European astronauts call for development of a crewed spacecraft
- Thread starter JournalBot
- Start date
While I'm not thrilled by how late to the game Europe is, I think it a bit arrogant to lionize SpaceX to the point of dismissing the possibility of an alternative. SpaceX is indeed right now light-years ahead of anyone else, I don't dispute that. But your take is fairly reductive and frankly bordering on insulting.
Upvote
9
(12
/
-3)
That's just paper. NATO didn't have jurisdiction for the same reason to conduct missions in Afghanistan either. Until it did.
Upvote
8
(10
/
-2)
I can see the ESA eventually developing its own human crewed space flight technology.
I do not believe it will happen in the first half of this century though.
The Ariane Next program, modeled in some ways after the Falcon 9, shows promise & progress.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_Next
In addition to Ariane Next, the ESA would need to build a space vehicle with the capabilities of the Crew Dragon.
Edit; grammar
I do not believe it will happen in the first half of this century though.
The Ariane Next program, modeled in some ways after the Falcon 9, shows promise & progress.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_Next
In addition to Ariane Next, the ESA would need to build a space vehicle with the capabilities of the Crew Dragon.
Edit; grammar
Upvote
3
(3
/
0)
Starship currently does not have a worked out launch abort system.I was always super disappointed that the Hermes project was abandoned. It was a space plane that was supposed to ride on top of the Ariane 5 rocket. I'm not sure who the decision maker was between ESA or Arianespace but they never followed through with it.
They later missed the train on reusable rockets so badly that I'm wondering if it's even possible to catch up. As it stands, I'm not sure they have the resource to develop both in parallel, and I would wager reusable rockets will take priority over crew vehicles.
There's no need for ESA and Arianespace to spend billions of euros duplicating Falcon 9 and Dragon. Starship will make these vehicles obsolete within the next 5 years. The only launch vehicles flying then will be Russian and Chinese for military missions. All other launches of 100t cargos and humans will be done via Starship. It's too late for the Europeans to compete with Starship.
It is being discussed but being able to abort a launch, while keeping a crew alive, has not been tested yet.
https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2022/02 ... city-mars/
Considering that, Starship is not going to make Crew Dragon obsolete within the next 5 years.
Upvote
11
(12
/
-1)
normally butters
Ars Praefectus
It's the Starlink competitors who aren't chomping at the bit to fly SpaceX, but not all of them are taking this approach. SES is launching the O3b mPOWER constellation on Falcon 9. That's 11 two-ton satellites in MEO, launched three at a time, with the first three launches in 2022. This service competes directly with Starlink in lucrative markets including cruise ships. SES has proven themselves time and again to be among the most forward-thinking satellite operators when it comes to launch service, and if I had to guess the first third-party satellite operator to launch on Starship, I'd have to say, probably SES.
Upvote
13
(14
/
-1)
What would have helped would have been adequately funding toward a clearly defined goal.
Upvote
5
(5
/
0)
The US would definitely start sending out the sternly worded letters though.
Upvote
7
(7
/
0)
You know how when you go out for drinks with friends, and there is the one friend who works in finance and ends up paying the bill with his corporate card? After awhile, everyone else stops budgeting for their share, and instead spends the money on universal healthcare, green energy, etc.? Then the finance guy moves on, and his friends can't figure out how to get to the pub for their free drinks...
Upvote
7
(11
/
-4)
Technically, no. The North Atlantic Treaty is pretty specific about what's covered. It only applies to attacks which occur in Europe and North America. Article V wouldn't be invoked by an attack on French Guiana (nor, for that matter, an attack on Hawaii.) But I'm sure the United States would have something to say about it, regardless of the Treaty. However, I think the comment was more about political issues. If the someone in the European Union suggested excluding French overseas departments, the French would have a fit.
Upvote
5
(5
/
0)
normally butters
Ars Praefectus
Ariane Next is what they should have done instead of treading water with Ariane 6. They spent so long with their head in the sand about reusability that they're probably going to lose to Peter Beck, who literally ate his hat when conceding that he was wrong about reusability. Rocket Lab will almost certainly beat them to market with Neutron, which is basically a composite version of Ariane Next. Archimedes exactly matches the specifications of Prometheus. Both reusable boosters are to be powered by seven 1MN methalox gas-generator engines, but Neutron has a more aggressive focus on dry mass reduction.
With 8mT to LEO for Neutron and probably less for Ariane Next unless they use nine engines, neither of these launch vehicles are going to be capable of flying crew vehicles with booster recovery in their initial specifications. They'll depend on F9-like performance growth with significantly uprated engines and tank stretches to accommodate future crew transport missions. That's fine, iteration is a good thing.
The problem for Arianespace is now there's likely to be multiple part-reusable launch systems competing with Ariane Next, not just Falcon 9, even if Blue Origin never gets their act together. In the launch industry, it's totally acceptable to be second-best. Third or fourth is not the best place to be. But maybe a deal can be made. Arianespace operates Soyuz rockets, so why not Neutron rockets?
Upvote
14
(14
/
0)
How, exactly, would ``the US government'' decide to do that? The FAA's regulatory authority comes from Congress, doesn't extend to something like that, and I've fairly sure the President can't issue an executive order telling them to overstep their authority. I suppose the President could order the State Department to ping the European astronauts and deny them entry into the United States. But it would probably take something like that, not the FAA refusing to issue a launch license.
Upvote
-1
(2
/
-3)
Congress never gave NASA enough money to build a replacement for the shuttle and run the shuttle at the same time.
Upvote
7
(7
/
0)
ESA should accept that launch is a commercial commodity and spend their money on a important payload objectives (incl a capsule if they must). Get cheap launch from SpaceX with Falcon or Starship and concentrate on what you want to do, not reinventing the wheel.
Upvote
-2
(4
/
-6)
I disagree. What NASA astronauts do in space would still be within NASA's charter. So ditching SLS and Orion and sending the astronauts up on a commercial spacecraft wouldn't be a problem. It would be like sending NASA engineers to an aeronautics conference, or from NASA Langley to NASA Ames, by buying them a ticket on United.
Upvote
5
(6
/
-1)
I mean if you stop and think about it, it had to be this way - or the Falklands war would have been a whole lot shorter!
Upvote
7
(7
/
0)
I think it's interesting to look over the value of having a pilot on the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions. Lots of things did go wrong, and the astronauts did manage to correct the situations because of their experience as test pilots. But that was because they were test pilots. The relevant skill was the ability to deal with problems operating a complex, experimental system, and to do so quickly and correctly. Arguably, the pilot part of test pilot wasn't too relevant, and there were probably other professions which require that same skill. But, also arguably, Dragon 2 isn't an experimental system (at least not nearly to the extent that Mercury, Gemini or Apollo capsules were.) So the need for that skill is greatly reduced. The Soviets, Russians and Chinese didn't/don't fly ``pilots''. The title of the equivalent position is a flight engineer.
Upvote
13
(13
/
0)
EU should focus on developing a low-cost reusable rocket first. Once that's reasonably well advanced it makes a lot more sense to design a crew capsule for it.
Upvote
0
(2
/
-2)
He'd have to. Refusing to do so would be anti-competitive and result in all sorts of lawsuits. But the earlier comment misses the whole point of this manifesto. It's arguing for an independent European launch capability for the sake of having a European launch capability. As a government vanity project and to promote and protect local industry. It's not about being cost effective or efficient.
Upvote
3
(6
/
-3)
Air travel is a commercial commodity. Do you know how many European countries (or countries in general) have their own, wholly or partially government owned, flag carriers?
Upvote
11
(12
/
-1)
It really is not efficient to go for a new craft. There are 3 craft now working and prepared to fly non-locals (SpaceX, Russia, and China). There is a good chance there will be 3 more soon (2 American Companies plus I think India will sell rides if they can get their craft up and running). Surely the EU can find a ride that suits them. On the other hand, If I were them, I would start negotiations with SpaceX on buying the rights to Falcon as SpaceX gets Starship running they will want to slowly divest Falcon. And Falcon is far better than Arian 5 or 6 Economically. SpaceX might even buy F9s from EU to support old contracts rather than keep the production line running (even reuseable 1st stage needs some replacement parts plus second stage). Of course, there are "Not invented here" problems. Just an idea...
Upvote
-10
(0
/
-10)
greybeardengineer
Ars Praefectus
This take isn't based on an idolized view that SpaceX can do no wrong but the sad situation that no one else is doing anything right. Despite the fact that expendable launch is now clearly a burning building at best they are shuffling their feet, looking around uncomfortably and saying yeah we got a few people looking at this reuse thing. Many of the rest are like:
Upvote
17
(20
/
-3)
I fear that even if Congress has simply directed NASA to built a rocket that could launch 50 tons towards the Moon (ie, a Saturn 5 size rocket) NASA would have ended up building something like the SLS. Instead of building a new engine they would have looked at what available. There were only three available -- The RS-68 which could not be clustered because of its ablative lining, the J-2X and the RS-25. All of them were hydrogen fueled. All of them were too small to launch on their own so solid rocket boosters were be required. A liquid booster would make more sense but ATK was never going to let that happen. Congress didn't need to mandate SLS. Between necessity and tunnel vision NASA would have made it just like they did.
Orion has been re-designed so many times it more like a quilt than a manned craft. First it was designed to be too large to launch on Atlas or Delta. Then it became too heavy to launch on Ares 1 and had to be redesigned, then re-designed again when NASA realized that a solid stage motor could be too violent for humans. Then it was re-designed again for long term missions to Mars or the asteroids. Then it had to re-designed for the SLS which has less power than the Saturn 5. No wonder it has cost so much and taken so long and, apparently, is not finished yet.
Upvote
14
(14
/
0)
I doubt ESA will build their own crewed launch vehicle as long as cheap and reliable access to space is commercially available (from SpaceX and upcoming competitors).
However, the Ariane programme was created partly in response to unacceptable conditions from NASA for launching European satellites. Something similar could obvious happen again.
Finally, the Ariane program may well owe its very existence to the difficult negotiations undertaken with NASA in connection with the launch of the two “Symphonie” experimental telecommunications satellites. The extremely harsh conditions imposed on the German and French negotiators, including an embargo on using these two satellites for any commercial purpose in particular strengthened the determination to achieve the autonomy proposed by France. European agreement was finally achieved in July 1973, following a period of intensive negotiation.
Source
However, the Ariane programme was created partly in response to unacceptable conditions from NASA for launching European satellites. Something similar could obvious happen again.
Finally, the Ariane program may well owe its very existence to the difficult negotiations undertaken with NASA in connection with the launch of the two “Symphonie” experimental telecommunications satellites. The extremely harsh conditions imposed on the German and French negotiators, including an embargo on using these two satellites for any commercial purpose in particular strengthened the determination to achieve the autonomy proposed by France. European agreement was finally achieved in July 1973, following a period of intensive negotiation.
Source
Upvote
7
(8
/
-1)
Huh?
The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all
Now, I may be confused here but I'm fairly sure New York and DC are in North America.
Certainly nobody anticipated the first major attack on the US since Pearl Harbour being done by a failed state, but if you think that the NATO treaty meant it 'didn't have jurisdiction for the same reason to conduct missions in Afghanistan' - then you're going to need to quote the passage that says that.
Upvote
12
(13
/
-1)
Oh come on, can you give a break to Ariane Espace for once. Boy!
Upvote
0
(0
/
0)
I'm sorry?
No, you're serious.
There are different kinds of efficiency, as some of us have found out with the supply disruptions caused by COVID and the slimming of all kinds of slack in the supply chains in the name of "efficiency". Less slack = less hysteresis = less tolerance to shocks. Private enterprise won't do it, it's up to the states to do it.
Being able to launch what you want when you want it without having to depend on other people's or countries' interests can be priceless, even if it costs a lot. See above.
Upvote
2
(3
/
-1)
This take isn't based on an idolized view that SpaceX can do no wrong but the sad situation that no one else is doing anything right. Despite the fact that expendable launch is now clearly a burning building at best they are shuffling their feet, looking around uncomfortably and saying yeah we got a few people looking at this reuse thing. Many of the rest are like:
It's not clear to me. Nobody is doing it except SpaceX with the first stage booster, but do you really think that's because everybody has got their heads in the sand or could it be that they've run the numbers and found that it doesn't necessarily add up? We don't know whether or not SpaceX saves money by reusing its boosters because the costs have never been published. Maybe Falcon 9 launches would be cheaper without reuse. I have no idea and neither does anybody else who isn't in SpaceX.
On the contrary - almost everybody is at least paying lip service to some degree of first stage reuse at this point.
RL - attempting catching first stages of electron, neutron designed with first stage reuse in mind
BO - first stage reuse is absolutely essential for New Glenn
ULA - claim to be planning on recovery of first stage engines.
But sure, maybe they're all doing that to lose money because none of them actually believe that SpaceX are saving money through reuse.
Also I hear Boeing are working on an expendable passenger jet /s
Upvote
24
(24
/
0)
This comes from some material I read some time ago. The wikipedia quotes the decision as:
link
The point is, NATO needed a vote to conduct a mission in Afghanistan. Article 5 commits all member states against a mutual attack unconditionally.
When the US invoked Article 5 as a response to 9/11 eight actions were enacted officially:
Afghanistan.
edit:
- When Article 5 was invoked NATO consented to inteligence and defense operations.
- Iraq and Afghanistan was invaded by the Coalition Forces led by the US. NATO member armies were the majority, but this was not a NATO response operation against an attack of a member state.
- At a later stage NATO officially entered the Afghan war in a humanitarian capacity, but since that was not conducted under Article 5 it lacked the geographical jurisdiction of Article 6. Now we can argue that UN resolution 1386 was the legal ground for this, but that's still outside of NATO code.
Upvote
5
(6
/
-1)
They should just fund European startups to do what SpaceX is doing to a more serious degree not just sort of (e.g. skylon). It's hard to see why Europe can't have their own SpaceX. Put up reasonable funds for a commercial crew program that eanbles one or two crew vehicles to reach the moon. More players the better.
Maybe even compete with Starship concept, by building a Falcon Heavy grade rocket and focus on smaller vehicles with in-orbit refueling to enable deep space missions instead.
Upvote
5
(6
/
-1)
Fully agree. Ultimately the government astronaut cores will be filled with phd students and postdoctoral researchers who give lectures and tutor classes in universities whilst also going away on trips to space for research purposes.
Upvote
2
(2
/
0)
This take isn't based on an idolized view that SpaceX can do no wrong but the sad situation that no one else is doing anything right. Despite the fact that expendable launch is now clearly a burning building at best they are shuffling their feet, looking around uncomfortably and saying yeah we got a few people looking at this reuse thing. Many of the rest are like:
It's not clear to me. Nobody is doing it except SpaceX with the first stage booster, but do you really think that's because everybody has got their heads in the sand or could it be that they've run the numbers and found that it doesn't necessarily add up? We don't know whether or not SpaceX saves money by reusing its boosters because the costs have never been published. Maybe Falcon 9 launches would be cheaper without reuse. I have no idea and neither does anybody else who isn't in SpaceX.
To the contrary, all of SpaceX's competition is either buying into reuse, or forgoing new rocket development altogether.
Every new-design large rocket that has begun development since 2014 includes at least booster reuse: Starship, New Glenn, Ariane Next, China's 921/LM-5"lunar", and Neutron (And Terran's R, though it's debatable whether that's actually under serious development).
The lack of current flying reusable competition to Falcon 9 is entirely due to the lag between development and operation at most rocket operators. Ariane 6 and Vulcan both began development in 2014. JAXA's H3 began development in 2013. SLS started in 2010. ISRO's GSLV Mk3 and China's LM-5 and LM-7 all started in 2009 or earlier. Russia's Angara development started in 1992 (!!!).
Also, your argument implies that SpaceX knows that reuse costs more, but insists on doing it anyway for some reason... and still somehow manages to undercut everyone else by ~50% on comparable flights! That would make SpaceX both pretty stupid and extremely competent at the same time.
Upvote
21
(21
/
0)
Saying that F9 is fundamentally the same as the A4 is like saying that modern cars are fundamentally the same as horseless carriages.
there's a lot of real hardware for Starship for "just a concept" some of which is planned to go to orbit and attempt to make it back. However reusable orbital vehicles have a longer history than boosters do, and it's not just the shuttle orbiter either. Starship will be one of the bigger ones, and have more thrust and ∆v than the others being a launch vehicle upper stage, rather than being a payload, or whatever we want to consider the Shuttle orbiter, but that doesn't change that similar has been done.
Upvote
17
(17
/
0)
Light-years are not a good unit to measure this gap with, but SpaceX is about to be two entire generations of rockets ahead of everyone else. Once Starship reaches orbit, they will be 2 entire generations ahead.
Nobody has yet to field a Falcon competitor. Ariane doesn't plan to field a Falcon competitor until 2030. Blue Origin and RocketLab might in 2024. China may sometime in the mid or late 2020s. Russia has no money to do it, and India and Japan seem pretty happy not competing at all. So it is almost guaranteed, at this point, that SpaceX will have 2 entire generations of rockets that nobody can match for a couple of years.
Beyond that, SpaceX will have at least a decade where Starship is the only vehicle of it's type in operation.
Upvote
22
(22
/
0)
And at bare minimum, you have the cadence to consider, F9 is properly a heavy lift vehicle, though it's generally used as and grouped together with the medium lifters, for most rockets, particularly in its class, ~a dozen launches is a really good year, for Falcon, that's a very slow year normally getting at least 2 dozen.
This take isn't based on an idolized view that SpaceX can do no wrong but the sad situation that no one else is doing anything right. Despite the fact that expendable launch is now clearly a burning building at best they are shuffling their feet, looking around uncomfortably and saying yeah we got a few people looking at this reuse thing. Many of the rest are like:
It's not clear to me. Nobody is doing it except SpaceX with the first stage booster, but do you really think that's because everybody has got their heads in the sand or could it be that they've run the numbers and found that it doesn't necessarily add up? We don't know whether or not SpaceX saves money by reusing its boosters because the costs have never been published. Maybe Falcon 9 launches would be cheaper without reuse. I have no idea and neither does anybody else who isn't in SpaceX.
To the contrary, all of SpaceX's competition is either buying into reuse, or forgoing new rocket development altogether.
Every new-design large rocket that has begun development since 2014 includes at least booster reuse: Starship, New Glenn, Ariane Next, China's 921/LM-5"lunar", and Neutron (And Terran's R, though it's debatable whether that's actually under serious development).
The lack of current flying reusable competition to Falcon 9 is entirely due to the lag between development and operation at most rocket operators. Ariane 6 and Vulcan both began development in 2014. JAXA's H3 began development in 2013. SLS started in 2010. ISRO's GSLV Mk3 and China's LM-5 and LM-7 all started in 2009 or earlier. Russia's Angara development started in 1992 (!!!).
Also, your argument implies that SpaceX knows that reuse costs more, but insists on doing it anyway for some reason... and still somehow manages to undercut everyone else by ~50% on comparable flights! That would make SpaceX both pretty stupid and extremely competent at the same time.
Upvote
8
(8
/
0)
Assuming that the rocket development isn't itself a jobs program, it generally takes about a decade to develop a rocket, give or take, usually a bit longer, and usually with the expectation they will remain in service with only relatively minor changes for about 2 and a half decades. Ariane talking about Ariane Next before Ariane 6 has even flown yet says a lot.
This take isn't based on an idolized view that SpaceX can do no wrong but the sad situation that no one else is doing anything right. Despite the fact that expendable launch is now clearly a burning building at best they are shuffling their feet, looking around uncomfortably and saying yeah we got a few people looking at this reuse thing. Many of the rest are like:
It's not clear to me. Nobody is doing it except SpaceX with the first stage booster, but do you really think that's because everybody has got their heads in the sand or could it be that they've run the numbers and found that it doesn't necessarily add up? We don't know whether or not SpaceX saves money by reusing its boosters because the costs have never been published. Maybe Falcon 9 launches would be cheaper without reuse. I have no idea and neither does anybody else who isn't in SpaceX.
Upvote
16
(16
/
0)
Musk should mention the Shuttle in his standard spiel. He mentions how similar the booster reuse on SH is similar to the booster reuse on F9, but then implies that the SS second stage reuse is entirely new. If he mentions the Shuttle and possibly Dragon reuse at this point, it does two things -- make Starship reuse seem less risky and acknowledges SpaceX's biggest external customer. He can then go on to talk about how important being *rapidly* reusable is.
It's not technically wrong not mentioning the shuttle since it jettisoned the external tank, but I do think it's a mistake. Maybe if America and NASA properly acknowledged that the shuttle was a flying death trap, but they don't. It still has very positive connotations for a lot of people, and Musk should lean on that.
Upvote
3
(7
/
-4)
Fly Me to the Moon, Destination Moon, The Age of Aquarius, Have You Heard? It's in the Stars . . .
Upvote
1
(1
/
0)