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hypfer 2 hours ago [-]
This is a huge success, but it I think also tells us that the EU is further decoupling itself from the US. Slowly but steadily.
Which is obviously the right thing to do, but it's interesting that it's not just a hypothetical anymore.
xyzelement 7 minutes ago [-]
Does it mean that?
Europe has had a space agency for a while now. So this story isn't "Europeans finally started to launch for space" but a private European company chose to launch from a continental location.
It's funny how we can't be celebrate a European achievement without trying to interpret it into relationship to the US.
postingawayonhn 13 seconds ago [-]
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 SoaceX.
rexskimmer 2 hours ago [-]
They started developing this rocket in the late 2010s, way before the current US craziness (or the current level of craziness anyway). Independent access to space is always desirable for countries that can muster the resources, but this is just one of many companies that appeared back then as a response to SpaceX's initial success.
Eupolemos 1 hours ago [-]
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.
whatsThisBtn4 9 minutes ago [-]
I'd split it into 2 camps. Elites who realize Europe isn't a unified group or has a military strong enough for defense..
And people who get wet when France says they are going to send soldiers to Ukraine and it never materializes.
The general population has 0 understanding of international relations. It's the United States and China right now. Any other belief comes from someone who has read 0 international relations Realism books.
sebmellen 7 minutes ago [-]
Realpolitik sorely lacking
tosapple 40 minutes ago [-]
one of those bush votes was to ensure he could clean up his own mess.
Forgeties79 39 minutes ago [-]
I’m curious what you mean by this. At face value it seems like a weird rationalization but I get the sense I’m not reading this correctly.
wilg 18 minutes ago [-]
lmao what
smnplk 35 minutes ago [-]
One would think that ze germans would be among the first to be conquering space with all that german engineering.
johannes1234321 14 minutes ago [-]
They are - but in cooperation with others. Parts of the Orion capsule of the current Artemis mission program are based on the German ATV, which is a capsule which was developed to supply ISS. On ISS there are German modules like Galileo. German Spacelab was a major component of many Space Shuttle missions. German companies like Zeiss provided optics and laser components for Apollo. To name a few, besides lots of satellites and other things. However after WW2 there were different political decisions, so that Germany won't build its own rockets, but German technology was key to Saturn V and Ariane rockets.
Aside from technology, Germany also got major control centers and mission planning capability in Cologne and Oberpfaffenhofen.
Most components are there, but not the political will to go on a national mission.
sebmellen 6 minutes ago [-]
I mean, Operation Paperclip and Von Braun were central to the success of the Apollo program. The Soviets had a similar postwar-German-capture program, if I remember correctly.
clickety_clack 1 hours ago [-]
Coupled or uncoupled, an equal relationship between the US and the EU is much healthier. Europe should have an economy, military and industrial capacity similar to the US.
vladms 23 minutes ago [-]
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.
53 minutes ago [-]
38 minutes ago [-]
sva_ 15 minutes ago [-]
I think being a competitor in a market doesn't mean you're 'decoupling' from it, rather you're on equal footing.
Danox 48 minutes ago [-]
If they haven’t gotten the message yet, they never will congratulations, plan on doing more because you’re gonna have to.
mlmonkey 58 minutes ago [-]
Are we forgetting about Ariane?
Fordec 45 minutes ago [-]
Launched from South America, not Europe.
mlmonkey 34 minutes ago [-]
Ariane is from the ESA, which is an organization under EU. The claim was that "EU is finally decoupling itself from the USA". My point is: the EU already has Ariane, for instance. It decoupled a long time ago.
martinclayton 25 minutes ago [-]
ESA is a separate entity to the EU.
(When the UK left the EU it was able to remain in ESA because of this separation.)
kzrdude 30 minutes ago [-]
It's from the European part of South America.
amazingamazing 10 minutes ago [-]
Why is this a sign of decoupling? Is any EU technological development decoupling?
yellowapple 2 hours ago [-]
The EU already had quite a bit of non-EU spaceflight capability, both in terms of rockets and launch sites.
decimalenough 2 hours ago [-]
I think you meant non-US?
Although Ariane's rockets are wildly expensive and uncompetitive compared to SpaceX.
Then, it depends on what you need to do. A 3x cost if you deploy a strategic constellation is fine. A 3x cost if you want to launch huge payloads for a Mars trip (I know costs were for LEO, just giving an example) is probably uncompetitive.
Danox 47 minutes ago [-]
They are right now, but if Japan can do it, and China can do it so can Europe and by the way, so can Australia, New Zealand and Canada they have the abilities they just have to have the will and if they haven’t learned anything recently, they better develop the will. Once again congratulations.
p-e-w 19 minutes ago [-]
None of the countries you name is even close to SpaceX. Not even close. Their most ambitious prototypes are on par or behind the rocket SpaceX has been flying for a decade commercially.
sidewndr46 2 hours ago [-]
No, counterintuitively Ariane is non-EU. It launches from South America
Robotbeat 2 hours ago [-]
French Guyana is part of the EU, actually, in spite of being in South America. (Colonialism!)
kens 58 minutes ago [-]
Curious fact: France's longest border is with Brazil.
artisinal 1 hours ago [-]
EU outermost region to be exact.
tekla 2 hours ago [-]
Last time I checked, France was part of the EU
samrus 2 hours ago [-]
Cost decreases with scale. Spacex was also wildly expensive, it grew up thanks to government assistance
hparadiz 22 minutes ago [-]
Except for the fact that SpaceX had a hard time getting any contracts at first because they were all going to Boeing and Lockheed Martin since the 1990s and even when SpaceX came to the market they had to compete at first with ULA and fact that they made it cheaper by orders by magnitude. Except for the fact that Musk almost went personally bankrupt trying to get SpaceX off the ground. Except for all those facts yea sure maybe... haha nope you're still wrong.
Robotbeat 2 hours ago [-]
This is an inaccurate simplification
tekla 2 hours ago [-]
> it grew up thanks to government assistance
Please give an example of gov assistance that was not a open contract to every private launch company in the US
wand3r 2 hours ago [-]
Yeah, I really hate this revisionism of Elon as an extremely wealthy apartheid emerald mine heir who was a dumb guy who happened to get lucky at paypal and then stole all his money from the government while operating a car and rocket company. There is plenty to criticize about him, but SpaceX dramatically decreased cost to orbit which had reliance on Russian technology at the time.
scotty79 23 minutes ago [-]
> extremely wealthy apartheid emerald mine heir who was a dumb guy who happened to get lucky at paypal and then stole all his money from the government while operating a car and rocket company.
> SpaceX dramatically decreased cost to orbit which had reliance on Russian technology at the time.
Both can be (and are) true at the same time. Elon hired/partnered the right people and didn't have capacity to mess all the companies he owned into oblivion. His main skill is bullshiting investors, the government and the public.
contingencies 1 hours ago [-]
Musk was raised affluent in apartheid-era South Africa, his father had some connection to Zambian emerald trading/mining, and Musk's companies have benefited enormously from public contracts and policy. He's not stupid.
Danox 45 minutes ago [-]
He benefits enormously from the government but then acts like he doesn’t.
hparadiz 30 minutes ago [-]
Literally none of this is true. All of you are dumb and need to go back to reddit or bluesky.
culi 24 minutes ago [-]
It's not good to take info as a personal attack.[0]
The most subsidized companies in human history by how long they've been around. it's worse than the actual military industrial complex (though both his major companies are heavily tied to the MIC as well)
I didn't flag your original comment. You're clearly very deep into identity-protective cognition and unable to discuss logically. You are taking criticism of a company very personally and getting emotional about it.
hparadiz 7 minutes ago [-]
You are presenting statistics about government funding as "subsidies" when they aren't subsidies. They are just normal government contracts. That makes you a liar and a fool. You very clearly have an agenda to push but I will have none of it.
wookmaster 14 minutes ago [-]
Ironic to be acting like this and telling others to go back to bluesky. Please go for a walk.
hparadiz 11 minutes ago [-]
I would not even be in the same room as the person I'm replying to IRL. For some reason this site loves to suffer fools. I don't.
Tuna-Fish 1 hours ago [-]
Musk has benefited enormously from public contracts and policy, but all the questionable ones are in Tesla (and especially originally solarcity, but that got folded into Tesla).
The government contracts that made SpaceX were all open bid, where SpaceX bid an better solution than anything that any of the established companies did, at literally half the price. Falcon 9 was a massive gift to the US government, in that it drove the entire industry to halve the prices they extracted from the government. Dragon was just as good.
That they also built a profitable launch company out of it just highlights how much of an outlier SpaceX is. They sold the US government a dollar for fifty cents, made a profit doing it, and ended up driving half the rockets already flying out of the business.
holoduke 2 hours ago [-]
No because of reduction of bureaucracy. ESA is the prime example of 1 engineer to 50 managers culture.
hn_submit 2 hours ago [-]
Multiple European nations gaining their own independent launch capabilities will merely result in the sinking of ESA and ArianeSpace. Look forward to lots of infighting in the near future.
Tuna-Fish 1 hours ago [-]
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.
manlymuppet 2 hours ago [-]
I think we are stronger together. European technology has been critical to many important American space missions, and that should continue to be the case.
An ecosystem where we develop things independently is one where everyone loses.
hypfer 2 hours ago [-]
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.
PorciiVorbesc 21 minutes ago [-]
>Especially given that recent history has shown us that we're back to "power" being the only language spoken.
"Power being the only language spoken", never left in the first place in order to get back to it, it's how the world always worked and will always work.
Granted, power wasn't actually the "language spoken", but more accurately it was the stick ensuring the enforcement of the terms agreed within the "language spoken", a lesson as old as time that many in EU forgot after post-USSR collapse and now have to re-learn it, but at a heavy cost and with added interest.
"Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it", couldn't be more true.
eps 2 hours ago [-]
> 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.
samrus 2 hours ago [-]
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
zormino 2 hours ago [-]
I think the stronger together argument implies good faith co-operation on both sides
cyanydeez 2 hours ago [-]
The opinion of american billionaires is driving this.
atherton94027 2 hours ago [-]
The french always had Ariane??
weinzierl 2 hours ago [-]
The Ariane is as much German as it is French. It is considerably Italian too.
ph4rsikal 2 hours ago [-]
It is indeed a huge success but it also underlines how far ahead the rest of the world is.
Danox 42 minutes ago [-]
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…
whatsThisBtn4 6 minutes ago [-]
That's essentially what they have done for military/defense.
The United States saves the day. France pretends they are in charge with grand speeches.
I was close to a European immigrant and 2 things she was shocked about:
How rich the United States was. Even our poor had more than her upper middle class family had.
How people in the United States do not take 2 hour coffee and cigarette breaks.
hypfer 2 hours ago [-]
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.
ericmay 2 hours ago [-]
I'd prefer to use this opportunity to talk about this as a success as well without this America decoupling nonsense doomer loop too.
Does anyone know if folks in Germany are posting about the huge ego and phallus shaped memes for this company doing something that SpaceX and Blue Origin were also doing? I'm guessing not, because the lens is "decoupling" and not "America bad" like so many felt inclined to report when our private companies were successfully launching rockets.
Anyway, congrats to the team at Isar. I like to celebrate these successes around the world as further space exploration, colonization, science, and economic development benefit us as a species and there is a lot of room for a lot of competitors.
hypfer 2 hours ago [-]
You know.. the things I get flagged for, and then you post stuff like this.
I'm not even sure what to make out of that dismissal opener other than that you've apparently didn't like whatever I wrote.
ericmay 2 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
hypfer 2 hours ago [-]
I'm honestly not sure if this is the right platform then.
And that's coming from me, who is already tiptoeing the letter of the law in pursuit of the spirit of the law.
I don't see you contributing to the space here. Just to yourself and your self-image, maybe. Like.. not even trying.
ericmay 2 hours ago [-]
Well, if you don’t think it’s the right platform for you there’s no need to post or engage with it. I don’t use traditional social media platforms for example.
> I don't see you contributing to the space here. Just to yourself and your self-image, maybe. Like.. not even trying.
In that same spirit your comment wouldn’t have been contributing either. You don’t like to see comments I guess about people talking about how far behind the EU is as it continues to be eaten alive by American and Chinese industrial policy, and I don’t like comments about “decoupling”.
copper-float 2 hours ago [-]
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copper-float 2 hours ago [-]
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hypfer 2 hours ago [-]
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Barrin92 2 hours ago [-]
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
Danox 38 minutes ago [-]
As EV’s have shown, I don’t think they’re gonna be ahead for long and long-term the current technology is just a steppingstone because damaging the ozone layer can’t go on forever with the current technique being used something else. Better has to come forward.
aaron695 19 minutes ago [-]
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gilliethefoil 2 hours ago [-]
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shevy-java 2 hours ago [-]
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ericmay 2 hours ago [-]
> Just look at how today the USA tried to hand over land of Ukraine to Putin
Was it the land that Russia currently controls and Ukraine is very unlikely to retake? There's a spectrum between ideological behavior and pragmatic behavior. If Ukraine gives up this land and achieves peace, maybe it's worth it. I'm not suggesting it definitely is but at least the US is trying to negotiate or find some sort of solution, even if it's not going well.
In retrospect the US should have prepared for war and been willing to fight to uphold what was agreed to with Russia but that would have been a hard sell.
> So, no more support to that crazy country.
Nah Europe will still support it. Nothing will change there. But if you want things to change, we can completely withdraw from NATO, move bases back from Europe where we see fit, and un-sanction Russia while no longer providing support to Ukraine in any fashion and no longer sell weapons to Europe. That would be a disaster for Europe, which is why I tend to think comments like this are either ignorant, or pro-Russia/Iran/China with the intent to further inflame whatever tensions exist.
ben_w 2 hours ago [-]
> Was it the land that Russia currently controls and Ukraine is very unlikely to retake? There's a spectrum between ideological behavior and pragmatic behavior. If Ukraine gives up this land and achieves peace, maybe it's worth it. I'm not suggesting it definitely is but at least the US is trying to negotiate or find some sort of solution, even if it's not going well.
It wasn't the US's decision to make, certainly not without having talked to Ukraine.
And right now, well, this war will continue until one of them runs out of money. The EU currently appears to consider Ukrainian sovereignty in this war to be in their own national interests, so they will keep funding it. Who will support the Russian economy in the same way?
> Nah Europe will still support it. Nothing will change there. But if you want things to change, we can completely withdraw from NATO, move bases back from Europe where we see fit, and un-sanction Russia while no longer providing support to Ukraine in any fashion and no longer sell weapons to Europe. That would be a disaster for Europe, which is why I tend to think comments like this are either ignorant, or pro-Russia/Iran/China with the intent to further inflame whatever tensions exist.
You, and many like you, really need to stop thinking Trump's behaviour is something that can be easily undone. You write to suggest dissenting voices are pro-China: Trump's actions have already forced many in the EU to consider the USA to be a bigger threat than China.
This isn't us liking China, we think poorly of their human rights record etc., it's just that the USA has fallen that far in our eyes.
Just to make it specific: Which city do you live in? I want you to imagine it getting actually, literally, nuked by French or British missiles in response to the USA doing what Trump keeps saying he'll do to Canada or Greenland.
Actual nukes.
I hope that will stay imagination.
Trump has a lot of levers he could pull that would be de facto acts of war besides annexing allies like he says he wants to. Ordering all the tech companies to stop providing services overnight, even that might do it given current dependencies.
Danox 35 minutes ago [-]
The Ukraine is not gonna give up because that taco in the White House says so. And if he has any levers, he certainly doing a terrible job one distraction after another.
ericmay 2 hours ago [-]
> It wasn't the US's decision to make, certainly not without having talked to Ukraine.
Didn’t suggest it was, but at the end of the day it’s the US who is the partner at the table who can make the biggest difference and bringing Ukraine in to the room with Russia will just result in conflict and no hope of figuring things out diplomatically. Of course any deal that the US attempted to broker would have to be agreed to by Ukraine as well. Everyone understands this.
> , and many like you, really need to stop thinking Trump's behaviour is something that can be easily undone. His actions have already forced many in the EU to consider the USA to be a bigger threat than China.
Ok then we should do what I mentioned. It’s over. Is the EU ready to abandon Taiwan? Because if not, and let’s not ignore the G20 statement nor Germany hemorrhaging jobs and pretend the EU is cozying up to China. The US can just do the same and partner with China if it decided to.
> I hope that will stay imagination.
It won’t because it’s hyperbole that can be casually discarded.
> Trump has a lot of levers he could pull that would be de facto acts of war besides annexing allies like he says he wants to. Ordering all the tech companies to stop providing services overnight, even that might do it given current dependencies.
Nah he can’t do that. Tone down the imagination and sensationalizing
ben_w 1 hours ago [-]
> Didn’t suggest it was, but at the end of the day it’s the US who is the partner at the table who can make the biggest difference and bringing Ukraine in to the room with Russia will just result in conflict and no hope of figuring things out diplomatically.
How? The US no longer supplies military aid to Ukraine. They're not a partner at all, let alone the one "who can make the biggest difference".
> Ok then we should do what I mentioned. It’s over. Is the EU ready to abandon Taiwan? Because if not, and let’s not ignore the G20 statement nor Germany hemorrhaging jobs and pretend the EU is cozying up to China. The US can just do the same and partner with China if it decided to.
That's not even a coherent argument.
> It won’t because it’s hyperbole that can be casually discarded.
If you don't take it seriously enough to prevent it, your city gets nuked.
> Nah he can’t do that.
Legally, or de-facto? Because legally he shouldn't be currently exchanging missiles with Iran. Legally the White House should be intact. Legally the Epstein files should've been release. Legally he's got 34 felony convictions for things he wasn't allowed to do. Legally he couldn't do the big tariffs he announced. Legally they had no right to go after Anthropic when the company refused to let their software get used for military stuff. Legally, his "I declassified them with my mind" claim was nonsense and he should've had a ten year sentence for that alone.
Not only do we not trust him, we don't trust you, and I mean personally you but also collectively you, to hold him back.
You, personally, are an avatar of the problem us Europeans see with America, because you don't seem to understand how seriously we take this.
Please, for the love of wherever you call home, take this seriously. You write as if this will all blow over and things will return to normal, but this can only happen if you recognise fault.
ericmay 1 hours ago [-]
> How? The US no longer supplies military aid to Ukraine. They're not a partner at all, let alone the one "who can make the biggest difference".
At a minimum the US still provides intelligence to Ukraine and maintains (and has increased) sanctions on Russia. Actions against both Venezuela and Iran negatively affected Russian shadow fleet operations which were funneling money to Russia to continue its war. Iran provides military support by selling drones, at a minimum. The US also maintains a significant military in presence to defer Russia from opening new fronts. In the last couple of weeks the director of the CIA met with Russian counterparts in an attempt, at least as alleged, to provide information to Russia to get them to come to the negotiating table. Your suggestion that the US isn’t a partner is your opinion but is not reflect in reality.
> That's not even a coherent argument.
Sure it is
> Legally, or de-facto?
Either. Don’t mistake my comments for supporting Donald Trump. I didn’t vote for him and think he belongs in jail over Jan 6 at a minimum. But I’m also not going to tolerate these asinine “what if France nuked my hometown” comments nor other similar sensationalized rhetoric.
JohnTHaller 2 hours ago [-]
Russia's word has been ironclad each time it's been given to Ukraine previously. It surely would be the same this time.
ericmay 2 hours ago [-]
So you don’t think the two sides should even try to find a diplomatic solution?
Danox 33 minutes ago [-]
At this point there is no diplomatic solution, it certainly isn’t gonna come from taco. He’s just looking for a distraction from the Iran debacle and everything else that has gone on or has gone wrong with his administration.
ericmay 15 minutes ago [-]
That doesn't make sense because his administration was attempting to negotiate at least a year prior to the start of the Iran war.
JohnTHaller 1 hours ago [-]
This is Russia's second violation of the Budapest Memorandum. We know Putin will simply ignore another treaty when he feels like. We also know the US under the current administration is "negotiating" in bad faith (via the president's son-in-law) and will do even less when the next treaty violation occurs.
ericmay 1 hours ago [-]
No we don’t know that the current administration is negotiating in bad faith. That’s your opinion and one that doesn’t really reflect how the world of diplomacy and interactions between nation states work. Why would you waste time and money when any deal in which would be negotiated in bad faith requires Ukrainian participation?
Second, yes the Budapest Memorandum was violated. Why didn’t the other parties do anything or immediately declare war on Russia besides just the United States?
Here’s a better question though: why didn’t the EU do something when Russia violated it? Is your gear ready? Are you ready to deploy to the front lines? Why are 600 million Europeans asking 340 million Americans to defend them from 180 million Russians?
godwinson__4-8 43 minutes ago [-]
A good historical nugget is that the Americans got a huge leg up in the space race by importing the Germans who worked on the V-2 program.
Germans killed Soviets by the millions. If you were a German of value (like a rocket scientist) you were eager to surrender to the Americans before the Soviets could get their hands on you.
If you were the Americans, you distrusted the Soviets already, so it was a win-win.
They got a leg up and still the Russians with Sputnik got into space first, on top of splitting Korea and winning in Vietnam and having the nuclear bomb fall into their lap and to top it off they appear to have the Manchurian candidate in the White House.
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 "Operation Osoaviakhim" 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. The impact of the Germans 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?
For any unfamiliar with the history, Russia was a mass murdering machine in this era, vaporizing tens of millions of people, including Russians, in very short spans of time without even a second thought.
We all know Germans was. And some people would fling fecal allegations that “so was the US!”. No. German and Russian actions were categorically different than wartime casualties (even brutal, possibly criminal, wartime casualties like fire bombing heavily civilian enemy areas like Dresden)
artisinal 1 hours ago [-]
I wonder whether the Sámi people have been consulted or compensated for the use of their traditional lands as a rocket launch site. Given Norway’s long history of suppressing Sámi people and their land rights, I'd be interested to know how that was handled.
talon8635 26 minutes ago [-]
In this house we believe the first Neanderthal did not consent
adolph 36 minutes ago [-]
Interesting:
Just south of the launchpad lies Bukkekjerka, a protected Sami cultural monument. Prior to Christianity, sacrifices were made within a cave facing the sea. In most recent times, for the past half-century, there has been an annual open-air church service, which attracts many from across Andøya – perhaps even some who remember or even resided in the disappeared town of Haugnes.
They're using "Europe" as political shorthand for Western Europe
2 hours ago [-]
mrtksn 1 hours ago [-]
Europe is a vibe based concept, a place can be European or not depending on the vibes. Even the east west central etc. are completely vibe based. Portugal for example is Eastern European country, meanwhile Romania is central according to some textbooks.
nailer 30 minutes ago [-]
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?
Really beautiful with the rocket shining brightly upon the mountains as it lifts off
consumer451 1 hours ago [-]
Thanks for that video. Super cool that they got pro streamers NSF involved.
Really interesting that they will be launching from Canada as well.
MisterMunchkin 3 hours ago [-]
How can it be the first European rocket? There’s the ESA! Are you telling me we have all these organisations and none of them have ever launched from their own continent?
loeg 3 hours ago [-]
Europe isn't on or remotely near the equator, which is somewhat favorable for launches.
smitty1e 2 hours ago [-]
> The German company Isar Aerospace launched its Spectrum rocket from Andøya Space Center in northern Norway today
ESA launches French Guiana. Since it is cheaper to launch closer to the equator with the extra speed provided by the earth's rotation.
sisve 2 hours ago [-]
For satellites that should be in Sun-synchronous orbit Andøy is a great place to launch from
artisinal 3 hours ago [-]
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.
tristanj 2 hours ago [-]
French Guiana is not a colony, it is a region of France. People who live there have the same constitutional rights as anyone living in mainland France.
It has the same status in France as Alaska does in the US.
artisinal 1 hours ago [-]
That's legally true, but I think it misses the distinction between formal political status and the legacy of colonialism.
French Guiana is an overseas department of France, and its residents have French citizenship and constitutional rights. But that doesn't mean the historical relationship was equivalent to mainland France, or that the effects of that history disappeared when the legal status changed.
The same point applies elsewhere: Guinea became independent from French colonial rule in 1958, but independence didn't magically erase the economic structures, institutions, and inequalities inherited from colonialism. Today, a large share of Guinea's population still lives in poverty despite the country's enormous natural-resource wealth.
So "it's not a colony" is correct as a matter of constitutional law. But using that fact to imply that colonial history is irrelevant to present-day economic and social conditions is a much stronger claim, and one that's harder to defend.
vladms 8 minutes ago [-]
While I agree with your analysis, would you think is the best to use the same generic term "colonialism" for both the situations in French Guyana and let's say Venezuela in the last year? I would prefer more words to differentiate a bit, but maybe that's just me.
3938848484 60 minutes ago [-]
[flagged]
pjc50 2 hours ago [-]
It's a colony even if it's legally part of France.
(Had to check: free movement does apply to Guianans, but in the other direction it's not part of Schengen)
sublimefire 8 minutes ago [-]
Ireland is not part of Schengen as well for example, it is because that is much harder to practically achieve for folks living on islands.
TFNA 2 hours ago [-]
Guianans tend to get pissed off if outsiders suggest in any way that they are any different as a French region from l'Hexagone (the French mainland). Your banging on about colonies would not be well received there.
BSDobelix 2 hours ago [-]
>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.
That's the dumbest comment i read since a long time, thanks.
hypfer 2 hours ago [-]
> How can it be the first European rocket?
Not at all. You've missed the "Private" in the headline. And that it apparently is.
xixixao 2 hours ago [-]
Article says Western Europe, but Norway is in Northern Europe.
“First rocket to launch from Europe outside Russia” would have been perfectly correct.
setopt 2 hours ago [-]
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.
sublimefire 4 minutes ago [-]
That is also not correct anymore as Northern countries were reallocated to include the Baltics in UN as an example.
dmaa 3 hours ago [-]
They launch from Guiana afaik
echoangle 3 hours ago [-]
French Guiana to be exact, which is a different country
The French used to launch their rockets from Algeria. Their first satellite was launched from there. Since then they moved to (French) Guiana.
The UK launched from Australia.
StanislavPetrov 42 minutes ago [-]
The Germans also launched the first rocket to make it to space on June 20th 1944, though it wasn't privately made.
milleramp 3 hours ago [-]
Made with imipolex g?
verzali 2 hours ago [-]
Fantastic job!
shevy-java 2 hours ago [-]
The sooner Europe cuts itself off from the US crazy billionaires, the better - on all levels (software and manufacture processes are the two biggest issues). Today we already could see the US surrender team crawling up to dictator Putin. Enough is enough - agent Krasnov needs to be isolated.
manlymuppet 2 hours ago [-]
I don’t think America is so far gone. We have issues sure, but I for one still believe that we can be better.
Trump be damned, Europe and America are stronger when they work together.
samrus 2 hours ago [-]
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
sbuttgereit 1 hours ago [-]
Or maybe Europe just thinks if you can't beat 'em, join 'em:
Which is obviously the right thing to do, but it's interesting that it's not just a hypothetical anymore.
Europe has had a space agency for a while now. So this story isn't "Europeans finally started to launch for space" but a private European company chose to launch from a continental location.
It's funny how we can't be celebrate a European achievement without trying to interpret it into relationship to the US.
This launch is a move towards lower cost and more frequent launches, that in the US are provided by SoaceX.
The second camp saw the craziness when the later Bush was elected a second time.
And people who get wet when France says they are going to send soldiers to Ukraine and it never materializes.
The general population has 0 understanding of international relations. It's the United States and China right now. Any other belief comes from someone who has read 0 international relations Realism books.
Aside from technology, Germany also got major control centers and mission planning capability in Cologne and Oberpfaffenhofen.
Most components are there, but not the political will to go on a national mission.
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.
(When the UK left the EU it was able to remain in ESA because of this separation.)
Although Ariane's rockets are wildly expensive and uncompetitive compared to SpaceX.
Then, it depends on what you need to do. A 3x cost if you deploy a strategic constellation is fine. A 3x cost if you want to launch huge payloads for a Mars trip (I know costs were for LEO, just giving an example) is probably uncompetitive.
Please give an example of gov assistance that was not a open contract to every private launch company in the US
> SpaceX dramatically decreased cost to orbit which had reliance on Russian technology at the time.
Both can be (and are) true at the same time. Elon hired/partnered the right people and didn't have capacity to mess all the companies he owned into oblivion. His main skill is bullshiting investors, the government and the public.
The most subsidized companies in human history by how long they've been around. it's worse than the actual military industrial complex (though both his major companies are heavily tied to the MIC as well)
https://subsidytracker.goodjobsfirst.org/parent/tesla-inc
https://subsidytracker.goodjobsfirst.org/parent/space-explor...
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_cognition
The government contracts that made SpaceX were all open bid, where SpaceX bid an better solution than anything that any of the established companies did, at literally half the price. Falcon 9 was a massive gift to the US government, in that it drove the entire industry to halve the prices they extracted from the government. Dragon was just as good.
That they also built a profitable launch company out of it just highlights how much of an outlier SpaceX is. They sold the US government a dollar for fifty cents, made a profit doing it, and ended up driving half the rockets already flying out of the business.
An ecosystem where we develop things independently is one where everyone loses.
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.
"Power being the only language spoken", never left in the first place in order to get back to it, it's how the world always worked and will always work.
Granted, power wasn't actually the "language spoken", but more accurately it was the stick ensuring the enforcement of the terms agreed within the "language spoken", a lesson as old as time that many in EU forgot after post-USSR collapse and now have to re-learn it, but at a heavy cost and with added interest.
"Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it", couldn't be more true.
That's pretty damn obvious to everyone with a half of brain, yet here we are being pulled apart.
The United States saves the day. France pretends they are in charge with grand speeches.
I was close to a European immigrant and 2 things she was shocked about:
How rich the United States was. Even our poor had more than her upper middle class family had.
How people in the United States do not take 2 hour coffee and cigarette breaks.
A rocket launched into orbit from Norway. That's insane progress and worth celebrating.
Does anyone know if folks in Germany are posting about the huge ego and phallus shaped memes for this company doing something that SpaceX and Blue Origin were also doing? I'm guessing not, because the lens is "decoupling" and not "America bad" like so many felt inclined to report when our private companies were successfully launching rockets.
Anyway, congrats to the team at Isar. I like to celebrate these successes around the world as further space exploration, colonization, science, and economic development benefit us as a species and there is a lot of room for a lot of competitors.
I'm not even sure what to make out of that dismissal opener other than that you've apparently didn't like whatever I wrote.
And that's coming from me, who is already tiptoeing the letter of the law in pursuit of the spirit of the law.
I don't see you contributing to the space here. Just to yourself and your self-image, maybe. Like.. not even trying.
> I don't see you contributing to the space here. Just to yourself and your self-image, maybe. Like.. not even trying.
In that same spirit your comment wouldn’t have been contributing either. You don’t like to see comments I guess about people talking about how far behind the EU is as it continues to be eaten alive by American and Chinese industrial policy, and I don’t like comments about “decoupling”.
Was it the land that Russia currently controls and Ukraine is very unlikely to retake? There's a spectrum between ideological behavior and pragmatic behavior. If Ukraine gives up this land and achieves peace, maybe it's worth it. I'm not suggesting it definitely is but at least the US is trying to negotiate or find some sort of solution, even if it's not going well.
In retrospect the US should have prepared for war and been willing to fight to uphold what was agreed to with Russia but that would have been a hard sell.
> So, no more support to that crazy country.
Nah Europe will still support it. Nothing will change there. But if you want things to change, we can completely withdraw from NATO, move bases back from Europe where we see fit, and un-sanction Russia while no longer providing support to Ukraine in any fashion and no longer sell weapons to Europe. That would be a disaster for Europe, which is why I tend to think comments like this are either ignorant, or pro-Russia/Iran/China with the intent to further inflame whatever tensions exist.
It wasn't the US's decision to make, certainly not without having talked to Ukraine.
And right now, well, this war will continue until one of them runs out of money. The EU currently appears to consider Ukrainian sovereignty in this war to be in their own national interests, so they will keep funding it. Who will support the Russian economy in the same way?
> Nah Europe will still support it. Nothing will change there. But if you want things to change, we can completely withdraw from NATO, move bases back from Europe where we see fit, and un-sanction Russia while no longer providing support to Ukraine in any fashion and no longer sell weapons to Europe. That would be a disaster for Europe, which is why I tend to think comments like this are either ignorant, or pro-Russia/Iran/China with the intent to further inflame whatever tensions exist.
You, and many like you, really need to stop thinking Trump's behaviour is something that can be easily undone. You write to suggest dissenting voices are pro-China: Trump's actions have already forced many in the EU to consider the USA to be a bigger threat than China.
This isn't us liking China, we think poorly of their human rights record etc., it's just that the USA has fallen that far in our eyes.
Just to make it specific: Which city do you live in? I want you to imagine it getting actually, literally, nuked by French or British missiles in response to the USA doing what Trump keeps saying he'll do to Canada or Greenland.
Actual nukes.
I hope that will stay imagination.
Trump has a lot of levers he could pull that would be de facto acts of war besides annexing allies like he says he wants to. Ordering all the tech companies to stop providing services overnight, even that might do it given current dependencies.
Didn’t suggest it was, but at the end of the day it’s the US who is the partner at the table who can make the biggest difference and bringing Ukraine in to the room with Russia will just result in conflict and no hope of figuring things out diplomatically. Of course any deal that the US attempted to broker would have to be agreed to by Ukraine as well. Everyone understands this.
> , and many like you, really need to stop thinking Trump's behaviour is something that can be easily undone. His actions have already forced many in the EU to consider the USA to be a bigger threat than China.
Ok then we should do what I mentioned. It’s over. Is the EU ready to abandon Taiwan? Because if not, and let’s not ignore the G20 statement nor Germany hemorrhaging jobs and pretend the EU is cozying up to China. The US can just do the same and partner with China if it decided to.
> I hope that will stay imagination.
It won’t because it’s hyperbole that can be casually discarded.
> Trump has a lot of levers he could pull that would be de facto acts of war besides annexing allies like he says he wants to. Ordering all the tech companies to stop providing services overnight, even that might do it given current dependencies.
Nah he can’t do that. Tone down the imagination and sensationalizing
How? The US no longer supplies military aid to Ukraine. They're not a partner at all, let alone the one "who can make the biggest difference".
> Ok then we should do what I mentioned. It’s over. Is the EU ready to abandon Taiwan? Because if not, and let’s not ignore the G20 statement nor Germany hemorrhaging jobs and pretend the EU is cozying up to China. The US can just do the same and partner with China if it decided to.
That's not even a coherent argument.
> It won’t because it’s hyperbole that can be casually discarded.
If you don't take it seriously enough to prevent it, your city gets nuked.
> Nah he can’t do that.
Legally, or de-facto? Because legally he shouldn't be currently exchanging missiles with Iran. Legally the White House should be intact. Legally the Epstein files should've been release. Legally he's got 34 felony convictions for things he wasn't allowed to do. Legally he couldn't do the big tariffs he announced. Legally they had no right to go after Anthropic when the company refused to let their software get used for military stuff. Legally, his "I declassified them with my mind" claim was nonsense and he should've had a ten year sentence for that alone.
Not only do we not trust him, we don't trust you, and I mean personally you but also collectively you, to hold him back.
You, personally, are an avatar of the problem us Europeans see with America, because you don't seem to understand how seriously we take this.
Please, for the love of wherever you call home, take this seriously. You write as if this will all blow over and things will return to normal, but this can only happen if you recognise fault.
At a minimum the US still provides intelligence to Ukraine and maintains (and has increased) sanctions on Russia. Actions against both Venezuela and Iran negatively affected Russian shadow fleet operations which were funneling money to Russia to continue its war. Iran provides military support by selling drones, at a minimum. The US also maintains a significant military in presence to defer Russia from opening new fronts. In the last couple of weeks the director of the CIA met with Russian counterparts in an attempt, at least as alleged, to provide information to Russia to get them to come to the negotiating table. Your suggestion that the US isn’t a partner is your opinion but is not reflect in reality.
> That's not even a coherent argument.
Sure it is
> Legally, or de-facto?
Either. Don’t mistake my comments for supporting Donald Trump. I didn’t vote for him and think he belongs in jail over Jan 6 at a minimum. But I’m also not going to tolerate these asinine “what if France nuked my hometown” comments nor other similar sensationalized rhetoric.
Second, yes the Budapest Memorandum was violated. Why didn’t the other parties do anything or immediately declare war on Russia besides just the United States?
Here’s a better question though: why didn’t the EU do something when Russia violated it? Is your gear ready? Are you ready to deploy to the front lines? Why are 600 million Europeans asking 340 million Americans to defend them from 180 million Russians?
Germans killed Soviets by the millions. If you were a German of value (like a rocket scientist) you were eager to surrender to the Americans before the Soviets could get their hands on you.
If you were the Americans, you distrusted the Soviets already, so it was a win-win.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip
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 "Operation Osoaviakhim" 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. The impact of the Germans 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
We all know Germans was. And some people would fling fecal allegations that “so was the US!”. No. German and Russian actions were categorically different than wartime casualties (even brutal, possibly criminal, wartime casualties like fire bombing heavily civilian enemy areas like Dresden)
Really interesting that they will be launching from Canada as well.
To speculate, they could be targeting a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molniya_orbit
It's also better to have the massive amounts of emissions far away from your own population.
It has the same status in France as Alaska does in the US.
The same point applies elsewhere: Guinea became independent from French colonial rule in 1958, but independence didn't magically erase the economic structures, institutions, and inequalities inherited from colonialism. Today, a large share of Guinea's population still lives in poverty despite the country's enormous natural-resource wealth.
So "it's not a colony" is correct as a matter of constitutional law. But using that fact to imply that colonial history is irrelevant to present-day economic and social conditions is a much stronger claim, and one that's harder to defend.
(Had to check: free movement does apply to Guianans, but in the other direction it's not part of Schengen)
>It's also better to have the massive amounts of emissions far away from your own population.
That's the dumbest comment i read since a long time, thanks.
Not at all. You've missed the "Private" in the headline. And that it apparently is.
“First rocket to launch from Europe outside Russia” would have been perfectly correct.
The UK launched from Australia.
Trump be damned, Europe and America are stronger when they work together.
The US and europe would be stronger together if the US acted in good faith. Absent that, decoupling is the right choice
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/05/world/europe/germany-afd-...