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mcchanical t1_j16l18r wrote

Reply to comment by ferrel_hadley in The European Vega-C rocket was lost shortly after lift-off from French Guiana on Tuesday with two Airbus satellites on board by DoremusJessup

No offence but America has been hitchhiking to space on the Russian Soyuz for decades until a South African guy built Dragon. Only just now that Soyuz is suddenly off the table do you say Europe needs to get it's act together.

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bookers555 t1_j17kbmu wrote

The US relied on Russia since 2011 (retirement of the Space Shuttle) to 2020. Wasn't even a decade.

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mcchanical t1_j17t1t3 wrote

No, no. You misunderstand, the first American to hitch a ride was 1995. Not 2011, 1995.

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bookers555 t1_j17wzw1 wrote

But they didnt completely rely on Russians until 2011.

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Realistic-Fix8199 t1_j17gehl wrote

Decades? Incorrect unless decades mean something different where you are from.

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mcchanical t1_j17gw5q wrote

The first American aboard a Soyuz was 1995. 27 years ago by my math.

Decades are 10 years where I'm from. What about you?

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Realistic-Fix8199 t1_j17hktd wrote

True. I interpreted the remark as you meaning it was the only way to space for nasa for decades. My bad!

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[deleted] t1_j17hua2 wrote

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mcchanical t1_j17i28p wrote

The next ones were 2000, 2001 and 2002. Still decades ago.

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[deleted] t1_j17iaxc wrote

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mcchanical t1_j17igdu wrote

The entire comment chain is in response to me saying americans have used soyuz for decades. You interjected about bartering and payments. Americans have used soyuz for decades. End of.

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ferrel_hadley t1_j17xqid wrote

>Only just now that Soyuz is suddenly off the table do you say Europe needs to get it's act together.

Ariane 4 and 5 and Soyuz were mainstays of the commercial launch industry. Now its Falcon 9.

This latest failure means Arianespace and ESA barely have any comercial launch capability at a market price.

The US having a gap between Shuttle and Dragon has nothing to do with this.

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wgp3 t1_j19453z wrote

Hitch hiking implies you have no ride of your own. So no, America wasn't hitch hiking for decades. They did for 9 years though while working on building their own new rides. Anything prior to that isn't hitch hiking anymore than carpooling is hitch hiking. There's a vast difference between playing friendly and using more than your own ride, and having no option but someone else's ride.

Not to mention how you imply that we only used rides from them until dragon came online. We still send astronauts up on soyuz despite having dragon. It's just not hitch hiking which you either seem to have accidentally admitted or just were unaware America still uses soyuz.

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[deleted] t1_j17fbtw wrote

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mcchanical t1_j17hqt2 wrote

NASA was still using it well beyond the point where it became unavailable, so whether they knew about it or not, the space agency funded by the leading Western economy wasn't prepared and had to fall back on a private company that it was lucky to be able to call upon.

SpaceX has done a lot for space exploration in general. Everyone relies on them, and neither Europe nor the US as geopolitical entities can claim credit for sustaining the ability to service the space industry. The entire industry needs to catch up.

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[deleted] t1_j17i3tc wrote

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mcchanical t1_j17iaou wrote

It has everything to do with your comment. You said soyuz was identified as a problem long ago. I said NASA didn't do anything about it until they were forced to.

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[deleted] t1_j17ih0k wrote

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mcchanical t1_j17izqb wrote

I'm not attacking the US. I'm responding to an american saying that European space agencies aren't doing enough to compensate for the lack of viable launch vehicles. Russia and the US built their space programs as the backdrop for dominating the other in the Cold War, and invested unprecedented public funds into doing so. The rest of the world is doing their best without war funds, and shouldn't be held responsible for the lack of viable launch providers. Especially when the lauch provider here is very reliable in general.

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skyraider17 t1_j1eny96 wrote

>Only just now that Soyuz is suddenly off the table do you say Europe needs to get it's act together.

Or it could be that the Vega has had its 3rd failure. If only 1 of 8 launches had failed they probably wouldn't be saying that

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mcchanical t1_j1f3fwk wrote

The Vega launch system is not "Europe". It's a single launch vehicle. When a system has problems, you don't immediately start slinging mud at the entire continent it's based in.

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