It really isn’t funny. The US shat the bed and for now the repercussions are mainly being felt outside the US. When the US realises what it’s lost it’s going to be too late.
The UK is likely to be an illustrative example, so it's apt you mentioned it
I can't believe people are saying that with straight face. How on Earth can you see all the wars that the US has started or had a hand in igniting and still think that?
Peace in Europe was maintained mostly by people in democracies generally wanting to work together. Yes the US had something to do with that as they supported that after WW2 but over the last 50 years, people in democracies generally don't fight each other. And more so by the threat of the Soviet Union that was so clearly the more dangerous option. Its easy to make allies if Stalin is on the other side.
And outside of Europe the US hardly maintained peace.
Nuclear weapons maintained 'peace' between Soviets and the US more then anything else.
And Europe has always pulled its weight in science, technology and engineering.
The US was actually on the right side in that one (just like in Korea). The Communists were not exactly the good guys and their "agricultural and personnel reforms" lead to drastically reduced food production and starvation and death.
Blame the US for real things instead, such as supporting the wrong side in Afghanistan in the '80s or ensuring the survival of the Soviet Union in the '40s.
Johnson was a warmonger, exaggerating (or possibly faking) the Gulf of Tonkin engagements to justify full escalation was a crime that led to the death of 60,000 Americans, hundreds of thousands more with PTSD, and 2 million+ murdered Vietnamese civilians. Not to mention hundreds of thousands of birth defects caused by agent orange and the still ongoing effort to clean up dioxins from the environment.
Telling 'we're the good guys' while regularly bombing entire villages into oblivion with napalm on some vague suspicions ('we heard some gunshot when flying around so we blasted them' scenarios). My Lai and many others.
If this is how US population views their past fuckups then no wonder we are where we are, objectivity ain't easy if one is on the wrong side, isn't it.
Supporting wrong side in Afghanistan? Against Soviet invasion? Sometimes, often even there are no good sides.
If you guys didn't support Soviet union in 40s (which they vehemently denied since then but its their inferiority complex, the issue with russian mentality since forever), there would be no massive eastern front with most german losses and wehrmacht spread out too thinly, and D day would be crushed like nothing. History would be very different in Europe and globally.
You can go even farther back in time. If the US hadn't massively relieved the famine in Russia in 1920/21 there might have been a chance, Lenin and the Bolshevik regime wouldn't have survived.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_famine_of_1921%E2%80%9...
This launch is a move towards lower cost and more frequent launches, that in the US are provided by SpaceX.
3D printing has been a game changer that basically allows you to crank out rocket engines from raw materials, which means that building new ones is cheap and easy. If you look at the Raptor 3 (3D printed), it looks super clean, thanks to the fact that they integrated most of the piping into the 3d printed body, but that means you can't really fix or inspect it.
Which is fine tbh. SpaceX (and Tesla) has been shown to be pragmatic not dogmatic when it comes to new technology. 'Elon time' might be a meme, but Musk both pushes his employees very hard, but probably not harder than possible - and he's willing to take flak for delaying projects, changing scope or outright cancellation.
That said I think this is awesome and hope the EU is able to make further advances. I have a very positive view of Musk, but the more competitors there are in space, the more likely we able to accelerate advances and efficiency in that domain. And I think everybody wins in that scenario.
In software, thanks mostly to the open-source movement, we all have access to the same materials and manufacturing processes.
In manufacturing, there are huge differences in materials and processes that we need to account for. On the flip side, this can allow one to leapfrog the other rather than replicating them - it’s likely the next reusable Falcon 9-class vehicle will use a methalox engine that’ll be easier to maintain compared to Flacon 9’s kerolox ones. China has demonstrated a novel approach to vehicle recovery as well (in addition to landing legs). Future competitors will have access to materials current incumbents didn’t have and can’t easily adopt with their current supply chain.
People also forget SpaceX subverted a lot of the expectations for reusable rockets - they didn’t use parachutes, but opted to carry extra propellant for landing; they didn’t eject the engines, opting instead to reuse the whole stage; and they built landing barges because their rockets would launch towards the ocean, saving fuel for a boost back to the launch site. They also tested capsule landing using the launch abort rockets, but opted for parachutes and splashdowns instead. Still they keep all the RCS motors in the capsule, making their expendable service module very inexpensive in comparison to Boeing’s.
All these decisions point to proven mission architectures so that followers don’t need to explore architectures that were explored and dropped.
Europe has already invested far more in rocket then SpaceX did and isn't close.
If your capital efficiency is far lower, it might not be inexpensive. If you can get the scale because you don't have payloads, its going to be more expensive.
There is a incredibly long road between 'rocket can land' and 'cheap and scalable launch'. A long road most people don't see because its not as flashy as landing.
Continental Europe? yes. The Russian's Plesetsk Cosmodrome is well within the boundaries of the European continent.
Continental Europe outside of Russian influence? no.
A real shame Britain abandoned their own research.
Regardless, a launch facility within Europe seems much less riskier long term from a geopolitical standpoint.
My opinion is that there is an implied reliance on the US "allowing" Europe to ship the rockets to Kourou and launch them there.
If our relations ever completely sour, the US might, for example, take over the shipping vessels going to Kourou, kinda like Europe takes over Russian shadow fleet vessels.
Now all of a sudden Europe has no means of launching rockets, except now it can launch to polar orbits. It might seem a stretch, but there is a non-zero chance that could happen, therefore it is better to have an alternative.
No, but it makes it vulnerable to the US.
The US can also decide to “free” and “bring democracy” to the French Guiana because the rich oil deposits of its continental shelf won’t free themselves.
The point is that a slow ship crossing the ocean with hard to replace is very vulnerable in transit.
Though not every sovereign state has an army, see Iceland, Costa Rica, theoretically Japan, etc.
"Don't say that he's hypocritical,
Say rather that he's apolitical.
'Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down?
That's not my department,' says Wernher von Braun."
Still, an interesting possibility of a fully civilian space program from the start & how it would look like & how it would be different.
Kinda like in Wings of Honneamise.
Not really in case of the USSR. German group in Russia was isolated and Korolev didn't like competition. Soviet space program started by replicating German rocket, but once all production chains were created, it was off on its own course.
I highly recommend English translation of memoirs of Boris Chertok[0] to anyone interested in the history of Soviet space program.
[0] https://www.nasa.gov/history/history-publications-and-resour...
Once the knowledge was "extracted" the Germans were allowed to return though (good thing Stalin was already dead at that time).
Former Junkers engineer Brunolf Baade then went on to build the first and only German jet airliner for East Germany - which then of course was cancelled as soon as it was ready to enter production: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baade_152).
Americans didn't trust either. But then Sputnik happened and Americans only had oopsnik[0], so they turned to neglected Redstone made by von Braun[1][2]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanguard_TV-3#Reaction
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explorer_1
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wernher_von_Braun#U.S._Army_ca...
When the US government funded SpaceX, it was motivated in no small degree by a desire to not be permanently reliant on a geopolitical wildcard (Russia) for getting astronauts into orbit. Now that the US itself has become a geopolitical wildcard, savvy countries know that they need to seek out alternatives to SpaceX under more stable regimes.
How is Russia a wildcard? What unexpected thing do you think Russia has done?
If Russia behaved rationally they would have made a deal with Ukraine (decades ago) that protected the rights of the Russian minorities in Ukraine and continued massively profiting from gas and oil exports into Europe.
Russia did, many times, last time in 2010.[0]
But the US and the EU didn't like it, so the coup in 2014 happened with American help[1] which overthrew democratically elected president of Ukraine who introduced the law protecting Russian speaking Ukrainian citizens.[2]
The law was repelled right after the coup and Crimeans supported the reunion with Russia.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia%E2%80%93Ukraine_gas_dis...
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26079957
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_policy_in_Ukraine#201...
Parliament votes 328-0 to impeach Yanukovych on Feb. 22; sets May 25 for new electionI think Trump definitely pushes allies away much faster than ever anticipated, that's probably the only achievement from the current administration.
The alliance still stands, but it's hard to trust the US when the current president is constantly praising violent dictators and doesn't seem to grasp the concept of laws/rules + tries to blame everyone else + threatens to invade EU countries + the requirement to bribe him with funds/crypto to have "alliance".
You can know a guy by the friends he keeps :)
Fyi. I used to always use US tech, the last year I've done my best to adhere to the "European Souvereign Cloud". My current stack on US providers is down from 300 € / month to 35€ / m. And many are following suite ( it's slowly becoming a requirement for tenders for the governement + cities)
I’d love to be able to go a day without having to see whatever the latest stupidity we’ll have to deal with the fallout from is, I really would.
Because you elected actors for president before. Because you had school shootings before. Because everything in the sky was always UFO to you, and everything on the ground either bigfoot or communists. Because you spread "democracy" that is shaped like bombs. Because you fund your own terrorists and drug cartels. Because you strong-arm world economies for non-reasons. Because you have nukes and eternal paranoia.
But yes, it did get much worse recently. Congratulations on noticing?
What specific event and year were IYO the onset of what you're claiming?
Now we have to pay attention because what you always where in part is in full control and it’s essentially impossible to ignore.
I long for the days when we can go back to the happy place of ignoring your government day to day until it’s time for another Middle East intervention.
Til then and for the avoidance of any doubt, I loathe Trump, I don’t like the people in his government, I don’t like the people who voted for him and the ones who didn’t vote and could have, the only people in America I have any sympathy for is the ones who voted for anyone but him/this shit show, the rest of you got what you deserved and will continue to do so.
So with that as your president if you still believe in American Exceptionalism you can shove it.
Hope that was clear enough.
Yes? You talk about us waaaaay more than we talk about you. And not just since Trump.
Is this the new cope?
The USA is a Goliath on the world stage. The deranged tweets of your president move global markets and the next time Israel manipulates him into starting another war it might not be Iran, it might be Denmark, or Canada.
People pay close attention to the US not because they want to buy because they basically have to.
In particular, I’m loving the obviously British comments (I deeply admire their ability to give the classiest insults).