SpaceX vs Lockheed/Boeing

[Lurker Steve]

According to Elon, his little spat with the NY Times reviewer cost the company about 100 million in value. Yes, he's a "DOer".

Until we see a Falcon 9 launch without a Dragon on top, they don't have much chance of suceeding in the DOD or Commerical market. Those launches are delayed, again.....

[starsilk]

So again if the Falcon Heavy lives up to the hype I believe ULA is in trouble.

Yes, ULA is doomed. Their only hope is to create their own hype by posting humbug prices on their website and wish that the big money is in GTO.

I see that the Falcon Heavy will supposedly lift 53,000 kg to LEO as opposed to Delta IV Heavy's 23,000 kg.

But here's where I get a little confused. The Delta IV Heavy can lift 13,130 kg to GTO whereas the Falcon Heavy can only lift a mere 12,000 kg to GTO, yet it can lift more than 4 times that amount to LEO.

I'm totally confused here cause SpaceX is stating that the Falcon Heavy is the most powerful rocket in use today yet thats not entirely true. Matter of fact I'm thinking about starting a whole thread dedicated to the matter cause I'm so perturbed over it.

Delta IV (and Atlas-V) have hydrolox upper stages (hydrogen and oxygen). that gives a much higher ISP, and means they do much better for high energy orbits. Falcon 9 (and F9H) has a kerolox upperstage (kerosene and oxygen), which has a lower ISP, and consequently lower performance to high energy orbits. in 'car terms' F9H is a muscle car with a huge engine(s), Delta IV / Atlas V are Ferraris, with smaller engines tuned for high performance.

so although F9H can lift a huge amount to LEO, its performance is way worse for high energy orbits like GTO, TLI, TMI etc. it makes up for that by being a bigger launcher.

[Chris Bergin]

Why did it take until now for someone to report that idiot's avatar? It took a person who's not even posted on this thread to notice it, yet there's a bunch of you who posted outrage over it without bothering to report it or inform me.

Idiot banned.

[FutureSpaceTourist]

A number of interesting points made in this debate. ULA clearly have a decent business for a few years yet (no matter how successful SpaceX are in the short(ish) term).

However, what I don't see is where ULA are going to get much growth beyond their current business? If SpaceX continue to be successful then I think they're better placed to capture new business. (Of course assuming the market does indeed grow.) Longer-term that'll tip the scales much more in SpaceX's favour, if ULA don't evolve/innovate enough in response.

[Lobo]

Why did it take until now for someone to report that idiot's avatar? It took a person who's not even posted on this thread to notice it, yet there's a bunch of you who posted outrage over it without bothering to report it or inform me.

Idiot banned.

Having just seen this thread, I'm wondering what avatar got a guy banned?

Now I am curious.  Maybe someone could PM me with what the issue was?

[Jim]

A number of interesting points made in this debate. ULA clearly have a decent business for a few years yet (no matter how successful SpaceX are in the short(ish) term).

However, what I don't see is where ULA are going to get much growth beyond their current business? If SpaceX continue to be successful then I think they're better placed to capture new business. (Of course assuming the market does indeed grow.) Longer-term that'll tip the scales much more in SpaceX's favour, if ULA don't evolve/innovate enough in response.

No.  ULA only exists to operate the EELV's and their derivatives.  Lockheed/Boeing do the rest.

[Patchouli]

ULA is not going anywhere. They make reliable rockets.

Re: delta IV vs FH performance to GTO - read up on ISP of hydrogen/oxygen vs RP1/oxygen

FH seems optimized for LEO for GTO missions it seems to really need a high ISP second stage or the addition of a third stage.

[deltaV]

FH seems optimized for LEO for GTO missions it seems to really need a high ISP second stage or the addition of a third stage.

I think a stretched second stage is probably sufficient for a big boost in GTO performance.

[LouScheffer]

ULA is not going anywhere. They make reliable rockets.

Re: delta IV vs FH performance to GTO - read up on ISP of hydrogen/oxygen vs RP1/oxygen

It's true ULA makes reliable rockets, but it does not follow from this they are not going anywhere.  To see lots of counterexamples, look at "The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail", by Clayton Christensen.  He goes through example after example where established players (completely rationally) ignored new entrants, who were in general lower cost but could only address a small fraction of the market.  But the new entrants then grew in skill, started tackling a bigger portion of the market, and the big firms were in trouble.

This looks, at least at first glance, exactly like a case study from that book.  ULA (and Ariane) sell a very nice product that is working well for their customers.  SpaceX, though potentially cheap, is not a current threat since it does not yet have an extensive track record, lacks a high energy upper stage, doesn't do vertical integration, and so on.  But it certainly appears to be innovating faster, and that could be trouble for ULA in the long term.

[go4mars]

Thanks for the book tip.  I'll order a copy. 

Maybe getting slightly too hypothetical for the scope of this thread, but if an inexpensively reusable BFR does the orders of magnitude price magic, and keeps investing in R&D for even better space exploration technologies, the barrier to entry would be high for 'wanna-be' competitors.  They would need to aim for a different niche I suppose.  Like smaller-scale, larger-scale, or heaven help it; cheaper yet. 

[gregk]

In all this discussion, I think one thing is being left out that is VERY important to consider.  That is the culture of the company's in question.  Large government contractors VS smaller purpose created and agile privately funded (and properly funded, of course) company with the intent of changing the landscape right from the start...  Nuff Said???

BTW... Paralells can be seen, I think, between this industry and the auto industry if you look at Tesla, and to a lesser degree Toyota, VS the other big auto makers from a culture point of view.

My point is  CULTURE is what makes the difference.  When challenged, CHANGE OR DIE...

[john smith 19]

In all this discussion, I think one thing is being left out that is VERY important to consider.  That is the culture of the company's in question.  Large government contractors VS smaller purpose created and agile privately funded (and properly funded, of course) company with the intent of changing the landscape right from the start...  Nuff Said???

BTW... Paralells can be seen, I think, between this industry and the auto industry if you look at Tesla, and to a lesser degree Toyota, VS the other big auto makers from a culture point of view.

My point is  CULTURE is what makes the difference.  When challenged, CHANGE OR DIE...

A good point. ULA basically has 1 customer, the USG, It's every move is to keep that customer satisfied. That customers core interest is that their payloads launch reliably, for which they are are prepared to pay whatever ULA charge.

Short term Spacex have lobbied to be included on the EELV list of LV suppliers and it looks like the AF is willing to look at them for slightly more risky payloads. The implication is that if they start to demonstrate the kind of track record ULA have with Atlas and Delta they will be on the list for future launches, but as Jim mentioned that will be for payloads not yet being built.

It seems that ULA's belief is that getting that unbroken launch success is just that costly and if Spacex can deliver it then their prices will have to go up to what ULA charge because that's what this "launch assurance" process costs.

Well that's the story they tell themselves. Personally I think that F9's LOX/RP1 common propellants, common bulkhead, common engines  designed a decade or more later than either ULA LV is exponentially simpler to identify faults (fewer unique parts) and the increased redundancy means even if a fault gets to flight it can be countered.

Let's not forget if the first f9 ISS flight had been on a Delta or an Atlas the mission would have failed as the rocket would have probably been destroyed or failed to make orbit, 1 engine in the first stage is a pretty serious single point of failure.

ULA will launch plenty more rockets and charge the USG for the privilege. Either Spacex will deliver on high reliability at prices not far above what they are charging to customers outside the US (IE bringing foreign business back to the US) or they won't.

If they do then continuing to launch a govt payload small enough for a Spacex launcher on anything else will look more like misguided sentiment than a pragmatic business decision.

[Jim]

Let's not forget if the first f9 ISS flight had been on a Delta or an Atlas the mission would have failed as the rocket would have probably been destroyed or failed to make orbit, 1 engine in the first stage is a pretty serious single point of failure.

No, Atlas or Delta would not have had that kind of failure.  The nature of  the F9-1 payload allows for such things to happen.

[john smith 19]

No, Atlas or Delta would not have had that kind of failure.  The nature of  the F9-1 payload allows for such things to happen.

What's the payload got to do with it? I'd have said it's a question of the number of engines on the first stage.

[douglas100]

Let's not forget if the first f9 ISS flight had been on a Delta or an Atlas the mission would have failed as the rocket would have probably been destroyed or failed to make orbit, 1 engine in the first stage is a pretty serious single point of failure.

Let's also remember that the engine out capability of the first stage is a consequence of having to cluster a fairly large cluster of small engines. It's making a virtue out of a necessity.

I'd be more worried about the reliability of the Merlin vac. It is a potential single point failure.

[Jim]

No, Atlas or Delta would not have had that kind of failure.  The nature of  the F9-1 payload allows for such things to happen.

What's the payload got to do with it? I'd have said it's a question of the number of engines on the first stage.

Loss of payload (ISS logisitics) is no big deal.  It can take more risk.  That engine would have never flown on other missions.

[LouScheffer]

No, Atlas or Delta would not have had that kind of failure.  The nature of  the F9-1 payload allows for such things to happen.

What's the payload got to do with it? I'd have said it's a question of the number of engines on the first stage.

Loss of payload (ISS logisitics) is no big deal.  It can take more risk.  That engine would have never flown on other missions.

Is your argument (a) that folks with more critical payloads do more NDE, and hence would have been more likely to find the defect? 

Or (b) that other missions would not use an engine that's had significant time on the test stand?

There seems to be a tradeoff here.   Clearly (a) does not always work, no matter how hard you try.  For example, I'd suspect the recent Delta RL-10 problem will turn out to be a manufacturing flaw that slipped by.  This was true of the brazing flaw of a few years ago, and is probably true of almost all RL-10 failures, since the design flaws should be uncovered by now.

And (b) can help avoid the problems that (a) misses.  If the Delta mission had instead employed a used RL-10 with a few hundred seconds of testing, they perhaps would have found during testing, the engine weakness they only discovered during flight. 

In most branches of engineering, you achieve the best reliability with slightly used parts.  They should be used enough to uncover infant mortality due to manufacturing defects, but not so much as to approach wear-out.   Given both the Falcon and Delta experience, it's not yet clear what the 'right' amount of testing is.

[john smith 19]

Loss of payload (ISS logisitics) is no big deal.  It can take more risk. 

Where re-supply is concerned I'd expect the ISS to be able to survive at least one missed delivery unless they'd run out of some vital part, which I suspect ISS logistics take great care to never happen.

That engine would have never flown on other missions.

I'm having a little trouble parsing what you're saying. By "that engine" do  you mean the Merlin 1c variant, which is being phased out, or the Merlin engine design as a whole?

If you meant the latter then you appear to be saying the design is only fit for low reliability launches when the goal is to be human rated and human carrying (along with at least some payloads from the EELV contract).

That would be a serious accusation so could I just check that's what your saying?

I'm aware of the idea that fewer parts -> higher reliability provided nothing goes wrong but if something does go wrong with no engine out capability then the whole mission is lost.

Spacex completed it's primary mission to the ISS despite a partial engine failure. ULA is the "Spirit of St. Louis" model of reliability. Spacex's is the Boeing/Airbus model. Both had their place in history but I know which one I'd choose to fly on.