[palata]

I like to think that ESA tries to do mostly research (even though they also like manned missions, which are mostly for fun).

SpaceX, on the other hand, is building a very polluting business, which IMHO should be forbidden in 2023. But there I would think that the people in the EU are more aware of the problem than in the US.

[martin8412]

ESAs budget for 2023 is a measly €7.08B coming from the member states which is in return invested proportionally into contracts in the member states.

The US spends four times the amount of tax money per capita.

[panick21_]

This engine development for example, is something that in the US startups who don't get much government money are doing. And there are like 10+ companies working on comparable technology.

Yes ESA budget is small compared to NASA but they also do far less things.

And when they do things its not efficient. Ariane 6 for example is a minor upgrade over Ariane 5 with mostly parts that were developed for Ariane 5 ME. And yet somehow it cost will easily pass 5 billion $ and that doesn't include even e new engine. And a lot of cost is also hidden on other balance sheet, a full accounting would be likely more.

That might be about 2x as much as the complete Falcon 9 (+ Falcon Heavy) + Merlin + Re-usability program cost.

So yes, a comparative small budget, but that doesn't actually explain many of the issues.

[martin8412]

But it is a geopolitical issue.. The goal is not to have the cheapest or most efficient rocket. It is to have independent launch capabilities. If the EU wanted cheap, they'd just eat the shit sandwich of using Russian launch vehicles.

[panick21_]

> The goal is not to have the cheapest or most efficient rocket.

Well I point out in other places. That's exactly what they said they wanted when they started building it.

Only now where they know they are way off they say 'oh that's never what we actually wanted'.

Europe was successful in getting commercial payloads on their rockets and that helped them finance everything. So a primary goal and justification for Ariane 6 in favor of Ariane ME was exactly this commercial market.

> If the EU wanted cheap, they'd just eat the shit sandwich of using Russian launch vehicles.

That literally exactly what they did. Arianespace launched more Soyuz then anything else.

But that simply wasn't tenable anymore.

So the reality is ESA was eating shit sandwiches until Russia tried to eat Ukraine and got diary. Now they can't handle it anymore.

[ClumsyPilot]

> This engine development for example, is something that in the US startups who don't get much government money are doing. And there are like 10+ companies working on comparable technology.

"working on" is not good enough, most start-ups never succeed. Very few have a fully-tested reusable engine. And the engine has to be in the same class - most start-ups work on miniature rockets, only good to launch a couple tons into space.

Bottomn line is, Europe does not have the intense private investment for this sort of thing, but the work still needs to be done.

[panick21_]

Well many are further along then Europe is with their engine. Some are much further along.

> And the engine has to be in the same class - most start-ups work on miniature rockets, only good to launch a couple tons into space.

Read my to level comment, I have a whole list. And I didn't even include smaller engines.

> Bottomn line is, Europe does not have the intense private investment for this sort of thing, but the work still needs to be done.

I didn't say they should do any investing or building engine. What I said is that you can't just say ESA has a smaller budget and that's why they don't have these things.

[hef19898]

The only start up that got anywhere in aerospace, beyond some toy drones, so far is SpaceX.

[aardvarkr]

How does SpaceX pollute?

[martin8412]

Really???

https://news.yahoo.com/spacexs-debris-spewing-starship-launc...

SpaceX breaks the law all the time.

[palata]

It requires quite some energy to build a rocket (you know, from extracting the matter from the Earth to having something that looks like a rocket on the launchpad), and then some more to fly.

There is no such thing as "green energy": even if SpaceX only used renewable energy, a) renewables are not zero-carbon and b) renewables are not infinite, so if you use it for SpaceX, you don't use it for something else, and that something else may well be using fossil fuels.

But let's be clear: SpaceX doesn't run 100% on renewable energy. So there's that.

Then, right now it is not launching rockets everyday, but I understand that the goal is to grow a lot. Create a whole new space industry. Just like one plane does not pollute that much on its own, if you take the entire aviation sector, that starts to make a lot.

I guess my point is generally that we are facing huge problems (peak oil, biodiversity collapsing, climate change just joining the party) that will probably destroy society as we know it. I don't think that pushing a lot more with a commercial space business is a good idea.

Reusable rockets are like the 5G for mobile comms: for the same usage, it requires less energy. But 5G will enable much more usage and hence it will use much more energy than 4G. Reusable rockets getting to 10M a launch... well rich people will be able to go have dinner in space, just for fun. That's not sustainable.

[panick21_]

That's all just degrowth narrative. We should all go back to using coal fired trains because then we might use them less. Lets use horses instead of cars, then people will travel less.

> peak oil, biodiversity collapsing, climate change just joining the party

Peak oil isn't a thing.

Rocket launch pads actually are great for biodiversity as it requires a lot of land around it without humans. And animals turns out aren't that bothered by occasional rocket launches. See the high biodiversity around Kennedy Space Center as an example.

Climate change will mostly be decided on other playing fields.

> well rich people will be able to go have dinner in space, just for fun

How about trying not hold back the space industry when that is more then 0.0X% of the the market.

[palata]

Before denying the energy problem (and I am not saying that philosophically, I think we should go back to horses because it is nicer, I am just saying that we are facing a big energy problem), I would encourage you to read this book, which was a huge success in France last year:

https://www.amazon.com/World-Without-End-Blain-Christophe-eb...

Written by a true expert, Jean-Marc Jancovici. Just check who he is, usually engineers like him, even if they don't like the conclusion (which is that engineers tend to be part of the problem, not the solution).