Is Europe falling behind in the Space Race? | DW News
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- Опубликовано: 1 фев 2025
- Is Europe lagging behind in the global space industry? The rapid advancements by private US companies such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX highlight the need for Europe to up its game in the space economy.
Deutsche Welle’s Editor-in-Chief Manuela Kasper-Claridge speaks to Joseph Aschbacher, Director General of the European Space Agency (ESA), about the opportunities and challenges facing Europe in space business.
#europeanspaceagency #space #musk
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"Is Europe failing behind in the Space Race?" Disappointingly, it would appear Europe has decided not to enter the race.
Falling behind? When was Europe ever ahead ?
I agree and they are only hurting themselves believing they were ever traliing the U.S.
I don't think it was ever 'ahead' but it had a competitive industry that could have led somewhere. The aircraft industry in Europe back n the 50s was excellent and the later Ariane rocket (I think that's the spelling) was pretty good. I think, however, that SpaceX has changed the game in rockets and it's hard to see how the ESA will be able to compete.
Maybe best to leave the high-tech stuff to the Americans?
Airbus...
@@alexverdigris9939 That's a good call. Not strictly space but related.
In 19th century
Europe is falling behind in every field except regulation and bureaucracy.
They boast abut being a 'regulatory superpower'. That's the highest achievement for a bureaucracy, I suppose.
They're very good at diesel engines, mind!
Airbus?
This isn’t true, they have socialised healthcare and education, which makes them far ahead of us by default. I’d rather that than growth for growths’ sake
@@smallpeople172 It depends. Over the the past 15 years US gdp per capita has risen by nearly 30% more in PPI terms (far more in dollar terms). Eventually that sort of differential starts to tell
Mario Draghi did a report for the EU where he claimed that if the trend continues, Europe will suffer the 'slow agony of economic decline'.
Cuba has socialised healthcare and education!
Regulation is not bad if done well. In fact it can push innovation.
The EU's biggest problems are three:
1) Not enough funding in R&D, especially in key fields that will define the next century(aerospace, bionics, gene therapy, epigenetic cures, regenerative medicine, aging cures, AI, additive manufacturing, nuclear energy and quantum computing,)
2) It's complacent and thus slow in adopting new technology.
3) Though its end user regulations are really good it has too much red tape limiting R&D, ESPECIALLY medical research, the one field the EU cannot afford to not be a world leader as the transhumanist technological revolution RAPIDLY approaches. (bionics, aging cures, epigenetic medicine, gene therapy and augmetnation technologies)
We are not even participating, not 6 months ago the head of Arianne space said that rocket reuseability is a pipe dream and could never work in the long term, the fact that it was said in 2024 when SpaceX used only 6 different boosters to launch over 120 times is pathetic!!! As a european i am disgusted and saddened by the lack of progress and vision by ESA and the european rocket manufacturers. Arianne 6 is our newest rocket and it is NOT reuseable, it does not count if you trow away more than 80% of your rocket!!!
That was not 6 months but many many years ago. Six months ago the head of ArianeGroup said this:
“We’re not quite playing in the same league [as SpaceX],” Sion said. “Given the number of launches that SpaceX does, there was an economic equation which made reuse extremely favourable. Whereas when the Ariane 6 program was launched with an objective of four institutional launches and five commercial launches, reuse was not economically interesting.”
I came here for European cope. I was not disappointed.
Not coping just being sad😢 thank god for companies like SpaceX and Rocketlab i just hope that european developers get their act together!!!
How's the price of eggs doing?
@ 🍿
His top priority should be to build a reusable space launch infrastructure similar to or better than SpaceX. Or robotic space stations. This is the only way to stay relevant long term without sliding into irrelevance, as is tradition in Europe by now.
Ariane 6 is not a competitive rocket at this point. It's too expensive. So ESA has two choices: accept astronomically high launching cost for its satellites and limit the amount of launches to the bare minimum or use more competitive launch platforms provided by companies outside the EU. A mix of those would be the political solution (i.e. a compromise) but also needlessly expensive.
As for latency. The disadvantage of geo stationary satellites vs LEO satellites like SpaceX is using for Star Link is being dismissed very casually. There are two problems with geo stationary satellites:
1) the latency is quite high because of physics. They are 35K km up and the speed of light is about 10x that per second. And you need to go up and down. And it's not straight up and down. So minimum, you lose about 300-400ms. SpaceX is at 550 km. So their round trip latency is only a few tens of ms. Close to half a second delay would be really noticeable on a videocall, online gaming, etc,.
2) the radio signal has to be stronger to reach the satellite, it will need more energy, and you need bigger radios on the ground and in the satellite. So, the satellite is going to be much bigger and heavier. And there are probably going to be a lot less of them. So they become a bit of a bottleneck for scaling. Operating at the scale that SpaceX is operating already is going to be hard and costly. And forget about smart phones connecting directly to these things like SpaceX is planning.
So, whatever ESA is planning there is not going to be competing directly with SpaceX. If Europe wants its own LEO communication network, it's going to need a launch platform that is a lot cheaper to operate than Ariane 6.
esa to do list: 🇪🇺
1. Space exploration (e.g., Mars missions).
2. Earth observation (Copernicus).
3. Space science (astrophysics research).
4. Satellite navigation (Galileo).
5. Sustainable space operations (debris management, reusability).
I am glad they are opening their eyes. Rocket reusability is the way to go. They better get on with in. Arianne-6 rocket will is soon become obsolete like SLS because being grossly uncompetitive.
Europe has never been ahead, unless you count the Soviet Union in Europe.
Europeans hate both USSR and Russia, so yeah Europe is a continent without Russia or USSR.
I don't want to mention the V2 rocket but... 🤭
Europe created everything almost. They can just chill now.
@@Lawrence4000-s3k Well, it's not really necessary. There's a whole bunch of key technologies (sensors, semiconductor manufacturing, biotech of various forms etc.) Europe is unambiguously world-leading in (or even has a global quasi-monopoly on) today. Whether or not it's prudent to point this out, is a different matter though...
@@yurona5155 There's not enough of these technologies, though. There's the university research sector but that's not on a commercial level. Does Europe have any semi-conductor fab companies or AI research companies of the scale in the US?
In the consumer space I'm struggling to think of much that's European? ASML is strategically important but anything else? (and it's worth less than 10% of Nvidia!).
It's worth reading the Draghi report about this. He talk abouts the 'slow agony of decline' if Europe doesn't try and compete in the technology sector. I fear the report will be ignored and Europe will become the museum he warns about.
How can the ESA catch up if the EU put regulations on any new idea?
Bingo. I was talking to a French American about this the other day. He didn’t get it.
@@SeeLasSeelol, of course he didn't.
They will due to Musk. When Starlink has such a huge lead, EU and other nations, including China, have to totally change how they operate.
@@archigoel lmao Starlink, I'm not letting an oligarch take control of my internet connection
Airbus vs. Boeing.
9:55
Its Blue Origin not Bule sky grandma
No wonder EU is behind in space. Don't even know the name for the organization they want to partner 😑
Oops! haha
ISRO is way ahead of ESA
No one asks you saar.
No its not
@@ITz__pratap7 u r using hindu surname saar , don't use
@@vikaskasaudhan900 i am a proud Indian and a proud Hindu brother.
Europe will really need to step up it's space game if it wants to compete on global scale
9:55 "partnering with Bluesky, for example"??? ....excuse me, you mean Blue origin! Bluesky is a social media app -.-
😂Europe should think about catching up to India, before dreaming of Space X.
NASA specifically, without NASA spacex is just a shell company.
@@salepass1575NASA...another example of wasteful bureaucracy.
@mrtee3477 i agree the bureaucracy can be wasteful. It means SpaceX even more pointless. Basically it leeches tax payers dollars from NASA.
@@salepass1575 NASA aids SpaceX a lot, but on the other hand SpaceX made over $8bln in commercial market last year, that's more than ESA budget same year. Main earner was Starlink, and I'm not sure where this revenue stream could cap at. It's been growing extremely fast over past few years at least. It seems very likely that SpaceX revenue from private market will surpass NASA budget before the end of this decade. That is very hard to replicate in Europe, but at least there's Themis demonstrator starting testing this year. At least something is happening.
Space x only good in making rockets 😂..
Europe : We are going to steal the... MOON.
As of January 2025 there is only one reusable rocket in service. The Falcon 9 (falcon heavy). New Glenn couldn't land, Starship is coming along nicely and electron is a small launcher of the type being developed in Europe as we speak. It will take time but people here are speaking like this very young sector is already doomed here, when there is actually a boom. Companies like Isar Aerospace, PLD Space, RFA and others are closing up on new platforms. The next 5 years will be fascinating.
If you read Liftoff and Reentry by Eric Berger you'll learn the crazy amount work to accomplish what they did at SpaceX. 80 plus hour weeks. It's a cultural difference. Elon is right that the pace of innovation is the most important.
If you like what you are doing, you won't have to work ever again. And those guys sure liked it.
Microseconds? 😂 More like hundreds of milliseconds. The added latency due to the 70000km roundtrip makes geostationary infeasible even for light applications. I would not even want to browse the web with that.
0.12 seconds each way.
Yes, and on top the processing latency as one geosat will service a lot more customers relative to an approach that requires thousands of LEO for coverage anyway…
No doubt of that. I am afraid.
9:41 NETWORK that is the key word. Puting satelite in GEO mean less space for other aplication like wether satelite where is mor important the local wether than global wether. Comunication must be global so you cant put satelite on GEO of USA because they already have that spot full(i dont know if is any legislation about GEO spot). I know you can use less satelite but GEO is like VIP spot, having less satelite mean les redundancy, having less satelite mean less person can be conected at time. and of course from 40ms to 500ms wich is a lot whe comunicate on live call, maybe for send whatapp no but in live is a lot 500ms. also GEO limit us to latitude so if you are higher than let say 45ºN or S you cant comunicate. In Leo they make nest so they link with each other and solve this issues: more simultanous conection, global or at least higher altitude coverage, lower latency, more redundancy if one satelite fail.
Europe not even in the race
Arianne 5 is old trash expensive
Europe has fallen behind in every aspect, even fashion and luxury goods.
German cars are still better than the absolute rubbish America makes
@Greycloud-m6bthey are lacking on tech a lot
I hoped to hear about his plan for developing a reusable heavy lift vehicle, on an aggressive and demanding schedule. I hoped to hear a sense of urgency in his voice. Very disappointing.
It always the same issue with us Europeans… we don’t how to calibrate quality properly for a market… it s nice to have the best absolute quality but if don’t make money out of it and provide its benefit to others who are building lower quality but profitable products we will end bankrupt… we need to find a better to still push our values of absolute quality and climate change awareness while also acknowledging that currently most of the world doesn’t share these and abuse it and ultimately we won’t be there push our values at all anymore…
US is even investing on earth defense against asteroids. The DART mission. Europe is always seeing USA as competition.
EU needs too step up ! 🇪🇺🫡
Europe is way ahead for electric rockets in 2030.
In effect, Europe has invested billions in green and little in launchers. Both USA and China are building space stations whilst we pay for it.
7billion Euros damn way bigger budget then other agencies which r achieving better success.
How can you be behind in the race if you aren't even in it?
yes, the answer is yes
There's a race? if so, Europe hasn't even bought the shoes yet and is googling what running is.
The EU must pick up the pace. From what I know there's a current push in germany to develop a rapidly reusable linear aerospike SSTO spaceplane. This MUST be pushed forward as it puts us ahead of the rest of the competition as it would open the door to rapid orbital constrution.
The oone field the EU absolutely CANNOT afford to not only be left behind, but cannot afford to not have a leadership position, and I cannot stress this enough, is the next generation of medicine. We're nearing a technological revolution in bionics (also known as cybernetics), regenerative medicine, gene therapy, aging cures and epigenetic treatments.
Our public healthcare and education systems are our greatest assets in retaining stability and a decent living standard.
If these technologies are invented abroad and we're forced to import will spell the end of our healthcare systems as the economic strain breaks them, same if the people have to go abroad to access such services.
In contrast if we're first at the finish line we will save more than half of the cost of our current healthcare budget while having superior living standards, extended lifespans and better health while the export of such technology creates an economic feedback loop that will strengthen the EU beyond any other industry could.
And that's before we factor in the "byproducts" such as cosmetics, augmentation and quality of life advancements and the market that would open there.
This would end up funding the EU to teh point where any technological megaproject can be funded.
This is why we should pursue such technologies as if they're our Appollo program.
Reusable spaceplane like the X-37B?
@@JohnyRodriguez-n3p No, something a lot closer to the venture star.
If I remember the name correctly the firm is called polaris and they got a grant from the german government and are doing early scaled tests
COPE COPE COPE COPE 🗣️
Italy needs it now, at 1.5 bils usd not 10 plus bils in 10 or more years from now or never.
You cannot develop your ideas if you have so much regulations
No Deep Space Bonds ????????
🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
LET'S GOOOO EUROPE
Because it’s boring and no one cares
Imaging the GPS system gets cut off, it's not just exploring planets and stars
Ignorance is bliss I suppose.
Imagine having too use satellites from other superpowers cause you have to and can be cut off if they want
1:00 Hahaha lider in Earth observation. So what is the return on that? We are behind on important sector like launch sistem and Sapce comunication. So we cant build hotel LEO for tourism or investigation because we don have launcher, we cant build laboratory on the moon or hotel for tourism, because we dont have launcher. Asteroid mining, we can do it because we dont have launcher. Even we dont have JWST or similar because we dont have launcher and actual launcher easy to expensive to make that happen.
Definitly ESA need more budget to bring entrepeneur at the field otherwise they dont risk money in this new fever gold space. als aeroponic in LEO, or any industrial in Mars close to the asteroid belt fo easy raw minerals and assembly it on Mars. and sell it on Earth. (is more easylaunch things from Mars doue to is low gravity and lower friction of his 1% atmosphere and also more close to the belts.
That was a politician talking.
Don't be ridiculous. Today you should be talking about space tourism and space production and not about seconds.
What guy talks about are not real space projects. These are engineering projects.
Europe are world leaders in hand wringing and bureaucracy...
Why is the interviewer so rude? It costs nothing to be nicer
Being nice is easier if you can speak the language in which the interview is conducted.
The world leading space agency on his mind 😅
Europe has Russia.
The latency difference between GEO and LEO satellites he's talkingabout is roughly 1/4 seconds I think. The talk of micro- and nanoseconds feels bit off
You mean milliseconds? It's reasonable to use milliseconds (which he was using) to compare LEO to Geosynchronous orbits, it's like 100ms vs. maybe 1000ms (aka 1 second).
@@Djamonja Oh right, he at one point did say "what difference does few milliseconds make" but then he mentioned nanoseconds again in the same sentence.
@ Yea, he shouldn't have mentioned the nanoseconds for this sort of thing.
SEND MUSK TO MARS ALREADY
They have 7 billions a year?
i love the eu a lot, but lets be honest, things rn are bad, we need to wake up!
come on! love from spain God bless eu, germany ukraine and spain! ❤❤
Europe was never in the space race 😂. Europe is busy creating policies
Why not just partner with SpaceX lol
Because of the instability in the US. We can not count on US as an ally anymore.
USA ПРИ ОЛИМПИАДИТЕ
НЕ СТОИ ТАКА
ПРИ ЕU ИМА РАБОТНА КАРТА
ГЛОБАЛНО
Europe should make its own defense, its time to creat our own satelites and kick out Starlink from our skies
It’s not gonna happen
Europe need to import smart educated immigrants like the Indian hindus or even the Filipinos
It will take decades, a space x raptor 3 engine takes a day to build most rocket engines take months if not years to build
The EU can’t have it both ways , you wanna control everything including free
Speech and the Cry when your state controlled policy don’t get funded by private capital
Leave space to the powerful and ambitious. Don't force Europeans to do something they have never been good at.
good luck yuropoors
Europe has always been riding on the coattails of the USA....they have done nothing great since the colonization business stopped...😂😂
Well ...if you consider that in 1969 when US was landing humans on the moon and Europe had NOTHING!!! in space...it has come a long way....even Ariane 5 was very competitive....I mean COMPETITIVE!!! in the commercial launching market....until SpaceX came into the industry....Europe is not competing with US but SpaceX...but guess what/ SpaceX is failing with Starship....BO just in one launch put New Glenn in orbit (vs 7 launches of SpaceX) ....US and/or SpaceX are not unbeatable......
They don t need to do anything. They created everything they are living the life now lol
@@javierderivero9299 So go and beat it. We're watching ! 😂
@@tocu9808 What???...I guess you don't undesrtand...this is between Europe space program and US ...Not because I criticize Trump....I want to become president of the US...is called freedom of expression first amendment in the US..HELLO!!!
😂😂😂
We need more regulations!
Europe is a thing from the past.
How do you fall behind, when you have never been in the race?
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣😮😮😮😮
I rather have healthcare, jobs, and clean water.
Your healthcare and clean water are paid in part by the revenue generated by the ESA, which also happens to be one of the largest employers of cutting edge European engineering talent.
Sitting around and watching grass grow won't pay for any of the things you seem to want.
If EU doesn't innovate from space travel the Union will become 3rd world and all those precious things you mentioned will disappear.
Ever wonder how you can get accessed to those things?
@@isuzu343 The ESA doesn’t "generate revenue" to fund healthcare or clean water-those are paid by taxes, including the ones funding the ESA itself. So, no, the ESA isn’t magically paying for your public services; taxpayers are. Maybe brush up on how public budgets work before making snide remarks about grass growing.
Tofu less
US is a lot of hype. ESA has the knowledge and new rockets so start to make an industry of it.
@@nilswedin8480 hype? Dude no one else has reusable rockets and in the process of building a moon base (Artemis program)
@@nilswedin8480 US is probably 30 years ahead.
Whatever makes Europeans sleep better
@@-Nobody-1 No they are not. Look at China they are soon on par with US. And that from much lower start than ESA.
@ china doesnt have the launch rate and capacity the US does. US is multiple times more capable than Chinese.
Give me a billion dollars and I'd be already on Mars. Come on with the graft
There's no "race". Space is not an obligation.
Ah but it is.
Imagine the GPS system gets cut off, and EU can't shoot any satellites to the orbit
Bruh Europe is nothing, Moscow is much more richer and advanced than any European city
Hahahaha hahahaha Russia's a 3rd world nation with nukes....
Sure, sure Mr. Gopnik 😂😂😂
I am not a fan of the way the EU does pretty much anything, but even they are ahead of Russia lol
Haha good one
European lives longer than american. That s what you need to know :D
you are far more behind