This is John Batchel, conversation with good colleague Bob Zimmerman about the European Space Agency's test of a grasshopper.

What is that?

That is the test of a return, the possibility of a reusable rocket.

Grasshopper, because it rises and then it falls back down again.

Landing perfectly.

SpaceX did this early on.

Blue Origin did it as well.

Well, the ESA is attempting to create conditions,

so it too can have a reusable first-stage booster,

cutting costs for launch dramatically,

especially when you can use that booster more than two dozen times as SpaceX has

with some of its boosters. However, the ESA troubled is long overdue with the test, and Bob gives us the

breakdown on the calendar. Still hasn't happened. Grasshopper for the ESA someday.

Much more of this later tonight.

This is once again, this is a government project.

ESA, the Ubiens Space Agency, put together a program back in 2019 to develop its own grasshop to test vertical landing and take off of a rocket for reuse.

And it was supposed to do its first hops in 22.

It's three years later.

It hasn't done any of the tests at all.

And now they're delaying there the first leap, the first test until till next year instead of this year.

This is a government program that's never going to go anywhere, and it's just a joke.