Macron Says Europe Must Become 'Space Power' Again (phys.org) 28
French President Emmanuel Macron urged Europe to reassert itself as a global space power, warning that France risks being sidelined in the low Earth orbit satellite market dominated by players like SpaceX and China. Phys.Org reports: Macron spoke at the Paris Air Show in Le Bourget outside the French capital a day after France more than doubled its stake in satellite operator Eutelsat, the EU rival to Elon Musk's Starlink. Macron called for more investment as the European space industry struggles to remain competitive in the face of US and Chinese rivals. "SpaceX has disrupted the market, Amazon is also getting involved. China is not far behind, and I think we all need to be very clear-headed," Macron said. Europe must become "a space power once again, with France at its heart," he said. He warned that Europeans were "on the verge of being completely" squeezed out of the low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellation market.
Macron said France and its partners should not be reliant on non-European constellations in low orbit, calling it "madness." He called non-European players to team up with France. "This must be the solution for our major strategic partners in the Gulf, India, Canada and Brazil," he said. "We really need to succeed in increasing our collective investment effort," Macron added, noting the importance of private investors and public-private collaboration. He also said France planned to organize a space summit in early 2026 to "mobilize our public and private partners across the globe."
Macron said France and its partners should not be reliant on non-European constellations in low orbit, calling it "madness." He called non-European players to team up with France. "This must be the solution for our major strategic partners in the Gulf, India, Canada and Brazil," he said. "We really need to succeed in increasing our collective investment effort," Macron added, noting the importance of private investors and public-private collaboration. He also said France planned to organize a space summit in early 2026 to "mobilize our public and private partners across the globe."
Re: Sure (Score:3)
They haven't been an anything power since the second world war, where the continent leveled its own industries and infrastructure. Sure, the US helped, but only after being dragged into it. And that did induce us into ramping up our already strong industrial capacity many times over.
Besides, the first time I ever watched a rocket launch in person was falcon 9 carrying a payload to orbit at Cape Canaveral, right before recovering the booster. Its payload? The first Eutelsat bird.
Re: Sure (Score:4, Interesting)
Europe is an aerospace power, with Airbus being the world's leading company of aircraft that don't kill the occupants. The ESA is decently successful, and has pulled off projects like Galileo, and some interesting space science and exploration missions.
Europe also invented the World Wide Web. CERN is one of the world's leading research institutions.
Militarily, both France and the UK are nuclear armed, and the UK, Germany, and France export a lot of weapons.
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Sweden also exports weapons
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Europa was also one of the early girlfriends of Zeus.
He used to visit her as a bull.
Apparently she liked his BBC or the BBC...
One of those anyways, I'm not sure if they watched TV in those days
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Europe was a "space power" in the 90s in the sense that "Ariane 4 managed to capture 50% of the market in launching commercial satellites". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
MESPA! (Score:2)
But how?
Under ESA, under EUSPA or under the Airbus, Thales and SpaceRISE rule?
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Just launch from some colony far away (Score:2)
just like the French did with their nuke tests.
Re: You can't have both... (Score:1)
Will space power matter (Score:2)
in 10 to 15 years when we're even more hit by the consequences of not caring about the climate?
Oh great, just what we needed (Score:2)
Loads more space junk filling the night sky.
Perhaps the reason SETI doesn't find anybody out there is that all civilisations eventually disappear behind a wall of orbiting trash.
Space power? (Score:2)
A creative soul would invest a space force then. Not sure we are going to beat Russia with that.
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The EU needs spy and communication satellites if it wants to be able to defend itself. This is the kind of satellites that contributed to the need for an EU space program.
It's entirely their own fault (Score:2)
They rejected the concept of reusable rockets years ago when Falcon 9 was starting to eat everyone's lunch. Actually they didn't just reject it, they ridiculed it, saying that then they would have to fire all their rocket builders, think of all the poor unemployed rocket builders! You know, the ones who haven't been building too many rockets the past few years because Ariane 6 was fucking years late. And it's still expendable.
Be Space Power Again - did I miss the first time? (Score:1)
Re: Be Space Power Again - did I miss the first ti (Score:1)
I guess Russia is technically in Europe...
But no, you didn't miss anything. Post-war Europe collectively decided to spend their money on the welfare state rather than military development.
Every space program alive today traces its heritage to military programs to provide robust communications, surveillance, and weapons delivery through space. The scientific and commercial stuff came after, and in the US at least became somewhat self-sustaining as an industry.
Europe elected to miss out on the seed capital b