A European moon rocket?

[Space_Invaders]

Okay, I know this is not going to happen because there is neither the political will nor the necessary funding to carry out this. But I was thinking if ESA could be able to build a moon rocket with current or near-future technology, if it had the wish and the money to do so.

I was thinking of an evolved version of Ariane 5, built as follows:

*As the first stage, 4 étages d'accélération à poudre (Ariane's SRB) as the attached to a core cryogenic stage with 5 Vulcain 2 engines. The second stage, which would also serve as the EDS, would have 3 Vulcain engines (which are restartable). This second stage would have more thrust than other Moon rockets such as the Saturn V, because it would have to burn for longer to compensate for a weaker first stage (since Europe has no engine as powerful as the F-1, the SSME or the RS-68).

The space capsule could be adapted from the ATV pretty easily, but developing a lunar lander might be more of a problem, since ESA lacks some experience in this field. In any case, I've started this thread to talk about the rocket, so go ahead and point out the holes in my proposal.

 

[samkent]

You’ve already pointed out 2 of the 3 reasons. Money and desire.
The third is the biggest. Reason.

 

[vulture4]

I'm impressed that Ariane has most of the commercial satellite launch market, but ESA has been fairly restrained with investment. For example, they have gone with Soyuz to add a medium-lift capability at Kourou even though this means buying rockets from Russia when they could have developed a more modern medium-lift launch vehicle and had the benefit of the R&D experience. This would have had considerably wider application and lower cost than a Saturn-V class launch vehicle.