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Title: Europe May Finally Have Found a Space Entrepreneur Who Is Meeting the
Moment

Link: https://science.slashdot.org/story/26/09/10/0...

French entrepreneur Helene Huby is emerging as one of Europe's most ambitious
space leaders, with The Exploration Company raising a record $450 million
Series C as it develops the Nyx cargo capsule, a crewed spacecraft, and a
reusable heavy-lift rocket. Huby argues Europe risks falling irrelevance
without a much larger rocket flying at high cadence. Her company is targeting
a 400,000-pound-thrust methane engine test by 2028 and an aggressive 2033
timeline for the launcher. Ars Technica reports: "The fundraise we have done
right now is not sufficient to build the massive rocket we have in mind, so
there will be another fundraise," she said. "Right now, we're going to be
very, very focused on the execution. We must dock with the space station,
with the capsule, as fast as possible. We must build this rocket engine and
de-risk it as fast as possible. I think once one of these two milestones is
achieved, we'll be talking fundraise again." Critics may look at Huby and her
company and say that is a lot of big talk for a company that only has a
single, partial success in spaceflight to its credit. And sure, it is. But
that's kind of the point. So much of the spaceflight community in Europe has
been concerned with either the large aerospace primes seeking government
handouts to protect their turf or small launch startups. There has been a
stunning lack of big, visionary thinking. Few people on the continent seem to
recognize that multibillion investments by US companies such as SpaceX, Blue
Origin, and Amazon in space, and their many imitators in China, are radically
transforming spaceflight. As the world changes, Huby does not seem willing to
stand on the sidelines in Europe and bemoan capitalism in space. Rather, she
seems to be saying it is not too late for Europe to seize the day. "We need
to have European politicians who are ambitious," she said. "Entrepreneurs
cannot do this alone. We need to be backed by the politicians and by the
European Space Agency. But we have to start by achieving the crazy targets
that we've set up for ourselves. That will give trust to others to believe in
what we're doing."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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