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Hi [redacted],

Can you please send me an email to my work address: [redacted]. I have a number of attachments that you would probably appreciate. Just as an FYI, the bike is purely a demonstration of what you can do with 3D printing, which we call Additive Layer Manufacturing. The bike is 100% nylon plastic which (as opposed to what has been claimed by some news outlets) is strong enough to make a bike, but not as strong as steel! Obviously. The point is that with 3D printing you have almost complete design freedom in manufacturing (unrestricted by machining tools and by the high cost of tooling up in casting). In fact customisation would not add any (or very little) cost to manufactutring. Here is a link to our website & release: http://www.eads.com/eads/int/en/news/press.8d764849-d439-475b-93b3-3cc9a7d2ba20.70472f39-dd6f-4428-a792-91d82cb9791b.html
Hope this helps...
Al

I'm thinking the current IT disaster by EADS
I think you might mean EDS rather than EADS.

Would something like this nose
http://www.eads.com/1024/en/eads_innovation/Innovation_Articles/security/electronic_sniffer_dog.html
work outdoors in hot dusty Afghanistan or cold mountainous Afghanistan?

3 There have been a few sucessful commercial launches

No, there's a plenty of commercial satelittes launches every single year. ULA, EADS Astrium, Orbital to name a few.

I don't know where to get statistics for this but a commercial launch is something very common place.

Airbus and EADs share many of the same management who will move from one group to the next. More of the engineers are moving as well, though nowhere near as much. All in all, it is the same group.

EADS/Airbus promised that the 380 would be the last aircraft that obtained "launch-aid" and then went on to obtain more.

The 787 got pre-orders from japan, no subsidiaries.

And yes, you can say that Boeing is a duopoly. But EADS is a megaopoly in the same fashion. Again, EADS obtains massive funding from EU and that is fed back into airbus. Boeing does not have that directly. In fact, Boeing almost went bankrupt when they designed and built the 747. They were 6 months from going under.

And as to innovation, it is esy to innovate as long as a gov keeps giving direct subsidiaries.

With that said, I do not want to see Airbus go under. One of the worse things that happened to Boeing was to have Lockheed and Douglas pull out of commerical. You are right that Airbus has helped push Boeing to be better. As it is, they are finally moving to fly-by-wire (developed decades ago for fighters and never brought across to commercials)

Lets just get this straight, Airbus is partially owned by France.

To learn more about who owns Airbus just follow this link:

http://www.eads.com/web/lang/en/1024/content/OF000 00000400004/6/03/31000036.html

EADS are one of Airbus parent companies owning 75%. They are then in turn partially owned by the french state( 29% joint share with Legardiere(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagard%C3% A8re_Group)).

The other 25% is owned by BAE systems who, as far as I can tell in 5 mins rudimentary research, are entirely owned by other commercial interests. None of whom have a controlling share.

http://www.corporatewatch.org/?lid=183#significant %20shareholders

If anyone finds any of this to be incorrect please post some links so I may learn more.

It recieves no free handouts of operating cash, no below market rate loans, etc from the government.

For the A380 program Airbus received one third of the development costs as credits from the governments of the involved countries. They are repayable including market interest rates, but I guess depending on the success of the program.

Airbus, on the other hand, is owned by its member governments,

80% of Airbus is owned by EADS, the rest by BAE Systems. EADS is partly owned by the French government (below 30%), the major owner is DaimlerChrysler (30%), another third is free floating. For BAESystems I didn't find the info on their site, but I found the information that about 50% is in foreign (=non-British) hands, so BAE Systems is surely not owned by the British government.

started with capital from those governments

The Airbus consortium was not 'started' with government money, it was a consortium founded by the respective companies (surely with a political motivation). It is founded on much older companies, like MBB.

and gets low/no interest and/or outright gift grants to develop new planes, including the 380

I think I already adressed that...

Yeah, like there are none already...

Well, this in a very early state. I can remember that EADS has been planning on a reentry vehicle for years so this will turn into a shuttle sometime, it's a really big company and the project is funded by european governments. This test might not look too spectacular in itself but it shows that they are finally making reallife tests of their concept and probably they were just testing a small part of the shuttles tech. Most of the stuff you need for a shuttle can be tried and approved on the ground I assume. But the landing system should need some testflights and this is what you were seeing.

On the list price. No-one ever pays the list price, no-one is ever expected to pay the list price.

Their planes are dirt cheap and they are being subsidized by European government aid.

Hello? Illegal US tax breaks for exporters mean anything to you? The ones that they give to big companies like GE, Boeing and Microsoft?

Plus they aren't making a profit that is for sure.

In this market? No. Boeing suffered a first quarter loss of $478m, and they get plenty of nice, fat US military orders. EADS (major shareholders of Airbus) have reported a first quarter loss for 2003 of 93 million Euros, so they appear to be doing rather better.

Most european countries just purchase American or Russian military vehicles and weapons anyway.

Pretty sweeping unsupported statement that, you might want to look at EADS before making any more blind assumptions there... That said I think you're missing the point.

The first space race might have been driven by the military, but if there is to be a second race between ESA and NASA I imagine it'll most likely be driven more by developments in civil aerospace.

Arianespace are hardly a minor global player, neither are Airbus. While admitedly they've yet to show a direct interest in space flight, they are part of EADS and given Boeing's development, it's unimaginable that Airbus hasn't got it's eye on space at some point in the future...

As it stands the ESA have already been working with NASA and the remnants of the old soviet space agency (calling it "Russian" is confusing, since Russia is in Europe) and I expect that they'll continue doing just that, the Space Station is after all an International venture, not just an American thing.

Race or not, this news seems to suggest that (as happened with civil aviation technology in the later years of last century,) Europe might be about to take the dominant role in Space technology now... maybe. Should be interesting anyway, and anything that drives us forward globally has to be a good thing.