Will it be able to compete at all costs wise, given its lack of reusability?
BBC mentioned it would probably be a decade before the ESA reaches that sort of technology.
Sorry for dumb question I haven’t been following space stuff at all. But I read a couple articles on yesterdays launch and was interested.
Yeah, unfortunately, SpaceX is streets ahead of anyone else in the launch industry in terms of reusability and, in turn, price. In a purely capitalistic system, they’d be putting everyone else out of business, but the US government wants a second source vendor, so ULA stays around, and foreign governments want independent access to space, for a combination of national security and pride, so the Russian, Chinese, Indian, and European space agencies keep on trucking.
I suspect in 10 years or so that’ll change. There are lots of new space companies, it just takes a long time to build a new rocket.