>>1296946>Even if Elon is ousted from that, the company he started with that mariachi band will be kept alive for quite some time..Part of that is because the President and COO, Gwynne Shotwell is an Aerospace Engineer who minored in Business.
She has done more for SpaceX contracts and commercial operations than Musk has.
Heck, if SpaceX ousted Elon and just became the Falcon company with just Falcon rockets and the Dragon capsules, they would be able to be one of the most dominant launch providers in the world, rivaled only by ArianeSpace for GTO launches and maybe ULA for high energy payloads (the RL-10 engine might be 50 years old, but it's still got a much higher Specific Impulse than the Vacuum Merlin).
Ariane 64 will be cheaper than the Ariane 5, but with about 2-3 extra tonnes of launch capability than the Ariane 5. It can also launch 2 Geostationary Communications satellites at the same time in one launch, when Falcon 9 has to be in expendable mode to launch just one of the satellites Ariane 64 can launch. Ariane 62 will replace the Soyuz-ST for primarily governmental launches and some scientific payloads. Ariane 62 won't be as cost effective, but its much more of an independent launch capability thing than anything else. Don't expect many Ariane 62 launches.
I expect Ariane 6 to last maybe a decade though. ArianeNEXT will have flyback capabilities using wings, but development for that is ongoing, and ArianeNEXT won't be ready until the 2030s at least.
