Surprisingly good result on a surprisingly low budget. I totally didn't expect a European company to make it. If it phoned home after reentry it means the hard part is done.
This is true of most industries, not just space launch. It's a systemic problem. The result of nearly a century of Keynesian economics. Something like "it doesn't matter what work is actually being done, so long as unemployment is low and the price of goods doesn't rise too quickly".
The primary purpose of the traditional European launch industry is to provide an independent launch capability for government payloads. Cost is irrelevant because the French government in particular wants to be able to launch payloads into orbit without depending on anyone else to do so.
It's failing at that too, in the same sense that maintaining a sailing ship fleet would have failed to provide independent seafaring capability in the latter half of the 19th century.
SpaceX has greatly raised the bar on what can be considered an "independent launch capability." Europe under the current system is greatly limited on what they can imagine doing in space. The equivalent of Starlink is not feasible, for example.
Underlying all this was a failure of vision, an assumption that use of space would be static and change only slowly, if at all, and that launch cost could not be significantly reduced.
Wouldn't it be nice if buying a space launch vehicle were like purchasing a car, instead of (a military) aircraft?
For that same matter, maybe that's part of what went wrong with the aircraft manufacturing business in America. The market really should not have been allowed to consolidate that much; to the point where incentives aligned to financial and regulatory capture / stasis (and pilots only certified on one type of flight vehicle), rather than someone skilled to operate a general aviation vehicle. Though with cars we do have a fairly standardized control scheme, at least for the most important parts. Steering wheel, go and stop foot levers.
And? So does everyone else, because Transporter rideshares are cheap and incubating your own rocket programme isn't.
SpaceX relies on Europe and Taiwan for its semiconductors. Does the fact SpaceX can't be adequately served by domestic capacity and their in-house semiconductor programme is just getting started mean they don't execute?! Or is it just a little thing called trade that Americans used to believe in?
Surprisingly good result on a surprisingly low budget. I totally didn't expect a European company to make it. If it phoned home after reentry it means the hard part is done.
The Exploration Company know what they're doing and execute fast. Contrary to popular belief on here this is possible from Europe...
Of course, they rely on SpaceX because Europe doesn't have enough launch capacity to support their launch rate (1/year at best)
Europe decided that the priority purpose of their launch industry was to provide jobs, not competitive launches.
This is true of most industries, not just space launch. It's a systemic problem. The result of nearly a century of Keynesian economics. Something like "it doesn't matter what work is actually being done, so long as unemployment is low and the price of goods doesn't rise too quickly".
The primary purpose of the traditional European launch industry is to provide an independent launch capability for government payloads. Cost is irrelevant because the French government in particular wants to be able to launch payloads into orbit without depending on anyone else to do so.
It's failing at that too, in the same sense that maintaining a sailing ship fleet would have failed to provide independent seafaring capability in the latter half of the 19th century.
SpaceX has greatly raised the bar on what can be considered an "independent launch capability." Europe under the current system is greatly limited on what they can imagine doing in space. The equivalent of Starlink is not feasible, for example.
Underlying all this was a failure of vision, an assumption that use of space would be static and change only slowly, if at all, and that launch cost could not be significantly reduced.
Wouldn't it be nice if buying a space launch vehicle were like purchasing a car, instead of (a military) aircraft?
For that same matter, maybe that's part of what went wrong with the aircraft manufacturing business in America. The market really should not have been allowed to consolidate that much; to the point where incentives aligned to financial and regulatory capture / stasis (and pilots only certified on one type of flight vehicle), rather than someone skilled to operate a general aviation vehicle. Though with cars we do have a fairly standardized control scheme, at least for the most important parts. Steering wheel, go and stop foot levers.
heres a gaggle og MIGS, but name your flavor
https://www.barnstormers.com/cat_search.php?headline=MIG&bod...
And? So does everyone else, because Transporter rideshares are cheap and incubating your own rocket programme isn't.
SpaceX relies on Europe and Taiwan for its semiconductors. Does the fact SpaceX can't be adequately served by domestic capacity and their in-house semiconductor programme is just getting started mean they don't execute?! Or is it just a little thing called trade that Americans used to believe in?