Hacker News Reader

Comment by Kuinox | Hacker News Reader

I don't think Ariane have a "pretty good track record".

Most expensive bug of all time that crashed a whole rocket, because of outdated and wrong software engineering practice.

They dont innovate, looked down on SpaceX, they have bet against Falcon, and lost the bet.

Now they are betting against the Starship.

> Honestly, I don’t think Starship will be a game-changer or a real competitor

-- ESA chief 2024

https://spacenews.com/europe-aims-to-end-space-access-crisis...

Meanwhile EU members are now launching their public project with SpaceX instead of ESA:

https://www.space.com/space-exploration/spacex-rocket-next-g...

https://apnews.com/article/nasa-spacex-launch-astronauts-pri...

https://www.esa.int/Applications/Observing_the_Earth/IRIDE_p...

View on HN

If your metric of innovation is the amount of rockets exploded at debuts you shouldn't bring up SpaceX really.

The EU had committed to a number of deep space and scientific instrument programmes spanning decades and seen them through to success. It operates its own GNSS constellation. It is second only to NASA. Calling it a failure is ridiculous.

> It operates its own GNSS constellation.

Only 33 years later and mostly launched on Russian rockets, behind GLONASS and BeiDou.

> It is second only to NASA. Calling it a failure is ridiculous.

In what respect? Space? Certainly not, far behind the US and Russia and questionably competitive with China.

Economically? Behind US and China.

R&D? Behind US and China.

Manufacturing? Behind US and China.

You are refusing to recognise reality.

Russia had its last deep space mission (failed) in 1996. GLONASS did not operate until 2005.

Chinese contributions to scientific space missions had been very modest although am sure they may catch up later.

NASA has 3x the budget of ESA. The question was if the EU method of doing project works and it does in very unambiguous manner.

> GLONASS did not operate until 2005.

Five years before Galileo.

> The question was if the EU method of doing project works and it does in very unambiguous manner.

As the EU falls economically and scientifically behinds what used to be our peers, it's obvious that it _doesn't_ work. Refusing to recognise that reality is a spectacular example of the Ostrich effect,

It works as good as our energy policy.

Ah there are other well working policies in the EU like the migration of skilled workers.

All works well /S

It works great!

sadly the results are way behind it's peers, but method is great!

Yeah sure ESA lands a probe on bloody Titan while its peers crash land on the Moon but the results are "way behind". Delirious.

Are you talking about Huygens? That was launched on a Titan IV in 1997(!) and landed in 2005!

In 1997, the EU was a global economic and scientific powerhouse. We're talking about the ossification in the last 15-20 years that has not only allowed the US to leapfrog Europe as the largest economy, but China too.

You are bordering on delusional with these comments.

Was that literally you who complained that Galileo was too new? Is Huygens too old now? Well take your pick:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:European_Space_Agency...

I think it's clear you're commenting in bad faith now, as you aren't open to reasonable arguments. I'll leave you at it.

Sorry that you feel this way but saying that EU can't complete complex projects is not a reasonable argument.

too new? what?

It took too long. around 10-15 years too long.

and that probe is older than quite a big portion of HN users.

Not all satellite systems are equal:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-20/russia-s-...

>The US constellation isn’t as accurate as the newer networks, said Roberts, the Sydney-based professor. “It used to be GPS was out in front,” he said. Now, though, the EU’s Galileo is in the lead, with China’s BeiDou close behind, he said.

It's basically Galileo > BeiDou > GPS >>> GLONASS.

That would be expected for a system launched 33 years later, but in Galileo and GPS are identical for civilian use (and obviously no-one knows the military capabilities of Block III satellites as that's undisclosed).

GPS+Gailleo is the current SOTA, but it's nonsense to say Galileo is "best".

Galileo has signal authentication, GPS doesn't. In a world where GNSS spoofing is increasingly becoming a hazard to aviation and other applications, that's arguably critical.

Not for civilian use, no, although GPS does for military users.

Also, OSNMA is not SA yet.

And frankly accuracy does not matter.

for navigation using Code method GPS-tier is basically good enough.

for precise measurement you use phase measurement of the signal, and what you care about is good(low) DoP of constellation and amount of satellites within sight-line - not from which system they come(to oversimplfy it a bit)

I suspect the previous poster's metric of innovation was more along the lines of:

* developing the first meaningful fully-reusable first stage rocket, and continuing to develop it to the extent that no other launch systems are even in the same ballpark as regards cost, cadence, or mass to orbit

* developing, and continuing to develop, the only full-flow staged combustion rocket engine

* developing, and continuing to develop, a novel, completely-reusable, next-generation very-heavy-lift platform, before any of the competition have even caught with their previous generation

* (to your snarky point about explosions) demonstrating that moving fast, evolving designs quickly, and not being afraid to (be seen to) fail (in the short term, in the court of public opinion, etc.) in the pursuit of success is much better than the traditional conservative approach (e.g. NASA, Blue Origin, etc.)

I'm well aware that giving credit to anything related to Musk is increasingly difficult for some people at the moment, but let's give credit where it's due to SpaceX and its engineers.

The snarky point of explosions wasn't mine, the poster I replied to brought it up.

The rest of your points is really one item, launch vehicles. It's where the USA clearly has the lead (above everyone else, not just ESA in particular). The question was whether the EU can successfully manage complex projects and it clearly can, suggesting otherwise is delirious.

I'm not following you.

The previous poster was basically supportive of SpaceX, talked about innovation, and didn't mention explosions at all. You wrote "If your metric of innovation is the amount of rockets exploded at debuts you shouldn't bring up SpaceX really." I interpreted this as a snarky reference to the fact the lots of SpaceX rockets have blown up - mostly due to their different approach to development.

The comment implying that SpaceX isn't innovative is what I was replying to - that looking at the work that SpaceX does (and not the whole pantheon of other space-related work it's not involved in) it's demonstrably innovative in a way that ESA just isn't (e.g. with Ariane).

The poster I replied to brought up Ariane 5 crash as the example of ESA dysfunction while being very positive about SpaceX. SpaceX had lost plenty launch vehicles both in testing and with live payloads, just ask Zuckerberg. I pointed out the contradiction there.

> developing the first meaningful fully-reusable first stage rocket, and continuing to develop it to the extent that no other launch systems are even in the same ballpark as regards cost, cadence, or mass to orbit.

The space shuttle solid boosters were reusable, the only part of the space shuttle program that wasn't, was the big orange tank.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Solid_Rocket_B...

Eh, I knew someone was going to nit-pick this point, which was why I wrote "first meaningful fully-reusable first stage rocket" but obviously this wasn't enough. :)

I too, was certain there would be a "he said meaningful" follow up. ;)

> It operates its own GNSS constellation.

Galileo did not start as an EU programme. China used to be member!

What other EU programmes did you have in mind? The EU's efforts not even seem comparable to the European Space Agency (which is not part of the EU) let alone NASA.

Ariane 5 exploded with 4 satellites because they copy pasted code of the Ariane 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_flight_V88

It's the most expensive bug in history. On the other hand, you are bringing up explosions of empty rockets that are launched as test, that's bad faith.

Look at the launch history and the Falcon 9 is simply more reliable than the Ariane 5:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_9#Launch_outcomes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_5#Launch_statistics

I did not said it was a failure, I said, they do not have a "pretty good track record". ESA burn through EU money, and wont care to innovate as long as EU provide them unlimited money and dont pressure them. It's an ivory tower.

> most expensive bug of all time that crashed a whole rocket

being valued at $ 370 million in 1996 that bug was recently dwarved by crowd strikes multi-billion-dollar disaster in 2024

Reply on news.ycombinator.com