As far as I can tell Arian 6 will get tons of government money, almost 3 billion, while private share is only about 0.5 billion. Even with this massive investment the estimated costs are per launch are still quite high.
SpaceX actually has to do a lot of work for those government contracts, and they will lose that money if they can not diliver the capability in the required amount of time. They had to carry most devlopment cost themself and they were also always flighing comercial launches. Governemnts are 70% of the launch market, so I don't think any space company can or will live totally without government contracts.
If they can make the Ariane 6 compete within a decent price, I am not against some government contracts going to them. It makes sense not to give all contracts to one company, but Arianspace (or whoever) has to first devlop a rocket without massiv governemnt investment and show that they are in the 20% range of price. If they can not do that, their are other companies who you can go to. Sure its not fair if the rockets from china or russia are subsidised (not saying the are or ar not) but thats good for Europe because we get cheaper launches that are payed for by other governments.
SpaceX actually has to do a lot of work for those government contracts, and they will lose that money if they can not diliver the capability in the required amount of time. They had to carry most devlopment cost themself and they were also always flighing comercial launches. Governemnts are 70% of the launch market, so I don't think any space company can or will live totally without government contracts.
If they can make the Ariane 6 compete within a decent price, I am not against some government contracts going to them. It makes sense not to give all contracts to one company, but Arianspace (or whoever) has to first devlop a rocket without massiv governemnt investment and show that they are in the 20% range of price. If they can not do that, their are other companies who you can go to. Sure its not fair if the rockets from china or russia are subsidised (not saying the are or ar not) but thats good for Europe because we get cheaper launches that are payed for by other governments.