Submission Statement

This is a rare bit of good news for the European space industry. ESA currently has no independent launch capability. It's in between shutting down production of old models, and waiting for the next-gen ones to arrive. Meanwhile, the stopgap Vega 5s are out of action over safety fears, and the Soyuz backups to those can't be used because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Problems run deeper. ESA has spoken about the urgent need to pivot to reusable rockets, but is it being realistic about how to get there? The USA has a vast publicly funded military budget to support its space industry. Europe's spending is tiny in comparison. It can't expect European capital markets to support a European SpaceX if that company doesn't have the likelihood of 10's or 100's of billions of € in government (military) support the way Space X does.

The following submission statement was provided by /u/lughnasadh:

Submission Statement

This is a rare bit of good news for the European space industry. ESA currently has no independent launch capability. It's in between shutting down production of old models, and waiting for the next-gen ones to arrive. Meanwhile, the stopgap Vega 5s are out of action over safety fears, and the Soyuz backups to those can't be used because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Problems run deeper. ESA has spoken about the urgent need to pivot to reusable rockets, but is it being realistic about how to get there? The USA has a vast publicly funded military budget to support its space industry. Europe's spending is tiny in comparison. It can't expect European capital markets to support a European SpaceX if that company doesn't have the likelihood of 10's or 100's of billions of € in government (military) support the way Space X does.

Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/10eha3b/sweden_opens_mainland_europes_first_spaceport_esa/j4qty8x/

Isn't Sweden too far north for a spaceport? I thought you wanted to be closer to the equator to use less energy to enter into orbit.

If you're a country that's pretty far north, the ability to launch your own rockets from your own territory probably outweighs the considerable, but not insurmountable, loss of some efficiency.

Isn't Sweden way too far north to be useful for launching orbital rockets, don't you want to be close to the equator?

And not snowed over half the year,

and not flying over other counties at launch..

Don’t you have to be near the equator to launch into orbit?

No

It helps, but also hinders.

It can make low inclination launches more efficient

It can make high inclination/polar launches more inneficient

Really though rockets are very good nowadays, it will still have its affects but modern launch vehicles have more than enough tollerances to launch from almost anywhere now, its not like the 60's anymore.

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