On a September night above the Arctic Circle, a German startup named Isar Aerospace sent a slender rocket into orbit — and in doing so, crossed a threshold Europe had never reached on its own. The achievement is not merely technical; it speaks to a continent reckoning with its dependence on others for access to the heavens, a vulnerability made plain when Russian rockets became unavailable and American ones became the only alternative. Europe has long been a space-faring civilization in aspiration; Saturday's launch from Norwegian soil suggests it may finally be becoming one in practice.