In Brief

Wine, Cheese … Rockets? France's Arianespace Lands in NYC

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Ariane Rocket Models in NYC
Scale models of the Ariane 5 rocket (right) and next-generation Ariane 6 rocket, near Times Square. Ariane 6 is set to make its first flight in 2020. (Image credit: Calla Cofield/Space.com)

NEW YORK -- This past weekend (Sept. 26 and 27), New York City hosted the annual "Best of France" event, which aims to promote the country to foreign audiences. The festival showcases many things that most people already associate with France: cheese, wine, the music of Edith Piaf, pop-culture art and extremely relaxed people in nice clothes.

But this year's Best of France also highlighted one of the country's main contributions to the spaceflight industry: Arianespace, operators of the Ariane rocket program.

At a booth near Times Square, surrounded by other French exhibitors, the company displayed a model of the Ariane 5 rocket, which has made more than 250 launches since 1996. It is scheduled to carry the James Webb Telescope into orbit in 2018. The company also displayed a model of the next-generation Ariane 6, which the company says will make its first flight in 2020.

The Ariane 5 rocket featured the logo of the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Centre National d'Études Spatiales, which oversee the manufacturing of the rockets.

As the landscape of private spaceflight companies continues to grow, it may be necessary for companies and nations to promote their contributions more directly.

A model of the city of Paris, carved out of butter, on display at the Best of France event near Times Square. Credit: Calla Cofield/Space.com. (Image credit: Calla Cofield/Space.com)

The Best of France festival also featured a miniature model of Paris carved out of butter. We'd like to suggest that next year, the rocket models also be carved out of a dairy product.   

Follow Calla Cofield @callacofield. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.

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Calla Cofield
Calla Cofield
Senior Writer

Calla Cofield joined Space.com's crew in October 2014. She enjoys writing about black holes, exploding stars, ripples in space-time, science in comic books, and all the mysteries of the cosmos. Prior to joining Space.com Calla worked as a freelance writer, with her work appearing in APS News, Symmetry magazine, Scientific American, Nature News, Physics World, and others. From 2010 to 2014 she was a producer for The Physics Central Podcast. Previously, Calla worked at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City (hands down the best office building ever) and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in California. Calla studied physics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and is originally from Sandy, Utah. In 2018, Calla left Space.com to join NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory media team where she oversees astronomy, physics, exoplanets and the Cold Atom Lab mission. She has been underground at three of the largest particle accelerators in the world and would really like to know what the heck dark matter is. Contact Calla via: E-Mail – Twitter