It is difficult to see Airbus and some of the other large, institutional space companies in Europe banding together and becoming nimble and more efficient operators in spaceflight. That would require enormous changes in companies that have decades of ossified culture, with layers of management that are difficult to cut through.
On the one hand, it’s euro-ULA. On the other hand, I’m not sure there’s an obvious alternative.
Why not invest in a bunch of the smaller companies like Rocket Factory Ausburg, PLD Space, MaiaSpace, HyImpulse, etc? They won’t all be successful, but if just a couple of them are, the competition would put Europe in a much stronger position than if they were to establish Euro-ULA.
I’m not sure we can afford an “either or” strategy.
We should be doing that, we should be doing euro-ULA, and we should be massively expanding (access to) launch infrastructure. There’s only so much you can do when your ranges are literally on the other side of the planet.
There’s only so much you can do when your ranges are literally on the other side of the planet.
Is suppose French Guiana is a bit far, but Andøya, Esrange, and Saxavord all have plans for orbital launches, don’t they?