[drzaiusapelord]

>It's not like they couldn't buy lifts onboard other NATO countries rockets

There is no NATO country, other than the US, with a manned space program. We don't live in a universe where the ESA's Hermes spacecraft worked out.

I believe the Ariane 5 was supposed to be man-rated when Hermes was on the table, but going from that to a usable launch vehicle is a lot of time, money, and engineering work we could spend on our own system(s). I have no idea if its possible to retro-fit man-rated safety onto the existing Ariane design.

So 5 years out to Orion/SLS and Dragon/SpaceX or 5 years out to some beat up and already badly aging ESA manned system the American tax payer would be on the hook for, and a system that could never leave LEO. The SLS is designed for non-LEO manned missions like the moon, nearby asteroids, and in its highest configuration - Mars.

Lastly, the ESA was welcome to bid in NASA's COTS program, but decided not to. Maybe take up your beef with them. I imagine they aren't remotely cost competitive.

[mikeash]

This certification is about launching unmanned US military payloads, not about manned spaceflight. As far as I know there's no technical reason Ariane 5 couldn't be used for them right now. I don't know why they're not being used, but if the decision to look for a new launch provider happened in the past couple of years then I don't see why you'd go for Arianespace over SpaceX.