[quote=@Pepperm1nts]
EDIT: It's especially hard to understand the argument when you realize that China has fuckin' satellites, but because a few scientists died in Europe and they had to fight a war for a few extra years, Europeans are stuck in 1950 for life.
[/quote]

Because Europe doesn't really have much of a mineral based economy and they can't one stop shop. Besides, even today the only way Europe has been to space is to collectively put all their resources into the same pot, unlike the US (which I believe had low or outdated military spending in this RP until the first North American War) or China which in covering a lot of geographic territory contain a lot of natural resources.

Satellite technology is in any event a side-effect of certain aims, if related. They didn't wake up and ask themselves, "Can we get to the moon?" Someone asked someone to look into getting their shit to fly higher. Prior to the Revolution they - like in real life - didn't have a developed industry and began to slowly evolve and build that afterwards. Perceived hostility to Communism as a lesson from the Bolshevik's defeat, exile, and imprisonment/executions in Russia contributed to a feeling they'd need to shut up and contain themselves and become self sufficient and then gird themselves against their enemies. And they have very extensive deposits on minerals across the nation.

On the other hand, Europe was import reliant and much of its economy had evolved past producing iron. If we looked at the long-ass war in a realist's light then we might come to the conclusion that it would have sucked everything bone dry. So collectively they wouldn't have the minerals to put towards advanced programs and nothing happened after the fact to create a common political and economic pact over Europe that would allow them to work across national borders as Europe does now to get into space. And no threat from the Soviets meant the US - while dealing with a considerable sum of internal issues - didn't feel compelled to try and keep its place as a top competitor (as well as them not intervening in Europe and spreading their consumer base to the Europeans to get the economic edge they'd need).

By about this time too South America would have most likely been a largely second-tier economy, an exporter of raw materials. There would've probably been minimal refining going on there. Agriculture would of been a large part of their work. Plus their general operations relied on foreign credit which would have become washed out later. So they wouldn't have the means or the focus. And with Africa slipping away from Europe and having gone all the way out by the seventies due in part to Ethiopia Europe would of lost its significant source of minerals.

So the physical limitations are there. Things could have been proposed and theorized on paper but certainly couldn't get far past the design stage or manufacture. So refocusing of a nation's efforts to develop would have been done. Helicopters and the like.

But the lack of computers, advanced rocketry, and nuclear theory has been from the start a closed door from the beginning for nations. In rocketry that didn't really get pursued into very late in Precipice's infancy years.