Those 40% can only be substained with the additional budget and does not include the actual cost of construction.

So really that 40% even outside of development cost isnt substainable.

> Prior to SpaceX disrupting the market by surprisingly making what was widely regarded as a bad idea actually work, this was the way to go

Well the whole point of the Arine 6 was to compete with SpaceX. Ariane 6 would never have been approved if not for the pressure of SpaceX.

This target price the targed barly even competed with non reusable SpaceX. And SpaceX was already deep in development of reuse tech whem Ariane 6 was approved.

> if a government backed effort went with a very costly high-risk/high-return project.

Instead they went with a very costly low return project.