Jeff Krukin writes that Europe is leaving NewSpace to the US, out of (among other things) foolish class envy:
the views expressed by European Commission Vice President Guenter Verheugen speak volumes about the attitudes of the European political establishment toward entrepreneurial space activity (NewSpace). Referring to public remarks by Guenter, Astrium Chief Executive Francois Auque said, “I was even told that this project was morally blameworthy because it targets an audience of the rich people.”
Well, that’s why many of our ancestors left Europe.
God forbid that some product or service might not be available on the shelves of Wal-Mart from day one. I’ll remember this, the next time I see an ad for a high-end European-manufactured car.
But then, this could mean that in the end, we can sell such vehicles (and perhaps their orbital descendants) to European operators while their own manufacturers play catch-up…
Rand,
Of course, this does ignore several of the smaller European alt.space groups, such as Project Enterprise (which is associated with the Swiss Propulsion Lab). Sure, the business climate there for alt.space is probably worse than here in the US, but the reality is it isn’t that great over here either. And once there have been some successes here in the US, I think thanks to things like ITAR that you’ll start seeing a lot of companies in other countries try getting in on the action. Sometimes there’s a second-mover advantage. After all, in spite of the Wright Bros being American, within ten years wasn’t most of the innovation in aviation going on in Europe?
I wouldn’t count them out just because you disagree with their politics.
~Jon
I know there’s alt.space stuff going on there, and Dave Salt continues to try to stir the pot, but the environment is much more hostile (though maybe the Irish helped a little this week by further delaying the EU project).
And as far as early aviation analogies go, I’d just say that that was then and this is now. It was a different France. It was at least two Republics ago (three, if one counts the present one…).
Can someone tell me what a EU “top snot” (no spelling error) has to do with nitty-gritty entrepreneurial activity?
European Commissioner for Enterprise and Industry you say? Might want to check out the details behind the fancy title. Sure it says this and that but it’s operating on a completely different level than start-ups.
European Commissioner of Grease, Slime and Protectionism just doesn’t sound the same ^_^
The bugger probably couldn’t run a food stall if his life depended on it.
Anyway EADS whining about EU chief bureaucrats creates some delicious irony.
By the way Rand I noticed, forgot, then noticed again that the 404 is situated at http://www.transterrestrial.com/admin/mt-comments.cgi and it being below the admin folder just looks instinctively iffy to me (I have no knowledge about Movable Type). Could there be some sort of mix-up between public and private folders (i.e. running afoul of access permissions) creating the errors?
The page isn’t valid/accessible/allowed by using the url directly (which seems right to me) so the error might be in whatever code snippet directs all us non-admins there.
The page isn’t valid/accessible/allowed by using the url directly (which seems right to me) so the error might be in whatever code snippet directs all us non-admins there.
It might be, but I suspect that it’s a deeper problem, because it causes me fits as an admin. I get the same timeouts every time I post or update a post. Or edit a comment. Or do anything that requires a site rebuild.
Thanks for the suggestion, though.