Congratulation and great news ! For Europe, but also the world, space access is one of those frontiers we can (and I believe will) see truly opened in my lifetime and I find that truly awesome.
Interestingly there still seems to be a difference in approach between "few launch, expected to go well" in europe and "many launch as trial and error" in the US, with other countries falling somewhere in between those two limits, it's often seen as a threat here of "if we don't do more more often we won't make any progress" but ignoring the economical side (and I think it's fair, given than even with massive subsidies SpaceX is not financially viable until it feed itself through Starlink) it's been a remarkable series of years for new European vehicules launch success.
Also one thing I have to point:
> Europe now has sovereign access to space.
I understand what is meant here, and of course said company need to push that forward, but French Guyana is full french territory, it's not even a foreign territory. It's part of the EU (known as the outermost region of the European Union), EU law applies, it's citizens are EU citizens, EU citizens from other countries can freely move and work and live there ... It's technicaly more EU than Norway.
But less Europe than Norway, sure. Still, on the context of "sovereign access", I would argue both side of that coin have their attributes, and for long term sovereignty I would prefer EU territory instead of "inside-europe-Belarus" for exemple.
Another and more immediate concern is that anything which contains subcomponents/subsystems or parts from US origin companies runs into ITAR and MTCR [1] issues with the US federal government. There's a number of very complex European origin final aviation/aerospace industry products which are laden with US-origin components. I wonder about exactly how "non-US" this Isar rocket is.
I would put it as a much greater likelihood that the US would decide to mess with export-control permits for various subsystems than a theoretical scenario where they begin intercepting western European flagged cargo ships on the way from Europe to French Guiana.
Yeah but although the crazies in charge have been very negative toward our continent and my country (Frace), they've also steered very clear away from any seizing claim about any of our territory, despite going against anyone from Canada to Denmark to Spain to UK, to ...
Deep down, we're an annoyingly arrogant little country with delusions of grandeur salivating at the thought to prove to our EU neighbors how strong we meant it when we said we would accept to oppose the US in case of military attack and I think they knew we may actually mean it and not back down when it start (see also: Denmark leak about how France was essentially willing to provide whatever to help defend Greenland).
I'm not saying this in a "we're awesome" way, more like a hard case of the TACO, bullies avoid the ones who punch back. Nothing would be happening in Iran right now if they had not believed in advance Iran would lie down like Venezuela did after losing its leader, though most would say confusing the two situation makes no sense.
Ultimately this is so much lost time and resources for nothing of value, it's so utterly disappointing...
> Deep down, we're an annoyingly arrogant little country with delusions of grandeur ...
The problem is France used to be the world's superpower, with an economy bigger than the one of the UK. Literally number one.
Then the monarchy fell and all it took was a mere 15 years for that little arrogant man that Napoleon was to get its arse (and France's arse) handed to him in Waterloo in 1815.
15 years to throw away centuries of greatness: what an amazing success the revolutionaries managed to pull. They fucked up so bad they realized it and tried to, peacefully, re-instate monarchy, but it was too late. Charles X was king of France after the Waterloo SNAFU (1824 to 1830) but it was too late to fix things.
It's nice and all, on paper, to want no king. But France is considered to have lost, forever, its place as the world's n 1 superpower when Napoleon lost in Waterloo.
I'm not saying monarchy is better: what I'm saying is that the french revolution coincides with France losing its status as the world's 1st super power.
And France has been arrogant ever since but it went from 2nd to 3rd to 4th to 5th to 6th to now 7th place.
It's a never ending fall.
With the biggest public deficit and the biggest public debt in the entire EU, and the level of primary education going down the drain (university is still doing OK), I fear it's only ever more pain ahead for France.
The country is literally crumbling left and right and communists, siding with islamists (the party of Melenchon are downright commies, who understood that if they were cozy with islamists, they'd get a chance a winning the elections), are planning to destroy the little that's left of France's past grandeur.
If you think those in charge now are negative towards their own country, you haven't seen anything should either the communists (Melenchon) or the national-socialists (Le Pen / Bardella: which are for a national preference with a deeply socialist program) win the next elections.
Besides an aching aircraft carrier France still has the atom bomb and that's it.
> Deep down, we're an annoyingly arrogant little country with delusions of grandeur salivating at the thought to prove to our EU neighbors how strong we meant it when we said we would accept to oppose the US in case of military attack and I think they knew we may actually mean it and not back down when it start (see also: Denmark leak about how France was essentially willing to provide whatever to help defend Greenland).
And the rest of Europe loves you for that! But we're also very worried if that'll all remain so if Le Pen or Mélenchon win next year.
There is no Europe. When push comes to shove its all petty squabbles. That's the problem. This whole talk of sovereign European access is dead from the start because each Euro state has conflicting interests and no motivation to work together.
They refused to go full US of Europe and now we have the worst of both worlds. China is gonna eat us for brekky.
You have to be absolutely blind if you can't even read history going back just a few decades, which makes it evidently clear that we have more motivation to work together than pretty much any continent out there. Doesn't help that we all know that the two world wars we've had so far, has come from our continent, so yes, we have a lot of motivation to work together.
Eh hard disagree there, the way I see it there is no more squabble between France and Poland than there is between Texas and California or between Spain and Romania compared to New york and Virginia. In fact, I would say we have LESS of it.
The only thing we need is to actually stop ignoring the forest for the tree and see that the world moved on beyond our petty local borders and we're lucky enough to have found a system where we're stronger together, to the point where we matter in the world and can't be ignored or pushed aside, while also protecting the core of each of our own cultural societies (langugage, history, ...), and only fools would let that go because they're too close minded to see it.
I interned for one of the delegations in the European parliament and I've also worked in the public sector California. The US is a country, the EU is a bunch of cats fighting under a blanket.
Must be incredibly humbling experience to not realize EU is a union of independent countries and the US is a federation of states until you work for one of the delegations, wasn't it? Most of us pick up on that even without professional experience about it.
See the thing is when we studied law in Europe a long time ago we were sold on this dream that Europe would become like the United States and we'd a abandon our national prejudices kind of like how people sometimes talk about it in these threads.
Then you get there all bright eyed and it's just a bunch of boomers squabbling to fuck each other over to get 0.03% tax advantages on peach liquor exports for their region. Or just completely delusional people living in a kumbaya fantasy world and just throwing money at the wall for vanity projects that will never be implemented because there's five layers of separation between them and the ground.
It really takes the soul out of you.
The way people work in the US and China is completely different. They DO things. Europeans just talk about doing things, and then talk behind each others backs.
> See the thing is when we studied law in Europe a long time ago we were sold on this dream that Europe would become like the United States
Eeh, what school was this? I think most public schools (at least those me and people near me) attended, it was taught that EU is nothing like the US, as we're all individual countries and everyone wants to remain as such, but we still want to collaborate although we're somewhat different from each other, and been killing each other since forever. I guess that's why second world war and similar things are such a big part of our history lessons, rather than diving deep into the history of US or Australia or whatever.
> It really takes the soul out of you. The way people work in the US and China is completely different. They DO things. Europeans just talk about doing things, and then talk behind each others backs.
For me the difference is between politicians and people actually doing the work. And my personally experience points towards this split existing equally everywhere, in China, in the US, in Europe and everywhere else I've been. The higher up the political ranks you get, the more people like to talk, the less they like doing.
I feel like this is very evident in the US too, looking at how productive and efficient companies are vs research labs living on grants vs federal government vs local governments, the scale is completely different, and same goes in Europe as well, at least from what I can tell.
Evidentially, in the high ranks of the European Parliament, things are exactly the same as higher ranking politicians everywhere, they just like to talk and grandstand and pretend to know what they're talking about. But I think this is true in the US too, or in China, these sort of people just like talking and discussing things forever, for better or worse.
> it was taught that EU is nothing like the US, as we're all individual countries and everyone wants to remain as such
It's written into the treaties that this will not be so. The goal of the EU is "ever closer union" and the people at the top of it routinely talk about a federal Europe in which the individual states disappear.
> It's written into the treaties that this will not be so.
What exact treaty are you talking about, and what does it verbatim say? I've heard this so many times before, yet no one is able to link to concretely what they refer to. No texts I've seen has called for the dissolution of nation states in the EU or any of the other political structures.
Individual states do not disappear in a more federal Europe. Otherwise that wouldn’t be a confederation… It’s about delegating some authority and decision making to a common entity, but each nation state stays sovereign. I don’t understand how people are confused about that concept, there are lots of federated entities in the world, with various level of delegation to the federal level. And that works well. The distinctions between states aren’t erased, the culture between states isn’t erased.
> Then you get there all bright eyed and it's just a bunch of boomers squabbling to fuck each other over to get 0.03% tax advantages on peach liquor exports for their region.
Congratulations, you summed up how politics work in all regions of the world.
The European parliament and US congress are both just as united and fragmented.
We disagree internally until we find a common posture that we adopt.
I'm not sure why you talk California public sector instead of something involving multiple states that have differing views, that makes your comparison useless, that's why I say US congress.
Note that your misunderstanding of the situation and lack of knowledge about it is not rare per se, to give an exemple that's why a fair amount of brexiter politician were surprised the EU didn't break itself in internal fight over the UK deal (while they were used to the inside squabble when they were a member, and they failed to notice the similarity with their own parliament compared to their country).
The EU-related structures in Brussels are about as united/fragmented as the US Congress, indeed.
But the national governments are nothing like US state governments. A lot more political fragmentation, plus they still consider themselves executives of sovereign nations with various vital interests and also historic resentments. Few Californian politicians will base their programs on suspicions towards New Mexico. In Poland, "don't kowtow to the Germans" is still a living idea and current PM Tusk is regularly accused of doing precisely that.
The European nations are not unified similarly to the USA because we do not have the common history of being a bunch of immigrant colonies glued together.
Exactly. I'd even go as far as saying German overreach and arrogance ten years ago killed the EU for good. Before that it genuinely felt people were at least trying. Now it's a walking corpse.
What is even your point in all those messages ? If we were to take all of your comments in this thread, and we all agree with no exception to them, it doesn't change anything to the conversation, it doesn't make any point, it does't provide anything interesting, you're just dead set on commenting in a loop that the sky is green
Think about it, what are you saying that adds to a German company successfully launching into space from Norway ?
It's an opinion just like all the others here... every morning before US wakes up there are a bunch of articles by EU readers for EU readers patting themselves on the back for getting something built without US influence.
Inevitably it turns into the same tired discussions that either:
A) Actually, it's not completely EU because it has x% of American parts
B) America Bad
Then, the one person who comes in to give a different opinion is met with your comment. Happens every week.
That was not a useful metaphor, but by all means try again (if you want) and teach us something interesting (and concrete) based on your unique experience.
Thank you for your correction. That has been a nice addition to my German geography. It looks like the people of Munich really enjoy their river in a way we can't enjoy ours in the UK, due to pollution.
But the impact of an AFD win in that Bundesland would be terrible for the whole country. A bit long (45min) but this video from Simplicissimus goes into it in details: https://youtu.be/N2b1y9GAF48?si=1_L80z1PTXENkXy2
Interestingly there still seems to be a difference in approach between "few launch, expected to go well" in europe and "many launch as trial and error" in the US, with other countries falling somewhere in between those two limits, it's often seen as a threat here of "if we don't do more more often we won't make any progress" but ignoring the economical side (and I think it's fair, given than even with massive subsidies SpaceX is not financially viable until it feed itself through Starlink) it's been a remarkable series of years for new European vehicules launch success.
Also one thing I have to point:
> Europe now has sovereign access to space.
I understand what is meant here, and of course said company need to push that forward, but French Guyana is full french territory, it's not even a foreign territory. It's part of the EU (known as the outermost region of the European Union), EU law applies, it's citizens are EU citizens, EU citizens from other countries can freely move and work and live there ... It's technicaly more EU than Norway.
But less Europe than Norway, sure. Still, on the context of "sovereign access", I would argue both side of that coin have their attributes, and for long term sovereignty I would prefer EU territory instead of "inside-europe-Belarus" for exemple.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missile_Technology_Control_Reg...
I would put it as a much greater likelihood that the US would decide to mess with export-control permits for various subsystems than a theoretical scenario where they begin intercepting western European flagged cargo ships on the way from Europe to French Guiana.
Deep down, we're an annoyingly arrogant little country with delusions of grandeur salivating at the thought to prove to our EU neighbors how strong we meant it when we said we would accept to oppose the US in case of military attack and I think they knew we may actually mean it and not back down when it start (see also: Denmark leak about how France was essentially willing to provide whatever to help defend Greenland).
I'm not saying this in a "we're awesome" way, more like a hard case of the TACO, bullies avoid the ones who punch back. Nothing would be happening in Iran right now if they had not believed in advance Iran would lie down like Venezuela did after losing its leader, though most would say confusing the two situation makes no sense.
Ultimately this is so much lost time and resources for nothing of value, it's so utterly disappointing...
The problem is France used to be the world's superpower, with an economy bigger than the one of the UK. Literally number one.
Then the monarchy fell and all it took was a mere 15 years for that little arrogant man that Napoleon was to get its arse (and France's arse) handed to him in Waterloo in 1815.
15 years to throw away centuries of greatness: what an amazing success the revolutionaries managed to pull. They fucked up so bad they realized it and tried to, peacefully, re-instate monarchy, but it was too late. Charles X was king of France after the Waterloo SNAFU (1824 to 1830) but it was too late to fix things.
It's nice and all, on paper, to want no king. But France is considered to have lost, forever, its place as the world's n 1 superpower when Napoleon lost in Waterloo.
I'm not saying monarchy is better: what I'm saying is that the french revolution coincides with France losing its status as the world's 1st super power.
And France has been arrogant ever since but it went from 2nd to 3rd to 4th to 5th to 6th to now 7th place.
It's a never ending fall.
With the biggest public deficit and the biggest public debt in the entire EU, and the level of primary education going down the drain (university is still doing OK), I fear it's only ever more pain ahead for France.
The country is literally crumbling left and right and communists, siding with islamists (the party of Melenchon are downright commies, who understood that if they were cozy with islamists, they'd get a chance a winning the elections), are planning to destroy the little that's left of France's past grandeur.
If you think those in charge now are negative towards their own country, you haven't seen anything should either the communists (Melenchon) or the national-socialists (Le Pen / Bardella: which are for a national preference with a deeply socialist program) win the next elections.
Besides an aching aircraft carrier France still has the atom bomb and that's it.
No more money. No more education.
France is toast.
And the rest of Europe loves you for that! But we're also very worried if that'll all remain so if Le Pen or Mélenchon win next year.
You all need to watch actions more than what people say.
You have to be absolutely blind if you can't even read history going back just a few decades, which makes it evidently clear that we have more motivation to work together than pretty much any continent out there. Doesn't help that we all know that the two world wars we've had so far, has come from our continent, so yes, we have a lot of motivation to work together.
Personally, living in the Baltics, even a flawed and somewhat fragmented Europe is better than being under a Russian boot.
So it's more of a "optimism and work towards a better future or perish" situation. That's an easy choice.
The only thing we need is to actually stop ignoring the forest for the tree and see that the world moved on beyond our petty local borders and we're lucky enough to have found a system where we're stronger together, to the point where we matter in the world and can't be ignored or pushed aside, while also protecting the core of each of our own cultural societies (langugage, history, ...), and only fools would let that go because they're too close minded to see it.
Then you get there all bright eyed and it's just a bunch of boomers squabbling to fuck each other over to get 0.03% tax advantages on peach liquor exports for their region. Or just completely delusional people living in a kumbaya fantasy world and just throwing money at the wall for vanity projects that will never be implemented because there's five layers of separation between them and the ground.
It really takes the soul out of you. The way people work in the US and China is completely different. They DO things. Europeans just talk about doing things, and then talk behind each others backs.
Sorry if this is not cogent Im hangover
Eeh, what school was this? I think most public schools (at least those me and people near me) attended, it was taught that EU is nothing like the US, as we're all individual countries and everyone wants to remain as such, but we still want to collaborate although we're somewhat different from each other, and been killing each other since forever. I guess that's why second world war and similar things are such a big part of our history lessons, rather than diving deep into the history of US or Australia or whatever.
> It really takes the soul out of you. The way people work in the US and China is completely different. They DO things. Europeans just talk about doing things, and then talk behind each others backs.
For me the difference is between politicians and people actually doing the work. And my personally experience points towards this split existing equally everywhere, in China, in the US, in Europe and everywhere else I've been. The higher up the political ranks you get, the more people like to talk, the less they like doing.
I feel like this is very evident in the US too, looking at how productive and efficient companies are vs research labs living on grants vs federal government vs local governments, the scale is completely different, and same goes in Europe as well, at least from what I can tell.
Evidentially, in the high ranks of the European Parliament, things are exactly the same as higher ranking politicians everywhere, they just like to talk and grandstand and pretend to know what they're talking about. But I think this is true in the US too, or in China, these sort of people just like talking and discussing things forever, for better or worse.
It's written into the treaties that this will not be so. The goal of the EU is "ever closer union" and the people at the top of it routinely talk about a federal Europe in which the individual states disappear.
What exact treaty are you talking about, and what does it verbatim say? I've heard this so many times before, yet no one is able to link to concretely what they refer to. No texts I've seen has called for the dissolution of nation states in the EU or any of the other political structures.
Congratulations, you summed up how politics work in all regions of the world.
We disagree internally until we find a common posture that we adopt.
I'm not sure why you talk California public sector instead of something involving multiple states that have differing views, that makes your comparison useless, that's why I say US congress.
Note that your misunderstanding of the situation and lack of knowledge about it is not rare per se, to give an exemple that's why a fair amount of brexiter politician were surprised the EU didn't break itself in internal fight over the UK deal (while they were used to the inside squabble when they were a member, and they failed to notice the similarity with their own parliament compared to their country).
But the national governments are nothing like US state governments. A lot more political fragmentation, plus they still consider themselves executives of sovereign nations with various vital interests and also historic resentments. Few Californian politicians will base their programs on suspicions towards New Mexico. In Poland, "don't kowtow to the Germans" is still a living idea and current PM Tusk is regularly accused of doing precisely that.
Think about it, what are you saying that adds to a German company successfully launching into space from Norway ?
Inevitably it turns into the same tired discussions that either:
A) Actually, it's not completely EU because it has x% of American parts
B) America Bad
Then, the one person who comes in to give a different opinion is met with your comment. Happens every week.
Congratulation to the team.
These milestones are necessary to advancement of human race as we need new planets to occupy.
But, we needed clear path going forward. I am both pro to advancement but with caution kind of guy.
We absolutely do not
Edit: it should be Isar not ISAR
This is a huge achievement and every person involved should be very proud.
Please oblige me by not writing anything political in reply, let's just celebrate!