HolyGig t1_jdizof7 wrote
>“There is not a revolution in the amount of money that is spent. The big game-changer is the emergence of the NewSpace sector,” he said. “If we go on with the same procurement policies, if we go on with the same constraints that we have today, if we go on with monopolies, if we go with hampering the emergence of NewSpace actors, we won’t make it no matter what the budget is.”
Well, yes, but also no. Europe is caught in a sort of "chicken or the egg" conundrum
The US was able to develop a vibrant commercial services sector largely due to the amount of money the government is spending. NASA's new budget will come in at around $27B and the US military is spending a roughly equivalent amount ($28.5B, which doesn't include everything) and that is up from $17B in 2021. That means there are a lot of big public money contracts available for companies to go after not just in terms of launch, but in all manner of space assets and services. That doesn't even get into the sort of private money investments like those from Amazon and other communications as well as remote sensing constellations like Planet Labs.
The ESA budget for 2022 is about $8B, which isn't terrible, but European military investment in the space domain is almost negligible compared to the US or China.
So yes, you can say that Europe needs to get a lot more efficient with the money it is spending and that may be true but I don't see how that can happen without fostering competition first. Who is going to bid on a European Commercial Crew program besides Arianespace? Europe doesn't have a Relativity Space, let alone a SpaceX, and if you think about it SpaceX won its first major commercial services contract to the ISS when it was around the same size as Relativity is now. If that didn't happen they never would have been in a position to bid on Commercial Crew. Arianespace will laugh if you try to make them sign a fixed price contract
Its not enough to just say "lets copy commercial crew, look at how cheap it was!" That ignores all the other NASA and military contracts SpaceX got (and delivered on) so they could reach the point where they could even build such a complex item as a human rated capsule at a reasonable cost.
CurtisLeow t1_jdj6s8t wrote
Absolutely, Commercial Crew really started with CRS. SpaceX got a large contract in 2008, for a cargo capsule, when the company was just a couple hundred people. SpaceX didn’t do a crewed launch until 2020. There are multiple NewSpace European space companies comparable in size to SpaceX in 2008. PLD Space, in Spain, is an example I remember reading about. Or ESA could work with European subsidiaries of American companies. Rocket Lab has a New Zealand subsidiary that has launched rockets using American-built engines.
Yes, it would be dumb for Europe to go straight for crewed launches. But ESA can start with funding a capsule style cargo vehicle similar to Dragon. That wouldn’t even cost that much money. CRS is just a couple hundred million a year. That’s within ESA’s budget right now. ESA could also fund little space stations or space station modules. Those aren’t expensive either, if you make them barely bigger than a capsule. Then work up to a European crewed capsule a decade or more from now.
HolyGig t1_jdjcyo8 wrote
CRS is not that expensive on its own, but the ISS won't be around for much longer and it does cost a lot to maintain a crewed presence. In other words, Europe would be spending a lot on hiring Dragons/Starliners for crew plus the cost to orbit a new station, whatever that would look like, just in order to necessitate the need for a European CRS in the first place.
NASA seems to be going all in on commercial station(s). How that will work exactly is a bit of a mystery but there seems to be at least three (Axiom, Orbital Reef and Starlab) that seem fairly serious and are all getting some NASA funding. Mostly looks like private investment though. Looks like Airbus is a partner on Starlab so perhaps that is the one angling for ESA patronage the most. If that is the case, ESA wouldn't have control over the services contract since it would be commercially operated.
Its all interesting stuff but its still pretty early
robotical712 t1_jdjdxy8 wrote
>Arianespace will laugh if you try to make them sign a fixed price contract
And France would pitch an absolute fit if ESA tried to pick anyone other than Arianespace.
HolyGig t1_jdjfvic wrote
Well they might end up pitching a fit then lol. I have a feeling ESA is going to try and coax Sierra Nevada to Europeanize a few Dream Chasers and/or move some operations to Europe. Would still be launching on Ariane 6 so maybe it wouldn't upset the French too much
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