European Space Director Copes Hard with SpaceX Starship Sour Grapes

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Sour Grapes is when you disparage something that has proven unattainable. Coping is a slang that refers to a mechanism or a self-delusion that an individual clings to in order deal with a situation.

European Space Agency Director of Space Transportation Toni Tolker-Nielsen says he does not think Starship will be a game-changer or a real competitor. This huge launcher is designed to fly people to the moon and Mars. We made the choice of not being reusable with Ariane 6. Our launch needs are so low that it wouldn’t make sense economically. So, we don’t really need it at this point.

The inaugural Ariane 6 flight is expected on 9 July 2024. It is a Falcon 9 class rocket but without any reusability.

SpaceX initial plans are for 44 Starship-Super Heavy launches per year through NASA Launch Complex 39A.

SpaceX should be able to recover the Super Heavy Booster starting at the end of July and make full recovery of the upper stage for rapidly reusability of the entire rocket. This will enable 100 times more launches with ten times the payload of Falcon 9. In 2-3 years SpaceX will have one thousand times the launch capacity and will bring down the price of launch by ten to one hundred times.

Ariane is not the only company coping and fearing the gamechanging SpaceX Starship. Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon and the rocket company Blue Origin, has filed a request to the FAA to limit the number of SpaceX Starship Launches. Blue Origin has never put any payload into orbit. They have only had suborbital flights. Although they have made the BE4 rocket engine and it was used by the ULA Vulcan rocket to go to orbit.

The European Space Agency has a made a tiny test vehicle to explore reusability. This is over ten years after SpaceX has been recovering and reusing the first stage boosters of the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy.

20 thoughts on “European Space Director Copes Hard with SpaceX Starship Sour Grapes”

  1. That’s sad. Not much of an example to future generations. If you’re not willing to put in the effort, don’t expect anything in return.

  2. His logic is hard to fathom. If you are building uncompetitive rockets because you want to keep the EU rocket industry in the game, fine, just say so. But people looking for a launch provider for their payloads are not going to pay higher prices for a EU rocket unless they are forced to, which I wouldn’t put past EU legislators. Its cheaper than subsidizing the difference for every launch.

    • As someone who is from an ESA member state I completely agree with you. And in fact why does any space agency need to build its own rockets, they outsource other stuff, such as satellite construction.

  3. To avoid the appearance of hypocrisy, Blue Origin has self-limited its Canaveral launch rate to zero.

  4. ESA is like NASA. They will simply stop making rockets and using SpaceX to launch payloads… and when they see the costs, they will start increasing their projects.

    I bet while the ESA rocket division is threatened by SpaceX, there are several divisions dreaming of launching their own huge space telescopes, space stations missions to this and that planet… all would be cheaper, faster and more possible with Starship available.

  5. Blue Origin says rocket too big and noisy and might make bad fumes. Apparently, Blue Origin is no longer pretending that they will ever build a large highly-reusable rocket, since the same objections would apply to them if they did. They even use the same fuel, at least for their previously-planned first stage.

  7. Wow, clueless…
    Elon looks a little plump lately…but I guess he’ll have to eat Europe’s dinner as well.

  8. “That company that has much lower prices than us isn’t really a competitor to us. Because we don’t have enough scale to reduce our own costs.”

    Nice logic.

    • From the look of Musk recently I would suggest that unless he sorts his health out he won’t be around for his grandiose schemes with his bloated rocket which most likely take out his launch platform soon….

  9. ESA will simply disappear, Ariane 6 will be their last rocket. There are a lot of private rocket companies emerging in Europe, developing reusable rockets way before the arrival of the so called Ariane Next.

    • ESA missions doesn’t stop at launchers and Ariane 6, very fortunately, they also manage very successful programs on Earth Observation, Science missions and PNT, so they will not “disappear” because the industrial program of A6 is not on track.

        • Not really. ESA is not a launch company, they are a public organisation directed by the governments to use an external goverment owned launch provider, doing so as a client. Besides, they organise the space R&D in Europe, etc. They might use SX as well, if they are allowed. Please do some effort to learn about the organisation you are commenting on.

    • ESA is a public intergovermental organisation, their mission is to develop the industry and enable science on behalf of governments, not to make money like a private company. They will do what they do and spend the money they are given for as long as they are directed to do so. They may be reduced or taken over only after the EU is eventually directed to take over the European public space spending.

  10. The European space agency made the decision not to do reusability because they are government parasites living off of the tax payers. This why they justify having a space program without viewing space as an actual frontier that people will eventually migrate to.

    Blue Origin is simply not competitive and is trying to play dirty pool to stay within the game.

    • ESA employees are international civil servants, and are not depending on a particular government, so nice trolling, but you should probably read a bit more about the topics you want to troll on.

  11. Horse owners not worried these new fangled cars will be disruptive.

    Or, “as long as we continue launching a handful of satellites per year and get paid, we’re happy, preferably the later”.

    And they are enlisting the help of their legislator buddies to make that true in the EU.

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