Yes, they've had a space agency, but the only launchers are expensive legacy vehicles.

This launch is a move towards lower cost and more frequent launches, that in the US are provided by SpaceX.

Have there been other rocket launches from continental Europe?

> Does it mean that?

When the US government funded SpaceX, it was motivated in no small degree by a desire to not be permanently reliant on a geopolitical wildcard (Russia) for getting astronauts into orbit. Now that the US itself has become a geopolitical wildcard, savvy countries know that they need to seek out alternatives to SpaceX under more stable regimes.

> It's funny how we can't be celebrate a European achievement without trying to interpret it into relationship to the US.

It's because Europe is absolutely obsessed with the United States and obsessed with Americans.

> It's funny how we can't be celebrate a European achievement without trying to interpret it into relationship to the US.

It really isn’t funny. The US shat the bed and for now the repercussions are mainly being felt outside the US. When the US realises what it’s lost it’s going to be too late.

Yeah this is just the effect of SpaceX showcasing "space launch is no longer the realm of government efforts only".

They kicked off the wave of commercial space launch - and now, it reached the EU too.

One would think that ze germans would be among the first to be conquering space with all that german engineering.

Eh, you can split us Europeans up into two camps; those who do not want to see the problem and those who couldn't look away.

The second camp saw the craziness when the later Bush was elected a second time.

While in the current case I agree it is the path that should be taken, ideally I would prefer efficient relations, where people cooperate rather than having to duplicate everything because they don't trust their neighbor (should I make my bread because the baker might decide to poison me?!).

But having educated people everywhere is hard, so some people, because they don't get how some stuff works, they try to abuse friends and allies and make things worse (inefficient) for everybody in the process.

I think you meant non-US?

Although Ariane's rockets are wildly expensive and uncompetitive compared to SpaceX.

ESA is going to remain on the mission/payload side. ArianeSpace makes sense as a launch services provider handling everything that's not the rocket. ArianeGroup (the company that actually builds the rockets) will just become the French rocket company that will end up competing with the Italian and German ones.

Launched from South America, not Europe.

Yes, definitely, but being together by choice instead of by necessity is vastly preferable.

Especially given that recent history has shown us that we're back to "power" being the only language spoken.

__

Rel: The ecosystem thing.

I would challenge that, because if there's one thing where the US has had absurd leverage over the EU (and world, for that matter), then it's tech ecosystems.

A healthy ecosystem would not be owned by SV/US alone.

So right now, we're not really "strong together" but rather weakly dependent. That should be remediated, and decoupling like this is exactly the tool for that.

> I think we are stronger together

That's pretty damn obvious to everyone with a half of brain, yet here we are being pulled apart.

I dont think the EU is stronger when they get bullied and undermined by trump, or whichever american president decides to dust off trump's playbook in the future

The opinion of american billionaires is driving this.

The Ariane is as much German as it is French. It is considerably Italian too.

I'd honestly rather like to use this opportunity to talk about that this is a success than returning to our regularly scheduled doomer loop.

A rocket launched into orbit from Norway. That's insane progress and worth celebrating.

So what should they do nothing? They have to get started somehow if Japan and China can do it so can Europe, and I think long-term once again, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand won’t be far behind…

only four countries in the world have private/commercial space launch capacity, and SpaceX towers over everyone else so I'd say this is doing pretty alright compared to the rest of the world

The selection of launch site takes the orbital inclination into account.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun-synchronous_orbit

The "Onward and Upward" cube sats were put in Sun-synchronous orbit, which has a roughly polar inclination.

Similarly, launches from USSF Base Vandenberg take a southerly trajectory, so it can be used for orbits like that.

Rocket launches from continental Europe have been challenging because of the population centers, and the unpopularity of things exploding over their heads, and falling on their houses and businesses. USA and Russia have some quite ideal sites that avoid flying over populated areas.

Take a deep breath.

With fairness to the Soviets, the USSR's reputation for rocket artillery was nearly as impressive as Germany's in WWII. The Allies had less experience scaling and deploying the technology, so they had more to gain by taking in the Peenemünde researchers.

Yes a good thing to point out, however the American initiative was more successful, was it not?

Largely because raw numbers aside, most of the top talent wanted to avoid the Soviets and thus the US was the only logical option. That is, part of what made the American job on this easier is top German talent anticipated some "Operation Osoaviakhim" (or worse) scenario and thus sought out the US as the only way to get out ahead of it.

von Braun made major contributions to NASA. My understanding is relatively speaking, the Soviets got the scraps. Not that it made no impact, but just to say the impact of the Germans on the American space program should not be understated, and I don't think it would be accurate to assess the fruits of these two competing operations as equivalent.

von Braun and others had a major hand in the Saturn V. Who did the Soviets manage to seize of equal caliber?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wernher_von_Braun

You're right, America didn't intentionally engineer the death of millions until after the war, when it became the undisputed global superpower.

...If you choose to intentionally ignore slavery in the American South, Convict Leasing, and Jim Crow.

see also what the CIA got up to in Indonesia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesian_mass_killings_of_19...

And in your living memory: Vietnam, Korea, the vile shit we did to Haiti and Chile, the 'Banana Republics', Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, unconditionally supporting Israel and the Gulf States various war crimes and genocides, etc...

And of course, most recently, the sudden and complete excision of life-saving aid to children in Africa, leaving the world's most vulnerable to starve.

And also the total embargo on Cuba, to ensure starvation, with the intention of conquest, resource extraction, and collective punishment.

but God forbid someone on a message board tarnish the US's sterling reputation (relative to some of history's worst) during WWII.

It seems you are misreading my comment and the cold realism in which it is articulated (and which the relevant historical actors in this moment operated under) as some sort of endorsement of the act or an ignorance of the accompanying atrocities.

Rest assured I only sought to comment in that manner because I find generally on a forum such as this, leading with a sense of outrage (regardless of how justified) is typically unhelpful. I share your sentiments, though I sort of take it as a given on this forum that these aspects of WWII are known. I would guess far less people know about Operation Paperclip, thus the "nugget".

If upon learning about this someone needs me to connect the dots to your sentiments, well frankly I would suggest such a person is likely beyond my reach given the nature of the venue we find ourselves in (pseudonymous forum).

I would encourage you to not so readily cast aspersions upon your fellow interlocutors here based on turn of phrase alone. Have a nice day.

True, I just meant that if you had something of value (like rocket expertise) you would be more likely to get favorable terms. And you knew the Soviets would be extra interested in you. Thus the added "eagerness".

But yes the point is on the whole, Germans did not want to surrender to the Soviets. Germans didn't kill millions of American civilians. They didn't level American cities.

So, it was perfectly logical as Germany collapsed for any German to fear the retribution of the Soviet armed forces, who they had every reason to see as filled with a rage and a sense of purpose no American would have been able to contemplate.

Yeah, Romania being central Europe - impossible nonsense. Because Czech Republic is in central Europe!

Portugal is not Eastern European and it would be incredibly rare for Europeans to identify it as such. Have you been to Europe in your life?

Would maybe call it European territory but not soil. But yeah, as you say it's how you define it.

Istar's Spectrum rocket does not use RP-1 (kerosene), like Falcon 9 and Electron, which burns very dirty.

They are using liquid propane, which burns extremely cleanly, especially when combined with their liquid oxygen.

There is a lot of noise, but that should be the only pollution generated by this launch.

> The German company Isar Aerospace launched its Spectrum rocket from Andøya Space Center in northern Norway today

To speculate, they could be targeting a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molniya_orbit

For satellites that should be in Sun-synchronous orbit Andøy is a great place to launch from

Really comes in handy to still have a couple of colonies near the equator.

It's also better to have the massive amounts of emissions far away from your own population.

In the political sense, «Western Europe» is typically taken to be «NATO Europe», and «Eastern Europe» is «Warsaw Pact Europe». Which is different from a strict geographic definition.

French Guiana to be exact, which is a different country

And Russia launches some rockets from Plesetsk, in Europe.

You are thinking about Vostochny in Russian Far East. Plesetsk was an early ICBM launch site that started doing orbital launches in 1966. It was the busiest spaceport in Soviet times, and the cumulative number of orbital launches from Plesetsk still probably exceeds those from Florida.

Depending on the inclination - not much help to launch into a polar orbit for example.

Americans have to hope that the US will move past trumo and not repeat that mistake, but for europeans its most prudent to prepare for a world where such a corrupt wannabe distator doesnt have have that much leverage over them.

The US and europe would be stronger together if the US acted in good faith. Absent that, decoupling is the right choice