[nickik]

> The EU should be focused on generating demand like Commercial Cargo/Commercial Crew did

The EU has long given up on Cargo supply to ISS and that budget is bound in the Orion Service module.

And Crew wont happen in Europe anytime soon.

They simply don't have those things, and partly this is because of their own bad planning and investment.

> then allowing fixed price providers to meet it however they can

The problem is there are no such provider and there wont be anytime soon. Even if they were, they would be small providers who can't launch 90% of the value that Europe might want to launch to orbit in the next decade.

So sure this is a nice sentiment but its not realistic anytime soon.

> Ariane has turned into a lumbering zombie

It always was. Its just that the American and Russians took themselves out of the game by pure stupidity. So Europe was really the only option left.

[wkat4242]

I don't think we'd even want to launch crew. ISS is slated to be decommissioned soon so what's the point in spending billions on it? There might not even be another one, the Russians certainly won't be involved. And I don't think ESA will go it alone

For cargo Ariane is in the shitpit yes but they're in good company with ULA etc. SpaceX caught the whole industry unprepared.

[nickik]

Actually there was a big movement for crew launches in the 90s. This died becuase it was gone cost way to much.

In the last 2 years there has been a very big marketing campaign by various austronauts and people from ESA to push the idea of a commercial crew from Europe. You can find various article like 'Getting serious about crewed flight' and stuff like that. So there is defiantly a big movement within ESA and European space that want it. However the political will behind any of that has not been even remotely shown.

> ISS is slated to be decommissioned soon so what's the point in spending billions on it?

ISS wasn't slated for decommission when the Europeans decided to stop doing cargo.

And ISS will not be the last space station in human history.

Also I didn't suggest they should invest in crew.

> For cargo Ariane is in the shitpit yes but they're in good company with ULA etc. SpaceX caught the whole industry unprepared.

ESA used to have the ATV but it got to expensive for them. ULA never cared that much. As soon as cargo went commercial other defense contractors snatched it up and used their own rocket, see Cygnus and Antares . ULA is a pure launch company they wouldn't have anything to do with ISS cargo unless somebody booked the flight.