First, I'd like to point out the irony of most large conglomerates--especially in Aerospace and Defense--complaining about government subsidies. Ariane, ULA, Boeing, Airbus...you name it, they're all as much jobs programs as commercial entities. Hell, the US military supply base is essentially socialism packaged as the A&D industry... (Note, I don't view The S Word as a binary concept...)
Anyhoo...SpaceX is the oddball where Elon basically doesn't give a *sugar* about money (or at least he's not scared of making huge and potentially risky investments) and he doesn't have to answer to The Man when it comes to things like product design, pricing, scheduling/timing, etc. That approach that opens up a whole new paradigm of reward; like
@Grendal said already,
that is how disruption works. The crazy part is that, at least at the top level, SpaceX isn't doing anything conceptually new other than execution.
Its a bummer for me personally because I like working with Ariane way more than working with SpaceX, but empires unwilling to change are destined to fall. There's certainly room for more than one rocket company in the world, but at the risk of stating the obvious, Ariane--who was the undisputed leader in heavy launch capability for many years--is going to have to compete on the shiney new commercial playing field built by SpaceX and not the other way around. Or, you know, be relegated to state-sponsored status like the Delta family.
IMHO, Ariane could try to play catch-up with SpaceX, which is probably losing battle especially with the deep pockets of BO playing in that space also, OR...there might be an interesting play to try and disrupt the the small launcher space. Its basically a world of startups right now with Rocket Lab in the lead, but importantly there's a potentially huge smallsat market incubating that could be well served by Ariane's access to European manufacturing power. Currently there's no good way to place a small spacecraft in a specific orbit on a dedicated launch vehicle. Its all rideshares on 'larger' launch vehicles, where you basically end up in the Primary's orbit after having to deal the schedule delays of all your co-passengers. If you can get exactly where you want to go, when you want to go, on your own dedicated rocket that's an attractive solution. To Ariane's benefit in this concept Electron doesn't really exist yet, and gut feel is that Rocket Lab will really struggle with all the boring stuff that Ariane has been doing in their sleep for decades now., like lgistics, customer relations, analysis, etc. Ariane more than anyone else right now could really Big Fish that market, especially with SpaceX and BO putting their resources into larger rockets. Shades of Boeing vs Airbus, as it were. Just reversed...
Furthermore, that's probably going to be pretty sustainable market too, because most people aren't going to be able to afford the mega constellations that necessitate a bunch of mega rockets. So while the Starlinks and onewebs of the world will certainly sustain heavy lift demand (if they ever get off the ground...) most players--including GEOcomm--are investigating smaller as a solution.
For a price comparison, an Electron is about the same price as an equivalent-ish rideshare on a Spaceflight F9. Interesting times, these.
Realistically, how many launches at what premium over SpaceX can they get/ will it take to recoup funding the development of a reusable rocket? Is it fiscally viable at this point, or only feasible by getting national funding?
I'd say developing the capability is many hundreds of millions. Let's call it $500. Few people will be willing to pay a [again, let's call it] $20M premium over an equivalent SpaceX launch for a 25 unit ROI, so its going to be REALLY hard for Ariane to make any kind of case to any kind of investor that isn't state run. Layer on the amount of effort they've already sunk into 6 and sprinkle some pride on top of that, and getting a European launcher to directly compete with a Falcon 9 is pretty much a non-starter, IMHO.
