[kergonath]

> That's just not really true. ESA has as many project go over budget as anybody else. The Ariane 6 is a massive delayed and has a massively increased budget (and no end in sight). And we could talk about many other projects too.

Sure, it was poorly worded. I meant from the funding providers’ side. Funding just does not get cut capriciously for political reasons.

> The idea that ESA is some unpolitical agency that just executes perfectly is what they want you to believe and they downplay all the issues. Journalist that report on these issues have to find the details the hard way. But because space is so uninteresting in Europe there is not much good reporting on it.

Yeah, I tend to agree. But it’s not unique to space, the same is true in most fields, even technologies that affect people’s lives daily.

> Its also not true that ESA is humble and unpolitical. If they have something to brag about they do so pretty relentlessly. Go read ESA and Arianespace comments about SpaceX around 2015-2019, the were basically all over them selfes talking about how much superior they were.

Yeah, that one was quite bad. And also childish, because everyone saw what was happening and the fact that they went through so much effort to say that everything was fine was very suspicious.