That's silly, SpaceX now is a huge social media and AI company. SpaceX did like 3 billion in involvement in Starlink. The other rocket companies could never do something like that and survive.
> How much do reusable launchers really bring down costs?
Without reusable launch the flight rates they have would not be possilbe so they are the bases for why the business has value.
> Were the companies that elected not to go this way (almost all of them)
Actually literally everybody is getting into re-usability. Maybe check your facts. ULA is working on engine re-usability. RocketLab next rocket is reusable. Europe and China next rockets will be reusable. BlueOrigin of course as well.
> where would Arianespace be today if they had elected to try reusable rockets and ended up at the same point as SpaceX?
It would have failed because Arianespace literally couldn't build a reusable rocket. You can't just magic up a reusable rocket.
If in 2014, when Europe decided to not do the Ariane 5 ME and instead do an Ariane 6 reusable, it would take another 5 years minimum until a reusable rocket would happen.
Ariane 6 took 10 years while being a minor, evolution of Ariane 5 based on Ariane 5 ME project. It involved using a new engine that had been in development for 15 years already and would take 25 years to fly for the first time.
The main engine was only slightly upgraded and could never be reusable.
It would take 15 years at least to have a new engine and rocket developed. And it would have cost 3-5x as much as Ariane 6.
This would not have happened because it was politically impossible, literally totally impossible, Arianespace can't make decisions like that.
Arguably it would have been smarter to do Ariane 5 ME and not do Ariane 6 and instead build a smaller reusable rocket. Basically what they are doing now but 10 years earlier.
> (Note that SpaceX is where it is today also thanks to taxpayer money in military contracts and decades of R&D paid for by NASA and given away for free) .)
That is very reductionist. Many companies get taxpayer money in one way or another. SpaceX from the beginning did lots of private funding and had lots of private costumers. In terms of aerospace they are pretty unique in how much of their own investment they do.
And they actually mostly LOST MONEY on their early government contracts, because they offered them so cheaply. But those government contracts allowed them to lend money and invest. Had they not been able to use that and get many private costumers, they would have gone bust.
As for only because of NASA R&D is true but its just the typical everything is connected argument. Yes because government helped road infrastructure 300 years ago we have SpaceX today, but every other company also had roads and NASA and didn't turn into SpaceX.
RocketPlaneKistler got a better deal from NASA and wanted to build a reusable rocket, yes they are dead and SpaceX is where it is today. ULA had decades of massive subsidies and insane priced launches and have done nothing innovative what so ever.
