This is John Batcher, a conversation with my good colleague Bob Zimmerman about French Guyana,

the site of the European Space Agency's very expensive Ariana rocket all these years.

Finally Ariana is stepping aside for commercial space.

There is an unused launch pad, the French Kianan and Bob explains,

and there are private companies that can lease it making money rather than spending money

on big space.

This is Bob Zimmerman to explain the French joining capitalism with their French Guiana launch pads.

More of this tonight.

It's an interesting thing, John.

The launch pad that France has leased out is the

diamond launch site that's the original launch site that France used back in the

60s to launch its own rocket the diamond rocket and then it the And so, and France was a partner in it, but a major partner.

And so they abandoned that site that's been sitting unused for like four decades.

And these companies are now leasing it out,

and companies are building facilities there to launch from it.