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> “Europe”, simply isnt capable of large scale projects.

CERN is the first counter-example that comes to mind.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CERN

Was founded in 1954, back when europe was something. These days they can only organise in sanctioning other eu member states and crushing each other’s economies.

I think the gp may have been referring to the LHC, a scientific mega-project completed in 2010, ie not long ago. ITER is still progressing. These projects are “optional” and history suggests that Europe can do fantastical and terrible things when sufficiently motivated. We’ll see how truly motivated Europe is!

ITER is mostly a colossal waste of money. Its just amazing how we spend that absurd amount of money on some fusion project when Europe hasn't even manage to make GenIV fission happen.

And in pure fusion research terms, having 100 smaller research project over that time period would have yielded far more results.

The technology relevant for fusion is evolving fast and ITER is already 2 technology generations behind.

But I agree with you, Europe has the capacity to invest if they get ideas in their head. But this space based solar I do not think has that broad a support base.

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