Europe is a vibe based concept, a place can be European or not depending on the vibes. Even the east west central etc. are completely vibe based. Portugal for example is Eastern European country, meanwhile Romania is central according to some textbooks.
How can it be the first European rocket? There’s the ESA! Are you telling me we have all these organisations and none of them have ever launched from their own continent?
In the political sense, «Western Europe» is typically taken to be «NATO Europe», and «Eastern Europe» is «Warsaw Pact Europe». Which is different from a strict geographic definition.
You’d have to say which NATO. Czechia is in NATO and was in Warsaw pact.
If you said: Americans usually incorrectly think of Western Europe as those countries not partially or fully under control of the Soviet Union during the Cold War, then I’d agree with you.
You are thinking about Vostochny in Russian Far East. Plesetsk was an early ICBM launch site that started doing orbital launches in 1966. It was the busiest spaceport in Soviet times, and the cumulative number of orbital launches from Plesetsk still probably exceeds those from Florida.
No, I'm thinking of Plesetsk because it is in Europe. It is much nearer to Moscow than Baikonur is. Since the USSR broke up, this is even more the case.
I meant that Vostochny is the one that is supposed to reduce their reliance on Baikonur, while Plesetsk is more like the Russian equivalent of Vandenberg. During Soviet times, Baikonur was the premium spaceport for all the big high-profile missions. Plesetsk was a boring mundane place, where the military launched spy satellites and things like that every week or so for >20 years.
I wonder whether the Sámi people have been consulted or compensated for the use of their traditional lands as a rocket launch site. Given Norway’s long history of suppressing Sámi people and their land rights, I'd be interested to know how that was handled.
only four countries in the world have private/commercial space launch capacity, and SpaceX towers over everyone else so I'd say this is doing pretty alright compared to the rest of the world
As EV’s have shown, I don’t think they’re gonna be ahead for long and long-term the current technology is just a steppingstone because damaging the ozone layer can’t go on forever with the current technique being used something else. Better has to come forward.
So what should they do nothing? They have to get started somehow if Japan and China can do it so can Europe, and I think long-term once again, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand won’t be far behind…
The Taco section, with the way the present American administration has behaved. Most of our friends/allies are looking to protect themselves andbe prepared to go on without us. All it took was two years of buffoonery.
I think New Zealand is ahead. RocketLab was the second company in the world after SpaceX to get a privately developed launch vehicle to orbit, back in 2017. They've now had 86 successful launches from their NZ launch site.
Who owns how much of the enterprise says little about who contributes to and owns control and know-how of the project. This is even more true for a political project like the Ariane.
Not to diminish France's contribution but without Germany and Italy there would be no Ariane. France could not build one and could not fly one.
The work and know-how is mainly spread between Germany, France and Italy.
The mechanism that ensures it is called "national return". The order volume per country has to correspond to the countries respective monetary contribution.
I worked on the Ariane from 2000 to 2006."National return" was a pain for all the smaller companies and they usually founded subsidiaries in all the other member states to game the system.
Without Germany and Italy, France can build and fly no Ariane. Not even close.
I think we are stronger together. European technology has been critical to many important American space missions, and that should continue to be the case.
An ecosystem where we develop things independently is one where everyone loses.
Except its not actually obvious. The US achieved most when they worked mostly by themselves. And the recent explosion in US activity, specially SpaceX is also highly separated from Europe.
There is a very credible argument to be made that excessive cooperation leads to incredibly heavy overly political programs that are completely static and can't adjust because of international agreements.
That doesn't mean working together isn't good but they way they have been has been pretty questionably in many ways (along with a lot of space policy).
Yes, definitely, but being together by choice instead of by necessity is vastly preferable.
Especially given that recent history has shown us that we're back to "power" being the only language spoken.
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Rel: The ecosystem thing.
I would challenge that, because if there's one thing where the US has had absurd leverage over the EU (and world, for that matter), then it's tech ecosystems.
A healthy ecosystem would not be owned by SV/US alone.
So right now, we're not really "strong together" but rather weakly dependent. That should be remediated, and decoupling like this is exactly the tool for that.
They started developing this rocket in the late 2010s, way before the current US craziness (or the current level of craziness anyway). Independent access to space is always desirable for countries that can muster the resources, but this one of many companies that appeared back then as a response to SpaceX's initial success.
what kind've voter intimidating sh* is this? down-voted for being honest, promoting understanding and responsibility?
jokes on you guys as i firmly believe bullying racketeering and intimidation are quite literally terrorism when applied to population groups consisting of more than (1) individual.
I'd split it into 2 camps. Elites who realize Europe isn't a unified group or has a military strong enough for defense..
And people who get wet when France says they are going to send soldiers to Ukraine and it never materializes.
The general population has 0 understanding of international relations. It's the United States and China right now. Any other belief comes from someone who has read 0 international relations Realism books.
Its not that Europeans havent read Mearsheimer. its that for the best part of three hundred years the whole of Europe has been trying that same realist script until there was nothing left but total ruin across the entire continent. Europeans who created the EU knew about balance of power geopolitics so well, they created this slow bureaucratic mess specifically to stop Germany and France sliding back into the same old lethal habit. While clumsy positioning between the US and China is a headache in the present moment for Europe, compared to a tedious Union Europeans prefer reawakenings of 1914 in their backyard. Well at least so far.
I would bet any amount that if you go to a random European city and stop 100 random people on the street you'd be lucky if one person has even heard of Mearsheimer. I think you're also overthinking how the EU got created. I don't think pre-EU Europe was on the brink of violence either. It was more IMO simplistic (but possibly correct, who knows) thinking that it's stronger (economically) as a block. A lot of present day Europe issues that might lead to bigger problems are potentially worse because of the EU.
The primary goal of this was to prevent another war by joining european economies together economically. It's not 'overthinking it'. It quite literally is the main reason and you can go and read the speeches from the politicians at the time to confirm this.
Heres a direct quote from the declaration itself
> The solidarity in production thus established will make it plain that any war between France and Germany becomes not merely unthinkable, but materially impossible.
The fact that the european powers (with the exception of russia) are largely at peace with each other and haven't had a major war with each other since the second world war is very unusual given european history.
Definitely far from my expertise but I think you're contradicting yourself.
I am talking about the formalization that is specifically the modern European Union. You are talking as if it's some inevitable consequence of earlier efforts.
> Europeans who created the EU knew about balance of power geopolitics so well, they created this slow bureaucratic mess specifically to stop Germany and France sliding back into the same old lethal habit.
I don't think anything you're saying is strengthening this statement that I had an issue with.
The Maastricht Treaty which is what created modern day EU was driven by other concerns, asking Gemini yields: "To answer your second question: No, everyday Europeans in 1992 were not primarily thinking about WWII.
By the time the Maastricht Treaty was being drafted, the public was reacting to a completely different era of history. They were focused on the collapse of the Soviet Union, the opening of Eastern Europe, and the need to compete economically with the United States and Japan in a rapidly globalizing world. The defining event on the public's mind was the Fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, not the end of WWII."
So you are right that the processes that eventually led to the formation of the EU started after WW-II due to concerns related to that war. But specifically the EU as it stands today with its current structure and agreements was not formed due to those considerations. Europe could have continued with the previous arrangements. At least that's my take and I don't think anything you're saying contradicts it. I'll admit to a certain lack of knowledge so happy to learn more about Europe pre-EU or why what I'm saying is still wrong.
Presuming the EU just appeared out of thin air in 1992/1993 and ignoring the predecessor organisations which were crucial for the formation of the EU is just wrong.
It's also not just about WW2, europe had at that point been at major war with itself in some form or another for well over a thousand years with only very brief periods of peace.
Of course by the 1990s it wasn't top of peoples minds because there had been peace for nearly 40 years, which is testament to the success of the original project, it doesn't mean the original goals had disappeared.
It was a pretty radical step change though? One currency. Freedom of movement and employment. The EU is almost like one country. The only thing really missing is having one military force and then it's basically like the United States of Europe. NATO is close to that. Maybe they don't want to lose all their UN seats though ;)
The modern EU was a decades-long journey that this person has clearly laid out for you. I don’t understand what you’re trying to argue or achieve anymore. You admit you don’t know this topic, so consider listening and learning instead of arguing.
The only thing I am trying to achieve is accuracy.
History of everything is a long journey. The OP made a comment re: the EU specifically which I thought was off. And at least so far in this thread my reply seems to have been more accurate.
> Europeans who created the EU knew about balance of power geopolitics so well, they created this slow bureaucratic mess specifically to stop Germany and France sliding back into the same old lethal habit. While clumsy positioning between the US and China is a headache in the present moment for Europe, compared to a tedious Union Europeans prefer reawakenings of 1914 in their backyard. Well at least so far.
This statement isn't talking about "the decades long journey Europe has gone through informed by wars". It is very specifically talking about the creation of the EU (and e.g. its slow bureaucratic mess which are an attribute of the modern EU). I have yet to see any actual support to the idea that the specific step of the formation modern EU was indeed primarily about Germany and France sliding back into war and that a "slow bureaucratic mess" was the intentional vehicle here. As someone who has lived through these events I have my perspective and it's fine for others to have a different perspective. But if that is the case then I'm still to see that in this thread.
You are painting a picture as if a geographic region inevitably drifts towards the EU, the UN, the USA, etc. This just feels like total nonsense to me to be blunt. These are decisions taken at the time for various specific reasons. Sometimes they go one way. Sometimes a different way. The countries that formed the EU and decided to adopt one currency and open borders (amongst other decisions) took that step for a reason. It was not inevitable. There are and were many other paths forward. And Germany and France going to war, as far as I recall, was not part of the discussion at the time (1992-ish).
Is current day Europe and the EU a product of a history. I mean duh. That was not the point the OP was making.
> I can see why this would be a sensitive topic for present day Europeans and how the rise of nationalism is a possible threat to the modern day EU.
I am not European, I am from the US. I saw this conversation and saw you being weirdly obstinate about this. Your argument is needlessly pedantic. You also admitted you are not an expert on this topic and yet you refuse to listen to someone who clearly understands it better than you do.
How would you propose I should have replied to support a more productive discussion here?
The original comment was the opposite of my personal experience having followed the events as they happened. The responses to my comment did not really address what I was talking about.
If you make a point (that the formation of the EU is because of X you are very specific about it) then you should be the one who is prepared to demonstrate it somehow. Why is this a problem?
Are you familiar with the topic or you're simply here to tell me that my manners are bad? If you're familiar I'd love to get your input on the actual question.
Why is my position "contrarian"? I am disagreeing with the original comment. For sure. And the reason I am persisting is that this comment seems wrong and I don't want to just let it go. It's important enough. FWIW I asked another random person whether my take on the EU's formation made sense to them (who was around at the time) and they agreed with me. It's definitely possible that I'm missing something profound but if I am then those taking the other position should spell it out. Maybe the OP meant something different. The OP didn't even weigh in.
@jpleyden98 jumps in with: You're just showing your ignorance and lack of knowledge about the history of the EU. Directly linking modern day EU with "European Coal and Steel Community was formed in 1950". I don't think that's right. At the very least it's missing a lot that happened in between.
> Its not that Europeans havent read Mearsheimer. its that for the best part of three hundred years the whole of Europe has been trying that same realist script until there was nothing left but total ruin across the entire continent. Europeans who created the EU knew about balance of power geopolitics so well, they created this slow bureaucratic mess specifically to stop Germany and France sliding back into the same old lethal habit. While clumsy positioning between the US and China is a headache in the present moment for Europe, compared to a tedious Union Europeans prefer reawakenings of 1914 in their backyard. Well at least so far.
Back to the original comment I had a problem with. This isn't some minor detail. It's pretty important. This history matters. At least I think it does.
So ignoring my bad manners and my apparent ignorance. Where is the support to the idea that the Europeans created the EU as it stands today "they created this slow bureaucratic mess specifically to stop Germany and France sliding back into the same old lethal habit" ? I'm happy to learn something new today. When I try with AI it seems to agree with the point I am making: "Treating the 1993 Maastricht Treaty as a simple continuation of the 1950 Coal and Steel Community is a common oversimplification. While the underlying desire to keep Germany anchored to Western Europe remained a constant thread, the actual decisions made in 1993 were driven by a vastly different geopolitical crisis and economic reality.". If the OP just talked about the post-war European integration then I'm in complete agreement. To just project that to modern day EU feels like a very big stretch to me. But a quote from the specific individuals involved in the formation of the EU circa 1992 would definitely help me change my position. Again, this feels like a pretty big deal to me in terms of why the EU exists as it does today and understanding Europe.
EDIT: Also worth looking up the thread to what OP was responding to:
> The general population has 0 understanding of international relations.
A friendly suggestion: make fewer points in a comment. This is just too much to address at once. I have tried to respond twice now and I just can’t even begin wading through all this, it’s overwhelming
They are - but in cooperation with others. Parts of the Orion capsule of the current Artemis mission program are based on the German ATV, which is a capsule which was developed to supply ISS. On ISS there are German modules like Galileo. German Spacelab was a major component of many Space Shuttle missions. German companies like Zeiss provided optics and laser components for Apollo. To name a few, besides lots of satellites and other things. However after WW2 there were different political decisions, so that Germany won't build its own rockets, but German technology was key to Saturn V and Ariane rockets.
Aside from technology, Germany also got major control centers and mission planning capability in Cologne and Oberpfaffenhofen.
Most components are there, but not the political will to go on a national mission.
I mean, Operation Paperclip and Von Braun were central to the success of the Apollo program. The Soviets had a similar postwar-German-capture program, if I remember correctly.
Similar in the sense that they captured and extracted them, but you are right that Germans were not as central to the actual operations of the Soviet program.
> One would think that ze germans would be among the first to be conquering space
After the horrors of WWII, Europe decided it would rather do things collectively than each country doing its own thing. This resulted in wonderful things like Concorde, fast rail, Airbus, and Ariane. Europe became more than the sum of its parts.
Multiple European nations gaining their own independent launch capabilities will merely result in the sinking of ESA and ArianeSpace. Look forward to lots of infighting in the near future.
ESA is going to remain on the mission/payload side. ArianeSpace makes sense as a launch services provider handling everything that's not the rocket. ArianeGroup (the company that actually builds the rockets) will just become the French rocket company that will end up competing with the Italian and German ones.
Like most "small rocket companies" they'll come to the conclusion that they need bigger rockets to launch bigger payloads. Rockets that compete directly with Ariane 6. With some luck these will be reusable to, making Ariane 6 and ArianeSpace obsolete.
ESA and ArianeSpace will slowly but surely decay into obsolescence.
You seem to be confused about what organizations do what.
ESA neither launches or builds rockets. They are an end-user, and they own the launch infrastructure in Kourou. Both these roles will exist long after Ariane is gone.
Arianespace does not build rockets. It's a launch services provider, they purchase the rockets from other companies, handle all the logistics and manage the launchpad. It's in no way married to Ariane 6, and it has in the past and still does sell launches on multiple different rockets from different companies. There will be demand for these services even after Ariane the rocket is gone.
ArianeGroup is the company that builds Ariane 6. They are a complex co-owned project between Airbus and Safran, with workshare distributed between France and Germany. They make other things than the Ariane 6, notably the French SLBM. Eventually the Ariane 6 will go away, because it will be obsolete, but that will not necessarily mean that ArianeGroup will go under, because they have an another subsidiary called ArianeWorks developing a new rocket, called Themis.
If national governments can launch their own payloads without having to go through ESA or ArianeSpace it'll undermine the latter's position. They may even become competitors.
Italy accused the French-based ArianeSpace of deliberately taking launches away from the Italian-build Vega rocket in favor of the French-build Ariane rockets. They've now more of left ArianeSpace and are selling the rockets themselves and using ESA's infrastructure to launch them.
ESA funds and has awarded commercial contracts with ISAR and numerous other launch companies/consortia. Andoya spaceport is optimised for launching to polar orbits and not a realistic competitor to the ArianeSpace spaceport in French Guiana, much like SaxaVord and other spaceports based on the European continent. Vega is also an ESA-funded international collaboration project which actually started off managed by ArianeSpace, and the next generation of Avio-managed Vega rockets will be integrated in French Guiana and flown from ArianeSpace's spaceport...
Coupled or uncoupled, an equal relationship between the US and the EU is much healthier. Europe should have an economy, military and industrial capacity similar to the US.
Unfortunately Europe has put itself in a position of global dependence which is why they find themselves so easy to squeeze by USA and China. And they really just can't believe it. Like the frog in the pot. And also now facing the prospect of a Russian invasion on their eastern borders.
While in the current case I agree it is the path that should be taken, ideally I would prefer efficient relations, where people cooperate rather than having to duplicate everything because they don't trust their neighbor (should I make my bread because the baker might decide to poison me?!).
But having educated people everywhere is hard, so some people, because they don't get how some stuff works, they try to abuse friends and allies and make things worse (inefficient) for everybody in the process.
Ariane is from the ESA, which is an organization under EU. The claim was that "EU is finally decoupling itself from the USA". My point is: the EU already has Ariane, for instance. It decoupled a long time ago.
Europe has had a space agency for a while now. So this story isn't "Europeans finally started to launch for space" but a private European company chose to launch from a continental location.
It's funny how we can't be celebrate a European achievement without trying to interpret it into relationship to the US.
It's not even the US in general, it's SpaceX specifically. Only the US and China have demonstrated reusable rockets, and only SpaceX demonstrated the actual reuse, the cadence and the economy of scale that it brings.
It means the laws of physics allow it, and anyone willing to invest the time and fiat to accomplish it can. This means the world will no longer need to rely on SpaceX for inexpensive lift to orbit through reusable first stages, which is objectively good. No different then China working towards obviating the need for ASML for EUV semiconductor manufacturing.
Just because you invest in it doesn't mean you end up with hugely cheap and scalable launch.
Europe has already invested far more in rocket then SpaceX did and isn't close.
If your capital efficiency is far lower, it might not be inexpensive. If you can get the scale because you don't have payloads, its going to be more expensive.
There is a incredibly long road between 'rocket can land' and 'cheap and scalable launch'. A long road most people don't see because its not as flashy as landing.
SpaceX was founded on making launches cheap. Arianespace only recently decided to develop reusable launch systems. Up to SpaceX demonstrating it was possible, the dominant approach to cheap launches was in making the expendable rocket cheap to manufacture. Nobody needs to be reminded the shuttle promised cheap access to space and failed at that.
But SpaceX built a cheaper launcher to manufacture as well as gaining reuse. There was no one making an expendable cheaper rocket before SpaceX either.
There are a lot more barriers to things in the real world. China has been dedicating immense effort and brainpower to cloning SpaceX, and they're still not especially close. I think a lot of us (certainly including myself) have no intuition for why this is, because we live in the software world where if you see something that is done then cloning it is generally just a matter of time and effort. But there's certainly some 'secret sauce' at SpaceX that does not seem easy to replicate.
That said I think this is awesome and hope the EU is able to make further advances. I have a very positive view of Musk, but the more competitors there are in space, the more likely we able to accelerate advances and efficiency in that domain. And I think everybody wins in that scenario.
> because we live in the software world where if you see something that is done then cloning it is generally just a matter of time and effort. But there's certainly some 'secret sauce' at SpaceX that does not seem easy to replicate
In software, thanks mostly to the open-source movement) we all have access to the same materials and manufacturing processes.
In manufacturing, there are huge differences in materials and processes that we need to account for. On the flip side, this can allow one to leapfrog the other rather than replicating them - it’s likely the next reusable Falcon 9-class vehicle will use a methalox engine that’ll be easier to maintain compared to Flacon 9’s kerolox ones. China has demonstrated a novel approach to vehicle recovery as well (in addition to landing legs). Future competitors will have access to materials current incumbents didn’t have and can’t easily adopt with their current supply chain.
People also forget SpaceX subverted a lot of the expectations for reusable rockets - they didn’t use parachutes, but opted to carry extra propellant for landing; they didn’t eject the engines, opting instead to reuse the whole stage; and they built landing barges because their rockets would launch towards the ocean, saving fuel for a boost back to the launch site. They also tested capsule landing using the launch abort rockets, but opted for parachutes and splashdowns instead. Still they keep all the RCS motors in the capsule, making their expendable service module very inexpensive in comparison to Boeing’s.
All these decisions point to proven mission architectures so that followers don’t need to explore architectures that were explored and dropped.
> I think a lot of us (certainly including myself) have no intuition for why this is,
It's because space programs are job programs to keep the advanced rocketry tech available for future use. The so-called launch market never materialized. Congresses of launch capable nations are completely fine with couple hundred to low billion dollars divided by couple launches per year doing science and gravity experiments and occasional TV sat launches. Every dollar "saved" is every dollar unspent and diverted away from STEM.
Starlink wouldn't be accounting for like 99.9% of Falcon 9 launches and 99.9999% of man made objects in space if this wasn't the case.
China does what it does because else the world won't take them seriously, which creates artificially lower socio-economic statuses with no benefits to anyone. They have bunch of different lineages of space launch vehicles and production capacities, they don't need reusability per se. Same goes for humanoids - US/CN both have ~zero chance entering heavy industry hard robotics used in car plants, and that leads both into so-to-speak alternative robotics.
Reuse might turn out not to be the future - and its SpaceX has embraced this internally. At least not full reuse, or not the way most people think of a reusable spacecraft as a reusable aircraft. A reusable rocket engine might only have 2-3 flights in it, if that, with some routine inspection and maintenance between them.
3D printing has been a game changer that basically allows you to crank out rocket engines from raw materials, which means that building new ones is cheap and easy. If you look at the Raptor 3 (3D printed), it looks super clean, thanks to the fact that they integrated most of the piping into the 3d printed body, but that means you can't really fix or inspect it.
Which is fine tbh. SpaceX (and Tesla) has been shown to be pragmatic not dogmatic when it comes to new technology. 'Elon time' might be a meme, but Musk both pushes his employees very hard, but probably not harder than possible - and he's willing to take flak for delaying projects, changing scope or outright cancellation.
2-3 flights is still quite a bit of cost-cutting, and some SpaceX Falcon 9 boosters have flown more than 30 times; the median number is about 12, often very soon after the previous flight.
We are not talking about forever spacecraft, and even Falcon 9's reusabilility is partial (the second stage is lost), but even what Falcon 9 has achieved allows for very rapid progress, due to the short feedback loop, including progress in reliability.
There’s absolutely no reason to believe rocket engines can only do two or three flights. SpaceX has demonstrated ten times that with F9 and with Raptor testing.
Ariane 5 was the cheapest option available for a long time, now they're a bit behind. But the ESA is now working on reusable rockets too, it seems, with their Themis program.
In what ways are you saying "Europe is absolutely obsessed with the US": politics, tech, capital markets, defense, economics, culture, cultural trends, unpredictability, something else? And how is that "obsessed" rather than "paying attention to"? Without you giving any specifics, can't tell if that is good-faith comment or trolling. For example US audiences are obsessed with Downton Abbey, or the Titanic, or the 15-minute city proposal, and Tarantino was obsessed with French names of McDonald's hamburgers, but noone built a broader claim on top of those.
What specific event and year were IYO the onset of what you're claiming?
What nonsense, most Europeans who are not politically super active might watch some US movies and consume things from the US like IPhones, but that doesn't mean obsessed. Most people are just mildly amused by US politics. You have serious selection bias if you think something else.
Perhaps, but most people don’t think about those things as US things. As for iPhones they were “designed in Cupertino” but made in China like almost everything else these days.
Again, it's an "obsession" in the same way people can't look away from a three-legged dog.
Because you elected actors for president before. Because you had school shootings before. Because everything in the sky was always UFO to you, and everything on the ground either bigfoot or communists. Because you spread "democracy" that is shaped like bombs. Because you fund your own terrorists and drug cartels. Because you strong-arm world economies for non-reasons. Because you have nukes and eternal paranoia.
But yes, it did get much worse recently. Congratulations on noticing?
>It's because Europe is absolutely obsessed with the United States and obsessed with Americans.
Is this the new cope?
The USA is a Goliath on the world stage. The deranged tweets of your president move global markets and the next time Israel manipulates him into starting another war it might not be Iran, it might be Denmark, or Canada.
People pay close attention to the US not because they want to buy because they basically have to.
From a sovereignty perspective, does a launch from continental Europe actually matter when Arianespace/CNES/ESA has been launching from France for decades?
The sovereignty perspective here is the perspective of the sovereignty of the states that make up Europe not the sovereignty of the entity of the EU/Europe.
Though not every sovereign state has an army, see Iceland, Costa Rica, theoretically Japan, etc.
I do not think so, but anyway, it is definitely not a proof that we are further decoupling ourselves from the US, which is the claim made in the root comment. France has launched rockets from France for decades. Being an ocean away does not make Kourou reliant on the US.
I think the opposite because in this specific case we have the US which has the world's strongest navy, and the strongest navy by far in the Atlantic.
My opinion is that there is an implied reliance on the US "allowing" Europe to ship the rockets to Kourou and launch them there.
If our relations ever completely sour, the US might, for example, take over the shipping vessels going to Kourou, kinda like Europe takes over Russian shadow fleet vessels.
Now all of a sudden Europe has no means of launching rockets, except now it can launch to polar orbits. It might seem a stretch, but there is a non-zero chance that could happen, therefore it is better to have an alternative.
“Vulnerable to the US” can mean so many things that it practically loses all meaning. Even with a launchpad in continental Europe, they have many ways to interfere with this project, from disrupting the supply chain to carpet bombing the launch site.
A ship crossing the ocean is much more vulnerable than a launch site with sophisticated air defences.
The US can also decide to “free” and “bring democracy” to the French Guiana because the rich oil deposits of its continental shelf won’t free themselves.
The point is that a slow ship crossing the ocean with hard to replace is very vulnerable in transit.
But French Guiana is a geographically distant ex-colony, so there will always be a higher probability of future inaccessibility. Same applies to New Caledonia, Martinique, etc.
Although you're right about the history of French Guiana, using that term to put on the same level as New Caledonia is nonsense. (Same goes for Martinique.)
I wasn’t talking about the historical aspect. Same applies = the same risk also exists due to geopolitics and distance. Heck, didn’t New Caledonia see a wave of protests that were crushed in the past year or two?
> Heck, didn’t New Caledonia see a wave of protests that were crushed in the past year or two?
Yes, that's why the risk is NOT the same between French Guiana and New Caledonia. Both of them are oversea territories far from the mainland with a colonial past, but their current relationship with the mainland is very different.
Around a quarter of the population of New Caledonia has been calling for independence for decades at this point, with 3 referendum organised during the last 10 years to resolve this issue. Only half of the population was able to vote to the referendums (and some local elections, like Congress of NC), due to local rules than are about to change–this, incidentally, is the cause of the protests you are talking about. On the geopolitical side of things, the independentists are probably propped up by Azerbaijan (https://www.courrierinternational.com/article/geopolitique-n...) and maybe China (https://www.lefigaro.fr/international/ambitions-geostrategiq...).
None of this holds for French Guiana. The risk between these territories is not the same. At all. Putting them on the same level by reducing them to their status as former colonies is nonsense.
Thanks for explaining. But I am not sure how this contradicts my point?
Sure, placing launch infrastructure in French Guiana is probably less risky than setting up shop in New Caledonia. Clearly, the risk profile is not the same for all of Overseas France.
My point is that if the decision is between mainland and Overseas France, the latter introduces elevated risk in the long term in general. French Guiana could be fine today, but it is not impossible that the next few years could see the rise of a populist pro-independence movement that would eventually impact launch infrastructure (similar to how it did for the USSR).
Britain’s Black Arrow could, but it launched from a RAF base in Australia. Definitely not continental Europe, but part of Europe if you consider it from the Eurovision point of view.
A real shame Britain abandoned their own research.
> It's funny how we can't be celebrate a European achievement without trying to interpret it into relationship to the US.
It really isn’t funny. The US shat the bed and for now the repercussions are mainly being felt outside the US. When the US realises what it’s lost it’s going to be too late.
When the US government funded SpaceX, it was motivated in no small degree by a desire to not be permanently reliant on a geopolitical wildcard (Russia) for getting astronauts into orbit. Now that the US itself has become a geopolitical wildcard, savvy countries know that they need to seek out alternatives to SpaceX under more stable regimes.
Authoritarian dictatorships will always behave in seemingly irrational ways (from the perspective of sane politicians).
Dictators will always put their personal ambition and "career" first before their country's interests.
If Russia behaved rationally they would have made a deal with Ukraine (decades ago) that protected the rights of the Russian minorities in Ukraine and continued massively profiting from gas and oil exports into Europe.
> they would have made a deal with Ukraine (decades ago) that protected the rights of the Russian minorities in Ukraine and continued massively profiting from gas and oil exports into Europe.
Russia did, many times, last time in 2010.[0]
But the US and the EU didn't like it, so the coup in 2014 happened with American help[1] which overthrew democratically elected president of Ukraine who introduced the law protecting Russian speaking Ukrainian citizens.[2]
The law was repelled right after the coup and Crimeans supported the reunion with Russia.
Parliament did not vote to impeach the president, which would have involved formally charging Yanukovych with a crime, a review of the charge by the Constitutional Court, and a three-fourths majority vote in parliament—at least 338 votes in favor.[0]
In English, impeachment is used loosely to mean parliamentary removal from office, which happened there. You're the one spreading misinformation with cope about foreign coups when Ukrainians simply kicked your clown out of their house.
I think Trump definitely pushes allies away much faster than ever anticipated, that's probably the only achievement from the current administration.
The alliance still stands, but it's hard to trust the US when the current president is constantly praising violent dictators and doesn't seem to grasp the concept of laws/rules + tries to blame everyone else + threatens to invade EU countries.
This took about eight years of work by a private company (funded by US VC and an ex-SpaceX leader). This wasn't an intentional decision to decouple from the US, if that's what you're implying, but a business decision.
I've always assumed that the reason there aren't many launch sites in Europe because the booster stage falls back to Earth, and generally you want that to be over the sea. People get cross if rockets fall on their houses. If you're using the Earth's axial rotation as a helper that means launching heading east, and in Europe east is pretty much always over land. That's why most spaceports are either by an ocean (USA, Japan) or over a huge area of land no one lives in (Russia).
Not really, the actual issue is delta V, launching near the equator requires less fuel because you are getting all the benefit from Earth's rotation. Mass is almost everything for rocket launches.
Northern launches are done sometimes for high inclination orbits since they reduce the need to maneuver from an equatorial orbit.
The sooner Europe cuts itself off from the US crazy billionaires, the better - on all levels (software and manufacture processes are the two biggest issues). Today we already could see the US surrender team crawling up to dictator Putin. Enough is enough - agent Krasnov needs to be isolated.
Americans have to hope that the US will move past trumo and not repeat that mistake, but for europeans its most prudent to prepare for a world where such a corrupt wannabe distator doesnt have have that much leverage over them.
The US and europe would be stronger together if the US acted in good faith. Absent that, decoupling is the right choice
Germany also has a crazy Communist party that is more in the pocket of Russia than AfD is -- but somehow that is almost never mentioned, not even in German media. It's quite big and influential.
Yeah, that's fair. I was thinking only locally. However, I would hope they are dropping both stages somewhere relatively responsible. I guess I don't know where that is for polar orbits.
I wonder whether the Sámi people have been consulted or compensated for the use of their traditional lands as a rocket launch site. Given Norway’s long history of suppressing Sámi people and their land rights, I'd be interested to know how that was handled.
Just south of the launchpad lies Bukkekjerka, a protected Sami cultural monument. Prior to Christianity, sacrifices were made within a cave facing the sea. In most recent times, for the past half-century, there has been an annual open-air church service, which attracts many from across Andøya – perhaps even some who remember or even resided in the disappeared town of Haugnes.
A good historical nugget is that the Americans got a huge leg up in the space race by importing the Germans who worked on the V-2 program.
Germans killed Soviets by the millions. If you were a German of value (like a rocket scientist) you were eager to surrender to the Americans before the Soviets could get their hands on you.
If you were the Americans, you distrusted the Soviets already, so it was a win-win.
For any unfamiliar with the history, Russia was a mass murdering machine in this era, vaporizing tens of millions of people, including Russians, in very short spans of time without even a second thought.
We all know Germans was. And some people would fling fecal allegations that “so was the US!”. No. German and Russian actions were categorically different than wartime casualties (even brutal, possibly criminal, wartime casualties like fire bombing heavily civilian enemy areas like Dresden)
The Soviet troops were brutal criminals who were unleashed. They murdered civilians indiscriminately and raped women and children massively (raped nearly two million Germans, plus Soviet and Polish women liberated from concentration camps).
And in your living memory: Vietnam, Korea, the vile shit we did to Haiti and Chile, the 'Banana Republics', Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, unconditionally supporting Israel and the Gulf States various war crimes and genocides, etc...
And of course, most recently, the sudden and complete excision of life-saving aid to children in Africa, leaving the world's most vulnerable to starve.
And also the total embargo on Cuba, to ensure starvation, with the intention of conquest, resource extraction, and collective punishment.
but God forbid someone on a message board tarnish the US's sterling reputation (relative to some of history's worst) during WWII.
For anyone actually unfamiliar with history, this is a gross exaggregation made with a sole purpose of equalizing nazi crimes with what happened in the soviet union.
History does not work this way, in the early modernity masses were cohesive and industrialized, and so were the crimes and atrocities.
Every developed country got to it, but what makes nazis different is that the regime was built with the sole purpose of commiting atrocities, hence the outstanding scale and character of the matter.
It’s clear by the numbers, but some will just refuse, mostly those with romantic views of Marx or the others, while at the same time arguing “but real communism has never been tried!”
They got a leg up and still the Russians with Sputnik got into space first, on top of splitting Korea and winning in Vietnam and having the nuclear bomb fall into their lap and to top it off they appear to have the Manchurian candidate in the White House.
With fairness to the Soviets, the USSR's reputation for rocket artillery was nearly as impressive as Germany's in WWII. The Allies had less experience scaling and deploying the technology, so they had more to gain by taking in the Peenemünde researchers.
The Russians conscripted more German rocket scientists than the Americans got through Operation Paperclip, both programs were bootstrapped with German expertise. Americans got ~1,600, Russians more like 6,000.
> If you were a German of value (like a rocket scientist) you were eager to surrender to the Americans before the Soviets could...
Misleading. Pretty much all Germans were eager to surrender to the Western Allies - US/UK/France. That became the German government's official top priority in the closing days of the war, and Eisenhower threatened to seal the Western Front (to German soldiers and civilians fleeing the Soviets) when the Germans dragged their heels on his terms of surrender.
This is such a gross comment. 'nugget', 'win-win', 'Germans of value'.
Paperclip didn't grab random 'Germans', it pulled in Nazi mass murders and rewarded them for their crimes.
> "Rudolph was barely able to produce four rockets that were later returned from Peenemünde as defective. There are estimates that approximately 20,000 laborers died while building the V-2 rockets at Mittelwerk, more than the V-2 killed in bombardments."
> According to fellow scientists in Paperclip, Rickhey had bragged about killing slave laborers at Mittelwerk.
> Camp inmates, mostly Polish and Soviet POWs, were locked inside of a portable pressure chamber built by the Luftwaffe in which the interior air pressure could be altered to simulate the effects of freefalling from a high-altitude without oxygen. Of the 200 test subjects employed in the experiment 80 were killed by the tests outright, with the remainder subsequently being executed by the SS. ... several Luftwaffe officials associated with Strughold's Institute for Aviation Medicine, including his former research assistant Dr. Hermann Becker-Freyseng and his ex-commanding officer Oskar Schröder, were convicted of crimes against humanity in connection with the Dachau experiments at the 1946–1947 Nuremberg Doctor's Trial. During these proceedings, Strughold contributed several affidavits for the defense on behalf of his accused colleagues.
> When shown a picture of himself standing behind Himmler, von Braun said that he had only worn the SS uniform that one time, but in 2002 a former SS officer at Peenemünde told the BBC that von Braun had regularly worn the SS uniform to official meetings. He began as an Untersturmführer (Second lieutenant) and was promoted three times by Himmler, the last time in June 1943 to SS-Sturmbannführer (Major). Von Braun later stated that these were simply technical promotions received each year regularly by mail.
> The V-2 was a quantum leap of technological change. We got to the Moon using V-2 technology but this was technology that was developed with massive resources, including some particularly grim ones. The V-2 programme was hugely expensive in terms of lives, with the Nazis using slave labour to manufacture these rockets.
Winning a 'space race' by building a tower of 'slaves' and corpses to the stars isn't my idea of victory at all.
It seems you are misreading my comment and the cold realism in which it is articulated (and which the relevant historical actors in this moment operated under) as some sort of endorsement of the act or an ignorance of the accompanying atrocities.
Rest assured I only sought to comment in that manner because I find generally on a forum such as this, leading with a sense of outrage (regardless of how justified) is typically unhelpful. I share your sentiments, though I sort of take it as a given on this forum that these aspects of WWII are known. I would guess far less people know about Operation Paperclip, thus the "nugget".
If upon learning about this someone needs me to connect the dots to your sentiments, well frankly I would suggest such a person is likely beyond my reach given the nature of the venue we find ourselves in (pseudonymous forum).
I would encourage you to not so readily cast aspersions upon your fellow interlocutors here based on turn of phrase alone. Have a nice day.
Something they might have is a lot of strain gauges around the rocket. They can tell if the rocket is bending and compressing (and how) -- but they are also essentially high-speed microphones. Valves make sounds (cause vibrations) and they are easy to spot if you have high-speed samples of your strain gauges. You can also triangulate distances if you have multiple strain gauges with synchronized high-speed samples.
It's good practice to dump data into several flash memories + transmit live. The live transmit is likely only a small summary of all the data that they capture -- distributed flash memory locations is a cheap way to increase the chances of getting useful data after a boom/crash (put them in orange water tight containers that can float + give them a beep-beep radio transmitter).
No. It’s simply about accessibility and sovereignty. Even though the ESA can launch from French Guiana, the space port is an ocean-away from Europe! How much do you think that fact will affect the cost and the launch cadence for Europe?
Now they prove they can launch directly from Norway with their own production from Munich and elsewhere and that has immense potential for the future: much higher cadence, significant lower cost and always-on accessibility.
The only way, Europe can have a Starlink similar network is to launch from their own soil and reuse the first stage. Also from the perspective of security, launching spy and other military satellites from European soil is the only practical possibility in this political climate.
Congratulations! An immensely important achievement, I’d say.
IMO, this success has a great implication for accessibility and sovereignty of the EU. Although ESA can launch from French Guiana, the spaceport is an ocean-away from Europe! That fact alone affects the cost and the launch cadence for Europe greatly.
Now they prove they can launch directly from Norway with their own production from Munich and elsewhere and that has immense potential for the future: much higher launch cadence, significant lower cost and always-on accessibility.
The only way Europe can have a Starlink similar network is to launch it from their own soil and reuse the first stage. Also from the perspective of security, launching spy and other military satellites from EU soil is the only practical possibility in this political climate.
Dont worry the US will hoodwink Europe into be a compliant vassal of the Empire in a few years when they elect a democrat who pretends to be liberal and acting in good faith, probably AOC(ia).
Why is this downvoted? This is exactly how US foreign policy works. The only difference with Trump is that he says things out loud.
This is 100% what is going to happen. US foreign policy relies on deception and decade long plans. The big plans are ruling the Middle East and squash opposition (Libya, Egypt, Syria, Iraq done, Iran pending).
To that end Russia had to be kept busy, therefore the Ukraine proxy war, which has the additional benefit of tying up the EU and cut it off from Russian natural resources.
It makes the EU dependent on the US as an energy exporter. These plans are old and both parties have diligently executed them.
Even with the Greenland annexation threats there are Democrats who think it wouldn't be a bad idea, but you should not say it out loud.
your statements are wildly misinformed, you can't make claims about geopoltics because you've read a few delusional reddit threads. The US was extremely active in supporting the Syrian opposition, we literally funded the entire operation, like what reality are you living in.
Your opinion on Russia/Ukraine is clearly skewed by NATO propaganda, which I wouldn't blame you for, most people have had their minds colonized by NATO propaganda, after all, NATO has a literal newsletter called "Cognitive Warfare" where they candidly brag about it.
It doesn't matter how much you go on about 'NATO propaganda', the simple truth is that Russia invaded Ukraine, illegally and without reasonable cause, and did so for its own interests.
What's more, Ukraine was nowhere near joining NATO, and in any case Russia's invasion would still have been illegal and reprehensible even if it was.
Most people assume the post-WW2 consensus is a permanent baseline. Historically, there's no evidence to support that expectation, but it's easy to see why the illusion persists. Acknowledging that the current order is temporary is terrifying, particularly for those who thrive under it.
> Even with the Greenland annexation threats there are Democrats who think it wouldn't be a bad idea, but you should not say it out loud.
If you were talking about like, Iraq in 2003 you'd be correct to point out that majority being opposed doesn't mean the entire party was blameless.
This is probably the worst example you could have used to make this point about aggressive US foreign policy having support across party lines. There is absolutely no constituency within the Democrats that have ever wanted this because it came entirely from the fevered mind of Trump and the parody edition of Bush's neocons in the current admin.
The combo of 1. negative polarization and 2. being completely pointless and accomplishing nothing makes this about as unpopular of an idea you could find among Democrats, in public or private.
> The only way Europe can have a Starlink similar network is to launch it from their own soil and reuse the first stage.
Unfortunately I'm not aware of any properly funded euro alternative to starlink that that has progressed beyond the conceptual stage. Even the Canadian company telesat is far behind and has a serious debt problem. The two separate "Chinese starlink" LEO networks being built right now are ahead of telesat in functional satellites in orbit.
The Canadian government recently promised 2.3 billion to telesat for polar area services. Realistically maybe some European nations might have the best chance of success by absorbing telesat and continuing to pay MDA to build the satellites for the network.
IRIS² looks on track? Granted, it is not a SpaceX competitor for consumer Internet. But it is an alternative for applications where reliance on SpaceX is not prudent.
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[ 0.28 ms ] story [ 19.3 ms ] thread“First rocket to launch from Europe outside Russia” would have been perfectly correct.
If you said: Americans usually incorrectly think of Western Europe as those countries not partially or fully under control of the Soviet Union during the Cold War, then I’d agree with you.
Not at all. You've missed the "Private" in the headline. And that it apparently is.
Which is obviously the right thing to do, but it's interesting that it's not just a hypothetical anymore.
The United States saves the day. France pretends they are in charge with grand speeches.
I was close to a European immigrant and 2 things she was shocked about:
How rich the United States was. Even our poor had more than her upper middle class family had.
How people in the United States do not take 2 hour coffee and cigarette breaks.
Not to diminish France's contribution but without Germany and Italy there would be no Ariane. France could not build one and could not fly one.
I worked on the Ariane from 2000 to 2006."National return" was a pain for all the smaller companies and they usually founded subsidiaries in all the other member states to game the system.
Without Germany and Italy, France can build and fly no Ariane. Not even close.
An ecosystem where we develop things independently is one where everyone loses.
That's pretty damn obvious to everyone with a half of brain, yet here we are being pulled apart.
There is a very credible argument to be made that excessive cooperation leads to incredibly heavy overly political programs that are completely static and can't adjust because of international agreements.
That doesn't mean working together isn't good but they way they have been has been pretty questionably in many ways (along with a lot of space policy).
If any of this machines use Python or Linux internally, then we could find some obvious connections with Europe and the people at charge of it.
Especially given that recent history has shown us that we're back to "power" being the only language spoken.
__
Rel: The ecosystem thing.
I would challenge that, because if there's one thing where the US has had absurd leverage over the EU (and world, for that matter), then it's tech ecosystems.
A healthy ecosystem would not be owned by SV/US alone.
So right now, we're not really "strong together" but rather weakly dependent. That should be remediated, and decoupling like this is exactly the tool for that.
Power being the only language spoken never left in the first place in order to get back to it.
The second camp saw the craziness when the later Bush was elected a second time.
jokes on you guys as i firmly believe bullying racketeering and intimidation are quite literally terrorism when applied to population groups consisting of more than (1) individual.
careful on that slippery slope.
And people who get wet when France says they are going to send soldiers to Ukraine and it never materializes.
The general population has 0 understanding of international relations. It's the United States and China right now. Any other belief comes from someone who has read 0 international relations Realism books.
Whilst the EU in it's current form did not exist until 1993, it's predecessor the European Coal and Steel Community was formed in 1950 with the Schuman Declaration: https://european-union.europa.eu/principles-countries-histor...
The primary goal of this was to prevent another war by joining european economies together economically. It's not 'overthinking it'. It quite literally is the main reason and you can go and read the speeches from the politicians at the time to confirm this.
Heres a direct quote from the declaration itself
> The solidarity in production thus established will make it plain that any war between France and Germany becomes not merely unthinkable, but materially impossible.
The fact that the european powers (with the exception of russia) are largely at peace with each other and haven't had a major war with each other since the second world war is very unusual given european history.
I am talking about the formalization that is specifically the modern European Union. You are talking as if it's some inevitable consequence of earlier efforts.
> Europeans who created the EU knew about balance of power geopolitics so well, they created this slow bureaucratic mess specifically to stop Germany and France sliding back into the same old lethal habit.
I don't think anything you're saying is strengthening this statement that I had an issue with.
The Maastricht Treaty which is what created modern day EU was driven by other concerns, asking Gemini yields: "To answer your second question: No, everyday Europeans in 1992 were not primarily thinking about WWII.
By the time the Maastricht Treaty was being drafted, the public was reacting to a completely different era of history. They were focused on the collapse of the Soviet Union, the opening of Eastern Europe, and the need to compete economically with the United States and Japan in a rapidly globalizing world. The defining event on the public's mind was the Fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, not the end of WWII."
So you are right that the processes that eventually led to the formation of the EU started after WW-II due to concerns related to that war. But specifically the EU as it stands today with its current structure and agreements was not formed due to those considerations. Europe could have continued with the previous arrangements. At least that's my take and I don't think anything you're saying contradicts it. I'll admit to a certain lack of knowledge so happy to learn more about Europe pre-EU or why what I'm saying is still wrong.
It's also not just about WW2, europe had at that point been at major war with itself in some form or another for well over a thousand years with only very brief periods of peace.
Of course by the 1990s it wasn't top of peoples minds because there had been peace for nearly 40 years, which is testament to the success of the original project, it doesn't mean the original goals had disappeared.
History of everything is a long journey. The OP made a comment re: the EU specifically which I thought was off. And at least so far in this thread my reply seems to have been more accurate.
> Europeans who created the EU knew about balance of power geopolitics so well, they created this slow bureaucratic mess specifically to stop Germany and France sliding back into the same old lethal habit. While clumsy positioning between the US and China is a headache in the present moment for Europe, compared to a tedious Union Europeans prefer reawakenings of 1914 in their backyard. Well at least so far.
This statement isn't talking about "the decades long journey Europe has gone through informed by wars". It is very specifically talking about the creation of the EU (and e.g. its slow bureaucratic mess which are an attribute of the modern EU). I have yet to see any actual support to the idea that the specific step of the formation modern EU was indeed primarily about Germany and France sliding back into war and that a "slow bureaucratic mess" was the intentional vehicle here. As someone who has lived through these events I have my perspective and it's fine for others to have a different perspective. But if that is the case then I'm still to see that in this thread.
You are painting a picture as if a geographic region inevitably drifts towards the EU, the UN, the USA, etc. This just feels like total nonsense to me to be blunt. These are decisions taken at the time for various specific reasons. Sometimes they go one way. Sometimes a different way. The countries that formed the EU and decided to adopt one currency and open borders (amongst other decisions) took that step for a reason. It was not inevitable. There are and were many other paths forward. And Germany and France going to war, as far as I recall, was not part of the discussion at the time (1992-ish).
Is current day Europe and the EU a product of a history. I mean duh. That was not the point the OP was making.
I am not European, I am from the US. I saw this conversation and saw you being weirdly obstinate about this. Your argument is needlessly pedantic. You also admitted you are not an expert on this topic and yet you refuse to listen to someone who clearly understands it better than you do.
The original comment was the opposite of my personal experience having followed the events as they happened. The responses to my comment did not really address what I was talking about.
If you make a point (that the formation of the EU is because of X you are very specific about it) then you should be the one who is prepared to demonstrate it somehow. Why is this a problem?
Are you familiar with the topic or you're simply here to tell me that my manners are bad? If you're familiar I'd love to get your input on the actual question.
Why is my position "contrarian"? I am disagreeing with the original comment. For sure. And the reason I am persisting is that this comment seems wrong and I don't want to just let it go. It's important enough. FWIW I asked another random person whether my take on the EU's formation made sense to them (who was around at the time) and they agreed with me. It's definitely possible that I'm missing something profound but if I am then those taking the other position should spell it out. Maybe the OP meant something different. The OP didn't even weigh in.
@jpleyden98 jumps in with: You're just showing your ignorance and lack of knowledge about the history of the EU. Directly linking modern day EU with "European Coal and Steel Community was formed in 1950". I don't think that's right. At the very least it's missing a lot that happened in between.
> Its not that Europeans havent read Mearsheimer. its that for the best part of three hundred years the whole of Europe has been trying that same realist script until there was nothing left but total ruin across the entire continent. Europeans who created the EU knew about balance of power geopolitics so well, they created this slow bureaucratic mess specifically to stop Germany and France sliding back into the same old lethal habit. While clumsy positioning between the US and China is a headache in the present moment for Europe, compared to a tedious Union Europeans prefer reawakenings of 1914 in their backyard. Well at least so far.
Back to the original comment I had a problem with. This isn't some minor detail. It's pretty important. This history matters. At least I think it does.
Let's just add the actual preamble to the Maastricht Treaty that discusses at least some of the rationale: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Treaty_on_European_Union/Prea...
So ignoring my bad manners and my apparent ignorance. Where is the support to the idea that the Europeans created the EU as it stands today "they created this slow bureaucratic mess specifically to stop Germany and France sliding back into the same old lethal habit" ? I'm happy to learn something new today. When I try with AI it seems to agree with the point I am making: "Treating the 1993 Maastricht Treaty as a simple continuation of the 1950 Coal and Steel Community is a common oversimplification. While the underlying desire to keep Germany anchored to Western Europe remained a constant thread, the actual decisions made in 1993 were driven by a vastly different geopolitical crisis and economic reality.". If the OP just talked about the post-war European integration then I'm in complete agreement. To just project that to modern day EU feels like a very big stretch to me. But a quote from the specific individuals involved in the formation of the EU circa 1992 would definitely help me change my position. Again, this feels like a pretty big deal to me in terms of why the EU exists as it does today and understanding Europe.
EDIT: Also worth looking up the thread to what OP was responding to:
> The general population has 0 understanding of international relations.
And I think he's absolutely right.
Again, not tha...
Aside from technology, Germany also got major control centers and mission planning capability in Cologne and Oberpfaffenhofen.
Most components are there, but not the political will to go on a national mission.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49583883
After the horrors of WWII, Europe decided it would rather do things collectively than each country doing its own thing. This resulted in wonderful things like Concorde, fast rail, Airbus, and Ariane. Europe became more than the sum of its parts.
For any failure you would need to have an ocean in the direction of launch.
Also not all orbits are equal because then you need more fuel etc.
It is silly to say every country has equal opportunity to go to space because space is only 100km up. That’s not how it works.
They kicked off the wave of commercial space launch - and now, it reached the EU too.
ESA and ArianeSpace will slowly but surely decay into obsolescence.
ESA neither launches or builds rockets. They are an end-user, and they own the launch infrastructure in Kourou. Both these roles will exist long after Ariane is gone.
Arianespace does not build rockets. It's a launch services provider, they purchase the rockets from other companies, handle all the logistics and manage the launchpad. It's in no way married to Ariane 6, and it has in the past and still does sell launches on multiple different rockets from different companies. There will be demand for these services even after Ariane the rocket is gone.
ArianeGroup is the company that builds Ariane 6. They are a complex co-owned project between Airbus and Safran, with workshare distributed between France and Germany. They make other things than the Ariane 6, notably the French SLBM. Eventually the Ariane 6 will go away, because it will be obsolete, but that will not necessarily mean that ArianeGroup will go under, because they have an another subsidiary called ArianeWorks developing a new rocket, called Themis.
Italy accused the French-based ArianeSpace of deliberately taking launches away from the Italian-build Vega rocket in favor of the French-build Ariane rockets. They've now more of left ArianeSpace and are selling the rockets themselves and using ESA's infrastructure to launch them.
But having educated people everywhere is hard, so some people, because they don't get how some stuff works, they try to abuse friends and allies and make things worse (inefficient) for everybody in the process.
Europe has had a space agency for a while now. So this story isn't "Europeans finally started to launch for space" but a private European company chose to launch from a continental location.
It's funny how we can't be celebrate a European achievement without trying to interpret it into relationship to the US.
This launch is a move towards lower cost and more frequent launches, that in the US are provided by SpaceX.
Europe has already invested far more in rocket then SpaceX did and isn't close.
If your capital efficiency is far lower, it might not be inexpensive. If you can get the scale because you don't have payloads, its going to be more expensive.
There is a incredibly long road between 'rocket can land' and 'cheap and scalable launch'. A long road most people don't see because its not as flashy as landing.
That said I think this is awesome and hope the EU is able to make further advances. I have a very positive view of Musk, but the more competitors there are in space, the more likely we able to accelerate advances and efficiency in that domain. And I think everybody wins in that scenario.
In software, thanks mostly to the open-source movement) we all have access to the same materials and manufacturing processes.
In manufacturing, there are huge differences in materials and processes that we need to account for. On the flip side, this can allow one to leapfrog the other rather than replicating them - it’s likely the next reusable Falcon 9-class vehicle will use a methalox engine that’ll be easier to maintain compared to Flacon 9’s kerolox ones. China has demonstrated a novel approach to vehicle recovery as well (in addition to landing legs). Future competitors will have access to materials current incumbents didn’t have and can’t easily adopt with their current supply chain.
People also forget SpaceX subverted a lot of the expectations for reusable rockets - they didn’t use parachutes, but opted to carry extra propellant for landing; they didn’t eject the engines, opting instead to reuse the whole stage; and they built landing barges because their rockets would launch towards the ocean, saving fuel for a boost back to the launch site. They also tested capsule landing using the launch abort rockets, but opted for parachutes and splashdowns instead. Still they keep all the RCS motors in the capsule, making their expendable service module very inexpensive in comparison to Boeing’s.
All these decisions point to proven mission architectures so that followers don’t need to explore architectures that were explored and dropped.
It's because space programs are job programs to keep the advanced rocketry tech available for future use. The so-called launch market never materialized. Congresses of launch capable nations are completely fine with couple hundred to low billion dollars divided by couple launches per year doing science and gravity experiments and occasional TV sat launches. Every dollar "saved" is every dollar unspent and diverted away from STEM.
Starlink wouldn't be accounting for like 99.9% of Falcon 9 launches and 99.9999% of man made objects in space if this wasn't the case.
China does what it does because else the world won't take them seriously, which creates artificially lower socio-economic statuses with no benefits to anyone. They have bunch of different lineages of space launch vehicles and production capacities, they don't need reusability per se. Same goes for humanoids - US/CN both have ~zero chance entering heavy industry hard robotics used in car plants, and that leads both into so-to-speak alternative robotics.
3D printing has been a game changer that basically allows you to crank out rocket engines from raw materials, which means that building new ones is cheap and easy. If you look at the Raptor 3 (3D printed), it looks super clean, thanks to the fact that they integrated most of the piping into the 3d printed body, but that means you can't really fix or inspect it.
Which is fine tbh. SpaceX (and Tesla) has been shown to be pragmatic not dogmatic when it comes to new technology. 'Elon time' might be a meme, but Musk both pushes his employees very hard, but probably not harder than possible - and he's willing to take flak for delaying projects, changing scope or outright cancellation.
We are not talking about forever spacecraft, and even Falcon 9's reusabilility is partial (the second stage is lost), but even what Falcon 9 has achieved allows for very rapid progress, due to the short feedback loop, including progress in reliability.
It's because Europe is absolutely obsessed with the United States and obsessed with Americans.
I’d love to be able to go a day without having to see whatever the latest stupidity we’ll have to deal with the fallout from is, I really would.
What specific event and year were IYO the onset of what you're claiming?
Because you elected actors for president before. Because you had school shootings before. Because everything in the sky was always UFO to you, and everything on the ground either bigfoot or communists. Because you spread "democracy" that is shaped like bombs. Because you fund your own terrorists and drug cartels. Because you strong-arm world economies for non-reasons. Because you have nukes and eternal paranoia.
But yes, it did get much worse recently. Congratulations on noticing?
In particular, I’m loving the obviously British comments (I deeply admire their ability to give the classiest insults).
Is this the new cope?
The USA is a Goliath on the world stage. The deranged tweets of your president move global markets and the next time Israel manipulates him into starting another war it might not be Iran, it might be Denmark, or Canada.
People pay close attention to the US not because they want to buy because they basically have to.
Though not every sovereign state has an army, see Iceland, Costa Rica, theoretically Japan, etc.
My opinion is that there is an implied reliance on the US "allowing" Europe to ship the rockets to Kourou and launch them there.
If our relations ever completely sour, the US might, for example, take over the shipping vessels going to Kourou, kinda like Europe takes over Russian shadow fleet vessels.
Now all of a sudden Europe has no means of launching rockets, except now it can launch to polar orbits. It might seem a stretch, but there is a non-zero chance that could happen, therefore it is better to have an alternative.
No, but it makes it vulnerable to the US.
The US can also decide to “free” and “bring democracy” to the French Guiana because the rich oil deposits of its continental shelf won’t free themselves.
The point is that a slow ship crossing the ocean with hard to replace is very vulnerable in transit.
Regardless, a launch facility within Europe seems much less riskier long term from a geopolitical standpoint.
Yes, that's why the risk is NOT the same between French Guiana and New Caledonia. Both of them are oversea territories far from the mainland with a colonial past, but their current relationship with the mainland is very different.
Around a quarter of the population of New Caledonia has been calling for independence for decades at this point, with 3 referendum organised during the last 10 years to resolve this issue. Only half of the population was able to vote to the referendums (and some local elections, like Congress of NC), due to local rules than are about to change–this, incidentally, is the cause of the protests you are talking about. On the geopolitical side of things, the independentists are probably propped up by Azerbaijan (https://www.courrierinternational.com/article/geopolitique-n...) and maybe China (https://www.lefigaro.fr/international/ambitions-geostrategiq...).
None of this holds for French Guiana. The risk between these territories is not the same. At all. Putting them on the same level by reducing them to their status as former colonies is nonsense.
Sure, placing launch infrastructure in French Guiana is probably less risky than setting up shop in New Caledonia. Clearly, the risk profile is not the same for all of Overseas France.
My point is that if the decision is between mainland and Overseas France, the latter introduces elevated risk in the long term in general. French Guiana could be fine today, but it is not impossible that the next few years could see the rise of a populist pro-independence movement that would eventually impact launch infrastructure (similar to how it did for the USSR).
Reality is fundamentally chaotic after all.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SaxaVord_Spaceport
How about the last time South America contested a little parcel of land?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falklands_War
A real shame Britain abandoned their own research.
Continental Europe? yes. The Russian's Plesetsk Cosmodrome is well within the boundaries of the European continent.
Continental Europe outside of Russian influence? no.
And of course the original rocket missiles developed by von Braun and used to bomb London.
It really isn’t funny. The US shat the bed and for now the repercussions are mainly being felt outside the US. When the US realises what it’s lost it’s going to be too late.
When the US government funded SpaceX, it was motivated in no small degree by a desire to not be permanently reliant on a geopolitical wildcard (Russia) for getting astronauts into orbit. Now that the US itself has become a geopolitical wildcard, savvy countries know that they need to seek out alternatives to SpaceX under more stable regimes.
How is Russia a wildcard? What unexpected thing do you think Russia has done?
If Russia behaved rationally they would have made a deal with Ukraine (decades ago) that protected the rights of the Russian minorities in Ukraine and continued massively profiting from gas and oil exports into Europe.
Russia did, many times, last time in 2010.[0]
But the US and the EU didn't like it, so the coup in 2014 happened with American help[1] which overthrew democratically elected president of Ukraine who introduced the law protecting Russian speaking Ukrainian citizens.[2]
The law was repelled right after the coup and Crimeans supported the reunion with Russia.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia%E2%80%93Ukraine_gas_dis...
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26079957
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_policy_in_Ukraine#201...
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_of_Dignity#Removal_...
I think Trump definitely pushes allies away much faster than ever anticipated, that's probably the only achievement from the current administration.
The alliance still stands, but it's hard to trust the US when the current president is constantly praising violent dictators and doesn't seem to grasp the concept of laws/rules + tries to blame everyone else + threatens to invade EU countries.
You can know a guy by the friends he keeps :)
Good friends you're choosing there.
China has it's own launchers which shows it's decoupling from Europe now. It's over for Europe as countries race to be independent from them.
Northern launches are done sometimes for high inclination orbits since they reduce the need to maneuver from an equatorial orbit.
Trump be damned, Europe and America are stronger when they work together.
The US and europe would be stronger together if the US acted in good faith. Absent that, decoupling is the right choice
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/05/world/europe/germany-afd-...
They are using liquid propane, which burns extremely cleanly, especially when combined with their liquid oxygen.
There is a lot of noise, but that should be the only polltion generated by this launch.
And of course as pointed out elsewhere, Norway isn't even EU. I wonder how happy people were if rocket launches were done in rural Western Europe.
Germans killed Soviets by the millions. If you were a German of value (like a rocket scientist) you were eager to surrender to the Americans before the Soviets could get their hands on you.
If you were the Americans, you distrusted the Soviets already, so it was a win-win.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip
We all know Germans was. And some people would fling fecal allegations that “so was the US!”. No. German and Russian actions were categorically different than wartime casualties (even brutal, possibly criminal, wartime casualties like fire bombing heavily civilian enemy areas like Dresden)
...If you choose to intentionally ignore slavery in the American South, Convict Leasing, and Jim Crow.
see also what the CIA got up to in Indonesia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesian_mass_killings_of_19...
And in your living memory: Vietnam, Korea, the vile shit we did to Haiti and Chile, the 'Banana Republics', Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, unconditionally supporting Israel and the Gulf States various war crimes and genocides, etc...
And of course, most recently, the sudden and complete excision of life-saving aid to children in Africa, leaving the world's most vulnerable to starve.
And also the total embargo on Cuba, to ensure starvation, with the intention of conquest, resource extraction, and collective punishment.
but God forbid someone on a message board tarnish the US's sterling reputation (relative to some of history's worst) during WWII.
Cutting off aid is terrible, but you don’t get to blame the US for their dying - without blaming the rest of the world as well. That isn’t a US issue.
History does not work this way, in the early modernity masses were cohesive and industrialized, and so were the crimes and atrocities.
Every developed country got to it, but what makes nazis different is that the regime was built with the sole purpose of commiting atrocities, hence the outstanding scale and character of the matter.
The Americans had Paperclip, the soviets had Operation Osoaviakhim: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Osoaviakhim
Not to mention the initial dash to get to technology and scientists before the others.
Misleading. Pretty much all Germans were eager to surrender to the Western Allies - US/UK/France. That became the German government's official top priority in the closing days of the war, and Eisenhower threatened to seal the Western Front (to German soldiers and civilians fleeing the Soviets) when the Germans dragged their heels on his terms of surrender.
A relatively brief treatment can be found here - https://history.army.mil/portals/143/Images/Publications/cat...
Paperclip didn't grab random 'Germans', it pulled in Nazi mass murders and rewarded them for their crimes.
Winning a 'space race' by building a tower of 'slaves' and corpses to the stars isn't my idea of victory at all.Rest assured I only sought to comment in that manner because I find generally on a forum such as this, leading with a sense of outrage (regardless of how justified) is typically unhelpful. I share your sentiments, though I sort of take it as a given on this forum that these aspects of WWII are known. I would guess far less people know about Operation Paperclip, thus the "nugget".
If upon learning about this someone needs me to connect the dots to your sentiments, well frankly I would suggest such a person is likely beyond my reach given the nature of the venue we find ourselves in (pseudonymous forum).
I would encourage you to not so readily cast aspersions upon your fellow interlocutors here based on turn of phrase alone. Have a nice day.
How do they figure things like this out, after a rocket goes "boom"?
It's good practice to dump data into several flash memories + transmit live. The live transmit is likely only a small summary of all the data that they capture -- distributed flash memory locations is a cheap way to increase the chances of getting useful data after a boom/crash (put them in orange water tight containers that can float + give them a beep-beep radio transmitter).
When someone emphasizes nationalism a bit too much that's usually only because they don't have enough technical merit to talk about.
Now they prove they can launch directly from Norway with their own production from Munich and elsewhere and that has immense potential for the future: much higher cadence, significant lower cost and always-on accessibility.
The only way, Europe can have a Starlink similar network is to launch from their own soil and reuse the first stage. Also from the perspective of security, launching spy and other military satellites from European soil is the only practical possibility in this political climate.
IMO, this success has a great implication for accessibility and sovereignty of the EU. Although ESA can launch from French Guiana, the spaceport is an ocean-away from Europe! That fact alone affects the cost and the launch cadence for Europe greatly.
Now they prove they can launch directly from Norway with their own production from Munich and elsewhere and that has immense potential for the future: much higher launch cadence, significant lower cost and always-on accessibility.
The only way Europe can have a Starlink similar network is to launch it from their own soil and reuse the first stage. Also from the perspective of security, launching spy and other military satellites from EU soil is the only practical possibility in this political climate.
This is 100% what is going to happen. US foreign policy relies on deception and decade long plans. The big plans are ruling the Middle East and squash opposition (Libya, Egypt, Syria, Iraq done, Iran pending).
To that end Russia had to be kept busy, therefore the Ukraine proxy war, which has the additional benefit of tying up the EU and cut it off from Russian natural resources.
It makes the EU dependent on the US as an energy exporter. These plans are old and both parties have diligently executed them.
Even with the Greenland annexation threats there are Democrats who think it wouldn't be a bad idea, but you should not say it out loud.
Also, Syria being in that list is silly. The Syrian opposition aren't vassals of the US. The US was never too keen to help them.
Your opinion on Russia/Ukraine is clearly skewed by NATO propaganda, which I wouldn't blame you for, most people have had their minds colonized by NATO propaganda, after all, NATO has a literal newsletter called "Cognitive Warfare" where they candidly brag about it.
https://www.act.nato.int/activities/cognitive-warfare/
What's more, Ukraine was nowhere near joining NATO, and in any case Russia's invasion would still have been illegal and reprehensible even if it was.
This is probably the worst example you could have used to make this point about aggressive US foreign policy having support across party lines. There is absolutely no constituency within the Democrats that have ever wanted this because it came entirely from the fevered mind of Trump and the parody edition of Bush's neocons in the current admin.
The combo of 1. negative polarization and 2. being completely pointless and accomplishing nothing makes this about as unpopular of an idea you could find among Democrats, in public or private.
The only problem with Flat Earthers is that they say things out loud. Also, grabbing other people by their **ies.
Unfortunately I'm not aware of any properly funded euro alternative to starlink that that has progressed beyond the conceptual stage. Even the Canadian company telesat is far behind and has a serious debt problem. The two separate "Chinese starlink" LEO networks being built right now are ahead of telesat in functional satellites in orbit.
The Canadian government recently promised 2.3 billion to telesat for polar area services. Realistically maybe some European nations might have the best chance of success by absorbing telesat and continuing to pay MDA to build the satellites for the network.
Please don't, this is madness.