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The John Batchelor Show

S8 Ep727: 8. Bob Zimmerman: Bob Zimmerman critiques the high costs and bureaucratic hurdles of Europe’s Ariane 6 rocket compared to reusable alternatives. He also provides updates on the Curiosity rover’s climb up Mount Sharp on Mars, discussing its fuel capacity a

The John Batchelor Show

John Batchelor

News, Books, Society & Culture, Arts

4.52.8K Ratings

🗓️ 11 April 2026

⏱️ 7 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

8. Bob Zimmerman: Bob Zimmerman critiques the high costs and bureaucratic hurdles of Europe’s Ariane 6 rocket compared to reusable alternatives. He also provides updates on the Curiosity rover’s climb up Mount Sharp on Mars, discussing its fuel capacity and mechanical limitations. (8)

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Transcript

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0:00.0

I'm John Batcher. Bob Zimmerman is here. He keeps the website behind the black,

0:20.1

the commercial emphasizing behind the black, the commercial

0:21.4

emphasizing behind the black. And we have some dollars and cents here to talk about how big space

0:27.6

does things and how SpaceX does things or Blue Origin or any of the commercial startups.

0:33.7

ESA and Arianas space costing what for Arianus, and what did they get for it, Bob?

0:40.3

All right, so they had a recent launch, and the European Space Agency, through some of his documents,

0:46.6

disclosed that it essentially paid for that Ariana Six launch $96 million.

0:52.8

$96 million for a launch is kind of comparable to what one pays for

0:57.8

Falcon 9 rocket. So it sounds like they're competitive. The problem is that SpaceX Falcon 9

1:04.0

Rocket is setting a price with a much greater profit margin because it's reusable. So they can really

1:09.8

lower their price significantly.

1:11.6

What they do is they set their price below, but not too far below, their competitor.

1:16.4

So they can make as much money as possible.

1:18.2

It's pure profit motive and it makes sense.

1:21.2

And so Ariana 6 and ESA's got a rocket that kind of can compete, but not really.

1:27.2

As more than reusable rockets

1:28.6

come into line in the next year or so, launch prices are going to then drop because

1:33.8

SpaceX is going to have to compete with those reusable rockets. And at that point, the

1:37.2

Arianus 6 will find itself very overpriced and no way to lower its cost because it's expendable.

1:44.1

It can't be reused.

1:45.0

I thought they discontinued Iran at 6. No, no. They've got it. They built it. It's ready.

1:50.1

They have a big contract with Amazon, Leo, to launch 18 times. And some European government launches

...

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