This 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.
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Private German rocket makes history, reaches orbit from European soil
131–140 of 440 posts
Re: Private German rocket makes history, reaches orbit from European soil
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you meant non-US? Although Ariane's rockets are wildly expensive and uncompetitive compared to SpaceX.
They are right now, but if Japan can do it, and China can do it so can Europe and by the way, so can Australia, New Zealand and Canada they have the abilities they just have to have the will and if they haven’t learned anything recently, they better develop the will. Once again congratulations.
None of the countries you name is even close to SpaceX. Not even close. Their most ambitious prototypes are on par or behind the rocket SpaceX has been flying for a decade commercially.
Re: Private German rocket makes history, reaches orbit from European soil
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
Eh, you can split us Europeans up into two camps; those who do not want to see the problem and those who couldn't look away. The second camp saw the craziness when the later Bush was elected a second time.
one of those bush votes was to ensure he could clean up his own mess.
lmao what
Re: Private German rocket makes history, reaches orbit from European soil
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
The EU already had quite a bit of non-EU spaceflight capability, both in terms of rockets and launch sites.
I think you meant non-US? Although Ariane's rockets are wildly expensive and uncompetitive compared to SpaceX.
They are more expensive but the figures I have seen are 3x for Ariane 5 and 2x for Ariane 6 (source : https://spacenexus.us/guide/space-launch-cost-comparison).
Then, it depends on what you need to do. A 3x cost if you deploy a strategic constellation is fine. A 3x cost if you want to launch huge payloads for a Mars trip (I know costs were for LEO, just giving an example) is probably uncompetitive.
Re: Private German rocket makes history, reaches orbit from European soil
#135A good historical nugget is that the Americans got a huge leg up in the space race by importing the Germans who worked on the V-2 program. Germans killed Soviets by the millions. If you were a German of value (like a rocket scientist) you were eager to surrender to the Americans before the Soviets could get their hands on you. If you were the Americans, you distrusted the Soviets already, so it was a win-win. https:/…
This went both ways https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Osoaviakhim
Yes a good thing to point out, however the American initiative was more successful, was it not?
Largely because raw numbers aside, most of the top talent wanted to avoid the Soviets and thus the US was the only logical option. That is, part of what made the American job on this easier is top German talent anticipated some "Operation Osoaviakhim" (or worse) scenario and thus sought out the US as the only way to get out ahead of it.
von Braun made major contributions to NASA. My understanding is relatively speaking, the Soviets got the scraps. Not that it made no impact, but just to say the impact of the Germans on the American space program should not be understated, and I don't think it would be accurate to assess the fruits of these two competing operations as equivalent.
von Braun and others had a major hand in the Saturn V. Who did the Soviets manage to seize of equal caliber?
Re: Private German rocket makes history, reaches orbit from European soil
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
So you don’t think the two sides should even try to find a diplomatic solution?
At this point there is no diplomatic solution, it certainly isn’t gonna come from taco. He’s just looking for a distraction from the Iran debacle and everything else that has gone on or has gone wrong with his administration.
That doesn't make sense because his administration was attempting to negotiate at least a year prior to the start of the Iran war.
Re: Private German rocket makes history, reaches orbit from European soil
#137This 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.
I think being a competitor in a market doesn't mean you're 'decoupling' from it, rather you're on equal footing.
Re: Private German rocket makes history, reaches orbit from European soil
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not good to take info as a personal attack.[0] The most subsidized companies in human history by how long they've been around. it's worse than the actual military industrial complex (though both his major companies are heavily tied to the MIC as well) https://subsidytracker.goodjobsfirst.org/parent/tesla-inc https://subsidytracker.goodjobsfirst.org/parent/space-explor... [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultura…
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Ironic to be acting like this and telling others to go back to bluesky. Please go for a walk.
Re: Private German rocket makes history, reaches orbit from European soil
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
One would think that ze germans would be among the first to be conquering space with all that german engineering.
They are - but in cooperation with others. Parts of the Orion capsule of the current Artemis mission program are based on the German ATV, which is a capsule which was developed to supply ISS. On ISS there are German modules like Galileo. German Spacelab was a major component of many Space Shuttle missions. German companies like Zeiss provided optics and laser components for Apollo. To name a few, besides lots of satellites and other things. However after WW2 there were different political decisions, so that Germany won't build its own rockets, but German technology was key to Saturn V and Ariane rockets.
Aside from technology, Germany also got major control centers and mission planning capability in Cologne and Oberpfaffenhofen.
Most components are there, but not the political will to go on a national mission.