It's no surprise that a largely government-funded operation like the Ariane Group would see itself every bit as much as a jobs program as a launch provider, but that isn't going to make it competitive when companies like SpaceX is bringing free-market principles to the field. Instead, Mr. Charmeau complains that SpaceX is essentially being funded by overcharging the US government for launches. But he's ignoring the fact that: (1) SpaceX charges the US government far less than what United Launch Alliance charges for equivalent launches; and (2) SpaceX has said that they make money on their commercial launches, which negates the idea they are "dumping" commercial launches only to make up the losses on the government launches."Let us say we had ten guaranteed launches per year in Europe and we had a rocket which we can use ten times—we would build exactly one rocket per year," he said. "That makes no sense. I cannot tell my teams: 'Goodbye, see you next year!'"
Ariane chief seems frustrated with SpaceX for driving down launch costs
https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/05 ... nch-costs/