Recent comments in /f/space

CurtisLeow t1_jdj6s8t wrote

Reply to comment by HolyGig in Advisory group backs European human spaceflight program using commercial approaches by Zhukov-74

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.

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Raging_Skywalker t1_jdj0y9i wrote

Reply to comment by Anonymous-USA in So from what I understand Sagittarius a is in the Center of Milky Way. If any planets orbit this black hole would there be time dilation? by EarthInteresting9781

So on intergalactic level it would be a strategic time-advance to be as isolated from gravity sources as possible, right? For example a perhabs planet-sized ship with a highly advanced species leaving its galaxy-cluster to avoid encounters with other species

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HolyGig t1_jdizof7 wrote

Reply to Advisory group backs European human spaceflight program using commercial approaches by Zhukov-74

>“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.

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space-ModTeam t1_jdiziqy wrote

Reply to What is the Light next to the Moon by InterestedBystanderV

Hello u/InterestedBystanderV, your submission "What is the Light next to the Moon" has been removed from r/space because:

  • Such questions should be asked in the "All space questions" thread stickied at the top of the sub.

Please read the rules in the sidebar and check r/space for duplicate submissions before posting. If you have any questions about this removal please message the r/space moderators. Thank you.

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