Brian Basson

Look at the post below. Yesterday, we reported that Europe’s four biggest mobile operators 🇩🇪🇫🇷🇪🇸🇬🇧are exploring a joint bid to take on Starlink: phones connected straight to satellites, no tower needed. The replies came on cue: “Europe can’t launch. Europe has no satellites. Europe has no money. SpaceX has no competition. Period.” We hear this every time Europe talks about tech independence. But are they right? 👇 ❌ “Europe can’t launch.” ✅ True, SpaceX launches far more: 165 Falcon 9 flights in 2025. That gap is real. But even Amazon booked 24 launches on Europe’s Ariane 6 for its own Starlink rival. Ariane 6 has already put 100 of its satellites in orbit. In September, @isaraerospace, a German 🇩🇪 startup, reached orbit. At the same time, Europe’s first reusable rocket prototype is on its pad in Sweden 🇸🇪. And the @esa has put €900M+ behind a new generation of rockets. That’s more than twice the ~$400M NASA gave SpaceX to develop Falcon 9 and its Dragon capsule. What will happen to American launchers once these are operational? ❌ “Europe doesn’t build satellites.” ✅ Galileo, Europe’s GPS, is the most precise satellite navigation system in the world. Over 4.5 billion devices use it. Probably yours too. Finland’s 🇫🇮 @iceye_global runs the world’s largest fleet of radar satellites, which see through clouds and at night. @Thales_Alenia_S, in Turin, Italy 🇮🇹, built over half of the International Space Station’s living space. It also built the current satellites of Iridium, the American satellite-phone network. @AirbusSpace, @ThalesAerospace and @LDO_Space are merging their space businesses into one 25,000-strong champion. And IRIS², the EU’s own 348-satellite network, is moving to full deployment of its governments and defence infrastructure. If Europe has “nothing”, why are NASA’s astronauts living in it and your phone navigating with it? ❌ “Europe doesn’t have the money.” ✅ EU households keep €12 trillion in cash and bank deposits. That’s more than Nvidia and Apple, the world’s two most valuable companies, combined. Enough to buy SpaceX five times over. On top of that, Europeans hold $8 trillion in US stocks and bonds. For now. Because something has changed. Every year, €300bn of European savings leaves the EU. Europe is done watching it go: it has started building a single market for savings and investment, so that European money grows European companies. Some, like Danish 🇩🇰 pension funds, have already started dumping US government bonds. What will happen the day Europe offers a real alternative to American financial markets? ❌ “Europe is years behind on innovation.” ✅ 3 of the last 4 Nobel laureates in physics were born in Europe 🇬🇧🇫🇷🇧🇪. All three did their prize-winning work at American universities. The world’s first microprocessor, the chip that became the brain of every computer, was designed at Intel by an Italian 🇮🇹: Federico Faggin. Google’s AI lab, DeepMind, was born in London 🇬🇧. OpenAI was co-founded by scientists born in Poland 🇵🇱 and Slovakia 🇸🇰. Now Washington is cutting research funding, and applications from US-based scientists to the European Research Council have more than doubled. The EU has proposed doubling its budget too. Europe’s red tape can be cut with a vote. Can America win back the trust it has destroyed by threatening, humiliating and insulting its allies? ❌ “Europe needs America more than America needs Europe.” ✅ Look closer. In April, NASA flew astronauts around the Moon for the first time in over 50 years. The module that powered their spacecraft, pushed it to the Moon and kept them alive was European, assembled in Bremen, Germany 🇩🇪. NASA’s Webb telescope launched on a European Ariane 5, so precisely that its fuel should last about 20 years instead of 10. And the world’s most advanced AI chips can only be made with machines from one company: ASML, in the Netherlands 🇳🇱. We’ve seen this film before. In 1970, American planemakers ruled the skies. Europeans pooled their strengths and built Airbus. Airbus has out-delivered Boeing every year since 2019. The US just turned 250. The University of Bologna, in Italy, was founded in 1088, 938 years ago. Europe has been written off many times. Those trying to convince Europeans we can’t stand on our own forget who gave the world the Renaissance, the scientific revolution, the welfare state and the World Wide Web, born at CERN in Geneva 🇨🇭. Betting against Europe isn’t analysis - it’s hubris. And that arrogance is pushing European public opinion towards one conclusion: we’re done with America. One day, those repeating “weak, dependent Europe” will wake up to a Europe running on its own rockets, satellites, capital and talent. That day is closer than they think. 🇪🇺