As the US pivots to aligning itself with Russia, and threatening two NATO members with invasion, the NATO alliance seems all but dead. Russia is openly threatening the Baltic states and Moldova, not to mention the hybrid war it has been attacking Europe with for years.
All this has forced action. The EU has announced an €800 billion fund to urgently rearm Europe. Separately the Germans are planning to spend €1 trillion on a military and infrastructure build-up.
Meanwhile, the owner of SpaceX and Starlink is coming to be seen as a public enemy in Europe. Twitter/X may be banned, and alternatives to Starlink are being sought for Ukraine.
Europe has been taking a leisurely pace to develop a reusable rocket. ESA has two separate plans in development, but neither with urgent deadlines. Will this soon change? Germany recently announced ambitious plans for a spaceplane that can take off from regular runways. Its 2028 delivery date seemed very ambitious. If it is part of a new German military, might it happen on time?
Europe is committing trillions of euros to pivoting its industrial sector to military spending while turning against Starlink and SpaceX. What does this mean for the future of space development?
byu/lughnasadh inFuturology
27 Comments
They should also ban Meta, Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Tesla. Apple seems to be somewhat standing up to Trump.
The plan for a german military Space-Drone is realistic. They are testing the engines already.
Point is that if someone has already invented it, you just need to figure out how to recreate and improve it at that point.
Germany worked on an ambitious project since 1960 up until 1995 when it became to expensive compared to the Ariane 5 Rocket [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saenger_(spacecraft)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saenger_(spacecraft))
Why the fuck they aren’t banning the far right propaganda tool, twatter, is beyond me
Europe has rockets, but no reusable ones. France is working on a new Ariane rocket, which ESA launches from South America (French Guyana). I’m guessing that part of the investment will go into military satellites.
I would think most of the money will go into personell, ammunition, vehicles, planes, cruise missiles, etc. Things you need to fight an extended land-based war. Setting up new factories and increasing production will cost money. I doubt a lot of it will go to new and futuristic weapon systems. Some of it may go to new nukes and their delivery systems.
Ooh, and drones, a shitload of drones.
I don’t think it will affect space x advantage over competition. Correct me if wrong most contracts are from usa.
Eu, ramping up it’s defense spending on made in eu nation will hurt usa military industrial conplex. They outsource lot to usa.
The Germans invented the rockets. Time to reinvent them again.
Well
First build 2000 nuclear bombs- with that no one Will dare to invade a cm2 of our territory
2- must spend about 500 billions euros a year in an efficcient army, with drones- the time of manned fighters and planes has gone, and ships Will be sunk
3- start more building of logístical, ammunition factories, new kind of weapons ( laser, microwave ..)
We can do it with some ease
SpaceX isn’t the end all of space travel. Personally I don’t think a shared resource like low earth orbit should be managed by private companies.
NATO isn’t dead. USA has funded 16% of the Ukrainian war. Which is meaningful, but certainly not irreplaceable. Especially considering that the EU is larger than the USA.
NATO will exist with or without USA.
I think a more accurate statement is the USA as it was known for the last 100+ years seems all but dead
It means China and Europe will lead the future. Europe will take most of americas top science and engineering talent and they’ll be paid well because they lost the USA as an ally and their people are very motivated to build a defense right now
A pivot against SpaceX is a pivot towards the environment. Their methane powered rockets have a far larger carbon footprint than traditional hydrogen rockets.
Space is closed to us as a species. It’s sad, but we’re a long way from being viable .
The world needs to fight back immediately. We’ve been under attack from Russia for years. NATO minus USA needs to make plans to move forward without united States. Pivot from all American sectors that they can, as dictator trump will eventually use all means possible to extort. We need to begin fighting back immediately. The united States is officially gone
It means musk won’t play as big a roll as he would like but space x might continue. Just like Tesla, musk might have been an early mover but other companies are catching up and it would not be a surprise if by the end of the decade, the same problems Tesla now faces with competition Space X faces the same.
I’m so happy to see our European leaders all working together against the US and Rus fascists!
it means T-Mobile is going to be getting into LEO mesh networks asap.
So what. Other nations have space programs and elon still has 90% of the business. Why can’t/shouldn’t europe create their own militaries and space programs. They’re stupid for not doing that. But it makes sense, they just let us spend all our money on military while they could send their resources toward other objectives in their own country. If anything it could be a good thing, causing more competition in the space race and more development of newer inventions and materials.
Elon’s Mars projects are a fraud. They’re just stories to siphon more tax money to his companies.
Or next year we’ll be on Mars, who knows! 🤷♂️🙄
Anything that shuts Musk out and costs him money is good business and good for our future.
The European Union Space Agency might also have their big moment / maybe the first flag (that we know of …) planted on Mars might be the EU flag?
Question: Where is Richard Branson ideologically aligned in all this? He’s got a functional space company in Europe. Is he not best situated to make a boatload of money fighting fascism (launching satellites etc)? Also, aren’t his rockets re-usable?
I’m far less concerned with “how this impacts space development”
What’s important is they are shifting funding because they no longer trust the United States to be an ally and because we still hold a lot of power and huge military might, I promise you things will pop off sooner and faster in Europe because they don’t have what we have.
>All this has forced action. The EU has announced an €800 billion fund to urgently rearm Europe. Separately the Germans are planning to spend €1 trillion on a military and infrastructure build-up. Meanwhile, the owner of SpaceX and Starlink is coming to be seen as a public enemy in Europe. Twitter/X may be banned, and alternatives to Starlink are being sought for Ukraine.
I wish them the best of luck. There is a reason SpaceX was first, and it’s going to take them a while to replicate that success.
Starlink is going to have a real bad time internationally now that the whole world knows it’s a weapon.
While alienating our allies is absolutely terrible. I can see how this could be considered a win (if the goal wasn’t to remove us from nato).
I say this because many countries that tout their health care and education program do so by relying heavily on US spending on military equipment. Both sides can argue that this is why they don’t contribute a portion of their gdp that could sustain a large-scale conflict.
I’m very liberal, a staunch never Trumper. But it’s hard for me to say that this will not have support on both sides of the aisle.
The issue will be now that we are aligning with the enemy and not considered a reliable ally. If this means that we reduce our military budget abroad (and use it not for tax cuts but for social programs), then it could improve the quality of life for Americans in the future.
That being said, I have no faith that the current administration will do any of the things that could make this a benefit. It will only hurt the world and our position on the world stage because of their greed.
remember when billionaires kept a low profile on politics and committed their wealth to combating malaria, HIV etc.. those were the days.
we should have a tax on companies whose controlling owners are acting as oligarchs, abuse their position, using their businesses for foreign relations, interfering with journalistic independence etc…..
lol this thread thinking you can just throw money and get an aws/microsoft/google alternative. Have fun. Also stay off steam too. It’s also American