Ariane 6 design freeze by July 2013

http://www.spacenews.com/article/lau...ign-of-the-new

The Ariane 6's design, which is due to fly in 2020, will be frozen by
July 2013, according to this report. It seems the French are once again
going it alone and putting the other EU members on the
block to force them to accept their design, which will essentially be a
French rocket, with French engines, launched from French territory with
only minor pan-European involvement. No doubt
they'll force European satellite operators like SES (French owned) to
launch their satellites with this pork-barrel launcher too.

The Ariane 6 is supposed to work according to the triple-7 mantra,
putting satellites weighing 7 metric tons into GTO for 70 million euro's
($91 million) in seven years. Sounds nice, except for
the fact that the Falcon 9 will put the same satellite in orbit for only
%54 million (source: Wikipedia) and it's available NOW. I simply don't
see this working unless European governments force
European satellite operators to launch their birds on Ariane 6 BY LAW or
at the very least compensate the operators for the $37 million price
hike compared to launching on Falcon 9.

As far as I'm concerned Ariane 6 is simply a very expensive pipe dream
which will flounder in the launcher market if it ever gets to market.
And all this is if SpaceX DOESN'T succeed in developing
its RTL (return to launch) version of the Falcon 9, which will lay waste
to the entire launcher business and will probably force ESA to stop
development of the Ariane 6.

The French are sooo stupid...