Ariane complains about SpaceX democratising space travel
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Ariane chief seems frustrated with SpaceX for driving down launc..
Basically, the French rocket company who are subsidised heavily by the government are complaining about SpaceX for creating reusable rockets and making the whole thing cheaper, arguing that this will put them out of business. Honestly, it's really pathetic and the obvious solution appears to be attempting to make a reusable launcher themselves, but their next launcher that's currently in development, Ariane 6, a launcher still in development, is still 25% more expensive.
"Stop doing it better than us" Basically.
Boo fucking Hoo. Make your shit better. This goes for all launchers.
A government business not be able to be flexible and not survive without government handouts? Shocking.
I understand Arianespace have to fight their corner but they need to offer up better solutions than trying to guilt trip European customers and lie about SpaceX being subsidised.
They argue they couldn't make a reusable rocket because it could only be used 10 times a year and they'd have factory workers sitting around with thumbs up butts doing nothing.
If you make a cheaper launch system than SpaceX, you too can profit off high flight rates and reusable hardware by winning more contracts. If they'd done better work reducing the cost of their systems then they would be in less trouble now. Instead they've sat still and watched Falcon 9 devour the Ariane 5's market complaining about subsidies the whole way from F9 v1.0 through to the F9 Block 5.
Commercial Customers get a better price because they can cast the net worldwide for the best deal. This means SpaceX can charge a lower price than for the USG/NASA because with those launches they only have to compete with (right now) Orbital ATK and ULA, both of whom aren't as cheap as a Proton or even an Ariane 5.
It ain't exactly rocket science
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