alt Hacker NewsThis is a huge success, but it I think also tells us that the EU is further decoupling itself from the US. Slowly but steadily.
Which is obviously the right thing to do, but it's interesting that it's not just a hypothetical anymore.
Replies
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 is just one of many companies that appeared back then as a response to SpaceX's initial success.
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.
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).
The EU already had quite a bit of non-EU spaceflight capability, both in terms of rockets and launch sites.
I think having more distribution in launch locations and more provider options will ultimately be a net positive in the long run.
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 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.
If they haven’t gotten the message yet, they never will congratulations, plan on doing more because you’re gonna have to.
It is indeed a huge success but it also underlines how far ahead the rest of the world is.
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.
I think being a competitor in a market doesn't mean you're 'decoupling' from it, rather you're on equal footing.
o/
[dead]
[dead]
Why is this a sign of decoupling? Is any EU technological development decoupling?
Does it mean that?
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.