The fact that ESA doesn’t seem to have any interest or motivation to pursue (now commercially-proven and human-rated) rapidly reusable rockets is a big red flag for their entire attitude. Literally every other space program of any substantial size or credibility is pursuing them heavily if not exclusively as you’d have to be blind not to see the writing on the wall. The days of disposable rockets are numbered and rapidly dwindling. The Ariane 6 is an impressive machine, in the same way a supercar is… as a bold status symbol in an incredibly narrow niche with almost zero growth potential. I hope Macron’s challenge is a first step to changing that because they are in danger of falling very far behind if they don’t start to move very quickly to get back into the leader’s pack, who are going to be the group that decides who really “owns” space. And you’d better believe that despite any treaties to the contrary, someday, and maybe soon, people are going to start making rules, staking claims, and creating the weapons needed to defend such claims in space, from Low Earth Orbit to the rest of the solar system, it’s coming and only a fool would pretend it’s not after seeing the state of the art in launch technology and the geopolitics going on in the world right now. If you can’t innovate, you’d better start copying, because being stationary is a death sentence when things are evolving this rapidly.
The fact that ESA doesn’t seem to have any interest or motivation to pursue (now commercially-proven and human-rated) rapidly reusable rockets is a big red flag for their entire attitude. Literally every other space program of any substantial size or credibility is pursuing them heavily if not exclusively as you’d have to be blind not to see the writing on the wall. The days of disposable rockets are numbered and rapidly dwindling. The Ariane 6 is an impressive machine, in the same way a supercar is… as a bold status symbol in an incredibly narrow niche with almost zero growth potential. I hope Macron’s challenge is a first step to changing that because they are in danger of falling very far behind if they don’t start to move very quickly to get back into the leader’s pack, who are going to be the group that decides who really “owns” space. And you’d better believe that despite any treaties to the contrary, someday, and maybe soon, people are going to start making rules, staking claims, and creating the weapons needed to defend such claims in space, from Low Earth Orbit to the rest of the solar system, it’s coming and only a fool would pretend it’s not after seeing the state of the art in launch technology and the geopolitics going on in the world right now. If you can’t innovate, you’d better start copying, because being stationary is a death sentence when things are evolving this rapidly.