Whilst spacex successfully launches austronauts

[Workingman]

OK, let me try for one last time because as someone who has "worked" with the ESA and is so deeply embedded in it you seem to be missing a few things.

My original quote was from here. When ESA talks about Member States it mean its own members. When you highlight 'Member States' in your quote, also from ESA, you twist it to mean members of the EU - they are not.

When you state that ESA is not an extra EU organisation you might like to look at its Convention. It is true that there is an EU/ESA Framework Agreement regarding cooperation but that does not make one part of the other, either way. The ESA has no say over where the EU spends its money.

The EU funding to ESA is towards its flagship programmes, Galileo and Copernicus, and its research and development programme, Horizon 2020. But for the FA those funds could have been spent with other space agencies. The EU already spends money and collaborates with NASA and NASA is an independent agency of the U.S. federal government

It's a bit picky to complain that the ESA has various headquarters in European countries when those countries fund it. Where else should they be? The launch site is in French Guiana, an overseas department of France, simply because it is more efficient to launch near the equator and because it is on an east coast next to miles of empty water, also launching from the European land mass of any of the ESA member states would be over more densely populated areas, but you knew those things.

[Suff]

I guess you are looking at it this way.

ESA is an entirely independent organisation although it maintains close ties with the EU through an ESA/EC Framework Agreement. The two organisations share a joint European Strategy for Space and have together developed the European Space Policy.

The only country on the members list, before Brexit, which was not EU, was Switzerland and as Switzerland is in Schengen, that is a moot point.

The rest of the EU have co-operations agreements as Canada does.

The UK is determined to have its own Space agency. As such, the UK is likely to leave ESA in the end. Where that leaves Canada? Who knows, they have CETA and a co-operation agreement so it may continue.

But anyone who thinks that the ESA is not a European space agency and not heavily influenced by the EU, who are channelling ever increasing funds into it, is kidding themselves.

[Workingman]

I guess you are looking at it this way.

ESA is an entirely independent organisation although it maintains close ties with the EU through an ESA/EC Framework Agreement. The two organisations share a joint European Strategy for Space and have together developed the European Space Policy.

Yes, as your quote perfectly portrays. ESA is independent of the EU.

You:

But anyone who thinks that the ESA is not a European space agency and not heavily influenced by the EU, who are channelling ever increasing funds into it, is kidding themselves.

No, we are not. We know that the ESA is not an EU agency despite it having "European" as part of its name. We also know that it takes on space exploration tasks just as other space organisations do, and It is pretty good at it - despite your claims that it is crap.

Other space agencies would not work with it if it was as crap as you claim.

[Suff]

ESA does not work to the same exacting standards as NASA. I'd rate it much more like the Chinese space agency.

Whilst there were only state based launch capabilities and prices commensurate with government projects, ESA was a cheap and cheerful alternative. ESA sized rockets to keep the cost down and so long as the alternative was prohibitive, they found plentiful business, even with screwups.

Now there is competition, SpaceX are pricing them out of the market and there is 0 room for screwups, even if it is ESA or ESA partner satellites they blow up. In fact the customer satellite blown up first was a much bigger issue than blowing their own satellites up. Some of these satellites take years to build and losing one is a real problem if it is commercial.

ESA is also having a problem developing a reusable launcher because they don't actually launch enough rockets to make it worthwhile spending the money to produce one. Especially as there is no guarantee that cutting the prices of their launches will bring more business. A Falcon 9 compatible Ariane 6 launch costs nearly twice the price for 22tons. But that is the top for ESA. The Falcon Heavy can lift 63 tons and the Starship, when it goes into production, is sized at 150tons per flight and the cost per kg is expected to come down, eventually, to less than $20 per kg to LEO. Ariane 6 is currently €5,000 per kg.

So the opportunities for ESA to blow up a rocket or lose a satellite, simply because they couldn't be bothered to test it, are rapidly diminishing.

Now it is quite possible that SpaceX will blow up a few Starships. in fact they have already blown up quite a lot of the components in development and are rolling out at a rate of around 10 per year for current facilities.

However, SpaceX, once they get going, will not be blowing up customer payloads for lack of testing.

So whilst I do conflate the European part of that space agency with the EU, even though it is not totally EU, the attitudes to the way they run it are commensurate with the results and are reflected in each of the organisations they represent.

If they didn't screw up like that I would not have a finger to point.