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Private German rocket makes history, reaches orbit from European soil

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Re: Private German rocket makes history, reaches orbit from European soil

#171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

ESA is going to remain on the mission/payload side. ArianeSpace makes sense as a launch services provider handling everything that's not the rocket. ArianeGroup (the company that actually builds the rockets) will just become the French rocket company that will end up competing with the Italian and German ones.

Like most "small rocket companies" they'll come to the conclusion that they need bigger rockets to launch bigger payloads. Rockets that compete directly with Ariane 6. With some luck these will be reusable to, making Ariane 6 and ArianeSpace obsolete.

ESA and ArianeSpace will slowly but surely decay into obsolescence.

Re: Private German rocket makes history, reaches orbit from European soil

#172

Earlier 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.

I'd split it into 2 camps. Elites who realize Europe isn't a unified group or has a military strong enough for defense.. And people who get wet when France says they are going to send soldiers to Ukraine and it never materializes. The general population has 0 understanding of international relations. It's the United States and China right now. Any other belief comes from someone who has read 0 international relations…

Its not that Europeans havent read Mearsheimer. its that for the best part of three hundred years the whole of Europe has been trying that same realist script until there was nothing left but total ruin across the entire continent. Europeans who created the EU knew about balance of power geopolitics so well, they created this slow bureaucratic mess specifically to stop Germany and France sliding back into the same old lethal habit. While clumsy positioning between the US and China is a headache in the present moment for Europe, compared to a tedious Union Europeans prefer reawakenings of 1914 in their backyard. Well at least so far.

Re: Private German rocket makes history, reaches orbit from European soil

#173
post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what should they do nothing? They have to get started somehow if Japan and China can do it so can Europe, and I think long-term once again, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand won’t be far behind…

That's essentially what they have done for military/defense. The United States saves the day. France pretends they are in charge with grand speeches. I was close to a European immigrant and 2 things she was shocked about: How rich the United States was. Even our poor had more than her upper middle class family had. How people in the United States do not take 2 hour coffee and cigarette breaks.

Utter bullshit.

Re: Private German rocket makes history, reaches orbit from European soil

#174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have there been other rocket launches from continental Europe?

From a sovereignty perspective, does a launch from continental Europe actually matter when Arianespace/CNES/ESA has been launching from France for decades?

There is no sovereignty perspective because Europe isn't even sovereign to begin with. For starters it doesn't even have a common army

Re: Private German rocket makes history, reaches orbit from European soil

#175

A 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:/…

> If you were a German of value (like a rocket scientist) you were eager to surrender to the Americans before the Soviets could...

Misleading. Pretty much all Germans were eager to surrender to the Western Allies - US/UK/France. That became the German government's official top priority in the closing days of the war, and Eisenhower threatened to seal the Western Front (to German soldiers and civilians fleeing the Soviets) when the Germans dragged their heels on his terms of surrender.

A relatively brief treatment can be found here - https://history.army.mil/portals/143/Images/Publications/cat...

Re: Private German rocket makes history, reaches orbit from European soil

#176
post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Yeah, in the same way that as a home owner I’d be “obsessed” with my neighbour if he was showing a predilection towards arson. I’d love to be able to go a day without having to see whatever the latest stupidity we’ll have to deal with the fallout from is, I really would.

This obsession started decades ago. Long before any recent politics. It's only gotten deeper and more intense recently.

Re: Private German rocket makes history, reaches orbit from European soil

#179
post #123

A 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:/…

They got a leg up and still the Russians with Sputnik got into space first, on top of splitting Korea and winning in Vietnam and having the nuclear bomb fall into their lap and to top it off they appear to have the Manchurian candidate in the White House.

Take a deep breath.

Re: Private German rocket makes history, reaches orbit from European soil

#180
post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, in the same way that as a home owner I’d be “obsessed” with my neighbour if he was showing a predilection towards arson. I’d love to be able to go a day without having to see whatever the latest stupidity we’ll have to deal with the fallout from is, I really would.

This obsession started decades ago. Long before any recent politics. It's only gotten deeper and more intense recently.

You folks over the pond really do think we think about you that much don’t you, prior to Trump I didn’t give much of a shit what the US did (except when you were destabilising the Middle East but I guess everyone needs a hobby), was literally none of my business and I didn’t have to live there (fortunately).

Now we have to pay attention because what you always where in part is in full control and it’s essentially impossible to ignore.

I long for the days when we can go back to the happy place of ignoring your government day to day until it’s time for another Middle East intervention.

Til then and for the avoidance of any doubt, I loathe Trump, I don’t like the people in his government, I don’t like the people who voted for him and the ones who didn’t vote and could have, the only people in America I have any sympathy for is the ones who voted for anyone but him/this shit show, the rest of you got what you deserved and will continue to do so.

So with that as your president if you still believe in American Exceptionalism you can shove it.

Hope that was clear enough.

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