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Europe's new heavy-lift rocket, Ariane 6, made its inaugural flight

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Re: Europe's new heavy-lift rocket, Ariane 6, made its inaugural flight

#381

Post by EasyMark »

kuschku wrote: post #26
nabla9 wrote: post #2

Ariane 6 exists so that European countries can get independent access to space between now and 2030s. The launch cost is almost 2x the cost of Falcon 9. Both platforms can lift 22t to LEO. 6-10 years from now Ariane Next/SALTO will aims replicate Falcon 9 efficiency and the design will be very similar: reusable, RP-1/LOX, Prometheus engine is similar reusable open cycle engine as Merlin with lots of 3D printed parts.

Ariane is one generation behind SpaceX, but that still puts them on second place. All while being independent from the whims of one single individual, ensuring independent launch capabilities for national security reasons.

Not a big deal though, as long as they are independent of other nations (or regional coalitions), this is a huge boon for Europe, especially with what might happen in America after the next election and what happened to Russia and China a long time ago.

Re: Europe's new heavy-lift rocket, Ariane 6, made its inaugural flight

#382

Post by TMWNN »

realityking wrote: post #246
bryanlarsen wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> massive taxpayer support When the Forest Service buys a truck from Ford do you also call that "taxpayer support"? The government buys stuff from SpaceX, it hasn't directly subsidized SpaceX for years. The government buys from the lowest bidder, which is almost always SpaceX. For example, NASA estimated that it would have to pay $1.5B to deorbit the ISS. After tender, SpaceX bid and won with an $843M bid. Who is sub…

> The government buys from the lowest bidder To my knowledge, in the case of NASA’s launch contracts, only US companies are allowed to bid on these. It’s quite understandable that Europe would like to keep domestic capabilities the same way NASA aims to maintain the US’ domestic capabilities.

>To my knowledge, in the case of NASA’s launch contracts, only US companies are allowed to bid on these.

Not true. One example: https://www.yahoo.com/news/ariane-5-rocket-delivers-satellit...>

Re: Europe's new heavy-lift rocket, Ariane 6, made its inaugural flight

#383

Post by TMWNN »

nordsieck wrote: post #324
rbanffy wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A rocket that's thrown away was cheaper per flight than the shuttles, which were only partly discarded. It all depends on how much does it cost to build vs refurbish. Falcon 9 was designed to be easily refurbished and Ariane 6 was designed to be cheap to build. Also, launch campaign costs are not neglectable - moving the parts around, fueling, testing, and so on, are expensive. Their next-gen ones should be reusable,…

> A rocket that's thrown away was cheaper per flight than the shuttles, which were only partly discarded. It all depends on how much does it cost to build vs refurbish. Falcon 9 was designed to be easily refurbished and Ariane 6 was designed to be cheap to build. It's not just that the Shuttle was expensive to refurbish. It was also very expensive to build. Whereas Falcon 9 is much less expensive to build new than Ar…

>Whereas Falcon 9 is much less expensive to build new than Ariane 6.

For context, my understanding is that SpaceX builds one new Falcon 9 upper stage (not reused) every day. I doubt there is another entity on earth building a new rocket every month.

SpaceX has a large fleet of Falcon 9 reusable boosters, but still needs to build one every now and then.

Re: Europe's new heavy-lift rocket, Ariane 6, made its inaugural flight

#384

Post by TMWNN »

christkv wrote: post #31
nabla9 wrote: post #2

Ariane 6 exists so that European countries can get independent access to space between now and 2030s. The launch cost is almost 2x the cost of Falcon 9. Both platforms can lift 22t to LEO. 6-10 years from now Ariane Next/SALTO will aims replicate Falcon 9 efficiency and the design will be very similar: reusable, RP-1/LOX, Prometheus engine is similar reusable open cycle engine as Merlin with lots of 3D printed parts.

The main genius of SpaceX is the mass production. Hopefully they can replicate that in the future.

For context, my understanding is that SpaceX builds one new Falcon 9 upper stage (not reused) every day. I doubt there is another entity on earth building a new rocket every month.

SpaceX has a large fleet of Falcon 9 reusable boosters, but still needs to build one every now and then.

Re: Europe's new heavy-lift rocket, Ariane 6, made its inaugural flight

#385

Post by TMWNN »

GMoromisato wrote: post #335
GMoromisato wrote: post #333

This reminds me of reading about the launch of the HMS Dreadnought in 1906. The Dreadnought was a revolutionary battleship: a turbine engine made it faster than any other battleship, and it had all 12-inch guns (instead of a wasteful mix of small and large guns). It was so clearly superior to all other battleships that the name "dreadnought" become a generic name for a modern battleship. But here's the thing: navies…

At the risk of beating a dead horse: In 2018, Starship was not even fully designed (later that year they switched to stainless steel instead of carbon-composite). Yet Starship managed to fly into orbit and re-enter successfully before Ariane 6 flew even once.

>later that year they switched to stainless steel instead of carbon-composite

A decision which, according to Isaacson's Elon Musk, Musk insisted on against considerable opposition from his engineers. One more point against the frequent claim that Musk isn't a "real" engineer/doesn't really do anything at SpaceX.

Re: Europe's new heavy-lift rocket, Ariane 6, made its inaugural flight

#386

Post by asadotzler »

verzali wrote: post #294
jccooper wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You must have some wild dreams. Starship and New Glenn are basically as dreamy as Ariane 6. Starship is essentially operational as an expendable launcher already, and NG is starting the paperwork for first launch. Ariane 6 will serve fine as an "assured access to space" for the local market (which is important), and good on them for finally getting it off the ground. But it's design goal was "Falcon 9 competitor" and…

Ariane 6 has flow successfully. New Glenn is missing in action, and Starship still has a long way to go before it is ready to actually put payloads in orbit. Ariane 6 is ahead of both, given it has actually flown and delivered satellites to orbit.

Starship oughta be delivering payloads to orbit within 12 months.

Re: Europe's new heavy-lift rocket, Ariane 6, made its inaugural flight

#387

Post by [deleted] »

Dalewyn wrote: post #373
piva00 wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Europe needs the US more than the US needs Europe as far as NATO is concerned, the defence spending disparities speak for themselves. As far as the USA hegemony is concerned, NATO is an instrumental piece of soft and hard power. You are parroting Trump's arguments about defence spending as if the US spending is only concerning NATO, the US spend a lot in defence because it's been your bread and butter to maintain a…

>You are parroting Trump's arguments about defence spending as if the US spending is only concerning NATO, the US spend a lot in defence because it's been your bread and butter to maintain a global reach as a superpower, the moment you lose this you'll see America's influence diminish, if that's what you wish please go ahead and pull out but so far it's been very beneficial to you in the USA to be the de facto global…

[deleted]

Re: Europe's new heavy-lift rocket, Ariane 6, made its inaugural flight

#388

Post by piva00 »

Dalewyn wrote: post #373
piva00 wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Europe needs the US more than the US needs Europe as far as NATO is concerned, the defence spending disparities speak for themselves. As far as the USA hegemony is concerned, NATO is an instrumental piece of soft and hard power. You are parroting Trump's arguments about defence spending as if the US spending is only concerning NATO, the US spend a lot in defence because it's been your bread and butter to maintain a…

>You are parroting Trump's arguments about defence spending as if the US spending is only concerning NATO, the US spend a lot in defence because it's been your bread and butter to maintain a global reach as a superpower, the moment you lose this you'll see America's influence diminish, if that's what you wish please go ahead and pull out but so far it's been very beneficial to you in the USA to be the de facto global…

> Given the choices presented, I am in fact voting for Trump. Problem?

I question your judgment but given other comments I read on HN coming from your username it's actually not that surprising you are taking such an immensely stupid decision.

Good luck, you are just a sad unloved human being with strongly emotional opinions, nothing really I can discuss with to land on some common ground.

Re: Europe's new heavy-lift rocket, Ariane 6, made its inaugural flight

#389

Post by protomolecule »

racional wrote: post #378
protomolecule wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US once thought it needed to prevent Soviet nukes from appearing on Cuba, almost started WW3 over it and got what it needed.

That's what I mean by backward-looking. Putin is so obsessed with his perceived stature and "correcting" past humiliations that he's willing to create a completely fictional crisis and drive his country into a never-ending meatgrinder war just to prove some abstract geopolitical point.

Perhaps you don't know that the US in turn had to remove its nukes from Turkey and Italy.

Re: Europe's new heavy-lift rocket, Ariane 6, made its inaugural flight

#390

Post by protomolecule »

echoangle wrote: post #379
protomolecule wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are launches of small rocket flying on toxic hydrazine and capable of getting whopping 300 kg of payload into LEO. [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galactic_Energy#Ceres-1

Ok? Aren’t you shifting goalposts now? Is rocket lab also not successful, because they only have 300 kg payload, too? And how does the toxicity of the fuel matter?

>Aren’t you shifting goalposts now?

No, but mentioning successful launches of a small disposable rocket in the context of conversation about replicating reusable Falcon-9 is shifting goalposts. Galactic energy, that you named, is only trying to develop its Pallas-1 rocket that resembles Falcon-9.

>how does the toxicity of the fuel matter

It's the technology of the previous century when the need to achieve strategic goals out-weighted a lot of safety concerns.

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