[jveritas]

You seems more French than German to me in the way you use this twisted logic. It is a joke to compare your European space program to ours. Name one major space technology invented by the European space program.

[Jordi]

A recent thread:

ESA Accelerates Towards A New Space Thruster (better than the Ion engine

anyway I do not claim any kind of supremacy of Europe's technology (just on cars perhaps) albeit I visited the impressive CERN and they claim they invented the Internet

My point: ESA's activities are of interest notably because with a smaller budget they follow NASA's path at close distance.

[Prodigal Son]

Name one major space technology invented by the European space program.

Hmmm. Well, what are you counting as the European space programme? I mean, Europe was first into space. Europe had the first satellite (Sputnik). First man in space etc. These were pretty big achievements. I think so anyway.