Hm... yes, you are right. I stand corrected. CNAS and ASI are those pushing for PPH variant. Solid Rocket Boosters for Ariane 5 are largely manufactured in France and French are behind latest POD-X tests to improve European SRB technology. As for the new liquid engine - it's nothing related to Ariane 6, and experimental engines got little to deal with industry itself as they're made on individual orders. It's quite opposite to the contracts for the engines of operational launch vehicles, they are not signed on yearly basis but rather multi-year timeframe, so yes - it does make a difference, especially if you're trying to push budget as far they do with Ariane 6. At some point there were plans to upgrade Vulcain to the new manufacturing standards what could allow them to share at least part of the infrastructure and personnel with Vinci manufacturing further decreasing costs. Though "horribly expensive" was certainly an overstatement on my side. One interesting thing though is that they want to achieve 65 million euro for the light version which is rather low if you consider that a price for Ariane 6.2 as estimated by Airbus/Safran was around 69 million euro and newly proposed rocket is going to use more expensive upper stage. But then again - both companies where on this meeting and they did agree to these prices, so I guess... less profits for them Though in general I'm rather worried Ariane 6 will be crippled by costs underestimation - cutting roughly 60% off Ariane 5 to Ariane 6 heavy variant looks really great, but the big question remains: if they can actually deliver.