Posted on 10/19/2024 9:47:56 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
The flawless launch of SpaceX’s 5,000-ton Starship and its Super Heavy Booster, and the precision recovery of the booster on its launch pad, has opened the way to a manned mission to the moon next year and perhaps to Mars as soon as 2030. One giant leap for Elon Musk’s company on Sunday was one more reminder that Europe’s space program is a colossal failure.
Elon’s Musk’s dream has become Europe’s nightmare Europe is currently unable to launch even its own weather satellites, and India, which managed a soft landing on the Moon last year, now has a more credible space program. Twenty years ago, before SpaceX had launched a single rocket, Richard Bowles, a sales director of the European Arianespace launch consortium, said SpaceX’s ambition to launch, recover and reuse rockets, cutting the price of launches in half, was a dream.
“SpaceX primarily sems to be selling a dream. Which is good, we should all dream,” he said. “I think reusability is a dream… How am I going to respond to a dream?… First of all you don’t wake people up. They have to wake up on their own… They’re not supermen. Whatever they can do, we can do.”
Yes, Elon’s Musk’s dream has become Europe’s nightmare. France’s Arianespace has this year managed to launch just one of the new Ariane 6 rockets made by its ArianeGroup umbrella company. It came four years late and hundreds of millions of euros over budget. SpaceX has already completed ninety-six launches this year, recovered and reused almost all of them, and expects to reach 148 launches by the end of December. Even if Arianespace can get the new rocket to work properly, it has planned to launch no more than nine missions a year, of which four will be institutional missions, such as reconnaissance satellites, and only five commercial missions.
European failure to embrace reusable rockets has made it completely uncompetitive. The estimated cost of a launch using the already obsolete Ariane 6, when it becomes operational, perhaps next year, is more than $100 million. The cost of a comparable launch on SpaceX is around $70 million. And Europe has nothing in the pipeline to match the SpaceX Starship, which will be able to launch payloads of 100 tons or more.
Access to space is the sine qua non of a credible space program. Without it, the scientific and commercial applications of space technology are impossible.
The Galileo global satellite system created by the European Union through the European Space Agency to compete with the Americans has so far launched thirty-two satellites and has failed to deliver a robust system. Many the satellites were launched using Russian rockets, no longer available due to the war in Ukraine. Further launches are on hold, pending the availability of Ariane 6.
OneWeb, the private European communications satellite project designed to compete with SpaceX’s Starlink, has launched its own limited constellation using SpaceX and Indian rockets. Even the European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) is now buying launches from SpaceX.
“This decision was driven by exceptional circumstances” said EUMETSAT’s director general Phil Evans. The exceptional circumstance being that Arianespace had no capability. SpaceX has meanwhile launched 7,000 Starlink communications satellites offering high-speed internet access and text messaging to mobile phones.
Europe’s space agency (the UK remains a member) is an example of European hubris at its absolute worst, its failures a masterclass in how not to be globally competitive, while spending billions on institutional grandiosity. The European Space Agency, which presides over Europe’s failed efforts, has a budget of $8.5 billion and a staff of around 2,500. ArianeGroup, which is subsidized by ESA, employs 8,300 people. Between them, they are unlikely to produce a reusable rocket before 2030.
It’s been a while since I was at the European launch base in Kourou, French Guiana, but I’m not missing much because nothing is happening there. The last launch of the small European Vega rocket was last month. Perhaps four launches of the new Vega C rocket might be attempted next year. Fewer missions in a year than SpaceX completes in a fortnight. Europe’s space program is all show and no-go.
Working for European companies, that is 100 percent correct.
Chandrayaan-3 landed on the Moon. The Russians tried to do it recently but failed even though the Soviets did it in the ‘70s. The Chinese sent a probe to the Moon so they’re competing with China.
The difference between private enterprise and governments.
Space X answers to one man.
Government programs must answer to hundreds (all with their own agenda).
Saudi Arabia is a fundamentalist country - and who knows if some fundamentalist muslim will rise to power in the future in those other countries - poor bet.
Correct. But MBS is a great leader. He's modern. He looks up to the West. Now women is allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia thanks to MBS.
and who knows if some fundamentalist muslim will rise to power in the future in those other countries - poor bet.
Obviously, that's a risk.
But we're having problems in the West.
To be fair, the recent US lunar probes failed as well.
US failures: Peregrine failed to even make it to the moon and Odysseus landed skewed and failed after a week. And that’s just this year.
Boeing?
“100 ton payloads. Crazy good”
Yep, it took 13 years of launches to build the ISS. I wonder what that it would have taken with Space X capability?
Sorry, India's moon landing is FAKE. The video of it looks like a cheap 1990's video game. Not buying India landing on the moon for a second.
It isn’t just Europe. It’s the whole globalist can do nothing elite who have collectively promoted themselves to be in charge of everything. It’s all coming unglued, here in the US as much as anywhere.
One quick slice of a knife, one bullet changes MBS to dead.
Less far less problems in the West than taking a fool’s risk in the ME. Brazil would be a better bet, as would Argentina than anything in the ME.
The humiliation is worse than the article states. Space X performed successful launches this year of Galileo satellites and of ESA scientific payloads.
It really is amazing isn’t it? In addition to vastly more launches and cheaper launches and technology nobody else can compete with in reusable rockets, SpaceX also has Starlink which is the only communications system the Russians can’t jam. ....and not only communications but is also for targeting for smart bombs/missiles as well and navigation for ships at sea too. Its miles ahead of everybody else in its coverage worldwide.
Let’s not forget, Musk is rescuing 2 NASA Astronauts that Boeing stranded at the ISS because their spacecraft failed to work.
Given all his success when he says that he plans to put a man on the moon in the next couple of years or Mars missions in 2030, does anyone doubt he can pull it off.
With the capture of spacex in the tower and Elons plan on 1 hour turnaround times, he can do launches of lunar components and assemble them in space for the ride to the moon. It’s a whole new ballgame.
NASA should be disbanded.
Let’s hope they really leave when Trump gets elected this time. They will be much more comfortable in other big government countries.
Not enough scientists and engineers coming in on the boats from Africa.
No, but NASA projects nonetheless.
NASA used to be great in the '60s and '70s.
They're not completely useless. The Voyager mission is still active which was launched in the '70s.
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