Europe's best answer And yet, stodgy old Europe enters this new era of leaner, faster, and more daring aerospace with considerable strengths as well. It now has a nearly 50-year history of launching rockets and three decades of serving the commercial market. The Kourou spaceport is among the finest in the world, with its low latitude, lack of severe weather, and an almost unparalleled ability to launch both north toward polar orbits as well as due east. In addition to institutional knowledge, Europe has dozens of manufacturing facilities on the continent as well as in French Guiana for the production of rocket engines, motors, fuel tanks, and solid-fuel rockets. Solid-fuel boosters, for example, require fewer parts and are cheaper to fly than liquid propulsion, and Europe has mastered the ability to combine both solids and liquids in the Ariane line of rockets. “In order to create this cheaper and simpler solution of solids you need massive infrastructure,” said Ranzo, whose Italian company Avio manages solid-propulsion for Europe. “You can do it. It is simple. It is cheap. It is nice. But you need massive infrastructure. The advantage is that we have the infrastructure. We have had it for more than 30 years.”