Haven’t they always been?

@Mike Borgelt
The mentality of the Europeans is the problem. The EU has no real power. Regardless of what it is called, it is just a multilateral advisory cooperation where the member countries in fact make all the decisions. Member government that doesn’t like what the EU decides, simply ignores them in that respect and do as they like. Even Germany with strong economy cheated against the stipulated Euro currency requirements on deficit and debt, the cheating that caused the debt crash in South Europe 10 years ago. And now governments with a wish to live ignores the EU requirement to import this and that many million islamic terrorists. In business all is about how to cheat the millions of regulations of everything (famously also of how curved bananas are allowed to be) and how to cheat to get cash grants form the inept bureaucrats.

The US is much stronger as a federation, basically because you have a legal system and you actually use it. In Europe the mentality is still that the Fürst-government does whatever he pleases. Europeans (like me) complain but don’t act.

How true this can be. Someone here once linked to a story about the Boeing 707, including how it almost lost out to the DC-8, because Boeing did not want to make a change that customers clamored for. Boeing eventually relented, made the change, and the 7X7 series became wildly successful.

Robert linked to it!
http://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/points-of-information/the-707-turns-60/#comments
“[The DC-8] also had one other advantage – which turned out to be a big one – it was wider. Not by much – but enough for the airlines to put in six-abreast seating. They wanted that. Boeing didn’t. Boeing had already changed the body diameter once. … This was gut check time. Everything that followed, all of Boeing’s commercial business over the next half-century hung in the balance – although the participants could not have known that. The dominance that would de-throne Douglas and make the word Boeing a generic dictionary term for jetliner. … Boeing blinked and became a whole new company. American [Airlines] got their 148.5 inches. They ordered 50 airplanes. Having jumped into the pool, Boeing now went hog-wild in customer responsiveness.”

The customers, the airline operators, drove the design for better efficiency and capability in their operations. The manufacturers that complied got the orders. The same could happen in the rocket world.

“The DC-8 had a bigger wing and more range. Boeing designed a new bigger wing and called it the -320 Intercontinental. The 707 was too small – Boeing stretched it. The DC-8 had the more powerful JT-4 engines – Boeing installed the more powerful engines. … In the 10 years from 1956 to 1966, Boeing had remade itself, and the commercial airplane world, and Planet Earth.“

Yes, what Mr. Worner (sorry about the umlaut) is saying in so many words is that ESA is a way to funnel tax dollars to the Government – AGW complex. Meanwhile, in the real world, private launchers are rising and sea levels are not. Huh. I’m sure Mr. Worner can look forward to a comfortable future as Europe and it’s people become ever less competitive as a direct result of decisions he and his fellow travelers made. But that’s OK; they made the right noises.

THAT, feeding the climate deluge myth, is the top priority goal of ESA, Arianespace’s crucial customer, with sending stuff to space just as a cover-up. I don’t see at all how there could be any large European launchers after Ariane 6 is canceled because of its great financial losses and the uninterested politicians. Airbus themselves seem to understand that they cannot compete on a market.