We could maximise economies of scale by having one car manufacturer that made a small number of models. No one would suggest that is a good idea.
Even the Soviet Union did not go to the extreme of having only one design for every possible product.
> We have more than one design if one proves flawed.
One of the parties ends up with the right the design, the other will have a flawed design.
Verification and ability to verify comes with having some leverage. This brings some leverage to the table.
SpaceX has multiple designs generations ahead of anything in Europe in this category. (China is catching up, but it too is retracing Hawthorne's path.)
Themis is cool. But it's duplicating what SpaceX did fifteen to twenty years ago and what China has been working on for ten. Methalox, open cycle gas generator, steel tanks...there aren't any daring design decisions here. And there shouldn't be. This is a solved problem. (Again, that doesn't mean Europe shouldn't be solving it independently. But it's not innovating anything here.)
Consider an alternate universe where NATO isn't in shambles. Europe can use SpaceX for LEO. And in the meantime, it can focus on other designs, other categories. Maybe a different fuel. Maybe a novel engine. Maybe something entirely extra-atmospheric. Maybe it's a breakthrough in satellite design, or habitat science. Instead of replicating Falcon 1/9 and Raptor, there could be a genuinely new design.
We don't get that, because Europe has to secure its launch sovereignty. That is the cost.
> We could maximise economies of scale by having one car manufacturer that made a small number of models
Mature market. Multiple optima. See my comment on Airbus and Boeing. When you're pathfinding, you want multiple bets. When you're pursuing, R&D benefits from scale.
Sabre seemed a really interesting space approach that failed from lack of funding.
It’s because the EU is 27 different countries with different regulations while the US is 1. Some work is being done to fix this but remains to be seen if we can reach a point where we have unified capital markets instead of national ones.
The point of the EU is to provide unified markets, and capital flows pretty freely between major European economies (including those outside the EU) so I do not think that is it.
https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-france-europe-fighte...
I was rebutting a claim that differences in regulations preventing capital flows. That is not true in general in our globalised world (capital clearly flows freely between many countries) and certainly not true in the EU.
It is possible that the EU loses somewhat from not having the central budget that the US federal government has which which to back big projects, but, in most cases, the bigger EU states are big enough to back most things (as is the UK) but will not do so. The lack of fiscal centralisation in the EU also affects its financial stability but I do not think that is directly related to this problem.
As for sixth general fighters, a number of smaller economies than Germany alone have or plan their own sixth generation fighters, or have done so (some programmes have merged). Again, a difference in attitude and priorities.
Sabre was always a dead end.
And where did that initial money come from? Musks sale of PayPal shares, which he got when PayPal acquired his payments company... Would that have happened if he'd started his payments company in Europe? Would Compaq or an equivalent have been interested in paying for zip2, which provided the initial money to found x.com if he'd built zip2 in Europe?
Musk deliberately and intentionally moved to silicon valley, and I think a big part of the reason was almost certainly that the US is more prepared to invest money in these kinds of ventures.