Why European Astronauts Have To Hitch A Ride to Space
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- čas přidán 20. 02. 2022
- In the last week the Director of ESA has called for Europe to stop mucking around and actually develop a human spaceflight capability, my words not his. Europe has one of the best funded space programs in the world and yet decades on from flying its first astronaut ESA has yet to develop a way to launch crew without relying on the USA or Russia.
But in the 1980's they spent a lot of money and time trying to develop a small spaceplane named Hermes, which ultimately failed after the International space station removed any need for independent access to space.
A great deal of the Hermes imagery is from this site:
www.capcomespace.net/dossiers/...
The Kerbal Hermes spacecraft is part of the KNES mod
spacedock.info/mod/1470/Knes
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It should be noted that in December 2013, the German Aerospace Center (DLR) announced a funded study to investigate ways in which Europe might take advantage of the Dream Chaser crewed spaceplane technology. Named the DC4EU (Dream Chaser for European Utilization), the project studied using it for sending crews and cargo to the ISS and on missions not involving the ISS, particularly in orbits of substantially greater altitude than the ISS can reach. In January 2014, the ESA agreed to be a partner on the DC4EU project, and investigate whether the Dream Chaser can use ESA avionics and docking mechanisms. ESA also studied launching options for the "Europeanized" Dream Chaser, particularly whether it can be launched from the Guiana Space Centre, within the Ariane 5's large aerodynamic cargo fairing - or, like the Atlas V, without it. The study ultimately settled on a capsule design, using a service module like the one developed for the ATV cargo spacecraft.
I have a soft spot for Hermes when I saw it as a kid in the French Science Museum in 1989 and telling my Dad this thing will fly on Ariane 5 in 1995. He chuckled. Smart fella
The CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut that is due to fly on Artemis 2 is from an agreement between CSA and NASA, not to do with ESA. CSA is building a robot arm for the Lunar Gateway (they built the Shuttle and ISS arms), and get a number of flight slots in exchange.
And Canada is a Cooperating State of the ESA, not a member. It can bid on ESA contracts but there is no astronaut agreement.
Is that better than Australia entering Eurovision?
ESA is building vastly more for Gateway and Artemis and is not getting any seats on actual Artemis flights around or down to the surface of the Moon, although it builts the service module for Orion. A few stays on Gateway, yes, but only one more than the Canadians, I think. Either CSA is vastly better in negotiating, or ESA's current leadership is happy in paying for Nasa's space dreams while getting a very raw deal.
@@TrainDriver186 or israel
@@RaimoKangasniemi lol, your assuming ESA getting their astronauts is their main goal. Like NASA that’s matters in some ways but not really for their primary goals. Which are is more knowledge based. Also single countries have more of a vested interest and thus are willing to leverage more to get “their” people in space compared to bodies like ESA. Being able to design build space craft along with having real access to data is what matters the most. If you can do that which ESA (and some of its members counties can) adding astronauts is just more of a $$$ and scaling issue then any real technical problem.
When I was working on components for Ariane 4 and 5, and discussed Hermes with my European coworkers (I'm American), they chided me that the English pronunciation was "Air-may". It was an exciting project. Had it moved forward, components that my company made in concert with Smiths Industries would have been on board. It certainly looked like it was going to happen in 1985, with all the work being performed to allow Ariane 5 to carry a crewed vehicle.
Hermes is either pronounced er-mez or hermeez, definitely not air-may. They were just being pretentious.
@@neondemon5137 French pronunciation is ironically more like "air mess"
the vowel there is more of a meh (as when you say "meh"), but the H and S are pronounced in many European languages, just not in French. Also, as long as people don't think you just said herpes, it's fine.
"Hermes"
"No it's not. It's a fake."
@@IDoNotLikeHandlesOnYT
Is it a Fake Fake?
A French Fake?
Or a Chinese Fake?
With cargo dream chaser nearing completion, in some ways it would be nice to see them just pick up one or more of those in a crew variant to put on a European rocket, and spend what it would cost to develop to have something new for it to go to.
The main concern here seems to be developing European engineering capability and that would not do that at all
@@Primarch359 No it would not, but perhaps it would give them the taste their politicians needs to get off their asses and realize they need to funding more ambitious projects.
@@Primarch359 No, but it wouldn't cost many, many billions and then have nowhere to go to in 2031 either. If it doesn't have a clear mission, then that kind of coin shouldn't get spent on developing capabilities just for the sake of developing capabilities.
It wouldn't be an independent access to space. Sierra Nevada Corporation is a company based in the United States and the very flight worthiness of Dream Chaser would be decided first by the US authorities, not to speak of US government being able to block any deal or access to the craft during one, if it would want to do so at some point. Independent access means launching manned spacecraft from own launch sites with crafts you can build independently.
@@myvids4329 Well, the craft bought from a US corporation could be used to fly ESA astronauts to US government-funded private US space stations, from which ESA could buy a closet or a ward-drobe sized space for them to do some science. But yes, independent space station - it doesn't have to be huge - would be a logical step after gaining an independent manned spacecraft, and as ESA is already building so much for Artemis and Gateway that an independent lunar base should be third foot of a future European space tripod.
I'd love to see a video retrospective on Spacelab. It seems like such an intriguing idea to have removable lab models in the shuttle, but it seems it wasn't used much, and it's hard to find a good historic overview of its design and usage history
* YES! * Spacelab is totally under-reported. And a lot of concepts were developed that never flew. There's early concept art of the Skylab ATM in the shuttle cargo hold.
Spacelab flew 22 missions over 28 years. 2/3 of which had pressurized volume. There were even some other missions that used small components of its modules. I'm sure there are some good stories to be gleaned from that whole history.
Actually, components of Spacelab were flown over 30 times on the Space Shuttle: "In the 17 years of Spacelab, with 36 missions flown and about 800 investigations completed, this program taught scientists how to operate experiments in the microgravity environment of low-Earth orbit." See: www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/news/spacelab/
Dennis R Jenkin's three volume work on the Space Shuttle gave some space for Spacelab I thought? I would have to look again, but it is worth a read: "Space Shuttle: Developing an Icon 1972-2013 "
Starship is incredibly well suited for a Spacelab 2.0
Apollo was meant to lead on to a permanent basis on the Mün, and there were many components to this follow-up program, of which Spacelab was one of the few bits remaining. It never quite led to scientific breakthroughs, partly because NASA on its side was (and is still) just figuring out how to do this, partly because there were not that many scientist who could come up with the rather unique and stringent combination of opportunities and limitations that a spacelab experiment would represent. None of this is to say that an orbiting lab facility is a bad idea per se.
About Hermes;
the French youtuber, Astronogeek, passionate about astronomy (among other things) has created a small series of dystopian videos.
In his fiction, Hermes is equipped with an extraordinary engine that recovers the energy spent on "fake news" circulating on social networks (a "phenomenal" amount according to some).
With Hermes he travels in the solar system presenting us the wonders of the celestial bodies
Ouais, enfin si les anglophones le voient avec son ton con-descendant, on va encore passer pour des cons ^^
Verry interesting topic. Even as a German I didn't know that DLR is spending more Money then Russia. I would love some more Videos about ESA and the European spacemissions and contributions.
I love european projects involving UK
"And then, UK pulled out."
:D
If you can look past the fact that ESA's website is a decade and a half out of date and horrible to navigate, you can find articles from them talking about the development of engines for a potential lunar lander.
There used to also be stuff about the idea of turning the ATV into a crewed vehicle that could run more deeper space missions, maybe even allowing for missions out to orbit the Moon due to its size and interior volume allowing for weeks worth of storage for essentials and experiments.
It's a shame they didn't go ahead with making the ATV into a manned craft because they it probably would have kicked their lunar lander project into high gear, and who knows we have been looking at having Moon landings again by now if they'd done so.
ESA have some amazing scientists and engineers, but they've always been more interested in looking at the science side of space travel rather than the human or practical element. They build engines that can be throttled down to 2% power for a non-existent lander, then never use them for anything. They do make some amazing long range exploration missions, but there is very little feedback for stuff that can help here on Earth.
They do at least have a suite of some of the most advanced Earth observations satellites which provide a lot of really helpful information to people like farmers who can benefit from moisture maps and the like to know where best to plant crops.
Being British, and being a fan of Europe, I've always had a soft spot for ESA and always worried about them getting left behind as they just seem to do stuff they find interesting, even if there's no practical application from it. They are in a unique position and could do so much for access to space, and human spaceflight, but it's just never really been their main interest.
And now they are losing Arianne 5, their current human-rated launch vehicle, and they'll have to go through the whole process to rate Arianne 6 when that goes into full production next year. Though if they do, then perhaps they can use the Orion capsule and launch from Kourou when it comes to going to the Moon. We'll have to see I guess.
I didn’t even know Ariane 5 was human rated… without any way to actually launch humans. That’s madness! Sadly, I think shows the inefficiency of EU bureaucracy, where things are often done without a clear direction, and unless there is a strong force behind it - like Germany, France, Italy… it’s just never finished, or at least not into something usable that people recognize. Case in point, I’m European and a space fan, but I hardly know what ESA are doing, it’s just not that interesting to anyone outside the scientific community, and they do a poor job of creating a good PR for themselves (as evidenced by their ancient website). Compare it with the website created by NASA for the JWST mission, and the difference is mind-blowing. I really wish I could be proud of ESAs achievements as a European, but I somehow feel more connected to NASA and SpaceX, all my life.
Keep in mind, the Orion capsule is not able to land on the Moon. For that part a Moon lander is needed (hence the HLS program within Artemis).
didnt they also have this like interactive simulation about astronauts doing science on Europa or did i dream that after that killer weed i smoked that one time
More videos on European space programs, please.
I don't think Canada is part of ESA. There has been a collaboration agreement between the two, but I don't think Canada is considered a member country.
Correct, it isn't. Takes about 10 seconds to check.
@@RFC-3514 plus there was a dismissive sounding grunt along with the commentary...
Who ever thought that Canada was part of ESA?
@@johnarnold893 Apparently, Scott Manley. @ 1:55 "Also, I think one of the Canadians is going because Canada is also part of ESA. Which is, y'know, yeah."
Wait wait wait….. Canada is not a member state of the European space agency?!?!?
Scott, could you do a video about the german spaceplane concepts "Sänger" & "Sänger II"? Planning started in 1961 and it was cancelled for good in 1995, so it span from the Mercury days until the middle of the Space Shuttle era.
If you want to know more about Hermes, there's a book 'Spaceplane Hermes' by Luc van den Abeelen that has lots of detail.
It's pretty amazing how many different countries/groups have wanted to use this same basic spacecraft design but haven't (to my knowledge) built it until now (The Dream Chaser)
The soviets built the MiG 105 (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikoyan-Gurevich_MiG-105 ) which was basically identical in shape to the modern DreamChaser but it only did a couple of test flights and likely never went to space.
They did a couple of suborbital flights with various small spaceplanes to test their reentry capabilities before commiting with the Buran design but they were all scaled down prototypes much smaller than DreamChaser and Hermes (the most similar being maybe the BOR-4: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BOR-4 ).
The USAF also did some experiments with small spaceplanes: The X-23 (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_X-23_PRIME ) and X-24 (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Marietta_X-24 ) likely did a couple of suborbital flights.
Quite a fitting name then!
well there's the X-37... it makes sense that people want it since spaceplanes are cool and this is the better way to do it compared to shuttle/buran, but it also makes sense that so many of these projects die because the benefits over a capsule are ultimately not worth it compared to all the extra complexity and risk
I was going to say .. Dream Chaser seems to be a totally apt name for it - or rather maybe an ominous knell of the bell of doom.
Never real never real, only a dream. Forever..
Like British old Hotol design, or Skylon, or Jaxa's many unfulfilled heavy lifter dreams, etc, etc..
@@qdaniele97 That's the name of the Soviet one! for the life of me I couldn't remember it's name! Thanks
"... they could just buy Soyuz spacecraft."
Recent events certainly demonstrate why that won't be happening.
It would honestly be interesting if the ESA approached SpaceX about launching from Kourou. I'm fairly certain SpaceX would be open to the idea, at least. Recovery would be the biggest challenge, at least for missions where RTLS isn't an option. Probably need boosters dedicated to launch from there as well, just to avoid the hassle of shipping them internationally.
Of course, I'm also rather sure the ESA would rather have a European company do the launching.
There's also a bunch of issues with export of dual-use technology etc. It probably could be solved with ESA, but it would be a hassle.
also the russians cant go to tiangong either so its a two fold affair, cause we europeans sure as heck wont let them launch from french guyama
I have an old Knopf Eyewitness Book from 1997 that has an exploded view of the Hermes shuttle on top of an Ariane rocket. I assumed for years and years that it was real and that there was a sporty little version of our Space Shuttle doing similar missions.
I had to smile when the subtitles said “crude space vehicle” instead of Crewed Space Vehicle. 🤣
… and *of course* ESA should have their own human launch system. Sure it’s a bit pointless as far as what can actually be achieved vs unmanned but it would be *so* damn cool!
at 01:39
@@MichaelS-pr9qn thanks. I should have put a timestamp, but forgot. 😊👍
i thought the same thing for about a minute until he started talking about crew members xD
Perhaps it would be easier and cheaper to license SpaceX technology instead of starting from scratch...... Just a thought.
Scott, You may hae missed the part in the original ESA anouncment about not "enriching the competion of European Companies"
Thanks for another informative video, Mr. Manley & thanks for keeping the interested up to date.
If they are counting on flying on Orion, I would suggest that they make alternate plans.
I'd be more concerned that Russia will hold astronauts hostage in the space station if certain things happen. ( See the Ukraine situation . )
@@bobroberts2371 I can think of some nice movies you can make from that situation lol.
@@Brabant076 There is the movie " 2010: The Year We Make Contact " ( Or 007 / Jean-Claude Van Damme / " Taken 4 " / Austin Powers does " Moonraker " )
@@imhotep82 The US and other countries have or will freeze Russian funds / impose sanctions. Russia might retaliate by saying " ракета сломана "
@@bobroberts2371 There is no substance to your claims though.
I think a big issue here is that an ESA launch system would be a solution in search of a problem. If it needs to send people to space, it can already do that. If it needs to send satellites to space, it can already do that.
There needs to be a problem before any potential solution will, firstly, get any funding. And secondly.... be any good!
If there's no compelling reason - _We need to be able to do capability X so we need to build Y_ - then the design process ends up trying to cram features in just for the sake of it or because one politician or another thinks it would be cool. So you end up with something hideously complex and expensive that compromises on everything and doesn't offer value for money over what you already have. That's why Hermes never went anywhere and to some extent it's why the shuttle such a clusterfuck in many ways despite also being very successful - at its main role requirements.
When you're choosing what features a new design will have you make multiple lists depending on priority and pick from those - You have a list for "Critical", one for "Important", and one for "Would be nice". If there aren't any items on the "Critical" list in the first place then there's no point even starting. If all you have is "Would be nice" then... spend the money on something else?
The only real reason for building a human transportation system for ESA is the strategic value. If there's ever something mildly controversial ESA wants to do in space, it would be very helpful to have its own transportation system instead of having to rely on international partners who might not want to help out. That being said, it's hard to imagine that Europe will send humans to space for something that no launch provider will agree with.
Either way: the strategic value is huge, and you can't put a price tag on that.
I agree - it's all about results, not means. Europe has had no problems getting access to space when it has decided it needs it. Europe has never got to the point where it considers the result to be so important that it's unwilling to trust the "put the astronaut in space" part to either the USA or Russia.
That ESA could build a crewed launch / return vehicle is not in doubt. I don't see that there is a technology gap to be bridged, especially considering all the previous projects. Plus, it's kind of a self-defeating things. If ESA say they can do it, then there's pretty much no point in actually doing so. Whereas if they say they can't, why fund it? And as you say, there are no critical requirements for doing so.
Having said that, we do move in strange times.
@@wilms2328 Also if the USA and Russia get deeper into a new cold war, ESA might find it's in their best interest to remain a neutral third party, which means not being dependent on either for launch capability.
Kind of like there's no compelling reason for them to defend themselves from Russia. If they're going to leave every bloody thing to America, they should at least stop criticizing our healthcare landscape.
@@yes_head
Those are my thoughts too.
At this point, I agree that having to rely on either the US or Russia for anything isn't good.
Europe would do well to cut ties with the US, specially military ties, as long as the US keeps acting like it owns the planet, blowing people up halfway around the world and acting like it's no biggie, etc., then raising hell when China or Russia do something comparatively minor...
European partners should leave NATO, since the US lost its way long ago.
Now, I have no love for Putin or those who keep voting for him, but at least they aren't bombing people halfway around the world and pretending it's normal, or acting like they own the planet... or voting for Bush / Hillary / Trump / Biden types (Obama was pretty disappointing, but at least he was a reasonable choice).
The Ukranian conflict? That's a glorified border dispute, imo, involving Crimea and the Donbas, two regions with a high percentage of ethnic Russians, who are, unsurprisingly, pro-Russia.
Nationalist politicians in Kyiv keep trying to spin it like an act of aggression instigated by Russia, which might be true to some extent, but the reality is that people in Crimea and the Donbas never had much love for Ukranian nationalists, those regions always had a considerable pro-Russia sentiment.
Politicians in the US and Europe might be happy to buy Ukranian nationalist bs, but I know better than to trust people who have no problem incorporating neonazi militias into their military forces and refuse to admit their lack of support in Crimea and the Donbas.
As I recall, there were three potentially manned spaceplane projects under development in the 1980s: France's Hermès/Ariane 5, Germany's Sänger 2, and Britain's Hotol. The British project is the lone survivor, but only because the engineers concerned set up their own company (Reaction Engines) to develop Hotol into what is now the Skylon project. Progress with the combined jet/rocket engine which is the key technology for Skylon is ongoing, if at a modest pace - Skylon would make an interesting competitor to SpaceX's Starship/Super Heavy system. But of course, a private company actually getting something innovative done is of no interest to ESA.
ESA actually has a prototype vehicle that is intended to be launched like a capsule but land like an aircraft using the awesome power of body lift. It's basically a chubby dream chaser. Look up "Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle". Unfortunately even the fully developed version would be for cargo only, but hopefully it could be converted to manned use.
Interesting how Europe completely fell behind in terms of space explpration under its own politics, and continue with such attitude even after seeing the massive success companies like SpaceX and the current American Space Boom, you got guys like Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates throwing ALL the money into getting into space colonization but the ESA just keeps flopping in the mud, even China is making massive progress, I would say Russia is at a stalemate, but Russia has dominated space travel for decades.
Skylon is never gonna happen.
Actually RE has had a modest amount of government funds well modest for a space program. I think £100 million however the company is run by the same people who came up with the idea in the 80's they have been working on it for decades and make Blue Origin look like lightning innovators. In short they need to shake things up the UK has some great engineers hire them make some mistakes and learn that way.
Why would ESA fund Skylon?, The UK is not a EU state
Nor i belive Skylon will fly
Well thought out summary, thanks Scott.
Learned a lot in this video, thank you!
Greets from Cologne, where DLR Headquarters and ESA Astronaut Center are located :)
Our school had a collaboration with the DLR
01:55 Canada has a Cooperation Agreement with ESA and works with them sometimes, but it also has its own space agency, the CSA (00:48 at the bottom). The CSA is contributing Canadarm3 to Gateway and gets a Canadian on Artemis 2 in return. (Canadarm3 will eventually be delivered on lunar orbit by SpaceX.)
Germany also has it's own Space agency (DLR).
Canada is *not* an ESA member.
I recently joined a (fairly small, as of now non-profit) space organization, which started as a project of my university in Austria, but has since become independent and mostly financed by external sponsors. A few colleagues of mine founded a startup specializing in satellite propulsion. It really seems like companies (and the public) are getting more aware of space exploration, so I think European space exploration is likely to improve in the coming years.
Copenhagen aerospace?
I remember science magazines I had when I was young, talking about Hermès and Hotol....
Nice to see some schematics and screenshots written in French, Scott !
What a very nice video to watch, i really love your content!
Seems incredibly unfair to criticize ESA for not having human launch capabilities while comparing their budget to NASA's. NASA doesn't have that capability either. Until very recently our astronauts were getting rides with the Russians and now through private industry...
Nasa does have that capability or to be more accurate will. The SLS is supposed to be human launch capable but given how overbudget and expensive it is, its a question how long it will fly. My guess not long.
@@TheFirebird123456 my guess is that the SLS will be the last NASA Rocket.
@@TheFirebird123456 and is way too expensive to go to low earth orbit with.
I hope ESA gets a Human Flight Programm done, as a european, but i can imagine that new microlaunchers startups in europe may be faster.
@@TheFirebird123456 The SLS simply has high fixed costs (it would cost less than a half if NASA had the money for something on it more often), and had less of a delay between "design frozen" and "first flight" than the Falcon Heavy.
Fun fact, you could have anticipated this by searching job opportunities. I saw they did have a job to develop, reentry sheilds and a human habitat system...
I wonder what can be found using this technic with nasa, esa, cnes, spaceX, jaxa, cnsa, roscosmos etc...
Also, you can see real images of the hermes prototype on astronogeek's first video of his hermes series. He came to the hangar at the end of the video. (he also gives a lot more technical information about the vehicule, just know that some of it is fiction, but most of it is real with no narative purpose)
Nope, the crewed spaceflight plans are just talking rn. ESA needs approval of the member states before they can even begin to search for workers...
Re: finding out about unannounced stuff through job postings / similar...
A. Lot. lol
At least if the stuff people find out about hardware in the computer is anything to go by. So often do I see news on sites I frequent about how someone on LinkedIn had changed their resume to include having worked on developing X, Y, or Z for Big Company. Not that the person has outright said, crystal clear, that what they've finished working on was for something upcoming... but they've said more than enough that outsiders who are in-the-know are easily able to make very accurate predictions based on it.
Paired with the fact that the same person's profile then usually gets edited again to _remove_ that same info because "whoops, maybe I said too much", is a good indicator lol
We as people are easily excitable and want to share (and brag), so I can't imagine that similar slip-ups are limited to the computer tech industry. _(Those involved in gov't contracts may have a bit more discipline, but it's inevitable a greenhorn comes onboard such a project, no matter where you are! lol)_
BTW another great post. thanks for the hard work
Right on great video Scott
apart from a few hectic meditarranean sea summer months -gibraltar launches be quite spectacular
It'll be interesting to see what design, if any, ESA comes up with.
it wont happen. too many heads too little control. for things to get done there needs to be a clear direction for the task. look at there prior attempts it took them decades and they didn't even make it into orbit not because lack of skill or technology but because they kept adding more things on and changing the design.
Warp drive...
Well technically Hermes is not dead yet, just unfunded. The aerodynamic shapes of the final Hermes configurations for example are still used in new projects. They are simply just not named Hermes for a while now for not waking up sleeping dragons. For example Dassault has the VEHRA and smaller VSH space plane programs from 1998 to 2015. which started out from the D0 shape. A swiss company took the D0 shape as well and create a spaceplane named SOAR in 2012 ... of course again, with kind support by Dassault. Maybe you notice a pattern there. ;)
I'd hit a like just for that amazing voice. The great content is just a plus!
It might be worth noting, that a part of the Hermes program actually made it into space in the end. The European Robotic Arm ERA on the ISS was until 1993 filed under the name Hermes Robotic Arm.
Scott, I thought for sure you would mention ESA's, I don't know about participation, but at least strong interest in the X 38/CRV project. It was reported that they had planned to use the Crew Return Vehicle, when developed, as their access to space from their rockets and launch sites. It was also reported that they were quite angry at NASA for its cancellation. It was supposed to be a low-cost project based on previous lifting body designs that would be the "Lifeboat of the ISS." Problems with the paraglider landing design is what eventually sunk the project. If they really wanted a human rated craft, I don't know why they wouldn't partner in with Dream Chaser to get it human rated which is based off the X38. I think the X33, X34, and the X38 projects and cancellations of the early 2000's is interesting subject material. just sayin.
*Problem is:* they are designing now a spacecraft that will be comparable to Dragon in capabilities, but more expensive, to be launched on a non-reusable rocket.
Meanwhile SpaceX has already been working on the fully reusable Starship for years.
Don't get me wrong: I still think that they should do it but realistically it will end up like the European Automated Transfer Vehicle which took 13 years to develop, costed almost 3 billion euros in total, and only flew five times.
Worst case scenario: by politically spreading around all the contracts and subcontracts, leading to a difficult to integrate design, they end up with something like Starliner.
The thing is that ESA supports small rocket start ups a bit similar to (previously) SpaceX or Rocketlab and Astra and Firefly but it's only small amounts of research money, not enough to actually do something substantial
Unpopular opinion: The expansion of federal welfare programs after 1965 permanently took the wind out of the sails of space exploration. It's "Guns and Butter," or in this case, "Space and Butter." Given the fact that Europe has such entrenched social programs, I'm not surprised they don't make space a priority.
the EU is all about the managed decline of western civilization. Democrats in the US have been doing their best to emulate that, which is probably why Musk is so unpopular with leftists.
@@CountArtha No
1:22 Yuri Gagarin on Prague's St. Venceslas Square! Never seen this photo before. Digging it!
Insightful as always
ESA aways has been a science agency with some astronauts on the side. Whether that will change we will see, Also I would wageer if we have getting our astronauts for caper than building a home grown spacecraft might cost. So its easy to sea why portions might be hessitend in changing that.
Hermes is a good looking plane, shame it never got beyond the design stage.
There is the Airbus Space Tug, Dassault Space Rider (the French DGA and French Space & Airforce are financing both ), the German Aurora from Polaris Raumflugzeuge (also financed by German Defense), so a lot of projects in the making.
Loved the commentary in this episode about ESA. I've wondered for a long time about this, always thinking of the small land mass with lack of uninhabited flat areas large enough. I read about the Hermes a long time ago and forgotten all about it. Wasn't also a few months ago that ESA said they were finally going to look into reusable rockets as well?
ESA has been working on reusable rockets for a couple of years now, with demonstrators in the works for first stage landing, and methane engines.
I'd love to see your analysis of the ESA video promoting this idea. Some errors in it make me think it's a PR product rather than a statement of vision.
Somewhere out there is a reality where neither irl dead end "compromise" Space Shuttle, nor "let's make Shuttle, but better without asking why it looks that way" Buran existed and instead we have used LKS, Hermes and... well, I guess the name would be the same, Space Shuttle(but this time small one) to hasten the switch to reusable spacecraft. Probably it's also a reality where MIR-2, ISS and Freedom are separate stations and were neither UK, nor France had stopped their own national space programs:D
I recommend you watch the series for all mankind if you like alternate space histories
Scott please do a video on Skylon and the SABRE engine. I would love to hear your take on it!
Ooh, good to read your name in the Economist this week!
ESA should really focus on space science, not rocket science. There is enough astronomy and astrophysics to be done. I think all the manned missions have a really small scientific return of investment compared to the unmanned ones.
Once we get off the Earth and develop a sustainable presence on other bodies we will have a billion years to do abstract scientific research for its own sake. If life on earth ends all that research won't mean much.
I absolutly agree.
Rockets have military uses, and as is becoming more and more obvious, that's not something we can just give up.
@@jukahri Space rockets and ballistic rockets are quite different I presume. In any case, the latter are not in the responsibility of ESA.
And how will you launch your space science stuff without rocket? Because if the ppl who have rockets say "no", your sats and probes are good to collect dust in the warehouses.
Imagine the awesome videos and pictures will be getting when they go back to the moon.
moon selfies!
Nasa and Darpa are working to clone Werner Von Braun. Hahahaha.
All fake of course. As we all know, the moon is flat.
@@Falcrist The moon is fake. It's a disk on a railway placed on the ceiling.
@@Falcrist like your head?
Wanna do a breakdown of the spacecraft used in the opening scene of the game Ixion, just for fun?
They made a shuttle-styled one, so if there's enough visual info it could be fun to postulate how capable it might actually be.
Scott, you mentioned ESA/European countries just buying SpaceX launches. That's certainly possible, but I'm doubtful. If SNC's DreamChaser spaceplane ever gets converted to crew-capable, I think that would have a much higher chance. ESA could arrange for DreamChaser to be launched atop Ariane and/or for it to land on a runway in Europe. And I think those options would significantly increase the likelihood of the Europeans taking that path. Of course, this wouldn't do all that much to inculcate a "domestic" crew capability, but it would be miles better than just buying seats from SpaceX.
Ariane was human rated and the ATV was designed so it could be converted to a crew vehicle or even some kind of space station (docking multiple ATVs). But that also never was realized. Sady, this wasn't mentioned. The project was later developed into the Orion service module.
Europe is pretty slow and a lot of ideas are seen as too expensive - but ironically all those studies are expensive too. Maybe we could've flown a Hermes spacecraft for the money that was used discussing the designs.
Ariane is pretty reliable but working on it must be a pain in the ass as my neighbour working in the industry told. Basically they're checking every part over and over and no risks are taken, no new ideas accepted (too risky). The opposite of Space X I guess. And of course that also has it's benefits, Ariane is a safe rocket. But an expensive one and never used to its full potential (carrying humans). Like with the ATV: Nice transporter. But only used a few times. Sad.
So in the end it will exactly be like Scott said. A lot of ideas, a lot of money spent, but nothing built.
Paralysis by analysis.... sounds like Europe.
I think it will come in due time. Europe wants space access independent of other nations and I expect that this is also becoming a growing concern in terms of manned spaceflights.
For this, I do think they will further expand upon the Space RIDER project, first by getting a bigger automated one for Ariane 62, then an even bigger one for Ariane Next, from which a manned spaceplane with the same lifting body could be derived from, and then use that one for manned flights into space.
I don't think Europe will ever have their own access vehicle to space. Too expensive and they already have trouble keeping up with their Ariane rockets. However, I do think Germany will have an access vehicle and will probably want to sell it to Europe.
The problem with that is that by that time the year would be around 2050.
@@rocroc Please, Europe has tons of money. There is no pursuit of space flights because the post-WWII US airforce connected industry made a fair job with pushing the political extermination of Euro ICBM/space capabilities. They knocked it out of European heads to think of pulling off something own and original.
Germany and France can't agree on who is in charge. Luckily Britts went out so no third party to "take" the lead.
National space programs are just another proof that no space missions get govs money if military secret spy shit gets in the prospect.
I'm from Europe.
@@RaimoKangasniemi I would have said 2035-2040, but yeah, still a long way off
@@HanSolo__ - Han, I won't disagree that Europe has money but I would question who in Europe has control of the money and the infrastructure to do anything with it? In my opinion, Germany has no right to be in charge of anything. They lost that right when 50-80m+ people lost there lives in WW2. It doesn't seem to me the US has stymied the growth of Europe's "rocket" industries at all. That is Europe's choice. It is easy to spend assets on something else when you feel secure someone else will take care of it for you. The whole premise of the European Union "was" that they could do more together than they could do as one. Great Britain will tell you that has not been the case.
I really hope we will build and fly something similar in the future. It may be a bit childish, but I think spaceplanes are so much cooler than regular capsules and the space shuttle and the buran are among the coolest things we have ever build
Thankful for my countryman Scott Manly. Keep making the world better brother.
I don't see why the French whould require the british navy, the french navy is of a similar size not mentioning several islands in all major oceans.
Just anglocentrism ;)
Totally agree with Aeschbacher. We absolutely need our own crewed spaceflight capability. It's a matter of European strategic autonomy. You could also mention ESAs budget evolution. Our budget has grown significantly over the last 15 to 20 years, having more than doubled in this period. So developing a human capability is financially much more feasable now. But ultimately, it is simply a matter of will and resolve. The current Russian aggression could actually galvanize European resolve also in this domain.
I guess it'd be more cost-effective if ESA would simply buy from Roscosmos the blueprints for Buran, plus a license to construct it, and then build a modernized Buran. Presto! Insta-crewed spaceflight capability, with autonomous landing as a nice extra
@@JosePineda-cy6om No, Europe won’t be buying anything from Roscossmos, what a dumb idea, the economics of operating Buran would be atrocious.
@@olasek7972 If you add up all the money burnt into Hermes throughout more than a decade, without ever producing ANYTHING USABLE... plus the money spent in tweaking Arianne rockets so they could launch Hermes, changes that in the end were done for nothing and so were just pure money burning... plus all the money that will be spent in all of the above YET AGAIN once ESA decides they do want to have their own space plane, this time for real... it's easy to see that European tax payers would be better served if your gov'ts simply bought Buran's blueprints and a production license. If you believe Buran's size and capabilities are too overkill (I believe they are indeed, as were the Shuttle's it's based on), it's 100x easier and cheaper to start your design with blueprints for something that already WORKS, and then you can simply remove stuff you don't need - thus simplifying the model and making it cheaper to produce. This route is much much simpler and cheaper than to go from the ground up, trying to figure out what you may need and designing everything from scratch. But you can of course keep paying premium for "good but not really exciting" products, just like Rafale is good though extra expensive and can't really compete with Sukhoi or MiGs - in my opinion, even Grippens are better planes, being compareably agile and much cheaper. Same with Ariannes: good rockets and fairly modern, but ultra-expensive and can't really compete with either ultra-old (but cheap, simple and reliable) Soyuz nor with ultra-modern SpaceX. Your money, your decision: how much money you wanna burn???
@@JosePineda-cy6om for something that works? Sorry comrade but this is bunch of nonsense, it flew only once to twice it proves nothing about its long term viability. And, no I don’t live in Europe and I have no stake in European space program but they would certainly be better served steering away from rather primitive and crude Russian technology. Europe can do fine things without any Russian “blueprints”.
Autonomy is a good argument, but personally I suspect a European crewed launcher would need to have capabilities not offered by existing systems to be more attractive. I wonder if a spaceplane (wholly indiginous or developed with Sierra Nevada) would be a more attractive project.
That picture at 6:00 is pretty cool.
I would welcome another human rated craft.
Looking at the images you provided, I am reminded of Dyna Soar & the X-37B.
Great video but Canada is definitely not part of ESA. We have our own Canadian Space Agency CSA and contribute to many of NASA’s projects, most notably with CanadaArms on Shuttle, ISS and Gateway.
While technically not a full member, Canada DOES make a small funding contribution to ESA and is a 'Cooperating State', and as such is involved in some of the ESA decision making and Canadian firms are allowed to bid on ESA contracts.
Canadian here. Canada is not part of ESA. Canada has it's own space agency (CSA) and has been making contributions to joint space projects. As with all space nerds from other countries I wish Canada would put more money into space exploration programs. Most notable contribution is usually the Canadarm that was on the space shuttle as well as on the ISS and I think that is also the contribution going onto the gateway station.
Canada is not actually an ESA member. They have a seat on the council yes, but Canada only has a cooperation agreement, not official membership.
The focus of such a vehicle really needs to be on:
1. ability to service existing satellites (such as Hubble and other long-term missions)
2. small payload space to carry refueling 'modules' for those service missions (whether external attachments or hose connections)
3. ability to capture and return 'high cost' satellites or large science payloads that require safe return to planet.
This suggests at least 4 crew (2 pilots, 2 specialists) and somewhere between 500kg and 2 ton of payload space, plus a full airlock for spacewalks. The payload space could have interchangable 'mission modules' for the service airlock, as it would be required for trips to a space station.
Would be interesting to know exactly how much ESA has spent on their decades of studies and redesigns of a space vehicle...
probably spent a few bil. on "feasibility studies", then started designing something until the feasibility studies expired, then did the feasibility studies again, they designed a bit more etc.
It's all boondoggles in Europe.
Look at ITER.
@@tbird81 remember the "European Google" ? EU spent a few billion a long time ago to create a search engine ... except for a team splitting off and getting another chunk of change nothing was heard after the money were paid, or at least it did not make it to the press
@@tbird81 it's making the overseas parts fit that is the problem with ITER
It'd have been very neat to see a smaller spaceplane at the same time as the shuttle and competing with it!
Would have been cheaper,for sure.
About time!!!
Hi, Scott! Have you ever covered the upcoming Spaceport for commercial companies in Wales at some place with too many consonants? (Llanbedr Airfield, Gwynedd) Angry Astro did a really nice interview with some people involved, I would be interested to hear your take on it.
Amazing how Boeing nailed the orbital spaceplane basic design in 1963 Dyna Soar. Everything since is a derivation.
Physics, baby
Doomed with a silly name like that, though. Take almost any text on the Shuttle and substitute 'Dyna Soar' for 'Shuttle' and you'll see what I mean. Same thing with the UK's satellite launcher - looked far too much like a lipstick to be taken seriously. I suspect that much the same had happened to New Glen - it's inherited its design from BO's fairground ride and just looks too much like a giant penis for anyone ever to take it seriously.
@@paulhaynes8045 People who need to do actual business would do well to not be bothered that much by such childish comparisons.
@@kargaroc386 and perhaps people without a sense of humour shouldn't read my posts
@@paulhaynes8045 Aaaarrrghh, humour is so so difficult, it's not funny anymore.
As you said, there are three countries launch humans and into orbit - US, Russia, and China. One question I had is has China ever flown someone that is not Chinese?
The Chinese have never launched Shenzhou with anyone but Chinese crew. Of announced missions that include crew, they are for construction of China's space station, so I would doubt there would be anyone but Chinese aboard.
@@kentvesser9484 So sad. The Soviets did make a point to fly some cosmonauts from other Socialist countries into space for purely PR reasons - so they carried Eastern Germans, Cubans and others into space. And it worked! They generated tons of buzz and good will that way. Latter the US copied the tactic and started flying people from their allied nations - including at one point a Mexican (yay!! I'm from Mexico, of course), also generating good PR but in my opinion (the way I saw it, growing in the 80s) less so than the Soviets as their was seen as a "me too" program. If the Chinese wanted to improve their relations with their neighbours, they could launch some Thai, Japanese, Korean, etc. taikonauts. Even if they launched only Norcorean, that in itself would cause some goodwill towards their space program. But Chinese authorities are too greedy, too aggressive and shortsighted for their own good 😞
@@JosePineda-cy6om Well, China always care about actual interests more than PR. In fact, it is one of the main reasons why China's development has been so successful because they never give a f**k about the blames they took by the West and stop what they're doing.
On the other hand, China's human spaceflight program had been progressing relatively slowly (compared to U.S. and Russia) until recent commencement of the space station construction. One of the results is too many Chinese native astronauts and research projects waiting in lines to get into space. So of course China has every reason to fulfill the needs for their own projects first before saving a seat for foreigners.
Nevertheless, the Chinese authorities have never openly declined any requests for cooperation in space. There have been rumors that they've been training Pakistan astronauts for years. But the attitude of China is not the only factor needs to be considered. Imagine how the U.S. will react to one of its closest allies, say, Japan, if they decide to send their astronauts on a Chinese spaceship to a Chinese space station!
@@JosePineda-cy6om I imagine part of this is that China's manned program is pretty closely tied with its military and may not want "guests" on its rockets at this time. Also, I think their missions right now are focused on completing their space station, so they probably don't want to waste a seat on what is basically a PR move when it could be used by someone needed to help build the station. It's possible down the road they might be more open. The problem is for many countries in that region who want to send an astronaut, other geopolitical conflicts with China make any kind of long-term cooperation difficult.
In a more perfect world we'd grow past some of this petty geopolitical nonsense and start looking at the human race going into space, but we are still mostly tied to national and ethnic identities and rivalries, so cooperation between nations is often limited and fleeting.
@@JosePineda-cy6om China hates Japan so that wouldn’t happen, I can see North Korea tho
I believe your main camera may be set to auto white balance. Either it, or CZcams, are drifting rapidly in colour temp. Changes are visible in the white wall in the BG at about 1Hz frequency.
Meanwhile, your channel continues to delight and inform at the highest level.
What mods do you use for ksp Scott? Looks great. Nice video by the way. Would be cool if you'd mentioned wubbo ockels as one of the best know ESA astronauts of that Era.
6:40 The 'smol' shuttle seems to be the fusion reactor of spaceflight, always possible, always 30 years away
Look at Dreamchaser and Spaceship 1. Both are small shuttle style spacecraft.
The X-37 would like to enter the chat.
No mention that Homer Simpson went into space on a US flown (?) Hermes?
Thank you sir
10:08 reminds me so much of the Von Brauns Dyna-Soar......
It seems odd that each of the members of ESA have their own separate space agency budgets!? Maybe they would get further if they pooled all their knowledge and budgets together. 😕
The bigger ones actually get things done. The smaller ones are essentially funding offices that fund small and large projects, such as individual experiments for Mars probes, a small magnetosphere mapping satellite or sending money to ESA. EU's Galileo alternative to GPS was another project partially funded by national space budgets without ESA direct involvement.
You could say the same for everything in the EU.
A EU military would make more sense.
Politics could be done cheaper and more efficient on a EU wide basis. Railroads, aircrafts, every big project would benefit from a "One-EU".
But that's not what the member states want. And I personally think that that is reasonable.
Leftists, er, The Enlightened Ones like to feign INTERNATIONALism, but are at heart, the most nationalistic, enthnocentric turds on the planet. See our host for an example.
It's a shame ESA didn't go for the Sabre engine and Skylon. I know they investigated it and found it feasible. If that had been given enough investment and focus then ESA could have had a fully re-usable spaceplane capable of both cargo and astronauts.
If they had it might only now be approaching £1000/kg. A price point that Starship will soon smash through without even noticing. Skylon was a wonderful design, but it was mostly a dead end for spaceflight, with little opportunity for reduction in launch costs. Two stage VTOL is simply the better option.
@@anticarrrot Yep it's a dead duck.
Did Skylon actually ever get out of negative payload numbers even on paper?
For example both sweden and norway is going for having their own satelite capability and not just micro satelites. So there goes a part of the budget and so on.
Producing a new space launch delivery system right now, especially if it is single use, would be analogous to developing a new internal combustion passenger vehicle. Pretty much a dead duck and a fruitless exercise in hubris. Jess
Its ok when Europe spends more money into the ITER etc fusion projects, than into space traffic. I mean there are enough global players who are well in this game.
good, not well
Wasn't suppose to SpaceX prices for Crew missions be decreasing drastically by now? Just makes you wonder.
As long as Crew Dragon remains the only human-capable launch system in the US, I assume SpaceX don't have much reasons to drop down costs. The law of supply and demand applies here.
Axiom car charge customers 55million a seat, make a profit from selling 3 seats, and pay for ISS access so the cost of a crew flight is likely about $100m.
@@cdemr so that doesn't support the theory that reusable rockets drastically drops prices to LEO.
@@RogerM88 SpaceX may have not dropped their price below the 46 million per seat that NASA is paying, but that's still a lot less than the 90 million Starliner will cost. That is pretty drastic. (The cost of the launch, i.e. Atlas, is part of the contract.) The USSR had been steadily raising its price to as much as 90 million, but now has reduced it due to the SpaceX competition.
@@donjones4719 the rocket it self is a percentage of total costs, add to that costs to support the launching infrastructure, Staff, refurbishment and propellant. And SpaceX still has to recover the Boosters using naval means. All those costs means the prices will then to increase, not lowering.
Great video Scott. Could you do one on the challenges for commercial space flight in Europe? Why is it that there's no European SpaceX, Virgin Galactic or Blue Origin developing manned space flight? There's also the issue of existing spaceport projects being held back by obsolete legislation. I personally believe that despite the "lagging behind" for not having independent access to space, ESA is showing symptoms of FOMO on the upcoming race for commercial space applications.
becuase we in europe are thinking: "commercial space flight? just ridiculous waste of money"....which btw. really is
because there is no goberment pain the bill like whit space x and blue origin
Only Space X from your list has developed manned space flight. The other two are just glorified fair ground rides.
That Soyuz at 8:00 looks remarkably like Starbug.
Excellent video. Though i feel ever so slightly upset that you named Germany, and France, and Italy, and even briefly mentioned the UK, even though it is no longer part of the EU, but completely and utterly failed to mention the Netherlands and its 2! TWO astronauts!
The UK might not be part of the EU, but it's part of ESA. ESA isn't an EU project.
I agree with your point but I still have to nitpick ;) The UK is still part of ESA because EU membership doesn't matter for that. Same goes for Norway and Switzerland :)
Canada and Australia aren't part of the EU either, but they're both members of the ESA. Heck, they aren't even in Europe.
@@CptJistuce
Australia is in the Eurovision Song Contest, not in ESA.
It's an easy mistake to make, one spends a lot of money to search for alien live and make it accessible to us humans in great exhibitions, the other is a space agency.
@@CptJistuce - Neither of them is a member of ESA.
I do wonder how many independent human-rated programs we really need. Let's not forget that countless interesting science missions are going to get cut for this.
You gain with the knowledge in rocket physics, and engineering. A vital skill in the next 50 years.
@@Kabup2 ESA is already building rockets. Just not capsules for humans.
@@Kabup2 - The ESA launched the James Webb telescope, dozens of probes and hundreds of satellites. They're just not interested in launching needy sentient jelly (i.e., humans).
@@RFC-3514 Ok, let me rephrase: You gain with human rated rocket enginnering, a vital skill in the next 50 years.
@@Kabup2 - Vital for what? Unlike the CNSA, NASA, etc. (which are instruments of propaganda of their national governments), the ESA is "just" a scientific agency. It mostly studies astrophysics and cosmology, and does so by launching satellites, probes, telescopes and robots. How is "human rated rocket engineering" vital for them?
Should they cut dozens of scientific missions to develop something they have little or no use for, and which other people are already developing?
When I say their mighty rocket launch the Webb scope I was wondering the same thing.
For the first time, I think Europe might be serious about getting a crew vehicle. The timing of the announcement, not that long after the success of the IXV, and taking into account the recent experience gained with the construction of Orion and the various ATVs, make it all look like the logical next step. And not only for the agency, but also for the companies across Europe that have taken part in these developments and may be looking at the future of commercial space access as a way to leverage their investments and know how. Getting ESA to subsidize their developing capabilities of making crew vehicles seems like a good push for lobbying.
Wouldn't it save them a lot of money just to offer SpaceX a launch site? Because it would be new, it could be fitted for both Falcon and Starship. Europe could save some pride by designing their own dream chaser as they already have some good prototypes on the drawing boards. I have always felt that as long as NASA and the feds will allow it, franchising Falcon 9 would be a huge money maker.
But this isn't about saving money. Similarly as to why ESA and EU created the Galileo GNSS system. It was also expensive and duplicated existing capability but was done anyway. Due to sovereignty matters.
Similarly ESA would not select SpaceX or Roscosmos or anyone non european. If they just want cheap astronaut flights, they will send the astronauts to Russia or USA to be launched as they have until now.
If they bother creating "european crew launching", it will be domestic to Europe technology wise due to geopolitical reasons. It will cost a lot, but it is one of those "not everything done by governments is measured by what is cheapest". Stuff like supply security, amount of control, technological independence and sovereignty matters.
The ESA should keep working on robotic probes.
I completely agree. Given how often NASA's budget is held hostage by the manned spaceflight side. We could have launched hundreds of probes for the money we put into the space shuttle, ISS, SLS and commercial crew--explored the entire solar system close up and probably have dozens of great observatory class telescopes or better looking into space for that money.
@@TheFirebird123456 I'm glad we have a way to get people to LEO and the moon, but we're 25 Elons (50 Earth years) from sending humans beyond the moon.
2:41 New space-specific addendum to the Kama Sutra... 😉
I wonder if ESA will take the NASA approach and start buying space on commercial stations? It would certainly make the commercial stations more viable if they have essentially international governments backing them, plus European companies could branch off of them and make their own sections. I also wonder if ESA would look at a European launch site for their crewed vehicle or if they would just keep Kouru.
Since Kourou is an administrative part of France, it does qualify as a European launch site (you know, colonial past and stuff). If you are thinking about continental Europe, I know there had been spaceports projected in Northern Europe for highly inclined orbits, but I don't see why they would launch crew from there. It seems like it would restrict launch possibilities more than anything.
I had the chance to visit DASA once the program was cancelled. It was a sad sight. They had a transputer, which was intended for controlling docking. They also had the Spacelab sitting around, which we walked through. As souvenir I got some insulation foil from a free flying material science satellite, which was returned by the Space Shuttle. Ok I am feeling old...nostalgia mode off. Too much politics, too few Musk.
I realize it sounds weird for Canada to be a part of ESA, but believe it or not there's actually a push here for us to join the EU. We generally see ourselves having more in common with Europe than the US.
Huh, I learned another thing about Canada today.
That would be hilarious and yet super cool. You would be welcome, grts from Nl.
Have you ever noted what countries do partecipate to the Eurovision song festival?
The ESA has nothing to do with the EU, and several ESA members are not members of the EU. Also, Canada isn't actually a member of the ESA, it just collaborates with the ESA on some projects.
They still Kiss Royal Butt....
Why Do they still want some entitled Royals in the first place?
Scott,can u please run a caption competition for the diagram @ 2:44 ?
The Lunar Spooners?
Asstronauts?
The Carmen-sutra?
Zero-gravity depravity?
In space no-one can hear you cream?
Orbital Insertion?
etc
SKYLON is in the test phase. UK SPACE AGENCY had the concept of MUSTARD which I think would have been a masterpiece.
I wish Europe would focus a bit more on the actual future and work together on the things that have an impact and should be done without the concerns of nations within it, like a proper functioning space program with manned space flight to orbit and beyond. We got a lot of smart minds around the place and I am certain letting them do their thing with enough funding would give ESA some staggering capabilities. Alas politics being the often most useless thing in the world will ruin these chances.
Ah yes, European tech. May it be as successful as the Galileo project.
😂
I mean its better then GPS, beidou etc ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Every time I hear "crewed" my brain interprets it as "crude". I can't help it, that's how it pops into my head.
Pretty sure this is the shuttle the Inanimate Carbon Rod went to space in. A true American hero.