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ESA has a commercial launch strategy, but will member states pay?

arstechnica.com

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Re: ESA has a commercial launch strategy, but will member states pay?

#11

Post by 9dev »

DeathArrow wrote: post #5

When you task bureaucrats to lead the economy, science, technology, research and development it is not going to end well. Soviet Union and other communist countries tried it and failed. If you want something to be economically viable, you should create economic incentives, reduce regulation and reglementation and let private enterprises compete. US had an entirely different vision of the economy and private sector an…

It’s all trade offs, though. The US has vast problems with identity theft, fraud, and perverse privacy violations, because there is no regulation in that area. The market will only care about profits, and not the humans on whose backs these profits are materialised.

There must be something in between these extremes on the spectrum.

Re: ESA has a commercial launch strategy, but will member states pay?

#12

Post by jandrewrogers »

perihelions wrote: post #4

- "The top factors ESA will consider in this first phase of the challenge are each proposer's business plan, technical credibility, and financial credibility." The grand European strategy is... to task government bureaucrats to review startups' business plans?? This is going to so predictably lead to more of the same—the creation of companies optimized for writing proposals, and for pleasing bureaucrats. - "ESA also…

“we will continue doing the thing we have always done despite decades of evidence it won’t produce the thing we claim it will produce”

At some point, they need to adopt a different strategy. It feels like every European strategy is optimized for the comfort of bureaucrats rather than actual results.

Re: ESA has a commercial launch strategy, but will member states pay?

#13

Post by rapsey »

9dev wrote: post #11
DeathArrow wrote: post #5

When you task bureaucrats to lead the economy, science, technology, research and development it is not going to end well. Soviet Union and other communist countries tried it and failed. If you want something to be economically viable, you should create economic incentives, reduce regulation and reglementation and let private enterprises compete. US had an entirely different vision of the economy and private sector an…

It’s all trade offs, though. The US has vast problems with identity theft, fraud, and perverse privacy violations, because there is no regulation in that area. The market will only care about profits, and not the humans on whose backs these profits are materialised. There must be something in between these extremes on the spectrum.

You can take examples of working systems and adapt what works and discard what doesn't.

Europe has spent decades and trillions on programs that do not work and produce nothing but word documents. With no sign of anyone acknowledging the poor results of these programs.

Since I can't post on this thread anymore I will edit. I am talking about what this thread is about. Misguided and poorly designed industrial development programs that Europe has wasted trillions on with nothing to show for it. Not criticising every aspect of the EU.

Re: ESA has a commercial launch strategy, but will member states pay?

#14

Post by prettyeyes83 »

thawawaycold wrote: post #7
perihelions wrote: post #4

- "The top factors ESA will consider in this first phase of the challenge are each proposer's business plan, technical credibility, and financial credibility." The grand European strategy is... to task government bureaucrats to review startups' business plans?? This is going to so predictably lead to more of the same—the creation of companies optimized for writing proposals, and for pleasing bureaucrats. - "ESA also…

lol you don't know the half of it. Working with ESA for anything but the most trivial project is beyond frustrating; it's basically 99% about producing swathes of documentation, which in itself is more akin to philosophy and semantic dissertations over obscure standards than actual technical work. ESA is so risk averse that it's even weird for a space company

agreed, but what would you argue are the reasons for this mindset? i imagine the main cause is structural, ie. having to deal with all the member states?

Re: ESA has a commercial launch strategy, but will member states pay?

#15

Post by rapsey »

arlort wrote: post #9
perihelions wrote: post #4

- "The top factors ESA will consider in this first phase of the challenge are each proposer's business plan, technical credibility, and financial credibility." The grand European strategy is... to task government bureaucrats to review startups' business plans?? This is going to so predictably lead to more of the same—the creation of companies optimized for writing proposals, and for pleasing bureaucrats. - "ESA also…

> to review startups' business plans How exactly do you imagine a government contract working if it's not reviewed before being granted? > That they're still ambivalent whether they should pursue reusability or not So they shouldn't verify if a proposal is credible because that's too much bureaucracy but they should dictate to the companies how they want to approach the problem rather than letting each company make t…

The government should be a regulator and set ground rules. It should provide a market and clear requirements. Then leave private business alone to meet those requirements. If they need funding, leave the business to the VC industry.

Re: ESA has a commercial launch strategy, but will member states pay?

#16

Post by rich_sasha »

Meta; US produces well funded startups presumably because the exits are good. Investors don't mind the risk, expecting an outsized return.

Exits are good, perhaps, because US stock valuations are just much better. Investors are happy buying at a higher P/E ratio, expecting it to go up in even further, and make a good return.

Now, for a long time, there has been talk of US equities being woefully overvalued. Of course a value is only what investors are happy to pay. But supposing this is true, and US is due a major correction, Trump's "shock therapy" on markets might actually achieve it. If that's true, US valuations would drop relative to the rest of the world (this hasn't really happened yet, most of developed markets moved roughly in unison - but it's early days perhaps).

If that happens, US might actually stop looking like a most attractive VC market. This would presumably lead to a general drop of VC investments - but also to a greater geographic spread in VC investments. In particular, more money going into things like European space companies, as opposed to US ones.

There's a lot of assumptions here. Maybe US equities have higher valuations because they are genuinely better, or a correction won't actually come. But it always puzzles me why the US seems better at churning out well-founded startups for no totally obvious reason, and maybe that's it.

Re: ESA has a commercial launch strategy, but will member states pay?

#17

Post by sveme »

DeathArrow wrote: post #5

When you task bureaucrats to lead the economy, science, technology, research and development it is not going to end well. Soviet Union and other communist countries tried it and failed. If you want something to be economically viable, you should create economic incentives, reduce regulation and reglementation and let private enterprises compete. US had an entirely different vision of the economy and private sector an…

Up to the 80s the science and engineering of the soviet union was top notch, they were mostly equal or even better when you look at the space program. I was thinking similarly to you about the superiority of capitalism to generate engineering progress, but for some stuff I‘m not so sure anymore. China, for example, is an interesting mix of long-term governmental planning and capitalist cambrian explosions. Not sure cause and effect absolutely determined by now.

Re: ESA has a commercial launch strategy, but will member states pay?

#18

Post by DeathArrow »

9dev wrote: post #11
DeathArrow wrote: post #5

When you task bureaucrats to lead the economy, science, technology, research and development it is not going to end well. Soviet Union and other communist countries tried it and failed. If you want something to be economically viable, you should create economic incentives, reduce regulation and reglementation and let private enterprises compete. US had an entirely different vision of the economy and private sector an…

It’s all trade offs, though. The US has vast problems with identity theft, fraud, and perverse privacy violations, because there is no regulation in that area. The market will only care about profits, and not the humans on whose backs these profits are materialised. There must be something in between these extremes on the spectrum.

>There must be something in between these extremes on the spectrum.

That's for sure. We should take what was proved it works and adjust it to our conditions.

Re: ESA has a commercial launch strategy, but will member states pay?

#19

Post by rapsey »

prettyeyes83 wrote: post #14
thawawaycold wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

lol you don't know the half of it. Working with ESA for anything but the most trivial project is beyond frustrating; it's basically 99% about producing swathes of documentation, which in itself is more akin to philosophy and semantic dissertations over obscure standards than actual technical work. ESA is so risk averse that it's even weird for a space company

agreed, but what would you argue are the reasons for this mindset? i imagine the main cause is structural, ie. having to deal with all the member states?

A bureaucrat is not allowed to spend money on anything risky and must never allow for money to be used on something other than the intended use.

So the entire process must be micromanaged to death with documentation, which results in the money mostly being spent on the documentation.

Re: ESA has a commercial launch strategy, but will member states pay?

#20

Post by rapsey »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #12
perihelions wrote: post #4

- "The top factors ESA will consider in this first phase of the challenge are each proposer's business plan, technical credibility, and financial credibility." The grand European strategy is... to task government bureaucrats to review startups' business plans?? This is going to so predictably lead to more of the same—the creation of companies optimized for writing proposals, and for pleasing bureaucrats. - "ESA also…

“we will continue doing the thing we have always done despite decades of evidence it won’t produce the thing we claim it will produce” At some point, they need to adopt a different strategy. It feels like every European strategy is optimized for the comfort of bureaucrats rather than actual results.

A bureaucracy can not simplify itself. It is a complex system that can only go one way, ever more complex, until it deadlocks and eventually someone burns it to the ground and starts anew.
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