Ariane Director laughs about SpaceX (2013)

This Clip is from the Singapore Satellite Forum 2013. Richard Bowles, Director of Ariane Aerospace is highly skeptical that SpaceX is achieving their goals.

[fkarg]

"Personally I think recoverability is a dream" -- yep. That's the difference.

[Acklon]

This is why you need people to dream in your industry. The big fat mainstays won't iterate unless they HAVE to. They don't dream of anything but money, so you have to threaten their money to get larger scale progress.

[Hannodb]

"Yesterday.... all my troubles seemed so far away. Now they seem as though they're here to stay. Oh, I believe in yesterday." ~ Ariane Space

[Scienceleon]

The more people underestimate you, the more free hand you have to be successful without them noticing.

[AngelLestat]

7 years later they just start to "draw" a possible rocket who can compete with Falcon9, which may take 10 years more, when actually now they have to compete with Starship which they are 20 years behind.
Europe is so out from the space career.

[jhallpk]

classic example of an older executive letting their experience imbue them with false confidence and dismiss what is actually possible, sometimes the biggest disruptions in an industry happen because the company doing the disrupting was never smothered in its crib by "No" men like this

[ilmarinen]

"First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they attack you. Then you win."

Seems like every industry these days. I think SpaceX got to phase 4 already.

[Overmotor]

The host is on point. I love how smug this guy was, and granted at the time SpaceX was still an underdog. Just love how badly this aged though XD

[lanzer]

SpaceX is selling a dream, and you're stuck in a nightmare.

Don't forget that the head of Russian Space Agency laughed that NASA was trying to launch astronauts with a trampoline to space when it was announced that SpaceX was chosen to send astronauts to the ISS.

[goodgremlinmedia]

They made a whole ass company obsolete

[Niosus]

Everyone here is focusing on the SpaceX vs Ariane aspect here. Very interesting, but the host actually made an even better prediction. If launch cost really goes down significantly, all these old requirements suddenly become obsolete. 5m fairing, larger satellites, dual launch capability, etc, etc. Even those whole focus on GEO. Not only did the cheaper launch cost outflank Ariane. It put the customers of Ariane, which were optimized for big expensive launchers, in big trouble as well. Who cares about big expensive communication satellites in GEO when you can have a large constellation of cheap and small satellites in LEO?

The host didn't know the exact outcome, but he did correctly predict that the industry would have to rethink its approach. SpaceX really killed the business model of both the legacy launchers, and their legacy customers. Super interesting to see the different perspectives on the future right as we were on the cusp of the revolution.

[haraldsbaumanis]

Different people have different definitions for "a dream". For SpaceX it's a goal they'll work their asses off to achieve. For Ariane it's something impossible until someone else does it. Physics is the only true limit

[njengakim]

I like coming back to this video after every major spacex achievement. Like yesterday spacex catching the superheavy booster weighing hundreds of tons with launch tower arms.

[JULIAN.]

And as of 2024 Falcon 9 has had more successful consecutive launches and more landings than the entirety of the Arianne family of launchers has had launches in its history

An streak of 334 successful consecutive launches in ~6.5 years and 329 landings (96, 8% success rate) versus 260 launches in 45 years, of which 12 failed (4, 6% failure rate/95, 4% success rate) if anyone was wondering

[JigilJigil]

And a decade later SpaceX is developing the Starship, a fully reusable rocket, which is also the largest rocket ever built, and Ariane has yet to develop a rocket to compete with Falcon-9.

[karlmahlmann]

The world is full of small-thinkers. This reminds me of "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." - CEO of Digital Equipment Corp.

[absenttk]

“Whatever they can do, we can do”….
Ahh …. the ultimate expression of hubris is to believe no one could ever be better than you….

[aircvr]

"Whatever they can do, we can do" and 11 years later Europe still can't.

[CreamyBone]

Arianespace had a 50% market share of commercial launches in 2013. They're now 19%. SpaceX as of 2023 had 65%+

[TOlds-gyqn]

Aged beautifully with Eumetsat’s recent decision to stick with The Dream.