ERIC BERGER’S ROCKET REPORT: Europe has a rocket problem.

In a remarkably candid and accurate assessment, European Space Agency Director General Josef Aschbacher writes about how Europe used to dominate the commercial launch market. But no longer: “SpaceX has undeniably changed the launcher market paradigm as we know it,” Aschbacher wrote. “With the dependable reliability of Falcon 9 and the captivating prospects of Starship, SpaceX continues to totally redefine the world’s access to space, pushing the boundaries of possibility as they go along. Once successful, Starship will carry payloads of around 100 tonnes into low-Earth orbit while reducing the launch cost by a factor of 10. Falcon 9 aims to launch 100 times in 2023.”

Aschbacher then says Europe has fallen behind … “Europe, on the other hand, finds itself today in an acute launcher crisis with a (albeit temporary) gap in its own access to space and no real launcher vision beyond 2030,” Aschbacher wrote. “My hope, quite possibly my biggest aspiration for Europe, is that this temporary lack of access to space, combined with this moment of novel opportunities in exploration and a rapidly evolving space economy, will be the impetus for a deep reflection of Europe’s modus operandi, leading to a transformation of our overall space ecosystem.” My hope is that Aschbacher gets his way.

As soon as SpaceX showed that reusable rockets were possible, cheaper, and still profitable, every other rocket company and national space program should have thrown out their existing roadmaps and started fresh. But none of the established players did.