The author does a good job of pointing out the hypocrisy in complaining about government subsidies yet refusing to make his company more competitive because that would jeopardise the government subsidies his company gets.<p>The last is noteworthy:<p>"It is about future business," Charmeau said. "Why do all the billionaires invest in space? Why does Jeff Bezos come to Germany and declare that the country should not go to space? He makes money with your personal data. Today he knows your Amazon orders, tomorrow he drives your car."<p>Goes to show you where much of the EU's animosity towards US tech firms comes from: local firms and powerful business people with access to politicians lobbying for protectionism.
It sounds like Charmeau is willing to blame anything and everything to avoid the reality that SpaceX is bringing a new economy to the space launch industry. Instead of marketing Ariane as a boutique, reliable launch vehicle for valuable payloads like JWT, it seem like Charmeau wants to blame everyone but himself for Ariane's financial uncertainty.<p>If I were on the board, I'd ask for his resignation and start looking for a more visionary leader to guide Ariane.
Going into an era of launch vehicle re-usability with SpaceX seemingly so technologically far ahead (still the only party to retro-propulsively land an orbital launch vehicle), part of me feels that this dominance is entirely deserved for having the vision and taking the risk to develop cost effective reusability, and Ariane has enjoyed a cushy position for too long. Another part of me feels that Europe needs a serious competitor to American space-launch to retain independent capability.
Charmeau is taking the approach of complaining about 'unfair competition' from other businesses rather than addressing the potential for his own company to start differentiating itself and actually competing with SpaceX. Good luck with that terrible viewpoint.
The claim that higher priced government contracts are a subsidy seems valid... But to pretend that spaceflight in any nation isn't government subsidised seems tenuous.
>"Let us say we had ten guaranteed launches per year in Europe and we had a rocket which we can use ten times—we would build exactly one rocket per year," he said. "That makes no sense. I cannot tell my teams: 'Goodbye, see you next year!'"<p>But reusability makes perfect sense if your long-term goal is to set up a gigantic Mars colony.
I want to be patriotic, but damn it, this guy is full of shit. Close that company down until they at least have the intention of competing with SpaceX.
Arstechnica seems to have taken a 180° turn on Telsa lately. I suspect their expanded their PR budged even more. Ariane has nothing to fear from Telsa. Even their launch costs are still higher than conventional launch systems, if you care enough to dive into technical documents, the "driving down launch costs" argument quickly unravels to unsubstantiated PR garbage.
Tesla and Spacex sell nothing more than false hopes. They "will" drive down launch costs, they "will" make Tesla profitable and sustainable, they "will" make sure their car breaks consistently through OTA updates... I don't believe them anymore, it looks like a ponzi scheme.