from the government-efficiency-vs-private-enterprise-disruption dept.
Europe is starting to freak out about the launch dominance of SpaceX:
A little more than a week ago, the European Space Agency[(ESA)] announced an initiative to study "future space transportation solutions." Basically, the agency provided about $600,000, each, to three companies—ArianeGroup, Avio, and Rocket Factory Augsburg—to study competitive launch systems from 2030 onward.
[...] there now appears to be increasing concern in Europe that the Ariane 6 and Vega-C rockets will not be competitive in the launch market of the near future. This is important, because while member states of the European Space Agency pay for development of the rockets, after reaching operational status, these launch programs are expected to become self-sufficient by attracting commercial satellite launches to help pay the bills.
Economic ministers in France and Italy have now concluded that the launch market has changed dramatically since 2014, when the Ariane 6 and Vega-C rockets were first designed. According to a report in Le Figaro newspaper, the ministers believe the ability of these new European rockets to compete for commercial launch contracts has significantly deteriorated since then.
It would seem that ESA's payback plan didn't expect an agile competitor to disrupt the entire market with efficiencies that governments seem unable to match. But, there's more.
SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet in talks for a place in the UK’s $6.9 billion ‘Project Gigabit’:
Elon Musk’s SpaceX is in talks with the United Kingdom for the company’s Starlink satellite unit to potentially earn funding as a part of the government’s new $6.9 billion internet infrastructure program, CNBC confirmed.
Related Stories
SpaceX snags launch contract from Arianespace after Vega rocket fails twice
In a rare victory for international launch competition, SpaceX has snagged a contract to launch an Italian Earth observation satellite from European launch monopoly and political heavyweight Arianespace.
After spending the better part of a decade with its head in the sand as SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket rapidly came to dominate the global launch market, Arianespace has become increasingly reliant on its ability to entice politicians into forcing European Union member states to launch any and all domestic satellites and spacecraft on its Ariane 5, Ariane 6, and Vega rockets. Save for a few halting, lethargic technology development programs that have yet to bear any actionable fruit, the company – heavily subsidized by European governments – has almost completely failed to approach head-on the threat posed by SpaceX by prioritizing the development of rockets that can actually compete with Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy on cost and performance.
[...] A recent development offers the best look yet at what many European space agencies likely suffer through as a consequence of their governments signing away access to an increasingly competitive launch industry – often seemingly in return for Arianespace selecting contractors or (re)locating development hubs or factories in certain countries. Notably, sometime in September 2021, the Italian Space Agency (ASI) confirmed signs that it was moving the launch of its COSMO SkyMed CSG-2 Earth observation satellite from a new Arianespace rocket to SpaceX's Falcon 9.
(Score: 0, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 24 2021, @05:40AM
They should be able to do rocket science with their eyes closed.
But Europe? The only thing they can make is war. It would be premature for the Americans to withdraw now. The region just isn't stable enough
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 24 2021, @06:24AM (1 child)
As far as I understood, the main purpose of publicly-financed European space programs is not to be competitve in a global market.
The goal is to maintain economic activity (all the jobs) and some technological know-how.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by richtopia on Wednesday March 24 2021, @02:22PM
Two other things: rockets can be considered national security concerns (government satellites are sensitive cargo) and avoiding a single vendor scenario.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday March 24 2021, @06:44AM (9 children)
They need to get out of the way and allow their industrial sector to build rockets and such.
And if their industrial sector can't do that, then buy a lot of Falcon 9s or whatever. For what they burned on Ariane 6, they could have launched a bunch of stuff into space.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 24 2021, @06:58AM (3 children)
Foolish pride is a much bigger problem in Europe than the US. In Europe the bureaucrat toll collector is king. It's a horrible place to do business, unless you're a bureaucrat. I can see why the sane ones all want to come here. They just want to make a living without spending six hours a day on bookkeeping.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 24 2021, @07:04AM
Add another 3 hours on various diversity/sustainability reports
(Score: 1) by shrewdsheep on Wednesday March 24 2021, @08:23AM (1 child)
I cannot really judge the bureaucracy but there is politics as well. IMO this is what makes Europe so ineffective. Nothing can move forward without consent from all involved countries, especially financial interests which makes projects sluggish and expensive. As a recent example look at the vaccine procurement in Europe. Companies don't take the European commission seriously as they know the internal bickering will bail them out. ESA is another prime example: campuses all over Europe, strict financial per country quotas, no political accountability.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by PiMuNu on Wednesday March 24 2021, @09:55AM
Boeing is another prime example: campuses all over US, strict financial per state quotas, no political accountability.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by engblom on Wednesday March 24 2021, @07:08AM (1 child)
Europe needs to get stuff up in space and if they buy rides from SpaceX, it means that many millions of euro are drained out of EU. An European space vehicle would mean that these millions are staying in EU and stimulating the economy here and some of it is coming back in form of taxes. Now they would just need to develop some re-usability too, like SpaceX did and even the private market might be interested.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday March 24 2021, @02:23PM
So what's more important? Getting stuff up in space? Or trace amounts of euros leaving the ESA's member countries? My take is that being part of the coming development of space will generating far more stimulation and genuine value for the ESA's members than yet another token launch vehicle.
If the private market isn't interested, then it's a waste. The program will only last as long as the funding does.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by PiMuNu on Wednesday March 24 2021, @10:04AM (2 children)
> There is no longer a point to a public space launch vehicle.
Defence.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday March 24 2021, @02:24PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 25 2021, @12:44PM
Military rockets are necessarily single use by design.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bradley13 on Wednesday March 24 2021, @07:29AM (2 children)
I know SpaceX isn't a pure example, but then, pure Capitalism isn't what we want either. That said: Capitalism works, baby.
The best thing ESA could do, and perhaps what they are doing: give the European market a bit of a kickstart. Then get out of the way and see what happens. What they have to accept: If no European company can compete with SpaceX, that's ok. In time, SpaceX will follow the usual track of all successful companies: turn moribund and bureaucratic, living off of past glories. That's when new competitors with new technologies can move in.
That's also the critical juncture for governments to do their job of regulation: preventing old, establish companies from buying up and strangling new competition. In current events, see: Google, Facebook & Co..
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by PiMuNu on Wednesday March 24 2021, @10:15AM (1 child)
> If no European company can compete with SpaceX, that's ok
No. It is not acceptable strategically for a major nation to *not* have a space programme. It's such a big piece of infrastructure - imagine not having any capability to launch weather satellites, or indeed nukes and spy satellites. It just is not practical to go without a space programme.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday March 24 2021, @02:56PM
What good is a space program?
Sure, we can take any country's space program in the world and point to some kind of activity with modest benefit for the country or for mankind (particularly in the area of technology demonstration projects). But the big problem with each of these space programs is opportunity cost. They're way overpriced for what they do, and they pull skilled people away from more productive employment (particularly in commercial space, which is where the future of space development lies). These are huge strategic deficits.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Rich on Wednesday March 24 2021, @09:44AM (5 children)
"Europe" today pretty much means that France either notices their southern regions are unsustainable, or wants to play world power once more, or both. Gemany then pays for a huge new industrial development in the South of France (e.g. Airbus, ITER, ST, ...). France dishes out little sub-contracts all over the EU, from Finland to Greece, and everyone is happy. Except for the Italians, who feel short changed (despite owning more per-person than Germany), yell "Horrible Nazis!", and get their few-billion-extra deal. Then the next round can commence. (Also note where the companies provided with the 600k grant sit, you guessed it, France, Italy, Germany, listed in that order).
But, to quote our late, great MDC, "I said that like it is a bad thing": The French seem to be the only ones to have an inner power left to bring anything forward. Germany sits around impotent and paralyzed, and rocketry is the sector where that is probably worst, Italy is lazy as usual (unless brought in line by a Duce, and no, Berlusconi didn't cut it), England is out (and devastated from the long-term effects of the Thatcher sell-outs anyway), and the other countries are too small.
To give you an idea, of how actively self-denying the Germans are, have a look a the websites of http://www.ksb.com/ [ksb.com] and http://www.meiller.com/ [meiller.com]. Can you figure out from them what absolutely groundbreaking achievements these companies delivered to modern rocketry and to start the spacefaring age?
The "Rocket Factory Augsburg" might be interesting. They present themselves in a SpaceX style, seem to be not held down by old governmental-industrial ties and aim to be cost-competitive. If they manage some sort of recovery, they might pull something off. (Note if interest: While they point out that people 25 nations work for them (for that super-diverse claim), they don't have any Americans or Russians on the map of their origins. Looks like someone took care of at least a bit of strategic planning.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 24 2021, @12:04PM (4 children)
I don't know how relevant any of these companies are. Maybe it would be better to link things like
https://www.bosch.com/stories/artificial-intelligence-space-flight/ [bosch.com]
It's also amusing how you want to beat on some policies in one area just because SpaceX. SpaceX is NOT a product of 'American inventiveness'. It's a product of out-of-the-box thinking of a South African-Canadian immigrant that was at the right place at the right time multiple times and bet enough of his money to make a difference. SpaceX accomplishments are a gift to mankind and let's hope that ESA learns what direction now they need to focus on to be competitive. The commercial launch market is dead and that's a good thing. Now it's time to accept this reality and move forward.
It may also be noted that Germany has geared for medium-business supremacy. Niche products done well. That's how they managed to almost monopolize the ICE engine market. Or SAP being another example. Don't underestimate this trait.
It's fine if ESA supports them. But they will have problems competing. The primary reason is SpaceX goal is no longer to be a launch company. Their goal is GET YOUR ASS TO MARS! And Musk has enough competitive advantage over everyone now that he can sponge up the entire launch market for lunch money and use the satellite ISP business to finance the rest. And Tesla is just showing off :-)
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Rich on Wednesday March 24 2021, @12:09PM (2 children)
I firmly believe Musk only starts companies that make stuff he will need on Mars (E-Cars, Solar, Boring). I think he wouldn't even care much if Tesla goes down because it gets outcompeted by a good number of other electric car manufacturers - he could then simply pick his Mars vehicles from a large commercial selection kept cheap by competition. That we get a total mobility shift from ICEs to electric is just a side effect of that.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by oumuamua on Wednesday March 24 2021, @02:33PM (1 child)
A lot of the confusing design decisions of the cyber truck start making a lot of sense when you think of a design that will work on Mars; pressurized cab, slight radiation shielding.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 25 2021, @12:36AM
I've been wondering if anyone looked at the Cybertruck's design and looking into if the origami folding technique had been used anywhere on the Starship or related spacecraft. I assumed given they were both stainless steel construction that may have been the purpose of the cybertruck, and the other benefits of it were secondary to make it sufficently marketable so as to pay for itself.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 24 2021, @09:42PM
smart white people coming to america is "american inventiveness", in case you haven't noticed.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 24 2021, @03:23PM
if you exclude earth the market share of electrical cars is 100% :)
methinks it's a bit late to "freak out".
freak out should have happend after the first boaster launched and landed a second time ... on a ship ... on the wavy ocean.