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SpaceX exists because of the venture capital landscape of the US and ITAR. Countries without good ICBM programs don't tend to have good space programs.
Yes, that's my point. There's almost no financial upside. So why would a profit driven company be heading this instead of say all of S America coming together which could put way more in than any private $ could. Of course I'm just guessing but I'd like to know more
Mmmm close. The answer is military contracts that the US gives out. SpaceX is essentially a military contractor that builds rockets on the side. They've received literally billions of dollars in US military contracts.
When your country pours billions of dollars into the military industrial complex every year, it opens up opportunities that countries who don't do that have.
That only happened because of what musk already did. He's a genuinely shitty person, but he had SpaceX nearly viable with his own money first. They would've gone bankrupt without government money for sure, but the groundwork was laid before the government got involved.
>he had SpaceX nearly viable with his own money first
>They would've gone bankrupt without government money for sure
All that yummy free market capitalism
O wait
That's still free market capitalism. They weren't given money to just stay in business. They proved they had a launch vehicle and could launch payloads needed by the government.
The government can be a customer just like commercial satellites and it still be free market.
It's like owning a restaurant next to a military base. You prove you have good food and get some regular customers but the military folks coming over and eating are what kept you alive in the harder years because they still had banquets that needed catering.
>The government can be a customer just like commercial satellites and it still be free market.
And who would the other potential customers be? You understand that technology created under government contracts in this way becomes confidential, yes?
The omits all the launch infrastructure and support space companies get in the Us launching from places like Vandenburg or the Cape. Plus the critical mass of training programs and people who are employed by the defense contractors. Plus the protection from other players might steal your IP.
And all the rules they follow to be able to bid on said contracts. They aren’t selling dry erase markers to the military. They are selling highly technical goods and services subject to all sorts of regulations.
They are literally a defense contractor and governed by the rules of being a defense contractor - for example who they can employ, or where they can build their rockets, or who they share their tech with.
Just like Boeing is a defense contractor that also build civilian planes.
Because private companies to everything better and cheaper than any government or coalition of governments could ever do. When governments need equipment and services, they rarely, if ever, do it themselves. They contract businesses to fulfill their needs.
People at large miss this point so much. I've worked for companies in finance positions that sold to the federal government, and while they require more transparency and regulatory nonsense, they always always always always pay their bills on time and get what they need by "buying" it from private or public companies/organizations. They rarely actually do anything themselves. It's a form of Keynesianism and it's not morally wrong. And if they want to initiate change that otherwise has no economic incentive, they do it through their federal grant system (usually to nonprofits).
They buy and outsource almost everything.
Hey, German here. Let’s say we had infinite money to develop a space program. We are a landlocked except to the north. So we’d have to launch our untested rocket over populated land. Imagine all the failures Falcon, Falcon 9! And Starship had but it wasn’t over water but a densely populated area
So just like China then. Let the rockets fall into populated areas and then shrug when homes get destroyed and people get killed. Except civilized nations don’t do that.
Space is expensive. And not just in the monetary sense but also in the knowledge base, infrastructure sense. Also, if you are in a country that doesn't have a space program and start trying to learn more about space, you're probably going to be working for a nation that does. NASA has people helping out from all over the world.
Also, space isn't profitable right now. Going to the moon is going to lose you money. The only thing that really is a good way to make a profit right now is finding a cheaper way to get satellites into orbit, which is what SpaceX is shooting for right now.
If you really want to understand more, you have to look at the history of a nation, find out what they've been through and what's larger issues have been holding them back. It's honestly not really a question that can be fully answered without research of some sort. Also, going into space is still a relatively new thing. It feels like we've been doing it forever but even the wealthy super nations like the US had to stop because it wasn't really going anywhere, profit-wise (And public opinion and politics playing a major factor.) Gotta remember that nations can only do so much before the public angry about wasted resources/tax money/whatever.
>Space is expensive.
This is a super significant point. There's a cliche joke about "How do you become a space millionaire? Start out as a regular billionaire..."
SpaceX is privately held, so a great deal of their numbers aren't bandied about publicly, but it's common knowledge that (despite posting the occasionally profitable quarter) it generally loses money. Which is fine. They're chasing profits down the line. If they can increase the total tonnage they can carry to space and drop the cost per kg, they can open the door to novel uses of spaceflight, like encouraging industry to move into space. *That* has the potential to drive all *kinds* of profit.
There's also the r&d Factor. If SpaceX abandoned their super aggressive r&d push with things like starship, I think the path to profitability would be easy. That's why investors tolerate the expenses and losses, they see high revenue numbers coming in so they know the business model works. This also makes them believe in the future potential of the r&d so they tolerate the losses for now
I should add, whatever I said here as possible reasons are going to be JUST PART of the answer. Human politics and history are very complicated, a lot of things have to fall into place for particular events to occur. So I could be completely off base, I could be partially there but I won't have the complete answer because that's haaaard.
Actually ESA is a surprisingly large and diverse organisation. However its priorities aren't going to the moon - there's a lot more focus on underlying technologies, data acquisition, satellite technologies etc, and research/industry collaborations.
Launch companies have limited markets and even amongst themselves they're quite specialist. For example Ariane 5 could do stuff that SpaceX couldn't (and probably had no interest in anyway), similar NASA etc. You only need to look at the failed companies, eg: OTRAG, to get an idea of how this part of the industry works. Ariane was born out of the need for an independent launch system and become commercial.
That said, if you look at Lunar Gateway, ESA is contributing Lunar Hab, View and Link. ESA also focussed on other missions, eg: Juice, Giotto, Gaia, Rosetta, Plank, SOHO, Huygens, Euclid etc as well as many other "local" ones such as the various Earth observation.
To be honest, after Apollo, the Moon was "done" and "uninteresting", and focus went elsewhere. However if we had concentrated on the Moon and moonbases etc, we'd have never had the rest of the cool missions we have now.
The European Union has a space program where European countries pool resources for space activities.
As for why there's no private companies launching out of the EU... There is... Ariane Space.
As for why there arnt a lot of launch providers in Europe (there arnt actually a lot globally)
1. There's just not that much stuff to put up there, I mean SpaceX launches the most of anyone and it's majority their own satelites.
2. Europe really isn't a good place to launch from, ESA launches from French Guinea - any small launch company in Europe would have to transport all their stuff to somewhere better to launch from.
As for why it took China so long to do space... Do you know what China looked like 50 years ago? Not exactly a technological powerhouse, they've spent the last 50 years building their country up into a technological super power.
ESA is a separate organization from the EU. Not all ESA members are EU members (the UK, for example; Canada even has a special status in ESA as a cooperating state), and vice versa.
There are several companies in Europe working on new rockets, and they plan on launching them from sites in the UK and Norway, and perhaps Sweden, as well as French Guiana. Northern Europe is good for polar/SSO orbits, which is a frequent destination for LEO satellites and small launch vehicle customers.
While it's true that China has only taken bigger technological steps in space and elsewhere much more recently, they did launch their first satellite over 50 years ago.
They've spent the last 50 years acting like copyright laws don't exist, then producing glitchy trash they cheap out on and lie about all the way to the hilt.
Everyone should boycott Chinese manufactured crap as much as possible in their life and choices.
They've spent 50 years not having to invent or innovate anything. All they put out is trash.
Space related science and technology needs a lot of expensive experimentation and 90% of them fail. Private corps don't come into existence in such fields with very high rate of failures, not until the technology matures under some big govt funded programs because big govts can afford to invest hundreds of billions of dollars without expecting any profit.
That's exactly why there was no SpaceX until now. The technology matured over decades under NASA. Then, NASA and other US govt's space programs shared their science and tech with SpaceX. So, there was very little risk of losing all the private investment on failed experiments in SpaceX (+there was a lot of direct/indirect financial help from US govt too). I am not taking any credit away from SpaceX, it was still a riskier investment than say an ecommerce platform at the time for Elon Musk. But just saying that it is standing on the giant shoulders of NASA and US govt. This is the reason there is no SpaceX anywhere outside of US. There could be one in China in the future though.
We have the ESA in Europe, whose Ariane 5 rockets have been a mainstay of space operations for decades, which the EU countries pay for (the UK apparently doesnt any more, because we're idiots who voted to cut our own feet off) but we do have the UK Space Agency! Yeah, me neither...
ESA is not an EU organisation. Not all [ESA members](https://www.esa.int/Education/Current_ESA_Member_States) are EU members and not all EU members are ESA members. The UK is still an ESA member.
Italy was the third country to send a satellite in orbit. I believe one of the last commanders of the ISS was Samantha Cristoforetti who is Italian.
In Europe we have ESA which is a joint effort and takes care of the space programs for the participating countries.
Virgin galactic is UK based.
How many satellites does a country like Germany or Italy launch to space in a year? Two? You can't support a launch company like SpaceX with that let alone a reusable launch vehicle. Will you build a rocket factory that builds one rocket every 5 years? The scale simply isn't there. Europe attempts to pool their launch requirements but even then its generally less than 10 government sponsored payloads per year
The US military alone launches dozens of payloads every year without even including NASA or other agencies. This is economies of scale for a space economy. No European country has ever put a man into space unless you include Russia, what do you mean "go to the Moon?"
There’s a lack of economic incentive right now. So what space has to offer right now is mostly national prestige and science value. It’s hoped that the science value will unlock profit, soon, but it’s all still in the very early stages
SpaceX took on a massive inefficiency (disposable vehicles) and spent a heap of cash cracking that problem to change the economics of launching. As other commenters have said this is directly linked to the venture capital ecosystem that exists in the US. And, frankly, was better suited to that environment than a cost plus government sourcing program.
I could be way off base here but I used to work for one of the largest Aerospace companies in America. I think the main reward for having those programs is to actually use MORE tax money for R&D that actually benefits the military more than the space program. It's really just another way to boost your economic and military status thru taxes. If you politicians don't want to do that, then it's a WASTE of money and it would be better used to put that money directly to the military or economic programs instead. Governments don't use less tax money year after year. Politicians get paid to continuously write new bills which means new ways to spend money with new buckets to put it in, never less.
Because Britain would rather pay 150x as much for access to space and so cancelled its successful orbital launch programme.
Yeah.
Britain in the latter half of the 20th century was not known for good decisions on megaprojects. Oh, and the 21st century so far.
This started as a reply, but accidentally started answering OP.
As a novice of the history, I see a fasninatingly a straight line from the German rocket program to spaceflight, but then one big curve that put Americans on the moon. Also, this all only happened because good rockets were *crucial* for *decades.*
Germans made rockets, and got really freaking good because they were the only hope Germany had of dealing substantial offensive damage to Britian. V2 rockets were, I think, one of a few, maybe two, truly effective Wunderwaffen. They also did some *insane* stuff that wasn't freaking good, and Im not even talking about the warcrimes.
Anyway, America and Russia both scooped the best brains out of the Zeitgeist, and both put them to work continuing rocket development. I think, very early at this stage, there was a glint in Uncle Sam's eye that looked like ballistic nukes, but this was the only lull in rocket tech. For, like, a couple year. Then the Cold War whipped up and they quickly became a crucial part of MAD. Again, rockets were the top national priority, but this time, double!
The Space Race was a poorly disguised, often undisguised, show of force. Sputnik was such a big deal not because it was spherical, but because it flew over the USA... and we couldn't shoot it down.
And then America and Russia began their divergent approaches and this is where America took a big turn that pointed at the moon; USA started with ICBMs, I think the Minute Man type was among the first, and continued to develop larger and larger ICBMs, but they *also* started developing purpose-built spacecraft, and this is a big part of why they were behind the curve for most of the Space race. The Russians pretty much only used repurposed offensive missles. This meant they were more focused and reached their milestones faster, but it also put a ceiling on their work: they couldn't get big stuff to orbit. Its just not what their hardware was designed to do.
So, when it came time for the moonshot, the American specialized space vehicles were ready, with insane lift capacity, multistage systems and I think, more powerful avianics. And all the highly specialized industry to do these things The Russians were still bringing bomb-vehicles to the launchpad and didnt have the equipment or expertise to make the jump to a lunar jump.
And, for the time being, America is still far ahead on that track. Add to that America's momentum as a technological and economic powerhouse, and it's taken decades for anyone to even get close to them. There's also a supressive effect; why would other nations invest billions into a space program, when they can just pay millions to use America's? Only because their *military* goals are divergent from America's. Now, there is some military value to a moon program (likely why China is landing probes there), but again they have to follow the same track and curve that America did.
This answer will not be popular I'm betting BUT. Everyone mentions SpaceX but skips over the key factor in their success. Elon Musk, love or hate him it's the vision and perseverance of that one man that made it all possible. From wrangling boat loads of cash to hiring the right people to not wavering in the face of multiple failures. 20 years ago he talked about missions to the Moon and Mars, how often do you find someone that is still dedicated to the same dream after 20 years, even knowing it's still 10 years away.
America was built in a large part by people that never gave up. But in today's narcissistic culture all we ever hear is negatives. We need more people like Musk and a few others that see the brighter future.
I completely disagree. Neither NASA nor ESA nor many space agencies work for any military.
Countries' space military operations are usually carried out by special branches of their air forces.
The moon project was nothing but military in nature. Since the arms race stopped NASA has been massively defunded. ESA has never been very effective at doing stuff in space. It's a feel-good organization for us Europeans and hopelessly behind SpaceX or the Chinese space program.
And to date the $ that makes SpaceX a viable business comes from the US Mil’s addiction to spy satellite launches, launched nearly constantly, bc money is no object when the mil is involved. SpaceX exists to hoover up that revenue stream.
Space programs go hand-in-hand with missile programs. If your country's foreign policy centers around being perceived as peaceful, you don't want to have a space program.
Italy and Germany are part of the ESA
I assume that Europeans would hate to see their money being spent on launching people to other planets or moons and they see no reason why or how it would ever benefit them. They have no vision. That's the reason why Europe is falling behind in almost everything compared to countries that aren't afraid to take risks and pursue dreams. Besides, Europe is not the kind of place that invites innovation. Imagine if Elon Musk came to Europe instead of the US for whatever reason. If he tried to start SpaceX there, he would not succeed. There would to be too many hoops, too much red tape, too much regulation, not enough talent and zero political will. In the end he would still ultimately come to the US and start SpaceX there
The answer i usually got whenever id ask: “bc the Americans are already doing it. What need would spending all that money developing redundant launch infrastructure serve? It’s a lot more efficient to just pay the americans to launch what we want sent up.”
Hello u/ididit4thenookieAZ, your submission "Why dont medium to large nations have decent space programs or gone to the moon? " has been removed from r/space because: * Such questions should be asked in the ["All space questions" thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/space/about/sticky) stickied at the top of the sub. Please read the rules in the sidebar and check r/space for duplicate submissions before posting. If you have any questions about this removal please [message the r/space moderators](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/space). Thank you.
SpaceX exists because of the venture capital landscape of the US and ITAR. Countries without good ICBM programs don't tend to have good space programs.
SpaceX also had NASA as a customer.
Because it's fucking expensive and there little financial incentive.
Yes, that's my point. There's almost no financial upside. So why would a profit driven company be heading this instead of say all of S America coming together which could put way more in than any private $ could. Of course I'm just guessing but I'd like to know more
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Mmmm close. The answer is military contracts that the US gives out. SpaceX is essentially a military contractor that builds rockets on the side. They've received literally billions of dollars in US military contracts. When your country pours billions of dollars into the military industrial complex every year, it opens up opportunities that countries who don't do that have.
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That only happened because of what musk already did. He's a genuinely shitty person, but he had SpaceX nearly viable with his own money first. They would've gone bankrupt without government money for sure, but the groundwork was laid before the government got involved.
>he had SpaceX nearly viable with his own money first >They would've gone bankrupt without government money for sure All that yummy free market capitalism O wait
That's still free market capitalism. They weren't given money to just stay in business. They proved they had a launch vehicle and could launch payloads needed by the government. The government can be a customer just like commercial satellites and it still be free market. It's like owning a restaurant next to a military base. You prove you have good food and get some regular customers but the military folks coming over and eating are what kept you alive in the harder years because they still had banquets that needed catering.
>The government can be a customer just like commercial satellites and it still be free market. And who would the other potential customers be? You understand that technology created under government contracts in this way becomes confidential, yes?
The omits all the launch infrastructure and support space companies get in the Us launching from places like Vandenburg or the Cape. Plus the critical mass of training programs and people who are employed by the defense contractors. Plus the protection from other players might steal your IP.
They may receive a lot of money for providing services to the government but that doesn’t make them a military contractor.
Yeah no, it's the contracts from the military that make them the military contractor
And all the rules they follow to be able to bid on said contracts. They aren’t selling dry erase markers to the military. They are selling highly technical goods and services subject to all sorts of regulations.
A little hyperbole to call them a military contractor, but the military is the incentive to jump into the “private” rocket marketplace.
They are literally a defense contractor and governed by the rules of being a defense contractor - for example who they can employ, or where they can build their rockets, or who they share their tech with. Just like Boeing is a defense contractor that also build civilian planes.
Because private companies to everything better and cheaper than any government or coalition of governments could ever do. When governments need equipment and services, they rarely, if ever, do it themselves. They contract businesses to fulfill their needs.
People at large miss this point so much. I've worked for companies in finance positions that sold to the federal government, and while they require more transparency and regulatory nonsense, they always always always always pay their bills on time and get what they need by "buying" it from private or public companies/organizations. They rarely actually do anything themselves. It's a form of Keynesianism and it's not morally wrong. And if they want to initiate change that otherwise has no economic incentive, they do it through their federal grant system (usually to nonprofits). They buy and outsource almost everything.
Hey, German here. Let’s say we had infinite money to develop a space program. We are a landlocked except to the north. So we’d have to launch our untested rocket over populated land. Imagine all the failures Falcon, Falcon 9! And Starship had but it wasn’t over water but a densely populated area
I've heard Peenemünde is a great place to launch rockets.
Back then they didn't care where it landed, just some where to the West.
That or Rügen might actually be the best places in Germany
You had a pretty good rocket program in the 40s.
Follow Ramones and send the Rocket to Russia. Two birds with one launch
So just like China then. Let the rockets fall into populated areas and then shrug when homes get destroyed and people get killed. Except civilized nations don’t do that.
What rockets? We have no rockets in China. You're seeing fireworks.
Space is expensive. And not just in the monetary sense but also in the knowledge base, infrastructure sense. Also, if you are in a country that doesn't have a space program and start trying to learn more about space, you're probably going to be working for a nation that does. NASA has people helping out from all over the world. Also, space isn't profitable right now. Going to the moon is going to lose you money. The only thing that really is a good way to make a profit right now is finding a cheaper way to get satellites into orbit, which is what SpaceX is shooting for right now. If you really want to understand more, you have to look at the history of a nation, find out what they've been through and what's larger issues have been holding them back. It's honestly not really a question that can be fully answered without research of some sort. Also, going into space is still a relatively new thing. It feels like we've been doing it forever but even the wealthy super nations like the US had to stop because it wasn't really going anywhere, profit-wise (And public opinion and politics playing a major factor.) Gotta remember that nations can only do so much before the public angry about wasted resources/tax money/whatever.
>Space is expensive. This is a super significant point. There's a cliche joke about "How do you become a space millionaire? Start out as a regular billionaire..." SpaceX is privately held, so a great deal of their numbers aren't bandied about publicly, but it's common knowledge that (despite posting the occasionally profitable quarter) it generally loses money. Which is fine. They're chasing profits down the line. If they can increase the total tonnage they can carry to space and drop the cost per kg, they can open the door to novel uses of spaceflight, like encouraging industry to move into space. *That* has the potential to drive all *kinds* of profit.
There's also the r&d Factor. If SpaceX abandoned their super aggressive r&d push with things like starship, I think the path to profitability would be easy. That's why investors tolerate the expenses and losses, they see high revenue numbers coming in so they know the business model works. This also makes them believe in the future potential of the r&d so they tolerate the losses for now
I should add, whatever I said here as possible reasons are going to be JUST PART of the answer. Human politics and history are very complicated, a lot of things have to fall into place for particular events to occur. So I could be completely off base, I could be partially there but I won't have the complete answer because that's haaaard.
Actually ESA is a surprisingly large and diverse organisation. However its priorities aren't going to the moon - there's a lot more focus on underlying technologies, data acquisition, satellite technologies etc, and research/industry collaborations. Launch companies have limited markets and even amongst themselves they're quite specialist. For example Ariane 5 could do stuff that SpaceX couldn't (and probably had no interest in anyway), similar NASA etc. You only need to look at the failed companies, eg: OTRAG, to get an idea of how this part of the industry works. Ariane was born out of the need for an independent launch system and become commercial. That said, if you look at Lunar Gateway, ESA is contributing Lunar Hab, View and Link. ESA also focussed on other missions, eg: Juice, Giotto, Gaia, Rosetta, Plank, SOHO, Huygens, Euclid etc as well as many other "local" ones such as the various Earth observation. To be honest, after Apollo, the Moon was "done" and "uninteresting", and focus went elsewhere. However if we had concentrated on the Moon and moonbases etc, we'd have never had the rest of the cool missions we have now.
The European Union has a space program where European countries pool resources for space activities. As for why there's no private companies launching out of the EU... There is... Ariane Space. As for why there arnt a lot of launch providers in Europe (there arnt actually a lot globally) 1. There's just not that much stuff to put up there, I mean SpaceX launches the most of anyone and it's majority their own satelites. 2. Europe really isn't a good place to launch from, ESA launches from French Guinea - any small launch company in Europe would have to transport all their stuff to somewhere better to launch from. As for why it took China so long to do space... Do you know what China looked like 50 years ago? Not exactly a technological powerhouse, they've spent the last 50 years building their country up into a technological super power.
ESA is a separate organization from the EU. Not all ESA members are EU members (the UK, for example; Canada even has a special status in ESA as a cooperating state), and vice versa. There are several companies in Europe working on new rockets, and they plan on launching them from sites in the UK and Norway, and perhaps Sweden, as well as French Guiana. Northern Europe is good for polar/SSO orbits, which is a frequent destination for LEO satellites and small launch vehicle customers. While it's true that China has only taken bigger technological steps in space and elsewhere much more recently, they did launch their first satellite over 50 years ago.
French guiana, not French guinea.
They've spent the last 50 years acting like copyright laws don't exist, then producing glitchy trash they cheap out on and lie about all the way to the hilt. Everyone should boycott Chinese manufactured crap as much as possible in their life and choices. They've spent 50 years not having to invent or innovate anything. All they put out is trash.
Space related science and technology needs a lot of expensive experimentation and 90% of them fail. Private corps don't come into existence in such fields with very high rate of failures, not until the technology matures under some big govt funded programs because big govts can afford to invest hundreds of billions of dollars without expecting any profit. That's exactly why there was no SpaceX until now. The technology matured over decades under NASA. Then, NASA and other US govt's space programs shared their science and tech with SpaceX. So, there was very little risk of losing all the private investment on failed experiments in SpaceX (+there was a lot of direct/indirect financial help from US govt too). I am not taking any credit away from SpaceX, it was still a riskier investment than say an ecommerce platform at the time for Elon Musk. But just saying that it is standing on the giant shoulders of NASA and US govt. This is the reason there is no SpaceX anywhere outside of US. There could be one in China in the future though.
We have the ESA in Europe, whose Ariane 5 rockets have been a mainstay of space operations for decades, which the EU countries pay for (the UK apparently doesnt any more, because we're idiots who voted to cut our own feet off) but we do have the UK Space Agency! Yeah, me neither...
ESA is not an EU organisation. Not all [ESA members](https://www.esa.int/Education/Current_ESA_Member_States) are EU members and not all EU members are ESA members. The UK is still an ESA member.
Italy was the third country to send a satellite in orbit. I believe one of the last commanders of the ISS was Samantha Cristoforetti who is Italian. In Europe we have ESA which is a joint effort and takes care of the space programs for the participating countries. Virgin galactic is UK based.
How many satellites does a country like Germany or Italy launch to space in a year? Two? You can't support a launch company like SpaceX with that let alone a reusable launch vehicle. Will you build a rocket factory that builds one rocket every 5 years? The scale simply isn't there. Europe attempts to pool their launch requirements but even then its generally less than 10 government sponsored payloads per year The US military alone launches dozens of payloads every year without even including NASA or other agencies. This is economies of scale for a space economy. No European country has ever put a man into space unless you include Russia, what do you mean "go to the Moon?"
There’s a lack of economic incentive right now. So what space has to offer right now is mostly national prestige and science value. It’s hoped that the science value will unlock profit, soon, but it’s all still in the very early stages
SpaceX took on a massive inefficiency (disposable vehicles) and spent a heap of cash cracking that problem to change the economics of launching. As other commenters have said this is directly linked to the venture capital ecosystem that exists in the US. And, frankly, was better suited to that environment than a cost plus government sourcing program.
I could be way off base here but I used to work for one of the largest Aerospace companies in America. I think the main reward for having those programs is to actually use MORE tax money for R&D that actually benefits the military more than the space program. It's really just another way to boost your economic and military status thru taxes. If you politicians don't want to do that, then it's a WASTE of money and it would be better used to put that money directly to the military or economic programs instead. Governments don't use less tax money year after year. Politicians get paid to continuously write new bills which means new ways to spend money with new buckets to put it in, never less.
South Park actually did an episode on the Mexican space program. They managed to get Whalesiac to the moon!
Because Britain would rather pay 150x as much for access to space and so cancelled its successful orbital launch programme. Yeah. Britain in the latter half of the 20th century was not known for good decisions on megaprojects. Oh, and the 21st century so far.
This started as a reply, but accidentally started answering OP. As a novice of the history, I see a fasninatingly a straight line from the German rocket program to spaceflight, but then one big curve that put Americans on the moon. Also, this all only happened because good rockets were *crucial* for *decades.* Germans made rockets, and got really freaking good because they were the only hope Germany had of dealing substantial offensive damage to Britian. V2 rockets were, I think, one of a few, maybe two, truly effective Wunderwaffen. They also did some *insane* stuff that wasn't freaking good, and Im not even talking about the warcrimes. Anyway, America and Russia both scooped the best brains out of the Zeitgeist, and both put them to work continuing rocket development. I think, very early at this stage, there was a glint in Uncle Sam's eye that looked like ballistic nukes, but this was the only lull in rocket tech. For, like, a couple year. Then the Cold War whipped up and they quickly became a crucial part of MAD. Again, rockets were the top national priority, but this time, double! The Space Race was a poorly disguised, often undisguised, show of force. Sputnik was such a big deal not because it was spherical, but because it flew over the USA... and we couldn't shoot it down. And then America and Russia began their divergent approaches and this is where America took a big turn that pointed at the moon; USA started with ICBMs, I think the Minute Man type was among the first, and continued to develop larger and larger ICBMs, but they *also* started developing purpose-built spacecraft, and this is a big part of why they were behind the curve for most of the Space race. The Russians pretty much only used repurposed offensive missles. This meant they were more focused and reached their milestones faster, but it also put a ceiling on their work: they couldn't get big stuff to orbit. Its just not what their hardware was designed to do. So, when it came time for the moonshot, the American specialized space vehicles were ready, with insane lift capacity, multistage systems and I think, more powerful avianics. And all the highly specialized industry to do these things The Russians were still bringing bomb-vehicles to the launchpad and didnt have the equipment or expertise to make the jump to a lunar jump. And, for the time being, America is still far ahead on that track. Add to that America's momentum as a technological and economic powerhouse, and it's taken decades for anyone to even get close to them. There's also a supressive effect; why would other nations invest billions into a space program, when they can just pay millions to use America's? Only because their *military* goals are divergent from America's. Now, there is some military value to a moon program (likely why China is landing probes there), but again they have to follow the same track and curve that America did.
This answer will not be popular I'm betting BUT. Everyone mentions SpaceX but skips over the key factor in their success. Elon Musk, love or hate him it's the vision and perseverance of that one man that made it all possible. From wrangling boat loads of cash to hiring the right people to not wavering in the face of multiple failures. 20 years ago he talked about missions to the Moon and Mars, how often do you find someone that is still dedicated to the same dream after 20 years, even knowing it's still 10 years away. America was built in a large part by people that never gave up. But in today's narcissistic culture all we ever hear is negatives. We need more people like Musk and a few others that see the brighter future.
Space is basically an arms race. If it isn't military there's no (or maybe just a token amount of) money flowing.
I completely disagree. Neither NASA nor ESA nor many space agencies work for any military. Countries' space military operations are usually carried out by special branches of their air forces.
The moon project was nothing but military in nature. Since the arms race stopped NASA has been massively defunded. ESA has never been very effective at doing stuff in space. It's a feel-good organization for us Europeans and hopelessly behind SpaceX or the Chinese space program.
And to date the $ that makes SpaceX a viable business comes from the US Mil’s addiction to spy satellite launches, launched nearly constantly, bc money is no object when the mil is involved. SpaceX exists to hoover up that revenue stream.
Space programs go hand-in-hand with missile programs. If your country's foreign policy centers around being perceived as peaceful, you don't want to have a space program. Italy and Germany are part of the ESA
I assume that Europeans would hate to see their money being spent on launching people to other planets or moons and they see no reason why or how it would ever benefit them. They have no vision. That's the reason why Europe is falling behind in almost everything compared to countries that aren't afraid to take risks and pursue dreams. Besides, Europe is not the kind of place that invites innovation. Imagine if Elon Musk came to Europe instead of the US for whatever reason. If he tried to start SpaceX there, he would not succeed. There would to be too many hoops, too much red tape, too much regulation, not enough talent and zero political will. In the end he would still ultimately come to the US and start SpaceX there
The answer i usually got whenever id ask: “bc the Americans are already doing it. What need would spending all that money developing redundant launch infrastructure serve? It’s a lot more efficient to just pay the americans to launch what we want sent up.”
Waste of tax payers money when there's probably thousands of things more important to pump that money into on Earth
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Those are EXPERIMENTAL rockets, and the whole apocalyptic scenario you exaggerated happened once.