falcon 9's be used for launching weapons?
How big of a warhead can fly on an economical SpaceX Starship?
How soon can we land these warheads on Mars?
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Thursday September 24 2020, @08:46AM
This is an older rocket stored on the Isar [v2rocket.com]. It's open to the public, anyone can go and view it.
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by gtomorrow on Thursday September 24 2020, @08:47AM (1 child)
Resting on it laurels since the post-WWII era
kidnappedacquired German scientists* help put the Americans on the moon, this is what "German Engineering" has done lately...• Eight more Volkswagen employees charged in diesel scandal [reuters.com]
• Mercedes to Pay Penalties and Fix Cars Following Emissions Cheating Allegations [consumerreports.org]
* There's a pertinent Vonnegut citation I wanted to include but can't find it at this moment.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 24 2020, @02:02PM
Those rocket scientists ran to the US because their option ws to be kidnapped by the Ruskies.
It will be interesting to see how this works out. Many technologies exist now that didn't in the 60's, but it's still rocket science.
As an aside, If you were going to pick a new place to launch rockets, how about Puerto RIco?
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday September 24 2020, @09:12PM
Startup Entrepreneur Seeks Investors
By making use of the latest business buzzwords, a startup CEO and trust fund baby hopes that new investors will see his company in the news and flood them with venture capital, thus increasing the chances that it can fulfill its grandiose promises. Their primary technical lead stole a bunch of ideas from one of their competitors, but not in such a way as to violate his non-compete agreement they hope, and since everyone involved is under age 35 they still are quite certain that all their elders and bosses didn't know anything about anything.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.