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United Launch Alliance CEO Tory Bruno to discuss reusable rockets
by
Chris Bergin
on 04 Feb, 2015 21:28
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If anyone's around to cover, please do - could be interesting on what he has to say about things *cough* SpaceX.
United Launch Alliance CEO Tory Bruno to discuss the future of the launch industry and reusable rockets at Stanford; Live Twitter Q&A to follow
Media are invited to watch via livestream Tory Bruno, chief executive officer of United Launch Alliance (ULA), speak with Stanford University’s Student Space Initiative on February 4, 2015 at 7 p.m. PT. Tory will be discussing the future of the launch industry, with a particular emphasis on rocket reusability.
Shortly after the event, Tory will be available on Twitter to answer follow-up questions using the hashtag #askULA.
To watch the livestream, visit
.
To follow Tory on Twitter, visit
https://twitter.com/torybruno.
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#1
by
Lar
on 04 Feb, 2015 22:34
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#2
by
kevin-rf
on 04 Feb, 2015 22:36
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I'm more interested in what he has to say about ULA's reusable rockets and how to close the business case than cough ...any swipe he may make at others. Sadly 7 PT would be 10 EDT and my alarm is set for 4:30am EST so I will need to pass. Gives me something to look forward to on twitter in the morning.
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#3
by
Prober
on 05 Feb, 2015 01:39
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On time delivery.....
good home story.
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#4
by
rayleighscatter
on 05 Feb, 2015 02:12
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No spoilers of the new system before the space symposium.
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#5
by
Space Ghost 1962
on 05 Feb, 2015 02:16
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He did hint that he'd cut price in half and double launch rate, and have a new model to sell launch services.
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#6
by
Space Ghost 1962
on 05 Feb, 2015 02:22
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Filled room with undergrads, grads, and post docs.
Talk is geared to having a discussion about reusability and trade-offs.
He's carefully choosing his words and scoping the problem and process to get there.
Meant to inspire aerospace enginerring students, many here I know and advise.
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#7
by
Space Ghost 1962
on 05 Feb, 2015 02:33
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He starts with the parachutes, ocean splash and refurb case. Insuffcient.
Brings up RSRBs and NASA not getting economics to work.
Parachutes to ground too much damage. How about flyback?
Flyback rather have propellant thAn wings -passive weight vs energy weight.
On to propulsive recovery and issues.
He'd bet a paycheck on 7-8 reuses, but 14-15 is breakeven.
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#8
by
Space Ghost 1962
on 05 Feb, 2015 02:36
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What if you selectively recover parts instead - the engine is 2/3 cost of first stage.
(Argument for ULA recovery scheme we've heard).
He's taking questions.
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#9
by
rayleighscatter
on 05 Feb, 2015 02:38
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Reuse would first focus on LEO. GEO and Interplanetary have very narrow margins (in weight) as is. 1kg extra weight in second stage is 1kg of lost payload. 4-5kg of extra weight in first stage is 1kg lost payload. Makes adding weight to first stage for reuse much more attractive than messing with second stage.
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#10
by
Space Ghost 1962
on 05 Feb, 2015 02:40
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Question about ultra cheap disposable rockets?
Answer: good enough for cubesats but not science/nat security sats.
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#11
by
Space Ghost 1962
on 05 Feb, 2015 02:43
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"Our company has done a disservice in making it look to easy"
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#12
by
rayleighscatter
on 05 Feb, 2015 02:49
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How can you halve costs twice?
Cashing in on experience. Removing mitigation for problems that've been found to be not necessary. New technology in manufacturing.
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#13
by
Space Ghost 1962
on 05 Feb, 2015 02:53
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Q:How are you going do do reuse? Incremental or all at once?
A:Incremental.
Q:Dream for humanity in space?
A: 50 years common activity
Q:What drives change to get there?
A:We are going to use experience to apply additive mfr/other tech to get to turning point on costs to open up new opportunities.
Q:Room for SpaceX?
A: yes, will be watching landing
Q:International competion/collab?
A: Cooling with some, improving with others. Time to say goodbye to Rd180
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#14
by
TrevorMonty
on 05 Feb, 2015 03:20
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Going to be come more vertically intergrated.
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#15
by
Rocket Surgeon
on 05 Feb, 2015 03:51
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Sounds like they may be, cryptically, working on returning engines from the first stage alla. the ULA's previous studies for the Atlas 5 and Astrium's 2013 patent. Could be conceivably worked in by making the design completely modular between the tanks and everything else, and then gradually working in the reusability (test separation after flight-> Test separation and reentry -> test separation, reentry and some sort of retrieval method).
If they then develop a really cheap and mass producible tank, could definitely bring prices down. Not as much as full reusablility but better than nothing.
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#16
by
RocketmanUS
on 05 Feb, 2015 04:16
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About 16:30 into the replay he talks about the need in the future STTO RLV.
He is referring to daily flights at the point we would need STTO RLV.
(Personnel note: Lockheed in the 1990's worked on the X-33 program demonstrator for SSTO RLV. )
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#17
by
FutureSpaceTourist
on 05 Feb, 2015 06:26
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He'd bet a paycheck on 7-8 reuses, but 14-15 is breakeven.
The 14-15 doesn't make sense to me. If the first customer pays full price because they are not comfortable with re-using then break even comes a bit sooner! Sure once reuse has succeeded customers will change their views (over time) but as long as the launch provider offers a decent discount, surely the first RLV provider can price things in a way that generates significant profits quickly? It'll take real RLV competition to force prices much closer to cost.
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#18
by
GalacticIntruder
on 05 Feb, 2015 06:43
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My interpretations of Bruno's talk:
I heard it as him saying 7-8 times is doable with what they know, but trying to reuse it more than that is sketchy, economically and technically; and for RLV to really make it worth the trouble you need at least 14-15 flights.
It is very clear he wants the next rocket to have recoverable engines, powered landings on land, instead of the entire first stage. I disagree, but that is his analysis.
He agrees boost-back on land is the best strategy, but he does have the real world data on hypersonics, yet.
He says his avionics cost several million dollars, and you need two of them (each stage) on RLV.
He does not seem to agree with SpaceX engineering style/method and their economics. I inferred from it he thinks the F9/FH is overkill (unnecessary?), but not efficient enough, especially for higher orbits.
He made a bizarre comment about F9 barge landing, that it is easy, been done before, and he was surprised they failed on their previous try. But he will watch the next one.
He is very proud of the ULA success rate, but admits a rocket will fail eventually.
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#19
by
NovaSilisko
on 05 Feb, 2015 07:07
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He made a bizarre comment about F9 barge landing, that it is was easy, been done before, and he was surprised they failed on their previous try. But he will watch the next one.
Can we get a direct quote here or at least a timestamp?
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#20
by
GalacticIntruder
on 05 Feb, 2015 07:18
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He made a bizarre comment about F9 barge landing, that it is was easy, been done before, and he was surprised they failed on their previous try. But he will watch the next one.
Can we get a direct quote here or at least a timestamp?
52:18
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#21
by
kevinof
on 05 Feb, 2015 07:29
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Maybe I'm getting old and the memory is going but when has it been done before?
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#22
by
Hauerg
on 05 Feb, 2015 07:57
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Maybe I'm getting old and the memory is going but when has it been done before?
For me there are problems with sound at that point of the video, but to me it sounds like he said that vertical landings were easy and done before. And methinks he means DC-X. (But of course DC-X was more like F9-R than F9 1st stage)
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#23
by
AdrianW
on 05 Feb, 2015 08:03
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If it's so easy, why isn't ULA already doing it?
It's the same story all over again:
1) SpaceX announces crazy plan.
2) Critics: "It will never work/be economical!"
3) SpaceX succeeds.
4) Critics: "That was easy anyway, why did it take them so long?"
However, it's nice to hear him talking about his company's new plans so openly, very refreshing.
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#24
by
ChrisWilson68
on 05 Feb, 2015 08:32
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Maybe I'm getting old and the memory is going but when has it been done before?
For me there are problems with sound at that point of the video, but to me it sounds like he said that vertical landings were easy and done before. And methinks he means DC-X. (But of course DC-X was more like F9-R than F9 1st stage)
Yes, that's what I heard, too, that "vertical landing" has been done before.
Which is true, but which totally ignores the hard part of what SpaceX is planning to do. It was either disingenuous or he's totally out of touch.
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#25
by
TrevorMonty
on 05 Feb, 2015 08:49
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Interesting comments towards end of video about aging work force at ULA (aerospace industry in general) and need to bring in young engineers and up skill them (soon) before older work force retires. These speeches at universities, and his tweeting are part of their recruitment drive.
Having a new booster followed by a new upper stage to develop over the next few years will help with the recruitment drive. The NGLS maybe expendable but it will be modern with innovative technology and who knows, after it is finished and flying regularly, ULA may start work on a RLV.
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#26
by
woods170
on 05 Feb, 2015 09:34
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He did hint that he'd cut price in half and double launch rate...
Unfortunately, we have heard such bold statements before, and not just from ULA. None of those promises ever came thru. This one won't either IMO.
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#27
by
ChrisWilson68
on 05 Feb, 2015 09:42
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Interesting comments towards end of video about aging work force at ULA (aerospace industry in general) and need to bring in young engineers and up skill them (soon) before older work force retires. These speeches at universities, and his tweeting are part of their recruitment drive.
Having a new booster followed by a new upper stage to develop over the next few years will help with the recruitment drive. The NGLS maybe expendable but it will be modern with innovative technology and who knows, after it is finished and flying regularly, ULA may start work on a RLV.
So...if you're an eager young graduate looking for a job you can join ULA where who knows, someday they might work on something new, or you can join SpaceX where they're already bringing that to production while working on colonizing Mars in their spare time.
I think I can tell which type of engineer will choose ULA and which will choose SpaceX. And it's not good for ULA.
If ULA really wants to compete with SpaceX, they need to up their game, and that starts with doing things today that are interesting enough to attract the best talent.
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#28
by
Chris Bergin
on 05 Feb, 2015 10:09
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He made a bizarre comment about F9 barge landing, that it is was easy, been done before, and he was surprised they failed on their previous try. But he will watch the next one.
Can we get a direct quote here or at least a timestamp?
52:18
Anyone able to accurately quote that? The video seems like it was streamed on a calculator.
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#29
by
Prober
on 05 Feb, 2015 10:22
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How can you halve costs twice?
Cashing in on experience. Removing mitigation for problems that've been found to be not necessary. New technology in manufacturing.
believe he was talking about bringing costs down to 1/4 the costs or 25% (nice goal).
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#30
by
Lar
on 05 Feb, 2015 10:24
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Interesting comments towards end of video about aging work force at ULA (aerospace industry in general) and need to bring in young engineers and up skill them (soon) before older work force retires. These speeches at universities, and his tweeting are part of their recruitment drive.
Having a new booster followed by a new upper stage to develop over the next few years will help with the recruitment drive. The NGLS maybe expendable but it will be modern with innovative technology and who knows, after it is finished and flying regularly, ULA may start work on a RLV.
So...if you're an eager young graduate looking for a job you can join ULA where who knows, someday they might work on something new, or you can join SpaceX where they're already bringing that to production while working on colonizing Mars in their spare time.
I think I can tell which type of engineer will choose ULA and which will choose SpaceX. And it's not good for ULA.
If ULA really wants to compete with SpaceX, they need to up their game, and that starts with doing things today that are interesting enough to attract the best talent.
Roger that. I think it's a pity ULA's hands are tied as much as they are. If they wanted to do something interesting short term, they should start actually flying IVF/ACES. That would get people excited and the TRL is quite a bit higher than some ideas, IMHO.
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#31
by
Prober
on 05 Feb, 2015 10:27
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He made a bizarre comment about F9 barge landing, that it is was easy, been done before, and he was surprised they failed on their previous try. But he will watch the next one.
Can we get a direct quote here or at least a timestamp?
note at the bottom of the Utube posting:
"A talk on the future of commercial space hosted by Stanford SSI and the Speakers Bureau of Stanford University. The video will also be recorded in higher quality and posted later."
52:18
Anyone able to accurately quote that? The video seems like it was streamed on a calculator.
sound was a little problem.... but "a vertical landing has been done before"
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#32
by
Prober
on 05 Feb, 2015 10:32
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Interesting comments towards end of video about aging work force at ULA (aerospace industry in general) and need to bring in young engineers and up skill them (soon) before older work force retires. These speeches at universities, and his tweeting are part of their recruitment drive.
Having a new booster followed by a new upper stage to develop over the next few years will help with the recruitment drive. The NGLS maybe expendable but it will be modern with innovative technology and who knows, after it is finished and flying regularly, ULA may start work on a RLV.
So...if you're an eager young graduate looking for a job you can join ULA where who knows, someday they might work on something new, or you can join SpaceX where they're already bringing that to production while working on colonizing Mars in their spare time.
I think I can tell which type of engineer will choose ULA and which will choose SpaceX. And it's not good for ULA.
If ULA really wants to compete with SpaceX, they need to up their game, and that starts with doing things today that are interesting enough to attract the best talent.
Roger that. I think it's a pity ULA's hands are tied as much as they are. If they wanted to do something interesting short term, they should start actually flying IVF/ACES. That would get people excited and the TRL is quite a bit higher than some ideas, IMHO.
He did say "Additive manufacturing", Was good to hear. Would have to question him to find out if he "truly" understands it, or like many using it as a buzz world, the jury is out.
Did anyone get the questions regarding "vertical integration"? Was not clear on that subject.
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#33
by
rokan2003
on 05 Feb, 2015 11:35
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Here's the SpaceX quote - I've put the words I'm uncertain about in brackets:
Q: Is there room for SpaceX at the table?
A: Of course there is. Space is big. Competition is just fine.
Q: will you watching the second attempt on Sunday afternoon?
A: Of course I will. Honestly, I ( was surprised) it didn't work out last time. Uhm, vertical landing's been done before. It's an engineering (challenge? Problem?). They'll solve it. Now the question you'll want to ask, after all this discussion is: should we do it? You get to make your own opinion on it.
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#34
by
mvpel
on 05 Feb, 2015 11:47
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He does not seem to agree with SpaceX engineering style/method and their economics. I inferred from it he thinks the F9/FH is overkill (unnecessary?), but not efficient enough, especially for higher orbits.
I suppose that depends on your definition of "efficiency," doesn't it? Trashing an entire launch vehicle every time seems pretty inefficient to most of us.
What did he say to lead you to this inference?
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#35
by
notsorandom
on 05 Feb, 2015 13:25
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Interesting comments towards end of video about aging work force at ULA (aerospace industry in general) and need to bring in young engineers and up skill them (soon) before older work force retires. These speeches at universities, and his tweeting are part of their recruitment drive.
Having a new booster followed by a new upper stage to develop over the next few years will help with the recruitment drive. The NGLS maybe expendable but it will be modern with innovative technology and who knows, after it is finished and flying regularly, ULA may start work on a RLV.
So...if you're an eager young graduate looking for a job you can join ULA where who knows, someday they might work on something new, or you can join SpaceX where they're already bringing that to production while working on colonizing Mars in their spare time.
I think I can tell which type of engineer will choose ULA and which will choose SpaceX. And it's not good for ULA.
If ULA really wants to compete with SpaceX, they need to up their game, and that starts with doing things today that are interesting enough to attract the best talent.
ULA has a good compensation package, good overtime compensation, and low turn over. If they remain competitive in those areas it won't matter what cool things SpaceX are doing. ULA will still be able to attract talented engineers.
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#36
by
NovaSilisko
on 05 Feb, 2015 16:24
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Here's the SpaceX quote - I've put the words I'm uncertain about in brackets:
Q: Is there room for SpaceX at the table?
A: Of course there is. Space is big. Competition is just fine.
Q: will you watching the second attempt on Sunday afternoon?
A: Of course I will. Honestly, I ( was surprised) it didn't work out last time. Uhm, vertical landing's been done before. It's an engineering (challenge? Problem?). They'll solve it. Now the question you'll want to ask, after all this discussion is: should we do it? You get to make your own opinion on it.
Hmm, so I guess it can be taken as "I'm surprised SpaceX didn't get it on that first try, after their own numerous tests with vertical landing, but they'll get it right sooner or later." Or simply vertical landing in general (though nothing on the scale of what SpaceX has done... or such a horrid shape for a VTVL rocket)
Assuming the calculator audio can be trusted, that is.
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#37
by
Coastal Ron
on 05 Feb, 2015 16:42
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ULA has a good compensation package, good overtime compensation, and low turn over. If they remain competitive in those areas it won't matter what cool things SpaceX are doing. ULA will still be able to attract talented engineers.
Different types of people look for different types of needs in a job. If stability is important, then ULA today is a good bet. Before they announced their new launcher effort though, if you wanted to work on something new ULA would not have been the 1st on the list.
But now that they are working on a new launcher, they would attract people that are looking for new challenges. However they may already have everyone they need within the company, so there may not be a big need to hire from the outside. Or if they do it would be to backfill the people that are already in the company that are moving over to the new launcher program, in which case the new people would just be working on the existing launchers.
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#38
by
RanulfC
on 05 Feb, 2015 16:47
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Maybe I'm getting old and the memory is going but when has it been done before?
For me there are problems with sound at that point of the video, but to me it sounds like he said that vertical landings were easy and done before. And methinks he means DC-X. (But of course DC-X was more like F9-R than F9 1st stage)
Yes, that's what I heard, too, that "vertical landing" has been done before.
Which is true, but which totally ignores the hard part of what SpaceX is planning to do. It was either disingenuous or he's totally out of touch.
Well actually DC-X pretty much PROVED it's "easy" when everythink works right... When it doesn't, well as DC-X also proved (and SpaceX and BO
) things get more complicated. SpaceX is however the only one currently trying to "do-it" with an actual first stage rather than a limited test vehicle.
The main theme seems to be that SpaceX is on the right track and that "old-space" can easily follow in their footsteps if they so choose. Main issue I see in all this is everyone seems afraid to take that first "next" step to the logical conclusion which is an actual RLV rather than "incrementing" from ELV to partial-RLV. SpaceX has put it off till BFR (and I actually agree with the logic mind you) but this seems to indicate that Bruno feels its going to be "put-off" till some future SSTO-RLV.
LEO second stage reusablity has been discussed to death but that's not the market and GTO/GEO is again pointed out to not be economical.
Considering the economics I can't say I "really" can argue differently but it seems to me that the sooner the "customer/market" can be assured an intact abort of their payload at any time during the flight the MORE demand would increase. Following the "trend" here would seem to indictate that while your first stage would be "reusable" any problems and in the end you still lose your payload.
Randy
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#39
by
phantomdj
on 05 Feb, 2015 17:57
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The DC-X never proved how “easy” it is because it never came screaming back to the launch pad at Mach 5. It went up to about 2800 feet and then landed.
To say that vertical landing's been done before is to belittle the effort that SpaceX is trying to accomplish.
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#40
by
LastStarFighter
on 05 Feb, 2015 18:09
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Maybe I'm getting old and the memory is going but when has it been done before?
For me there are problems with sound at that point of the video, but to me it sounds like he said that vertical landings were easy and done before. And methinks he means DC-X. (But of course DC-X was more like F9-R than F9 1st stage)
Yes, that's what I heard, too, that "vertical landing" has been done before.
Which is true, but which totally ignores the hard part of what SpaceX is planning to do. It was either disingenuous or he's totally out of touch.
I think he is saying vertical landing has been proven many times before... DC -X is one example but Blue Orgin, Armadillo, Masten, Etc... Many have done vertical landings so the science is there. The hard part for SpaceX is proving the ecomomics and reliability of it once they recover one. I'm guessing that is what everyone believes has been too difficult in the past. Looking forward to the next couple years though... Sounds like everyone is rethinking things! Exciting times!
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#41
by
kirghizstan
on 05 Feb, 2015 18:14
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Maybe I'm getting old and the memory is going but when has it been done before?
For me there are problems with sound at that point of the video, but to me it sounds like he said that vertical landings were easy and done before. And methinks he means DC-X. (But of course DC-X was more like F9-R than F9 1st stage)
Yes, that's what I heard, too, that "vertical landing" has been done before.
Which is true, but which totally ignores the hard part of what SpaceX is planning to do. It was either disingenuous or he's totally out of touch.
I think he is saying vertical landing has been proven many times before... DC -X is one example but Blue Orgin, Armadillo, Masten, Etc... Many have done vertical landings so the science is there. The hard part for SpaceX is proving the ecomomics and reliability of it once they recover one. I'm guessing that is what everyone believes has been too difficult in the past. Looking forward to the next couple years though... Sounds like everyone is rethinking things! Exciting times!
Please tell me if I'm wrong, but to me there is a big difference between Grasshopper/DC-x/BO/Armadillo/etc and landing the F-9R S1.
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#42
by
phantomdj
on 05 Feb, 2015 18:14
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I think he is saying vertical landing has been proven many times before... DC -X is one example but Blue Orgin, Armadillo, Masten, Etc... Many have done vertical landings so the science is there. The hard part for SpaceX is proving the ecomomics and reliability of it once they recover one. I'm guessing that is what everyone believes has been too difficult in the past. Looking forward to the next couple years though... Sounds like everyone is rethinking things! Exciting times!
I'll say it again that all of these examples never proved how “easy” it is to land vertically because they never came screaming back to the launch pad at Mach 5.
To say that vertical landing's been done before is to belittle the effort that SpaceX is trying to accomplish.
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#43
by
Space Ghost 1962
on 05 Feb, 2015 18:18
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He'd bet a paycheck on 7-8 reuses, but 14-15 is breakeven.
The 14-15 doesn't make sense to me. If the first customer pays full price because they are not comfortable with re-using then break even comes a bit sooner! Sure once reuse has succeeded customers will change their views (over time) but as long as the launch provider offers a decent discount, surely the first RLV provider can price things in a way that generates significant profits quickly? It'll take real RLV competition to force prices much closer to cost.
I believe the 7-8 and 14-15 numbers were a way to "not explain" the rationale of partial recovery. Through knowing margins, fatigue, thermal cycling, and engine erosion, one might say you've get away with some reuse success with 7-8, but then you'd hit a wall around 14-15, so in paying off the economics of legs et al, the trade for a fully reusable vehicle wouldn't occur.
This may be a roundabout way of saying "no way in hell do you get hundreds of reflights" like in aircraft operation Musk says he can do.
I read it that ULA (and others) are absolutely terrified of this prospect occurring soon, so pour the same kind of cold water on it that they did any kind of booster recovery earlier. Not saying that it can be done, but it sounded like "fear of flying" to many members of the audience I know/spoke with.
I talked to grad students afterward, including one for hours, about why they showed up, what they expected, how the talk was received, and how they felt about it afterwards.
Only one grad spoke with him afterward as long as I was there.BTW, a common perspective was that they perceived the speaker as on a PR tour, and not at all certain of what the point was in discussing reuse. It came across overall as more of a backhanded critique of Musk's attempts to achieve reuse, with the sarcasm and petty jabs showing through at various times.
As if he couldn't sort out for himself the conflicting attitudes of wanting to bond as an engineer, wanting to challenge a novel effort, wanting to poke a rival, wanting to self justify a position, and wanting just to start having a presence in public where none had been before. Confusing.
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#44
by
Space Ghost 1962
on 05 Feb, 2015 18:35
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He did hint that he'd cut price in half and double launch rate...
Unfortunately, we have heard such bold statements before, and not just from ULA. None of those promises ever came thru. This one won't either IMO.
I agree completely with you. And I think the same is true for other providers in "the club". He alluded to this in "international competition and cooperation" question. Where he froze me cold when he described in euphemisms dealings with the Russians - the last time I heard such was during the cold war with AF officers - was not expecting anything like that.
FWIW, he'd announced no reveals at the beginning of the talk, but couldn't help himself and announced these meaningless "hints" as hints as if they mattered, then launched into a one-sided discussion of reusable rockets topic. The grad students expected a more serious back and forth, and even asked some follow-up questions later to this end. They appeared to be disappointed by this, with the positive take away being his performance arguments in payload pound reduction trade choices. His allusions to "business" imperatives and business models were annoying to them and cryptic, only making sense well after the fact when you added in some comments during questions to puzzle out things. Perhaps he didn't know that at least 4 present were also from the business school either.
My read is that what they will do is a NGLV much like Atlas, and partial first stage reuse as an experiment so they don't look too retrograde. They will try to do what they consider "Musk like marketing spin" on this, and it will go nowhere.
When asked about his goal to do with ULA, his august goal was to ride out the uncertainty to a solid future as one of the providers in a field of many, then to retire and ride horses.
So, yeah, you're right, nothing will happen.
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#45
by
Space Ghost 1962
on 05 Feb, 2015 18:44
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Interesting comments towards end of video about aging work force at ULA (aerospace industry in general) and need to bring in young engineers and up skill them (soon) before older work force retires. These speeches at universities, and his tweeting are part of their recruitment drive.
Having a new booster followed by a new upper stage to develop over the next few years will help with the recruitment drive. The NGLS maybe expendable but it will be modern with innovative technology and who knows, after it is finished and flying regularly, ULA may start work on a RLV.
So...if you're an eager young graduate looking for a job you can join ULA where who knows, someday they might work on something new, or you can join SpaceX where they're already bringing that to production while working on colonizing Mars in their spare time.
I think I can tell which type of engineer will choose ULA and which will choose SpaceX. And it's not good for ULA.
If ULA really wants to compete with SpaceX, they need to up their game, and that starts with doing things today that are interesting enough to attract the best talent.
I counted 5 spacex t-shirts in the audience, and a women grad student with ULA launch patches for an Atlas launch. 4 "gray hairs" including me. The vast majority were under 30 yr old students and post docs, more than half the audience was under 25.
They had come wanting to be sold on ULA because of its fabulous mission success rate. They wanted to have a reason to burn up their lives in the passion for launch. It would appear that they did not get this realized. I don't think ULA really yet has a way of absorbing any of them, and the best ones appeared to be the most annoyed.
Many of these already are considering SpaceX and others. They have trepidation, they are "gettable" by ULA. And they are very, very good. But the message they received to "jump" was "do our bidding, not your own ideas". I don't think the speaker was remotely aware of this, and thought he was doing much the opposite. Ships passing in the night.
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#46
by
Space Ghost 1962
on 05 Feb, 2015 18:55
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Roger that. I think it's a pity ULA's hands are tied as much as they are. If they wanted to do something interesting short term, they should start actually flying IVF/ACES. That would get people excited and the TRL is quite a bit higher than some ideas, IMHO.
My impression from the evening is that specifically the "hobbling" comes from the two ULA shareholders. They think of Musk as a circus act, because he underwrites non-traditional development as a form of marketing.
This is wrongly interpreted to mean that things like IVF and reuse/recovery are low cost carny sideshow acts one tolerates cheaply but never commit to on the main development path. Then they don't even bother to do them or talk about them given distractions, and mock Musk's efforts as a way to minimize the fallout they invite by being disingenuous. Which in turn they take as insult, because they cannot, will not, see that if you don't seriously match Musk's efforts genuinely, then no one accepts your actual "highest level" skills to match/exceed .
Its not that ULA can't "do", its that they "won't do" and appear to "not bother".
They appear, like others in the "club", to be no closer to addressing this issue. Are they even aware? Denial?
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#47
by
Space Ghost 1962
on 05 Feb, 2015 19:14
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An aside from being critical.
Tory Bruno appeared as a real, stand-up kind of guy. He's very effective in communicating, more so than Gass who always appeared to me as uncomfortable in such environments (Bruno very elegantly praised Gass's efforts in forming ULA, effectively illustrating the challenge Gass succeeded with). Bruno is starting to remedy a ULA deficit in building a public and institutional presence outside of ULA. He's nice, and almost approachable by millennial's.
My critiques are to be seen as watching many missed opportunities for ULA last night. They have never had much of a use for what they are now appearing to be building, so it will take time and effort for things to work. Its nice to see them start down this path. More important than winning another NRO launch, no matter the killer launch patches they have ...
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#48
by
Antares
on 05 Feb, 2015 20:39
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Interesting that Bruno seemed to miss his audience.
Everything on Glassdoor shows that SpaceX's work-life balance is an oxymoron. ULA can still attract high achievers who want to have a work life and a home life, where the former generally tops out at 50 a week rather than starts there.
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#49
by
TrevorMonty
on 05 Feb, 2015 20:44
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He did hint that he'd cut price in half and double launch rate...
Unfortunately, we have heard such bold statements before, and not just from ULA. None of those promises ever came thru. This one won't either IMO.
ULA currently have 5 LV, Delta 2, 4, 4H, Atlas 5 5xx, 4xx and 5(?) launch pads. Last year they did 14 launches between these 5 LVs.
They could halve costs tomorrow by switching to a single core eg Atlas 5xx and Atlas 5H. Straight away they could rationalize to 3 pads ( 1 west, 2 east) have one production line producing 14+ cores a year. NB this is example they will not do this with Atlas.
Building BE4 in-house under license I would expect would reduce their booster propulsion (engines + solid boosters) costs by 30-50%. NB NLV uses less SB required for most launches.
The booster structure should be cheaper as they should be able to lose the He for pressurization.
Nearly halving build cost of upper stage shouldn't be hard. Use in-house XCOR engine and switch to IVF. Boeing's new carbon fibre tanks are meant to be 25% cheaper to build and be 25% lighter.
They should be able to match maybe better F9 1st stage build costs. Labour costs should be same for both companies. Building and fitting 2 BE4s should require a lot less labour than 9 merlins.
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#50
by
rayleighscatter
on 05 Feb, 2015 20:48
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I'll say it again that all of these examples never proved how “easy” it is to land vertically because they never came screaming back to the launch pad at Mach 5.
To say that vertical landing's been done before is to belittle the effort that SpaceX is trying to accomplish.
And to say vertical landing hasn't been done before is belittling of all the accomplishments done before which SpaceX is riding on the shoulders of.
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#51
by
Space Ghost 1962
on 05 Feb, 2015 21:17
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Interesting that Bruno seemed to miss his audience.
The way the students, individually, all told me was consistent. "He answers all of the questions wrong for me". "Makes me uncomfortable". "He's not like Musk and not in a good way".
Everything on Glassdoor shows that SpaceX's work-life balance is an oxymoron. ULA can still attract high achievers who want to have a work life and a home life, where the former generally tops out at 50 a week rather than starts there.
They are acutely aware of that. The big thing they have against Musk is the fear that they'll burn out for a stupid reason. But they consider it because "at least I'll have done something great, and with my own ideas". Partially true.
ULA would do better to present "and this is how we'll make use of your innovation, and you won't have to risk burning out and getting nothing for it". They already get the excitement of space/nat sec missions and keeping up a hard pace w/o fail.
Missed opportunities.
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#52
by
Lar
on 05 Feb, 2015 21:20
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I'll say it again that all of these examples never proved how “easy” it is to land vertically because they never came screaming back to the launch pad at Mach 5.
To say that vertical landing's been done before is to belittle the effort that SpaceX is trying to accomplish.
And to say vertical landing hasn't been done before is belittling of all the accomplishments done before which SpaceX is riding on the shoulders of.
To my thinking the truth is somewhere in the middle. No one has done what SpaceX is trying to do, land a booster vertically from reentry speeds. But SpaceX is not starting from scratch. Much useful work was done by others.
What I think is so marvelous about SpaceX is that they are synthesizing. They are not afraid to reuse ideas that work, and also not afraid of rethinking conventional wisdom. Their tech, taken as pieces, is not that special. Individual elements are all well understood. But the sum is greater than the whole of the parts.
Tony Bruno impresses me. I'm even a begrudging fan (reply to my tweet and it buys you a lot!), but I don't see ULA being able to reproduce what SpaceX did. Still, Bruno has moved the company a lot and might be able to move it a lot farther .Time will tell.
(Of course this is with respect to Gass who I was not a fan of at all... happy to see him go)
Also, kudos to Space Ghost 1962 for having been there and giving us the inside evaluation. Thanks!
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#53
by
RocketmanUS
on 05 Feb, 2015 22:08
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I'll say it again that all of these examples never proved how “easy” it is to land vertically because they never came screaming back to the launch pad at Mach 5.
To say that vertical landing's been done before is to belittle the effort that SpaceX is trying to accomplish.
And to say vertical landing hasn't been done before is belittling of all the accomplishments done before which SpaceX is riding on the shoulders of.
To my thinking the truth is somewhere in the middle. No one has done what SpaceX is trying to do, land a booster vertically from reentry speeds. But SpaceX is not starting from scratch. Much useful work was done by others.
What I think is so marvelous about SpaceX is that they are synthesizing. They are not afraid to reuse ideas that work, and also not afraid of rethinking conventional wisdom. Their tech, taken as pieces, is not that special. Individual elements are all well understood. But the sum is greater than the whole of the parts.
Tony Bruno impresses me. I'm even a begrudging fan (reply to my tweet and it buys you a lot!), but I don't see ULA being able to reproduce what SpaceX did. Still, Bruno has moved the company a lot and might be able to move it a lot farther .Time will tell.
(Of course this is with respect to Gass who I was not a fan of at all... happy to see him go)
Also, kudos to Space Ghost 1962 for having been there and giving us the inside evaluation. Thanks!
My take is ULA will first upgrade the first stage with new lower cost manufacturing with the new engine. Next would be the US upgrades.
Latter they will either get the engine(s) or the whole 1st stage back depending on future flight rate and economics of recovery.
The fourth phase would be to go with the STTO RLV if there are yearly flight rates of around 200 ( based on what he said about possible future flight rates and people going to space and working there ). This is not the near term but more like 50 years down the road.
Personally I think they will need to get the 1st stage back as part of their first phase of their next generation launch vehicle. If they don't SpaceX and/or others will have much lower per launch cost.
Edit:
How ULA would get the 1st stage back is not so important. But the possible lower per launch with reliability is.
And SpaceX has already demonstrated they can land a 1st stage with Grasshopper.
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#54
by
Rocket Science
on 05 Feb, 2015 22:31
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It’s great that ULA is doing this but I don’t think they’re really sold on the whole reusability approach and are taking a wait and see attitude (I said this couple of years back). I agree with what’s been said that they are really looking for efficiencies vs reusability and in the long run they will be proven correct. The problem I see with this audience is coming across as paternal with we have the experience and we know better. We’ve thought about returning a first stage whereas SpaceX is “trying” to return a first stage. Which approach do you think will excite a young engineer to one company versus another?
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#55
by
jongoff
on 06 Feb, 2015 01:13
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Roger that. I think it's a pity ULA's hands are tied as much as they are. If they wanted to do something interesting short term, they should start actually flying IVF/ACES. That would get people excited and the TRL is quite a bit higher than some ideas, IMHO.
ULA's actually making decent progress on at least IVF. I don't know what's public knowledge, but there's real progress being made toward flying some of the pieces in the not so distant future. Not sure where ACES stands, but at least IVF is being actively funded and developed.
~Jon
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#56
by
jongoff
on 06 Feb, 2015 01:19
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Interesting that Bruno seemed to miss his audience.
Everything on Glassdoor shows that SpaceX's work-life balance is an oxymoron. ULA can still attract high achievers who want to have a work life and a home life, where the former generally tops out at 50 a week rather than starts there.
Yeah, I'm a fan of keeping the big sprints to an occasional thing, and treating life as a marathon, not 26 miles worth of non-stop 100 yard dashes.
~Jon
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#57
by
jongoff
on 06 Feb, 2015 01:22
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I'll say it again that all of these examples never proved how “easy” it is to land vertically because they never came screaming back to the launch pad at Mach 5.
To say that vertical landing's been done before is to belittle the effort that SpaceX is trying to accomplish.
And to say vertical landing hasn't been done before is belittling of all the accomplishments done before which SpaceX is riding on the shoulders of.
Thank you! The sad thing is that SpaceX amazing peoples are far more dismissive of the efforts of previous VTVL groups than SpaceX was. When we did our in-air relight at Masten, one of the first congrats emails we got was from Tom Mueller. I wish SpaceX's fans were half as classy as that.
~Jon
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#58
by
muomega0
on 06 Feb, 2015 02:20
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It’s great that ULA is doing this but I don’t think they’re really sold on the whole reusability approach and are taking a wait and see attitude (I said this couple of years back). I agree with what’s been said that they are really looking for efficiencies vs reusability and in the long run they will be proven correct. The problem I see with this audience is coming across as paternal with we have the experience and we know better. We’ve thought about returning a first stage whereas SpaceX is “trying” to return a first stage. Which approach do you think will excite a young engineer to one company versus another?
if the business model is a few 100M+ satellites + 6 mT to LEO for ISS w/ launch costs 100M-1B/ea, likely reuse is not worth it.
Centaur technology tells quite a bit about the current and past folks of ULA, not to mention those depot papers. In addition, many studies suggest any robust BEO programs need LH2 and EP transfer stages.
There is a very easy way to increase flight rate: simply build payloads rather than build very expensive excess LV capacity in the form of super HLV and capsules.
The real game changer however, especially for reuse, is a demand for 100s of mT of dirt cheap Class D propellant in LEO for BEO. Atlas and Delta were almost a part of this 'spiral', depot centric, flexible architecture prior to the 2005 ESAS ('black zones', must be less than 3 launches, ). Depots also reduce the LV size required. Imagine if NASA simply demanded ~$1B in launch services to LEO, and spent $2B/year on mission and technology hardware at the *expense* of SLS and Orion at 3B/year. Inconceivable?
Engineer's can clearly see this future, amd most certainly the ULA CEO, so his mixed talk is partly understandable, as change does not come easy:
One day Atlas/Delta/SLS will be consolidated and the US will have two non sole source LVs, while, at the same time, performing LV R&D since SLS/Orion/existing/EELV are not taking Astronauts to Mars..too big and too expensive. What play will Congress call and when?
Catch the wave: LEO Depot, advance R&D, BEO missions, at least one new major market. It all begins with the LEO depot and mission hardware requiring propellant. Quite an exciting future indeed. It may even merit a plus up.
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#59
by
TrevorMonty
on 06 Feb, 2015 06:36
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I'm a big fan of SpaceX reusability effots and hope they achieve it but can also see where ULA are coming from in regards to NGLS and the economics of reusability.
ULA should be able to build the NGLS so that is cost competitive to expendable F9 and FH especially for the high value DOD payloads. There is no show stopping technology that is stopping ULA from doing this just good engineering and business sense. With a LH upper stage it will also be more capable for BLEO missions.
Currently a F9E is worth $63m this is cost of LV (eg $33m), launch costs(eg $10m) and profit ($20m), 1st stage is 3/4 of LV so $25m.
Recovery and refurbishment/ testing assume $5m + 10% depreciation ($2.5m). We have now saved $17.5m per core for a revovered launch all going well.
A DOD mission well have a $30m+ mission assurance cost added to it plus may be a few more for Vertical payload loading so we can assume $100m for DOD launch. SpaceX maybe saving $17.5m a core per launch but they will not be passing all that onto customer especially as they have to carry risk of not recovering a core, assume a $9m discount. A F9R now costs $91m compared to $100m for ULA NGLS for DOD mission for payloads up to 4t GTO. For payloads over 4t GTO SpaceX have to use F9E for $100m or offer a FHR, but now we are talking about recovering 3 cores so add another $20m for the 2 extra recovered cores ie $110m.
Going off Dmitry simulation a NGLS can do 8.85mt to GTO (without SRBs ??) see "ULA new Launch Vehicle" thread.
Even at $90m NGLS is competitive with FHR for GTO payloads up to 7t. Beyond 7t FH needs to expend the middle core making the NGLS cheaper even if it has to use SRBs.
In regards to Tory talking about 20 launches per year, currently they are doing 14 with DOD and NASA. They will definitely lose a few DOD and some NASA missions to SpaceX but I expect them to keep the lions share especially at competitive prices. They will pick up extra flights from CST-100 plus a commercial satellites. At present ULA has reliability record as good as Ariane if not better so picking up commercial satellite missions shouldn't be a problem if they are cheaper than Ariane 5 or 6.
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#60
by
woods170
on 06 Feb, 2015 08:32
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I'll say it again that all of these examples never proved how “easy” it is to land vertically because they never came screaming back to the launch pad at Mach 5.
To say that vertical landing's been done before is to belittle the effort that SpaceX is trying to accomplish.
And to say vertical landing hasn't been done before is belittling of all the accomplishments done before which SpaceX is riding on the shoulders of.
Thank you! The sad thing is that SpaceX amazing peoples are far more dismissive of the efforts of previous VTVL groups than SpaceX was. When we did our in-air relight at Masten, one of the first congrats emails we got was from Tom Mueller. I wish SpaceX's fans were half as classy as that.
~Jon
There is a notable difference between SpaceX fans and amazing peoples. The latter have a tendency to dismiss everything but SpaceX. The former are usually much more objective.
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#61
by
Jim
on 06 Feb, 2015 12:16
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One day Atlas/Delta/SLS will be consolidated
again, stop with the nonsense. That will never happen
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#62
by
phantomdj
on 06 Feb, 2015 14:32
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I'll say it again that all of these examples never proved how “easy” it is to land vertically because they never came screaming back to the launch pad at Mach 5.
To say that vertical landing's been done before is to belittle the effort that SpaceX is trying to accomplish.
And to say vertical landing hasn't been done before is belittling of all the accomplishments done before which SpaceX is riding on the shoulders of.
Thank you! The sad thing is that SpaceX amazing peoples are far more dismissive of the efforts of previous VTVL groups than SpaceX was. When we did our in-air relight at Masten, one of the first congrats emails we got was from Tom Mueller. I wish SpaceX's fans were half as classy as that.
~Jon
There is a notable difference between SpaceX fans and amazing peoples. The latter have a tendency to dismiss everything but SpaceX. The former are usually much more objective.
Right woods170. It is a shame that some people have to make ad hominem attacks (“half as classy” really?) without understanding the issue or point being made.
As someone who spent over 28 years testing the electronics and preparing the Shuttle SRB’s at KSC, I can tell you that many of us admired watching the DC-X go through its tests hoping it would succeed but that’s not the point. Nor are we dismissive of the efforts of previous VTVL groups or belittling all the accomplishments done before.
Sure one could say that the X-1 jet stands of the shoulders of the Wright Flyer but there is a huge difference between the two just as there is a difference between a 2800 ft landing coming from subsonic speed and one coming from 10 miles high at Mach 2 or 3. It is not easy and the DC-X only proved one phase of the process. No one before as put all the pieces , all the flight phases together before like SpaceX. They deserve credit for that which Tory Bruno, seemingly, was not willing to give.
The point of my comment was that Tory Bruno sounded like HE was belittling and dismissing SpaceX’s accomplishment as easy, vertical landing' been done before and surprised they failed. It is a little disingenuous.
The real question is whether it will be economical once SpaceX proves the ability through all phases of flight. Reusing the Shuttle was supposed to be economical also and we all know how that turned out. I wouldn’t bet against Elon and SpaceX.
P.S. I have friends working for ULA and I am not a SpaceX amazing people. I only begrudgingly became a believer watching their accomplishments over the years.
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#63
by
notsorandom
on 06 Feb, 2015 15:17
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Interesting that Bruno seemed to miss his audience.
Everything on Glassdoor shows that SpaceX's work-life balance is an oxymoron. ULA can still attract high achievers who want to have a work life and a home life, where the former generally tops out at 50 a week rather than starts there.
It is only a matter of a few years before most of those young professionals right out of school start wanting a family. Never being home makes that pretty hard to do. As Gene Cernan points out in his book several Apollo astronauts gave up their chance to walk on the Moon for their family. I can't imagine any job would be better than getting to walk on the Moon. Having a high turnover rate can directly help your competitor. If ULA continues to offer good compensation and a good work-life balance then they will be able to grab a good number of people SpaceX spent time training.
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#64
by
edkyle99
on 06 Feb, 2015 15:38
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The real question is whether it will be economical once SpaceX proves the ability through all phases of flight. Reusing the Shuttle was supposed to be economical also and we all know how that turned out.
The core question, well stated!
- Ed Kyle
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#65
by
RedLineTrain
on 06 Feb, 2015 15:39
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Having a high turnover rate can directly help your competitor. If ULA continues to offer good compensation and a good work-life balance then they will be able to grab a good number of people SpaceX spent time training.
Seems possible, but do we have existence proof of it happening?
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#66
by
jongoff
on 06 Feb, 2015 16:42
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I'll say it again that all of these examples never proved how “easy” it is to land vertically because they never came screaming back to the launch pad at Mach 5.
To say that vertical landing's been done before is to belittle the effort that SpaceX is trying to accomplish.
And to say vertical landing hasn't been done before is belittling of all the accomplishments done before which SpaceX is riding on the shoulders of.
Thank you! The sad thing is that SpaceX amazing peoples are far more dismissive of the efforts of previous VTVL groups than SpaceX was. When we did our in-air relight at Masten, one of the first congrats emails we got was from Tom Mueller. I wish SpaceX's fans were half as classy as that.
~Jon
There is a notable difference between SpaceX fans and amazing peoples. The latter have a tendency to dismiss everything but SpaceX. The former are usually much more objective.
That's a very valid distinction. I think most of the people in the other VTVL groups (Masten, AA, former DC-X, etc.) would call themselves SpaceX fans.
To bring this back to ULA's reuse plans, I wouldn't be surprised if some of the VTVL/NewSpace companies that have been involved with ULA (Masten, XCOR, and Altius) don't end up playing some sort of a role in whatever reuse method ULA settles on.
~Jon
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#67
by
RanulfC
on 06 Feb, 2015 16:43
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The DC-X never proved how “easy” it is because it never came screaming back to the launch pad at Mach 5. It went up to about 2800 feet and then landed.
To say that vertical landing's been done before is to belittle the effort that SpaceX is trying to accomplish.
I pointed that out, HOWEVER prior to DC-X it was considered "not-viable" to consider rocket powered vetical landing of a launch vehicle AT ALL! Which can't be stressed enough.
You're attempting to "belittle" all the effort done PRIOR to the first SpaceX return landing INCLUDING the work SpaceX put into it by ignoring it
Please tell me if I'm wrong, but to me there is a big difference between Grasshopper/DC-x/BO/Armadillo/etc and landing the F-9R S1.
You're not totally wrong but as I've noted the PRIOR work was required as well even if it wasn't "exactly" the same conditions. Its a building process which SpaceX admits and in fact contributed to itself.
I'll say it again that all of these examples never proved how “easy” it is to land vertically because they never came screaming back to the launch pad at Mach 5.
To say that vertical landing's been done before is to belittle the effort that SpaceX is trying to accomplish.
Repeating it doesn't make it true either
The prior work clearly showed that vertical rocket powered landing WAS a viable concept. SpaceX STARTED with the premis of parachute and water landing recovery which was a "proven" method and then moved to VTVL and Boost-Back RTLS for recovery BECAUSE of the prior work. I for one would appreciate if you would cease your efforts to "belittle" those who contributed to SpaceX's upcoming success in an effort to give SpaceX sole and undeserved "credit" for VTVL landing.
They are going to "prove" the entire process but they neither invented it nor have they worked in a vacuum in developing and refining the process and Bruno is simply acknowledging that fact. You should probably do so too
Randy
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#68
by
notsorandom
on 06 Feb, 2015 16:53
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Having a high turnover rate can directly help your competitor. If ULA continues to offer good compensation and a good work-life balance then they will be able to grab a good number of people SpaceX spent time training.
Seems possible, but do we have existence proof of it happening?
I am not sure if ULA is really hiring all that many people at this point. Other companies which are hiring are snapping up former SpaceX employees. A good portion of Firefly Space Systems' work force has SpaceX on their resume.
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#69
by
WHAP
on 06 Feb, 2015 16:57
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Having a high turnover rate can directly help your competitor. If ULA continues to offer good compensation and a good work-life balance then they will be able to grab a good number of people SpaceX spent time training.
Seems possible, but do we have existence proof of it happening?
I don't believe it is. ULA hires, but is actually looking for college hires more than it is ex-SpaceX'ers (and I'm not looking to get into a debate of what others think ULA "should" be doing - I think anyone can apply for a job opening). ULA has always offered good compensation and work-life balance. Things have changed recently (some reductions in compensation) and there are more changes ahead, but it's still good. And there are always busy times when the balance leans towards work, and slack times where it leans towards life. I'm not in a position to offer comparisons to SpaceX's compensation - most of what I know is anecdotal from these forums.
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#70
by
RedLineTrain
on 06 Feb, 2015 17:13
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ULA is necessarily looking to shed costs over the medium term, so perhaps that will lead to a downsizing trend rather than hiring. For sure, Blue Origin will be hiring.
It's interesting how the tech industry works. Once you get on the wrong side of the growing/shrinking new/old dividing line, you basically slowly ride into the sunset. I don't know if the future aerospace economy will work that way. True, there has been at least one exception: Apple.
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#71
by
Prober
on 06 Feb, 2015 17:29
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One day Atlas/Delta/SLS will be consolidated
again, stop with the nonsense. That will never happen
Jim you should never say "never" someone might be listening
but your train of thought is correct
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#72
by
phantomdj
on 06 Feb, 2015 17:42
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The prior work clearly showed that vertical rocket powered landing WAS a viable concept. SpaceX STARTED with the premis of parachute and water landing recovery which was a "proven" method and then moved to VTVL and Boost-Back RTLS for recovery BECAUSE of the prior work. I for one would appreciate if you would cease your efforts to "belittle" those who contributed to SpaceX's upcoming success in an effort to give SpaceX sole and undeserved "credit" for VTVL landing.
At no such time did I do anything of the sort. You misinterpreted and failed to grasp what I wrote and did not read my most resent post either. I never talked about who proved it was “viable”. It was the term “easy” that is total incorrect to which I objected. Tory Bruno was belittling SpaceX’s accomplishment. He is the belittler-in-chief.
Sure one could say that the X-1 jet stands of the shoulders of the Wright Flyer but there is a huge difference between the two just as there is a difference between a 2800 ft landing coming from subsonic speed and one coming from 10 miles high at Mach 2 or 3. It is not easy and the DC-X only proved one phase of the process. No one before as put all the pieces , all the flight phases together before like SpaceX. They deserve credit for that which Tory Bruno, seemingly, was not willing to give.
The point of my comment was that Tory Bruno sounded like HE was belittling and dismissing SpaceX’s accomplishment as easy, vertical landing' been done before and surprised they failed. It is a little disingenuous.
The real question is whether it will be economical once SpaceX proves the ability through all phases of flight. Reusing the Shuttle was supposed to be economical also and we all know how that turned out.
They are going to "prove" the entire process but they neither invented it nor have they worked in a vacuum in developing and refining the process and Bruno is simply acknowledging that fact. You should probably do so too
I did. Where did Bruno do that in his statement? Do you have a time tag from his statement?
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#73
by
ChrisWilson68
on 06 Feb, 2015 18:00
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Interesting comments towards end of video about aging work force at ULA (aerospace industry in general) and need to bring in young engineers and up skill them (soon) before older work force retires. These speeches at universities, and his tweeting are part of their recruitment drive.
Having a new booster followed by a new upper stage to develop over the next few years will help with the recruitment drive. The NGLS maybe expendable but it will be modern with innovative technology and who knows, after it is finished and flying regularly, ULA may start work on a RLV.
So...if you're an eager young graduate looking for a job you can join ULA where who knows, someday they might work on something new, or you can join SpaceX where they're already bringing that to production while working on colonizing Mars in their spare time.
I think I can tell which type of engineer will choose ULA and which will choose SpaceX. And it's not good for ULA.
If ULA really wants to compete with SpaceX, they need to up their game, and that starts with doing things today that are interesting enough to attract the best talent.
ULA has a good compensation package, good overtime compensation, and low turn over. If they remain competitive in those areas it won't matter what cool things SpaceX are doing. ULA will still be able to attract talented engineers.
They'll attractive conservative engineers who want a low-risk career.
I work at a start-up in Silicon Valley. Everyone who works there or at most other start-ups in Silicon Valley could have had exactly the kind of job you're talking about, at some big company, where they can work normal hours with good compensation and low turnover. They chose to work at tech start-ups instead.
The people that choose the low-risk career do fine, but it's the people who would rather work for a start-up that create the innovations that change the world.
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#74
by
RanulfC
on 06 Feb, 2015 18:59
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The prior work clearly showed that vertical rocket powered landing WAS a viable concept. SpaceX STARTED with the premis of parachute and water landing recovery which was a "proven" method and then moved to VTVL and Boost-Back RTLS for recovery BECAUSE of the prior work. I for one would appreciate if you would cease your efforts to "belittle" those who contributed to SpaceX's upcoming success in an effort to give SpaceX sole and undeserved "credit" for VTVL landing.
At no such time did I do anything of the sort. You misinterpreted and failed to grasp what I wrote and did not read my most resent post either. I never talked about who proved it was “viable”. It was the term “easy” that is total incorrect to which I objected. Tory Bruno was belittling SpaceX’s accomplishment. He is the belittler-in-chief.
Hard to have your recent post be relevent when mine was posted before you wrote it
To put your position in perspective you feel that Bruno "slighted" SpaceX with his statement. However you're still wrong because he IS correct even if he didn't mean to include any previous work if you get down-right technical
SpaceX already "proved" vertical rocket powered landing. They did it twice already on the open ocean despite not actually "recovering" the stage. What was surprising to him (and I'm sure a lot of people who have actually watched and understood the video) is that SpaceX actually "failed" what was by far the easiest part of the flight which is the very subsonic, low altitude precision landing phase which they have "proved" they have down. The simple fact it was 'only' a problem of not enough hydraulic fluid is actually beside the point but understandable as they had never actually "simulated" that portion of the flight
It's not belittling SpaceX to be surprised that they hadn't considered or tested that scenerio but it IS surprising after all they have already done.
If he had belabored the point and continued by (correctly) pointing out that in fact SpaceX HAD been overly confident (and their fans even more so) and NOT made attempts to cover the various "off-nominal" scenerios THAT would have been belittling their effort. As it is I don't, (and it seems many others agree) that his statement is as offensive as some do. Plain and rather simple.
Sure one could say that the X-1 jet stands of the shoulders of the Wright Flyer but there is a huge difference between the two just as there is a difference between a 2800 ft landing coming from subsonic speed and one coming from 10 miles high at Mach 2 or 3. It is not easy and the DC-X only proved one phase of the process. No one before as put all the pieces , all the flight phases together before like SpaceX. They deserve credit for that which Tory Bruno, seemingly, was not willing to give.
This is exactly what I mean in that you use an analogy that exactly points out how WRONG you are with your "take" on the statement. Really. An "airplane" even a rocket powered one LANDS the exact same way as one with a jet or propeller engine and the EXACT physics of it's flight are important ONLY during those portions of the flight. "Landing" still has to go from "2800-ft" and "subsonic" velocity to a zero stop on the runway. That and much research allows that when the aircraft comes back from "10-miles" and "Mach-2/3" as it passes THROUGH "2800-ft" and "subsonic" speed on the way to landing the aircraft characteristics are know and the "box" it uses for landing is well known.
The point of my comment was that Tory Bruno sounded like HE was belittling and dismissing SpaceX’s accomplishment as easy, vertical landing' been done before and surprised they failed. It is a little disingenuous.
Not at all. Again IF you want to get technical about it SpaceX failed to PROPERLY set up this landing attempt. They failed to "pick-a-spot" x-wide/long in the empty ocean and attempt to "land" on it during the previous two flights. Therefore they didn't "know" how much hydraulic fluid would be required for an off-nominal landing within the designated "box" and ran out. Crashing the stage instead of recovering it.
Did Bruno mention this? Did he expound on SpaceX's shortcomings or simply acknowledge his own feelings that he was confident they would "nail" this process their first time out of the gate?
You "choose" to see the statement the way you wish to but that still doesn't make it true.
The real question is whether it will be economical once SpaceX proves the ability through all phases of flight. Reusing the Shuttle was supposed to be economical also and we all know how that turned out.
This I agree with.
They are going to "prove" the entire process but they neither invented it nor have they worked in a vacuum in developing and refining the process and Bruno is simply acknowledging that fact. You should probably do so too
I did. Where did Bruno do that in his statement? Do you have a time tag from his statement?
You already have that but choose to take it as an insult rather than the statement as it is.
Randy
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#75
by
RanulfC
on 06 Feb, 2015 19:01
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To my thinking the truth is somewhere in the middle. No one has done what SpaceX is trying to do, land a booster vertically from reentry speeds. But SpaceX is not starting from scratch. Much useful work was done by others.
What I think is so marvelous about SpaceX is that they are synthesizing. They are not afraid to reuse ideas that work, and also not afraid of rethinking conventional wisdom. Their tech, taken as pieces, is not that special. Individual elements are all well understood. But the sum is greater than the whole of the parts.
Tony Bruno impresses me. I'm even a begrudging fan (reply to my tweet and it buys you a lot!), but I don't see ULA being able to reproduce what SpaceX did. Still, Bruno has moved the company a lot and might be able to move it a lot farther .Time will tell.
Agree and thanks for saying so
Also, kudos to Space Ghost 1962 for having been there and giving us the inside evaluation. Thanks!
As well
Randy
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#76
by
newpylong
on 06 Feb, 2015 19:09
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Interesting comments towards end of video about aging work force at ULA (aerospace industry in general) and need to bring in young engineers and up skill them (soon) before older work force retires. These speeches at universities, and his tweeting are part of their recruitment drive.
Having a new booster followed by a new upper stage to develop over the next few years will help with the recruitment drive. The NGLS maybe expendable but it will be modern with innovative technology and who knows, after it is finished and flying regularly, ULA may start work on a RLV.
So...if you're an eager young graduate looking for a job you can join ULA where who knows, someday they might work on something new, or you can join SpaceX where they're already bringing that to production while working on colonizing Mars in their spare time.
I think I can tell which type of engineer will choose ULA and which will choose SpaceX. And it's not good for ULA.
If ULA really wants to compete with SpaceX, they need to up their game, and that starts with doing things today that are interesting enough to attract the best talent.
ULA has a good compensation package, good overtime compensation, and low turn over. If they remain competitive in those areas it won't matter what cool things SpaceX are doing. ULA will still be able to attract talented engineers.
They'll attractive conservative engineers who want a low-risk career.
I work at a start-up in Silicon Valley. Everyone who works there or at most other start-ups in Silicon Valley could have had exactly the kind of job you're talking about, at some big company, where they can work normal hours with good compensation and low turnover. They chose to work at tech start-ups instead.
The people that choose the low-risk career do fine, but it's the people who would rather work for a start-up that create the innovations that change the world.
Not a direct comparison. Any clown can come out of college and work for "a tech start-up" and create a meaningless service that will be forgotten in 5-10 years. I don't call any of them world changing innovations.
Back to the topic - Mike Gass ignored the SpaceX threat, Tony Bruno is not. I am a fan, I want ULA to stick around.
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#77
by
RanulfC
on 06 Feb, 2015 19:20
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This may be a roundabout way of saying "no way in hell do you get hundreds of reflights" like in aircraft operation Musk says he can do. I read it that ULA (and others) are absolutely terrified of this prospect occurring soon, so pour the same kind of cold water on it that they did any kind of booster recovery earlier. Not saying that it can be done, but it sounded like "fear of flying" to many members of the audience I know/spoke with.
My feeling from what I've read/seen is that ULA, etc. are not "terrified" of the prospect because it's simply not that "easy" from where THEY are at least if not where SpaceX is. The F9 started out as an ELV and no matter that it was 'designed" to be an RLV from the "start" it in fact does not have the margins that an aircraft would have so comparisons are "iffy" at best. It in fact CAN be done but it takes AIRCRAFT margins (and flight conditions I might add which a rocket greatly EXCEEDS on every flight) to be capable of "hundreds" of flights with little or no maintenance. Even if you could compare the construction of the F9R with something like the 747 allowing for the same margins (and you really can't because the F9R is NOT constructed like the 747) the FLIGHT conditions are so far apart that no 747 could survive let alone be reused if it flew the same mission as an F9R.
I'm betting that Bruno's willing to bet a paycheck on the numbers he gave simply because he's had someone actually look at the known information on the construction and margins of the F9R and they ran the simulations to get those numbers. It's really not that hard and as a "fast" but not hard data point it has a lot of historical data to probably back it up.
I know SpaceX or anyone else won't actually KNOW because the data is not available yet. They have to recover and examine a stage first.
I'll also point out that no one ever officially said that booster recovery couldn't be done either. The question has always been the economy and usefullness of doing so given the current and forecase market. Less "pouring cold water" than saying "prove it" which SpaceX has so far been willing and able to do. Once that is done they have little choice but to respond
Randy
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#78
by
didacticus
on 06 Feb, 2015 19:30
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They'll attractive conservative engineers who want a low-risk career.
I work at a start-up in Silicon Valley. Everyone who works there or at most other start-ups in Silicon Valley could have had exactly the kind of job you're talking about, at some big company, where they can work normal hours with good compensation and low turnover. They chose to work at tech start-ups instead.
The people that choose the low-risk career do fine, but it's the people who would rather work for a start-up that create the innovations that change the world.
Not a direct comparison. Any clown can come out of college and work for "a tech start-up" and create a meaningless service that will be forgotten in 5-10 years. I don't call any of them world changing innovations.
Just because something becomes meaningless and forgotten doesn't mean it's fun, exciting, and rewarding to work on while it lasts, nor that it won't be an excellent opportunity for developing a wide range of skills and taking on responsibilities that you wouldn't get if you were just a tiny cog in an enormous machine. Also remember that innovation isn't the only draw of working for a startup - many people are drawn to them purely for the potential for financial gain from an anticipated acquisition.
Any clown can come out of college and work for a giant, established, 'conservative' company and might work on something new and exciting. But it's far, far more likely they will work on something bound to be equally meaningless and likely to be forgotten, or more likely to work on supporting something that has already been meaningless and forgotten for years, but clung to by old users unable or unwilling to give it up.
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#79
by
ChrisWilson68
on 06 Feb, 2015 19:31
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Not a direct comparison. Any clown can come out of college and work for "a tech start-up" and create a meaningless service that will be forgotten in 5-10 years. I don't call any of them world changing innovations.
You have no idea what you're talking about. Any clown out of college can't get hired at a tech start-up. I interview lots of candidates with great resumes, and I turn down most of them. It's the same at most other tech start-ups. They don't just hire anyone, they're all looking for the really great engineers, and the really great engineers are fought over by the tech companies.
If you don't think tech start-ups create world-changing innovations, throw away your cell phone, throw away your PC, go to your car and throw away every microprocessor in it. Then go through your house and throw away every microprocessor in every electronic device you own. Throw away your flat-screen TV and find a vacuum tube model. Then see if your life is any different.
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#80
by
Space Ghost 1962
on 06 Feb, 2015 20:09
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Also, kudos to Space Ghost 1962 for having been there and giving us the inside evaluation. Thanks!
As well
Thanks. I am still hearing back on feedback from this event.
Honestly, I stopped posting during the talk because working posts with an iPhone is a real pain, summarizing and correcting in real time - didn't think that the event mattered. So I then took in what was the disconnect between speaker and audience, some of whom who know me were asking me (as if I could know) why this was happening, unfortunately while he was talking (can't handle that rate!).
Bruno has begun the process Musk has done from the beginning. He and ULA are similarly "rate limited" in absorbing the resultant flow.
Not to veer again off topic(one shot digression here), but corp (and start-up) culture really matters and are radically different across firms.
An example of current SF start-up recruitment - note where he says he does not hire on capabilities. This guy recently turned down proven star players, because he's looking for malleable "slave" millennial's instead - the reason is it is easier to hire/fire them and not risk losing his job by being blamed for oversight of execution (compartmentalization within "slaves" so they carry blame - what he means by "communications" over capability) - directly witnessed recently. Tesla and Apple prefer to steal each others employees as primary hiring pools, because of similar mentality. They don't work all by same rules, and all are suboptimal in different ways. I hear the latest stories daily on this. Nothing more insulting to be the best, wanting to change the world with tractable, applicable ideas (and experience!), and go right into a brick wall.
On the other side, firms I've worked with ask for strengths and skills that seem almost randomly chosen, and then changed before they've even decided on a description, much less interviewed. So in "impedance matching", often the best to do is ignore the HR "noise", judge the rationality of the direct management "chain of command" as a go/no go, and assert a hiring rationale for both firm/applicant/manager, and step away. Hit or miss. End of digression.
ULA will shrink down by a third or more. It will need a "fresh blood" infusion of half this. I'd like to believe they are not in denial.
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#81
by
newpylong
on 06 Feb, 2015 20:14
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Not a direct comparison. Any clown can come out of college and work for "a tech start-up" and create a meaningless service that will be forgotten in 5-10 years. I don't call any of them world changing innovations.
You have no idea what you're talking about. Any clown out of college can't get hired at a tech start-up. I interview lots of candidates with great resumes, and I turn down most of them. It's the same at most other tech start-ups. They don't just hire anyone, they're all looking for the really great engineers, and the really great engineers are fought over by the tech companies.
If you don't think tech start-ups create world-changing innovations, throw away your cell phone, throw away your PC, go to your car and throw away every microprocessor in it. Then go through your house and throw away every microprocessor in every electronic device you own. Throw away your flat-screen TV and find a vacuum tube model. Then see if your life is any different.
Does your back hurt from all that patting?
Our lives would indeed be very different without all of those things - yet they are all examples of innovations of a different caliber than the majority of today start-ups.
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#82
by
RanulfC
on 06 Feb, 2015 20:25
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Also, kudos to Space Ghost 1962 for having been there and giving us the inside evaluation. Thanks!
As well
Thanks. I am still hearing back on feedback from this event.
You're quite welcome
Honestly, I stopped posting during the talk because working posts with an iPhone is a real pain, summarizing and correcting in real time - didn't think that the event mattered.
Quick! Get CW68 on that stat! There's an inovation to be made
(On the other hand I won't bore anyone with the huge amount of searching and research I had to do to find the way to turn OFF my phone's "suggestion" feature because the damn thing wouldn't STOP suggesting words and NOT letting me correct them to the word I wanted
)
Bruno has begun the process Musk has done from the beginning. He and ULA are similarly "rate limited" in absorbing the resultant flow.
Not like ULA hasn't been making "suggestions" since the begining but it takes an outside influance to shake loose sometimes
Not to veer again off topic(one shot digression here), but corp (and start-up) culture really matters and are radically different across firms. An example of current SF start-up recruitment - note where he says he does not hire on capabilities. This guy recently turned down proven star players, because he's looking for malleable "slave" millennial's instead - the reason is it is easier to hire/fire them and not risk losing his job by being blamed for oversight of execution (compartmentalization within "slaves" so they carry blame - what he means by "communications" over capability) - directly witnessed recently. Tesla and Apple prefer to steal each others employees as primary hiring pools, because of similar mentality. They don't work all by same rules, and all are suboptimal in different ways. I hear the latest stories daily on this. Nothing more insulting to be the best, wanting to change the world with tractable, applicable ideas (and experience!), and go right into a brick wall.
On the other side, firms I've worked with ask for strengths and skills that seem almost randomly chosen, and then changed before they've even decided on a description, much less interviewed. So in "impedance matching", often the best to do is ignore the HR "noise", judge the rationality of the direct management "chain of command" as a go/no go, and assert a hiring rationale for both firm/applicant/manager, and step away. Hit or miss. End of digression.
"Start ups" are by far NOT the only ones who inovate and the difference is VERY often who gets hired and who doesn't and why. SpaceX won't STAY a "start-up" and ULA won't survive if it it's "parents" don't change as well to stay current.
ULA will shrink down by a third or more. It will need a "fresh blood" infusion of half this. I'd like to believe they are not in denial.
I don't think they ever have been but the same probably can't be said for LM and Boeing in general. It's quite normal in business for "change" to be both evolutionary AND revolutionary and the biggest hurdle in the space launch industry has always been inertia. I'm really pinning my hopes on SpaceX changing some of the basic dynamics but the truth is the market is the key factor and IT has to change from where we are currently to give change in other areas a chance.
Randy
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#83
by
kch
on 06 Feb, 2015 20:45
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#84
by
TrevorMonty
on 06 Feb, 2015 21:06
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ULA have talented and experienced engineers they've just been hamstring by management that didn't want to spend serious money on R&D. Tory has now been given the go ahead to spend serious money developing a new LV and overhauling company.
They have talent in-house to develop the NGLS but there is a need to bring in young blood as their experienced engineers are not getting any young. Bringing new also brings in fresh ideas.
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#85
by
Space Ghost 1962
on 06 Feb, 2015 21:16
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This may be a roundabout way of saying "no way in hell do you get hundreds of reflights" like in aircraft operation Musk says he can do. I read it that ULA (and others) are absolutely terrified of this prospect occurring soon, so pour the same kind of cold water on it that they did any kind of booster recovery earlier. Not saying that it can be done, but it sounded like "fear of flying" to many members of the audience I know/spoke with.
My feeling from what I've read/seen is that ULA, etc. are not "terrified" of the prospect because it's simply not that "easy" from where THEY are at least if not where SpaceX is.
Yes.
Just was observing reactions and perceptions BTW. Not ascribing motivations.
The F9 started out as an ELV and no matter that it was 'designed" to be an RLV from the "start" it in fact does not have the margins that an aircraft would have so comparisons are "iffy" at best. It in fact CAN be done but it takes AIRCRAFT margins (and flight conditions I might add which a rocket greatly EXCEEDS on every flight) to be capable of "hundreds" of flights with little or no maintenance. Even if you could compare the construction of the F9R with something like the 747 allowing for the same margins (and you really can't because the F9R is NOT constructed like the 747) the FLIGHT conditions are so far apart that no 747 could survive let alone be reused if it flew the same mission as an F9R.
The benefit of the trades they made at the cost of increased risks/vulnerabilities/complexity/payload losses.
Keep in mind that the software/technology for assessing stresses/fatigue that they employ is very formidable and is used to the max. To my knowledge, neither NASA or ULA (or others, except certain parts of Boeing) yet do comparable, because they never needed to before. Perhaps this mitigates such?
Bottom line though - they have yet to prove a benefit, and its very likely that there are lots of "under margin" issues yet to be found. So we've not bounded the hit by a long way yet.
I'm betting that Bruno's willing to bet a paycheck on the numbers he gave simply because he's had someone actually look at the known information on the construction and margins of the F9R and they ran the simulations to get those numbers. It's really not that hard and as a "fast" but not hard data point it has a lot of historical data to probably back it up.
Sensible. But would those assessments be based on a comparable "data set", or might they be overly pessimistic because of substantial effects of different design choices? Mind you, the disconnect I witnessed in the talk might be explained by a ULA perspective being irreconcilable with a SpaceX perspective in the same vein.
I know SpaceX or anyone else won't actually KNOW because the data is not available yet. They have to recover and examine a stage first.
None know. That's what makes this so interesting
I'll also point out that no one ever officially said that booster recovery couldn't be done either. The question has always been the economy and usefulness of doing so given the current and forecast market. Less "pouring cold water" than saying "prove it" which SpaceX has so far been willing and able to do. Once that is done they have little choice but to respond
Absolutely they have to prove their extraordinary claims.
But, to be fair and balanced, ULA's "trust me explicitly while I exploit being in the shadows under guaranteed govt finance" does not allow them the same stature to "judge and discard as irrelevant", when doing nothing comparable. It takes from ULA's fantastic story of success in a "two bit" way.
I don't think they "get" that this, or the related BO "secret infallibility", just makes them look like "bad mouths", and allow Musk to be seen as some kind of "White Knight" for the future of rocketry. Form of "put up or shut up".
Also, like with the difference it corp culture's, Musk adroitly handles the press like with his other/past ventures, where Boeing/LockMart/ULA trip.
Honestly, I stopped posting during the talk because working posts with an iPhone is a real pain, summarizing and correcting in real time - didn't think that the event mattered.
Quick! Get CW68 on that stat! There's an inovation to be made
(On the other hand I won't bore anyone with the huge amount of searching and research I had to do to find the way to turn OFF my phone's "suggestion" feature because the damn thing wouldn't STOP suggesting words and NOT letting me correct them to the word I wanted )
!
Bruno has begun the process Musk has done from the beginning. He and ULA are similarly "rate limited" in absorbing the resultant flow.
Not like ULA hasn't been making "suggestions" since the begining but it takes an outside influance to shake loose sometimes
OMG You are so, so right on that! I enjoy the "kick in the pants" effect I see - they look so personal hurt when they are scored upon like that!
"Start ups" are by far NOT the only ones who inovate and the difference is VERY often who gets hired and who doesn't and why. SpaceX won't STAY a "start-up" and ULA won't survive if it it's "parents" don't change as well to stay current.
True, but I meant it about both. If you look at the example SF start-up I linked, it was bought by a traditional firm and manipulated by "non start-up" hedge funds playing for advantage. Not unlike how ULA shareholders work ULA - I chose the example carefully to illustrate this weird effect.
ULA can actually innovate
fastest. Some in the audience knew that. Thus the frustration with the disconnect. They want them to "innovate" but clearly hear them double down on NOT! This must change I agree with you with all my heart. It's like watching a car crash in slow motion.
ULA will shrink down by a third or more. It will need a "fresh blood" infusion of half this. I'd like to believe they are not in denial.
I don't think they ever have been but the same probably can't be said for LM and Boeing in general. It's quite normal in business for "change" to be both evolutionary AND revolutionary and the biggest hurdle in the space launch industry has always been inertia.
What happens to "inertia" when you have to move fast because the game pulls the rug out from under you? You can't afford it.
I'm really pinning my hopes on SpaceX changing some of the basic dynamics but the truth is the market is the key factor and IT has to change from where we are currently to give change in other areas a chance.
Me too. But I think we've been transfixed on the wrong issue. Its the SC not the LV. Have a business reason that supports volumes of SC's, then LV's ramp to access the business. Then more (wish I knew) to keep the process escalating.
Lots of fun Randy!
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#86
by
phantomdj
on 06 Feb, 2015 22:16
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Hard to have your recent post be relevent when mine was posted before you wrote it
Do you really feel like you have to be snarky? And no, your post wasn’t. Your comments on
« Reply #67 on: Today at 12:43 PM »
came after my
« Reply #62 on: Today at 10:32 AM »
which you ignored by only quoting and responding to my other two quotes on
« Reply #39 on: 02/05/2015 01:57 PM »
« Reply #42 on: 02/05/2015 02:14 PM »
SpaceX already "proved" vertical rocket powered landing. They did it twice already on the open ocean despite not actually "recovering" the stage.
I don’t think so. While they stabilized the stage for an ocean landing, they didn’t try to “fly” it back to a pinpoint precision landing in the sense of returning it to a landing pad.
You already have that but choose to take it as an insult rather than the statement as it is.
Not just me but numerous other people.
He made a bizarre comment about F9 barge landing, that it is easy, been done before, and he was surprised they failed on their previous try. But he will watch the next one.
If it's so easy, why isn't ULA already doing it? It's the same story all over again:
1) SpaceX announces crazy plan.
2) Critics: "It will never work/be economical!"
3) SpaceX succeeds.
4) Critics: "That was easy anyway, why did it take them so long?"
You can continue to defend Bruno (who I believe is a good guy) but it still sounds very dismissive of the competition accomplishments and a dig at them (for not being smart enough to put more hydraulic fluid on board), which by the way I wondered myself. Why not include the highest margin of fluid onboard the first time and decrease as data or payload weight dictates?
Look I get it, they are competitors and subtle digs will occur but the point I was making throughout this whole discuss is that it isn’t easy and the DC-X did not prove it is easy. It showed only one phase of the flight profile and at speeds totally different at 2000 feet so it wasn’t even a comparable simulation. SpaceX’s two previous flights were and I agree with you that they “failed to pick-a-spot x-wide/long in the empty ocean and attempt to land on it” which would have been a better test.
We can both agree it’s all about economics. Whether "old-space" will want to follow or SpaceX finds it’s not worth the cost. Only time and data will tell.
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#87
by
Chris Bergin
on 06 Feb, 2015 23:19
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Now now, let's not get rowdy.
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#88
by
john smith 19
on 06 Feb, 2015 23:24
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About 16:30 into the replay he talks about the need in the future STTO RLV.
He is referring to daily flights at the point we would need STTO RLV.
(Personnel note: Lockheed in the 1990's worked on the X-33 program demonstrator for SSTO RLV. )
Indeed.
Are you citing it as an exemplar or a warning?
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#89
by
john smith 19
on 06 Feb, 2015 23:42
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As if he couldn't sort out for himself the conflicting attitudes of wanting to bond as an engineer, wanting to challenge a novel effort, wanting to poke a rival, wanting to self justify a position, and wanting just to start having a presence in public where none had been before. Confusing.
Wow.
With that long an agenda to work through in
one presentation who wouldn't be a bit confused?
Of course if you believe that in order to confuse your opponent you must first confuse yourself then it's probably been quite successful.
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#90
by
john smith 19
on 07 Feb, 2015 00:07
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Thank you! The sad thing is that SpaceX amazing peoples are far more dismissive of the efforts of previous VTVL groups than SpaceX was. When we did our in-air relight at Masten, one of the first congrats emails we got was from Tom Mueller. I wish SpaceX's fans were half as classy as that.
That may be because unlike Mueller they don't understand just how much had to work to get it to happen.
To bring this back to ULA's reuse plans, I wouldn't be surprised if some of the VTVL/NewSpace companies that have been involved with ULA (Masten, XCOR, and Altius) don't end up playing some sort of a role in whatever reuse method ULA settles on.
Hmmm.
What an intriguing idea. I think if you're not surprised I won't be either.
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#91
by
RocketmanUS
on 07 Feb, 2015 01:33
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About 16:30 into the replay he talks about the need in the future STTO RLV.
He is referring to daily flights at the point we would need STTO RLV.
(Personnel note: Lockheed in the 1990's worked on the X-33 program demonstrator for SSTO RLV. )
Indeed.
Are you citing it as an exemplar or a warning?
A possible future option.
We could see SSTO in the next ten year, but would need some changes in how we launch BLEO plus increased flight rate. Or more LEO delivery.
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#92
by
Rocket Science
on 07 Feb, 2015 02:09
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The young can take risks with their livelihood in exchange for the excitement whereas one who has settled down and started a family would choose job stability and security. What ULA is missing is the cult of personality that is Elon Musk....
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#93
by
CommercialSpaceFan
on 07 Feb, 2015 16:46
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It’s great that ULA is doing this but I don’t think they’re really sold on the whole reusability approach and are taking a wait and see attitude (I said this couple of years back). I agree with what’s been said that they are really looking for efficiencies vs reusability and in the long run they will be proven correct. The problem I see with this audience is coming across as paternal with we have the experience and we know better. We’ve thought about returning a first stage whereas SpaceX is “trying” to return a first stage. Which approach do you think will excite a young engineer to one company versus another?
if the business model is a few 100M+ satellites + 6 mT to LEO for ISS w/ launch costs 100M-1B/ea, likely reuse is not worth it.
Centaur technology tells quite a bit about the current and past folks of ULA, not to mention those depot papers. In addition, many studies suggest any robust BEO programs need LH2 and EP transfer stages.
There is a very easy way to increase flight rate: simply build payloads rather than build very expensive excess LV capacity in the form of super HLV and capsules.
The real game changer however, especially for reuse, is a demand for 100s of mT of dirt cheap Class D propellant in LEO for BEO. Atlas and Delta were almost a part of this 'spiral', depot centric, flexible architecture prior to the 2005 ESAS ('black zones', must be less than 3 launches, ). Depots also reduce the LV size required. Imagine if NASA simply demanded ~$1B in launch services to LEO, and spent $2B/year on mission and technology hardware at the *expense* of SLS and Orion at 3B/year. Inconceivable?
Engineer's can clearly see this future, amd most certainly the ULA CEO, so his mixed talk is partly understandable, as change does not come easy:
One day Atlas/Delta/SLS will be consolidated and the US will have two non sole source LVs, while, at the same time, performing LV R&D since SLS/Orion/existing/EELV are not taking Astronauts to Mars..too big and too expensive. What play will Congress call and when?
Catch the wave: LEO Depot, advance R&D, BEO missions, at least one new major market. It all begins with the LEO depot and mission hardware requiring propellant. Quite an exciting future indeed. It may even merit a plus up.
Very well said. The USG has a huge buy power, currently spending about $4B/yr between NASA and national security. Just look at the savings that the Air Force got with their block buy. Focus this buying power on reducing costs for all customers with contracts written that encourage sales in the commercial market and continued downward pressure on cost.
Just think how much America and humanity could do in space if national security launch costs drop by 50%, NASA actually got activity in space for its $2B/yr spent on giant rockets, the multiple, competing providers of launch were encouraged to support the commercial customers, both existing and new customers.
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#94
by
CommercialSpaceFan
on 07 Feb, 2015 16:49
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The real question is whether it will be economical once SpaceX proves the ability through all phases of flight. Reusing the Shuttle was supposed to be economical also and we all know how that turned out. I wouldn’t bet against Elon and SpaceX.
That is the real question.
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#95
by
RocketmanUS
on 07 Feb, 2015 17:04
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It’s great that ULA is doing this but I don’t think they’re really sold on the whole reusability approach and are taking a wait and see attitude (I said this couple of years back). I agree with what’s been said that they are really looking for efficiencies vs reusability and in the long run they will be proven correct. The problem I see with this audience is coming across as paternal with we have the experience and we know better. We’ve thought about returning a first stage whereas SpaceX is “trying” to return a first stage. Which approach do you think will excite a young engineer to one company versus another?
if the business model is a few 100M+ satellites + 6 mT to LEO for ISS w/ launch costs 100M-1B/ea, likely reuse is not worth it.
Centaur technology tells quite a bit about the current and past folks of ULA, not to mention those depot papers. In addition, many studies suggest any robust BEO programs need LH2 and EP transfer stages.
There is a very easy way to increase flight rate: simply build payloads rather than build very expensive excess LV capacity in the form of super HLV and capsules.
The real game changer however, especially for reuse, is a demand for 100s of mT of dirt cheap Class D propellant in LEO for BEO. Atlas and Delta were almost a part of this 'spiral', depot centric, flexible architecture prior to the 2005 ESAS ('black zones', must be less than 3 launches, ). Depots also reduce the LV size required. Imagine if NASA simply demanded ~$1B in launch services to LEO, and spent $2B/year on mission and technology hardware at the *expense* of SLS and Orion at 3B/year. Inconceivable?
Engineer's can clearly see this future, amd most certainly the ULA CEO, so his mixed talk is partly understandable, as change does not come easy:
One day Atlas/Delta/SLS will be consolidated and the US will have two non sole source LVs, while, at the same time, performing LV R&D since SLS/Orion/existing/EELV are not taking Astronauts to Mars..too big and too expensive. What play will Congress call and when?
Catch the wave: LEO Depot, advance R&D, BEO missions, at least one new major market. It all begins with the LEO depot and mission hardware requiring propellant. Quite an exciting future indeed. It may even merit a plus up.
Very well said. The USG has a huge buy power, currently spending about $4B/yr between NASA and national security. Just look at the savings that the Air Force got with their block buy. Focus this buying power on reducing costs for all customers with contracts written that encourage sales in the commercial market and continued downward pressure on cost.
Just think how much America and humanity could do in space if national security launch costs drop by 50%, NASA actually got activity in space for its $2B/yr spent on giant rockets, the multiple, competing providers of launch were encouraged to support the commercial customers, both existing and new customers.
Then that would mean there could be up to $2B for more launches and payloads. So maybe up to four more launches a year depending on the payload and mission cost for each additional launch.
The real question is whether it will be economical once SpaceX proves the ability through all phases of flight. Reusing the Shuttle was supposed to be economical also and we all know how that turned out. I wouldn’t bet against Elon and SpaceX.
That is the real question.
Government run verses commercial developed and run reusable launch vehicle ( or at least the 1st stage and or boosters ).
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#96
by
CommercialSpaceFan
on 07 Feb, 2015 17:13
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About 16:30 into the replay he talks about the need in the future STTO RLV.
He is referring to daily flights at the point we would need STTO RLV.
(Personnel note: Lockheed in the 1990's worked on the X-33 program demonstrator for SSTO RLV. )
Indeed.
Are you citing it as an exemplar or a warning?
A possible future option.
We could see SSTO in the next ten year, but would need some changes in how we launch BLEO plus increased flight rate. Or more LEO delivery.
Tory talked a bit about the challenges of reuse. Today’s rockets have pushed technologies to make them light weight and high performing. Yet only about 3% of the lift off mass is payload. The cost reduction enabled by reuse, must overcome the performance loss of adding weight for reuse (margins, propellant, aero surfaces, landing gear, etc) before reuse even starts to reduce the launch cost.
SSTO, I presume you mean reusable SSTO, is even more challenging. What technologies do you think will enable cost effect SSTO?
What offers the lower launch cost: continue to refine existing style expendable rockets, reusable boosters, reusable SSTO, mass produced smaller expendable rockets, etc? While a lot of folks take it as a given that reusable rocketry will open the door to very low cost space access, that is not a given.
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#97
by
RocketmanUS
on 07 Feb, 2015 17:34
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About 16:30 into the replay he talks about the need in the future STTO RLV.
He is referring to daily flights at the point we would need STTO RLV.
(Personnel note: Lockheed in the 1990's worked on the X-33 program demonstrator for SSTO RLV. )
Indeed.
Are you citing it as an exemplar or a warning?
A possible future option.
We could see SSTO in the next ten year, but would need some changes in how we launch BLEO plus increased flight rate. Or more LEO delivery.
Tory talked a bit about the challenges of reuse. Today’s rockets have pushed technologies to make them light weight and high performing. Yet only about 3% of the lift off mass is payload. The cost reduction enabled by reuse, must overcome the performance loss of adding weight for reuse (margins, propellant, aero surfaces, landing gear, etc) before reuse even starts to reduce the launch cost.
SSTO, I presume you mean reusable SSTO, is even more challenging. What technologies do you think will enable cost effect SSTO?
What offers the lower launch cost: continue to refine existing style expendable rockets, reusable boosters, reusable SSTO, mass produced smaller expendable rockets, etc? While a lot of folks take it as a given that reusable rocketry will open the door to very low cost space access, that is not a given.
It's a matter of the payload and it's destination. For LEO and sizes not longer than 60 feet , 15 feet diameter and under 45,000 lb then SSTO RLV will be the way to go. But this will require higher flight rates. Or the payload could use an in space SEP tug to take payload to higher orbit.
Larger and BLEO flights would be best on 1st stage reuse ( 2nd stage reuse if large payload to LEO ).
Small launchers under 2,000 lb are for dedicated launches and can be expendable.
Technologies for SSTO RLV were being developed in the 1990's for the X-33 program. So better heat shield that does not need maintenance between flights. Also the same for the engines.
As far as the added mass for the 1st stage or even the second stage reuse , you just make the rocker bigger. That was their answer in an article I read back in the 90's on the X-33 program. So if the payload is 4 mt to GTO and you want both stages reused then the rocket would need to be larger to handle the extra dry mass. The article said something like if we can't get a GLOW ( gross life off weight ) of 2.2 Mlb for 45,000 lb payload then we will just make it 3.3 Mlb GLOW to get 45,000 lb payload.
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#98
by
Space Ghost 1962
on 07 Feb, 2015 19:35
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A reusable, in production, in operation, economic RLV first stage ... might be a good choice to be a subscale test bed to prove the materials and control technologies necessary to a SSTO.
Because it would leverage the existing base, as well as feedback test/development data to the stage in use, the cost to gain flight test data would be very low.
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#99
by
Robotbeat
on 07 Feb, 2015 19:48
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You know, the interesting thing about this discussion is that, sure, by itself, a reusable launch vehicle is difficult to justify.
However, in a competitive environment, if your competitor chooses to invest in an RLV (for the first stage, let's say for sake of argument), once they make that investment, you are at a huge competitive disadvantage operationally if you continue with a fully expendable launch vehicle. Assuming both of you have a decently high launch rate already, they will have a huge advantage once they take the plunge.
It may maximize /industry/ revenue to use just expendable launch vehicles, but in a competitive environment, it just takes a single competitor to take the reusability plunge (assuming it works out technically, which it probably will, considering they already have plenty of demand for their launch services) until all of a sudden you've lost the majority of your launch business to the upstart.
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#100
by
punder
on 07 Feb, 2015 19:59
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A reusable, in production, in operation, economic RLV first stage ... might be a good choice to be a subscale test bed to prove the materials and control technologies necessary to a SSTO.
Because it would leverage the existing base, as well as feedback test/development data to the stage in use, the cost to gain flight test data would be very low.
Gary Hudson wrote a "white paper" on various 1960s-era first stages having the energy for SSTO. Such as Titan II. And I seem to remember seeing a photo on this site of a Titan II booster floating in the Atlantic.
So it is sad to realize that some of the relevant data was there to be gathered, for many decades; but that none of the agencies or companies involved chose to gather it. One of the reasons Bruno's digs are so annoying.
But on the subject of such digs: Musk has made his share! E.g. the 787 battery fires.
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#101
by
CommercialSpaceFan
on 07 Feb, 2015 20:34
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It's a matter of the payload and it's destination. For LEO and sizes not longer than 60 feet , 15 feet diameter and under 45,000 lb then SSTO RLV will be the way to go. But this will require higher flight rates. Or the payload could use an in space SEP tug to take payload to higher orbit.
Larger and BLEO flights would be best on 1st stage reuse ( 2nd stage reuse if large payload to LEO ).
Small launchers under 2,000 lb are for dedicated launches and can be expendable.
Technologies for SSTO RLV were being developed in the 1990's for the X-33 program. So better heat shield that does not need maintenance between flights. Also the same for the engines.
As far as the added mass for the 1st stage or even the second stage reuse , you just make the rocker bigger. That was their answer in an article I read back in the 90's on the X-33 program. So if the payload is 4 mt to GTO and you want both stages reused then the rocket would need to be larger to handle the extra dry mass. The article said something like if we can't get a GLOW ( gross life off weight ) of 2.2 Mlb for 45,000 lb payload then we will just make it 3.3 Mlb GLOW to get 45,000 lb payload.
A reusable, in production, in operation, economic RLV first stage ... might be a good choice to be a subscale test bed to prove the materials and control technologies necessary to a SSTO.
Because it would leverage the existing base, as well as feedback test/development data to the stage in use, the cost to gain flight test data would be very low.
You know, the interesting thing about this discussion is that, sure, by itself, a reusable launch vehicle is difficult to justify.
However, in a competitive environment, if your competitor chooses to invest in an RLV (for the first stage, let's say for sake of argument), once they make that investment, you are at a huge competitive disadvantage operationally if you continue with a fully expendable launch vehicle. Assuming both of you have a decently high launch rate already, they will have a huge advantage once they take the plunge.
It may maximize /industry/ revenue to use just expendable launch vehicles, but in a competitive environment, it just takes a single competitor to take the reusability plunge (assuming it works out technically, which it probably will, considering they already have plenty of demand for their launch services) until all of a sudden you've lost the majority of your launch business to the upstart.
These are leap of faith statements. All of you may be right and reuse may be more cost effective. It may well be that despite science fiction and what all of us want to be, the challenge of rocketing into space may prove to daunting to make reuse cost effective. SpaceX is certainly giving reuse a go, so we really don’t have long to wait till this question is answered.
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#102
by
CommercialSpaceFan
on 07 Feb, 2015 20:36
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Gary Hudson wrote a "white paper" on various 1960s-era first stages having the energy for SSTO. Such as Titan II. And I seem to remember seeing a photo on this site of a Titan II booster floating in the Atlantic.
So it is sad to realize that some of the relevant data was there to be gathered, for many decades; but that none of the agencies or companies involved chose to gather it. One of the reasons Bruno's digs are so annoying.
But on the subject of such digs: Musk has made his share! E.g. the 787 battery fires.
Atlas E was also nearly single stage to orbit. But Titan II and Atlas E were expendables, with very small payload capabilities. Try adding hardware to either of these to survive descent and landing and I doubt either would have positive payload capability.
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#103
by
Prober
on 07 Feb, 2015 21:37
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The young can take risks with their livelihood in exchange for the excitement whereas one who has settled down and started a family would choose job stability and security. What ULA is missing is the cult of personality that is Elon Musk....
You wrote it
Met some SpaceX people in my last trip; enlightened by listening to them.
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#104
by
punder
on 07 Feb, 2015 22:03
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Gary Hudson wrote a "white paper" on various 1960s-era first stages having the energy for SSTO. Such as Titan II. And I seem to remember seeing a photo on this site of a Titan II booster floating in the Atlantic.
So it is sad to realize that some of the relevant data was there to be gathered, for many decades; but that none of the agencies or companies involved chose to gather it. One of the reasons Bruno's digs are so annoying.
But on the subject of such digs: Musk has made his share! E.g. the 787 battery fires.
Atlas E was also nearly single stage to orbit. But Titan II and Atlas E were expendables, with very small payload capabilities. Try adding hardware to either of these to survive descent and landing and I doubt either would have positive payload capability.
Found it. I pulled a Brian Williams and misremembered. Gary discusses the S-IVB and the shuttle ET.
http://www.spacefuture.com/archive/a_single_stage_to_orbit_thought_experiment.shtml
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#105
by
rcoppola
on 08 Feb, 2015 02:37
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What I found most interesting is that just 2 months ago Tory spoke at the Atlantic Council. He was asked about reuse.. He began his response with, "So you're asking the expendable launch vehicle guy what he thinks about re-use?" Listen to his response for yourself at the 48 minute mark:
Now, only 2 months later, the ELVG does an hour long discussion about reuse? It felt like a rather large disconnect. Are they trying to clumsily get out in front of the reuse story currently being written by SpaceX?
Tory is certainly a very intelligent person who loves the launch business and will probably be as excited as anyone when F9 lands on JRTD, so I judge not. I respect him and his passion for rockets. But something just seemed off on the timing, tone and general vibe of his latest reuse discussion.
However, in the end, a future where both ULA and SpaceX are really competing with new thinking, new designs, new manufacturing, new business models, etc., can only be a good thing.
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#106
by
TrevorMonty
on 08 Feb, 2015 08:37
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For LEO missions with a standard payload eg capsule, servicing a stations with crew or cargo then developing a RLV would easier as the mission requirements are very narrow. In case of ULA they have a wide range of payloads and BLEO destinations for which a lower cost ELV makes more sense.
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#107
by
clongton
on 08 Feb, 2015 12:10
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Now, only 2 months later, the ELVG does an hour long discussion about reuse? It felt like a rather large disconnect. Are they trying to clumsily get out in front of the reuse story currently being written by SpaceX?
An hour-long discussion about re-use? I think not. There was one question from the audience about re-use, which he answered. Beyond that the subject was not discussed - at all.
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#108
by
Lar
on 08 Feb, 2015 13:04
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Met some SpaceX people in my last trip; enlightened by listening to them.
Enlighten us too, please. Or don't do the name-dropping thing. It's tiresome.
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#109
by
rcoppola
on 08 Feb, 2015 14:44
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Now, only 2 months later, the ELVG does an hour long discussion about reuse? It felt like a rather large disconnect. Are they trying to clumsily get out in front of the reuse story currently being written by SpaceX?
An hour-long discussion about re-use? I think not. There was one question from the audience about re-use, which he answered. Beyond that the subject was not discussed - at all.
Did you actually read the post? Video 1, page one of this thread and the topic this thread is about, is a long discussion about reuse given by Tory Bruno. Video 2, the one I posted that is "2 months" old, is a video where Tory refers to himself as the expendable guy in response to...yes, one question. I know, because I watched the whole discussion and gave the timestamp..
So my point simply was, again, that I found it "interesting" that the expendables guy, his words, not mine, 60 days later has a talk focussed on reuse.
I found that..."interesting".
Edit: I could also use the word "encouraging" and do away with the clumsy reference. But frankly, it did feel a bit clumsy.
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#110
by
muomega0
on 08 Feb, 2015 16:32
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For LEO missions with a standard payload eg capsule, servicing a stations with crew or cargo then developing a RLV would easier as the mission requirements are very narrow. In case of ULA they have a wide range of payloads and BLEO destinations for which a lower cost ELV makes more sense.
Only in the old and current business model. What he did not state?
He did not state the current business model:
38B for 60 flights with a 4B savings and 2.7B for No BEO missons.
2.6B for Dragon and 4.2B for CST-100/ part of a new LV. Per ULA website, under the block buy,
an additional flight is < $100M, so guessing its 38.5B for 65 flights for the 4.2B CST-100
and CST-100 still includes solids with an abort test eliminated to certify a LV that will be retired
In short, the 7.5B for SLS/Orion/Comm Crew is not about exploration, its about a space taxi service. He did not state the future budgets. Lets examine the 'absurdity' of the business model stated in the current space policies, provided by the executive leadership that brought you ESAS and 'SLS and Orion are critical to NASA's plans". To meet the laws of Congress:
NASA's notional 2020 budget increases from 17.6B to 19.6B
Spends 7.5B for no BEO missions, no new markets, and two commercial crew providers (oops missed that 'market')
The promise of a new LV, where the USG cannot dictate hardware choices to companies.
http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/files/NASA_FY_2016_Budget_Estimates.pdfHe did not state that the past focus has been every mission must be complete in 'one shots' (rent a large U-haul rather than multiple carloads- but rent is not an option as all fixed costs are covered and no one owns a car) and that high reliability makes sense for billion dollar payloads. Bruno covered this without details and then said that hypersonic reuseable LVs are not ready for prime time.
He did not state that
One of the biggest benefits of a propellant depot, particularly one with fairly decent sized tanks is the complete decoupling between end-user's vehicle and suppliers' vehicles, so the current advantage that "ULA they have a wide range of payloads and BLEO destinations for which a lower cost ELV makes more sense" goes away (the hardware can be upgraded of course). (so is a 7m fairing include in the 4.2B - 500M in launch costs or is this a USG upgrade?).
He did not state let's get our IPs on board with with a grand new plan, continue the US goodwill to all, and open up some new markets with a simple change in direction: Separate the Class D payload from the Class A and have the USG invests in BEO flagships rather than excess super HLV lift capacity and capsules. This is after all, one form of the ULA 'spiral' plan, using Boeing's amplification factor. The other major market is the 700 + satellite constellation of course.
Clongton and rcoppola nailed it on reuse, BTW. He did state "certify a cargo or the crew configuration, whatever the customer wants'.
How about a 20B/year budget without SLS/Orion, spend cash on flagships, tech demonstrations, and other scientific missions, separate propellant *and* cargo *and* crew in a 'common configuration' which provides at least two huge markets, while working on advanced R&D for Economical Access to Space, where the experimental vehicles can deliver something of value--dirt cheap propellant? Its seems like a no-brainer with plenty of new work to go around...but this was not Bruno's reply. Perhaps he understands the politics too well?
These are leap of faith statements. All of you may be right and reuse may be more cost effective. It may well be that despite science fiction and what all of us want to be, the challenge of rocketing into space may prove to daunting to make reuse cost effective. SpaceX is certainly giving reuse a go, so we really don’t have long to wait till this question is answered.
Adding fluid is not a leap of faith. Besides what is stated above, you have overlooked several key future considerations, even in the old business model and the 2020 budget in the 17 to 19B range.
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#111
by
Robotbeat
on 08 Feb, 2015 17:27
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....
You know, the interesting thing about this discussion is that, sure, by itself, a reusable launch vehicle is difficult to justify.
However, in a competitive environment, if your competitor chooses to invest in an RLV (for the first stage, let's say for sake of argument), once they make that investment, you are at a huge competitive disadvantage operationally if you continue with a fully expendable launch vehicle. Assuming both of you have a decently high launch rate already, they will have a huge advantage once they take the plunge.
It may maximize /industry/ revenue to use just expendable launch vehicles, but in a competitive environment, it just takes a single competitor to take the reusability plunge (assuming it works out technically, which it probably will, considering they already have plenty of demand for their launch services) until all of a sudden you've lost the majority of your launch business to the upstart.
These are leap of faith statements. All of you may be right and reuse may be more cost effective. It may well be that despite science fiction and what all of us want to be, the challenge of rocketing into space may prove to daunting to make reuse cost effective. SpaceX is certainly giving reuse a go, so we really don’t have long to wait till this question is answered.
On the contrary! No such law of physics exists which makes reuse impossible or even non-feasible. We don't know the future of space launch, obviously, so SpaceX may fail.
But I'm talking about from the perspective of a competitor. From that perspective, it's a leap of fail to assume they'll fail at economical reuse, because if they ARE successful (and you don't have a similar program ready to go), your whole business model is in serious jeopardy.
It is, also, a leap of faith to assume reuse WON'T reduce costs. It's no more of a "safe" perspective (for a competitor) than assuming reuse will be successful.
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#112
by
Space Ghost 1962
on 09 Feb, 2015 19:00
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(from ar-1 thread):
ULA to help fund the AR-1 for a couple years.
Plus there is government's $200m funding for a domestic engine, Aerojet may yet build this engine.
http://m.decaturdaily.com/news/ula-s-ceo-talks-challenges-engine-plant-plans-for-decatur/article_8ba49046-af4a-11e4-97ef-ff58591d43fc.html?mode=jqm
Contrast Tory Bruno's comments here in this article.
About assured access:
What's changed now, what's new, is that assured access by policy is now to be accomplished by having two different providers who are competing for those missions.
My read: no longer a sole-source.
NGLS:
We're very excited about developing a new rocket and launch system. The first increment of that will be a new first-stage booster, and we will start flying those in 2019. ... It will probably take us a year or two to accumulate the data to become certified for that vehicle. Then it will become available for all of these missions we have been discussing.
No matter what Jim said here about avoiding certification thru AF involvement, yes, NGLS, looks to likely require a cert after years, according to ULA CEO.
Blue Origin and NGLS:
... We went out looking for candidate engines to put underneath our rocket, specifically our Next Generation, and we found that the Blue Origin engine had a couple advantages. First off, it was three years into a development cycle. It takes five to seven years to develop an engine. They were the only folks out there really actively developing a new engine anywhere near our size class. ... So we chose that engine. ...
BO shortest path given under active development (unlike, say AR ...).
A "back-up" to BE-4 in AR:
I'm also going to share with you that we have a backup. ... Aerojet Rocketdyne (which has a Huntsville facility) also has come forward with a rocket engine that is very attractive in its technology and its performance. They're a couple of years behind Blue. We're going to bring them both along parallel for at least a couple more years until it's clear...
Both AR and BO are underway. BE-4 is for a new vehicle, so AR is working on a old vehicle engine as a slower "plan B". Engines take a while to address risk, so both underway before an eventual down select. Clearly two concurrent vehicle/engine strategies.
What's next for BE-4:
They currently have limited production capability at facilities they have now. So they would be able to develop, test and then obtain initial qualification of that engine within the capability they have today.
Production for us will take a proper factory, and together we need to select where that factory will be this year, and begin planning for that factory being stood up and established and all the things you have to do to get a factory ready to build proper hardware beginning next year.
Initial qualification before factory and vehicle/engine commitment decisions, solely with existing BO capabilities.
Bringing content in-house:
... we are also looking to thicken our content, to bring a little bit more work inside our own factory. Where we have elements of supply chain that are not performing well or struggling or seeing any kind of significant cost growth, then we have the capability ourselves to manufacture that hardware. We're going to look to bring that in-house.
Fewer vendor(s)/component dependencies to minimize cost growth. New vehicle/engine(s) bring on cost growth.
Domestic RD-180 production and use:
In theory, we certainly could domestically produce RD-180s if we wanted to do that. We are in fact looking at that possibility because, although the RD-180s will become banned after a certain point of time for national security space missions, there are no restrictions on using them for NASA or other civil or commercial applications.
RD-180 not out of the picture for institutional/commercial. By inference, the "plan B".
Atlas V not yet entirely dead, although foreign production of RD-180 is coming to an end.
Broadened domestic use of RD-180's:
It depends on the nature of the specific arrangement that would be set up. We would have to go back to the law and compare that to what the Russian government was willing to do. It's not a given that simply producing them in the United States under a Russian license would comply with the law.
Still dallying with Russia over RD-180 application. Perhaps too many "strings attached"?
Commercial crew?
I can tell you that in our proposal to Boeing, we had to propose the rocket that we currently have and know how to build today and know how to price, and that was the Atlas. Now we've also shared our plans for the Next Generation with Boeing and told them that, if they get to a point in time when they would consider or want to switch over, that we would be happy to be in that conversation with them.
Linked to Atlas V, may move to NGLV or not, but for the moment, not.
edit: total rewrite.
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#113
by
TrevorMonty
on 09 Feb, 2015 19:45
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ULA are not planning on funding AR1 to completion or use it unless there are problems with BE4 development. As Tory said it is a backup. AR1 is a prime candidate for $200m of government money even more so if half of it is being funding privately.
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#114
by
kevin-rf
on 09 Feb, 2015 20:13
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AR1 is a prime candidate for $200m of government money even more so if half of it is being funding privately.
Why wouldn't the BE4 also be a "potential" candidate for that money if the funds are for a new "hydrocarbon" engine? Will not the development money be awarded in a competitive manor?
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#115
by
TrevorMonty
on 09 Feb, 2015 20:24
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AR1 is a prime candidate for $200m of government money even more so if half of it is being funding privately.
Why wouldn't the BE4 also be a "potential" candidate for that money if the funds are for a new "hydrocarbon" engine? Will not the development money be awarded in a competitive manor?
If government funds it then the engine should be available to any domestic LV provider. I can't see ULA wanting Orbital using.
The same would apply to SpaceX and Raptor.
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#116
by
Space Ghost 1962
on 10 Feb, 2015 00:41
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They are not sure about giving up on Atlas V, and I don't blame them - why wreck a good thing?
It may be that a longer term domestic RD-180 replacement not "tied to obligations" of some kind might happen. By inference this is the AR engine work. If so, Atlas V may continue to fly.
As a follow-on, BO may not be able to qualify for those funds, although it's unclear about SpaceX. I think that it may be that with BO and SpaceX, attempting to provide a "broad use" to multiple vendors makes no sense, because the engines are extremely vehicle- and use- specific, while the theory of an AR engine being used by Atlas, SLS Advanced Booster, and Antares has some vague business case sense. In that sense, they are "self financed".
I also wonder if this is a sop to AR to see if they can spit out some kind of kerolox engine to "keep alive" the American independent LRE capability, and they need to grab for every buck they can to cobble together something to demonstrate in 1-2 years on a test stand.
Such might also act to "float" AR LRE in between other hydrolox programs funding gaps.
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#117
by
jongoff
on 10 Feb, 2015 01:08
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To bring this back to ULA's reuse plans, I wouldn't be surprised if some of the VTVL/NewSpace companies that have been involved with ULA (Masten, XCOR, and Altius) don't end up playing some sort of a role in whatever reuse method ULA settles on.
Hmmm.
What an intriguing idea. I think if you're not surprised I won't be either.
To be clear, I have very little insight into ULA's reuse plans other than what everyone else has from public papers and presentations. Altius has done a little work on the IVF project in the past on a few occasions, but that's about it. I was speculating just based on methods I could think of for reuse, and the relationships they've had with firms that happen to have most of the pieces I would think are necessary for reuse...
~Jon
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#118
by
ArbitraryConstant
on 10 Feb, 2015 15:42
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It may be that a longer term domestic RD-180 replacement not "tied to obligations" of some kind might happen. By inference this is the AR engine work. If so, Atlas V may continue to fly.
Lower ISP but more thrust, that's not really an Atlas V anymore either. It'll lose performance if they don't revise the first stage.
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#119
by
dks13827
on 12 Feb, 2015 01:34
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He explains some interesting topics such as reusability, risk, cost, and reliability.
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#120
by
john smith 19
on 19 Feb, 2015 10:22
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Roger that. I think it's a pity ULA's hands are tied as much as they are. If they wanted to do something interesting short term, they should start actually flying IVF/ACES. That would get people excited and the TRL is quite a bit higher than some ideas, IMHO.
ULA's actually making decent progress on at least IVF. I don't know what's public knowledge, but there's real progress being made toward flying some of the pieces in the not so distant future. Not sure where ACES stands, but at least IVF is being actively funded and developed.
~Jon
I think the last AIAA paper was 2012-2013?
IVF just seems like one of those
naturally good ideas. Increasing payload on even the biggest LV's by about
20% [EDIT Opps. That should of course be 2%. I was thinking 500Kg on a 24000 Kg max payload, which is slightly better than 2%] is not to be sneezed at.
What I'm
really excited about is what it can do for extending stage life, as it already implies an
unlimited number of burns. The challenge is of course to make use of that extension.
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#121
by
Prober
on 26 Feb, 2015 01:43
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#122
by
TrevorMonty
on 06 Mar, 2015 01:33
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Tory doesn't think reusability is financially viable, this doesn't' stop SpaceX offering their recovered boosters at a discounted price (L2 members shouldn't have any problem finding this price).
ULA are going to have a tough time selling F9R payloads at these prices.
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#123
by
edkyle99
on 06 Mar, 2015 01:51
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Tory doesn't think reusability is financially viable, this doesn't' stop SpaceX offering their recovered boosters at a discounted price.
After more than a year of trying, it is still possible to ask "
what recovered boosters?"
SpaceX still have to recover a booster. If and when it does, that is still just the beginning of the lengthy process needed to prove that reuse is (1)possible and (2)cost effective. There is no guarantee that recovery/reuse is going to work out in the long run.
ULA's CEO has already made up his mind on this subject, but I'm waiting to see real results from the SpaceX experiment to make up my own mind.
- Ed Kyle
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#124
by
Razvan
on 06 Mar, 2015 02:14
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Tory doesn't think reusability is financially viable, this doesn't' stop SpaceX offering their recovered boosters at a discounted price.
After more than a year of trying, it is still possible to ask "what recovered boosters?"
SpaceX still have to recover a booster. If and when it does, that is still just the beginning of the lengthy process needed to prove that reuse is (1)possible and (2)cost effective. There is no guarantee that recovery/reuse is going to work out in the long run.
ULA's CEO has already made up his mind on this subject, but I'm waiting to see real results from the SpaceX experiment to make up my own mind.
- Ed Kyle
Yes, I see what you mean. Reusability is obviously a very hard thing to achieve. If it was not, A lot of other companies would have achieved it by now.
However hard it might be, SpaceX made a lot of progress. IMHO the hardest thing is to solve this duality: use fuel as much as is needed to lift the payload and have enough fuel to bring the rocket ashore. It looks like Elon is working on this last task and, once solved, the reusability can be demonstrated. With a little luck, we may be able to watch it go through before this year ends.
PS Should reusability could not apply FTTB to all mission types, to achieve it even for a limited types of mission would be a huge success.
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#125
by
Coastal Ron
on 06 Mar, 2015 02:47
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After more than a year of trying, it is still possible to ask "what recovered boosters?"
SpaceX has been doing incremental testing now for longer than a year, and anyone that watches their progress would see that they are far closer today than they were a year ago. Just follow the trend...
As to ULA, they don't even seem to be trying to implement reusability. That's OK as long as you don't plan on competing against a competitor that eventually succeeds in implementing reusability, which right now is pretty much every one of the legacy launch providers except for SpaceX. But even if SpaceX never succeeds with reusability it's unlikely (for a number of reasons) that ULA will ever be able to match SpaceX on pricing. Which means they can never be #1 in their industry, just always vying for #2 at best.
But hey, being #2 in a competitive crowd isn't too bad, as long as your other competitors aren't trying to catch and surpass you. Because then you better have a pretty good long-term plan for how you're going to keep ahead of them. Does Tony Bruno have that plan? Guess we'll have to wait and see.
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#126
by
QuantumG
on 06 Mar, 2015 02:59
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SpaceX has been doing incremental testing now for longer than a year, and anyone that watches their progress would see that they are far closer today than they were a year ago. Just follow the trend...
Not a lot closer.. I mean, previously they were crashing pieces of booster into the ocean, then they were crashing whole boosters into the ocean and now they've crashed a whole booster into a barge. It's certainly progress in the right direction, but many people seem to think that the next step, landing a stage in-tact on a barge, will be the last step. We've got the champagne ready to go! I think it will kinda be like the big celebration after the Human Genome Project declared victory (first in 2000, again in 2001 and later in 2003). Eventually the public released that the hard work had only just begun.
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#127
by
TrevorMonty
on 06 Mar, 2015 03:09
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Dozens of F9 v1.1 were sold before the first one flew, ULA would hope to sell a few NGLV before it flys. Why not sell a 2nd hand booster that hasn't been recovered, at least it will have a proven flight history.
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#128
by
GalacticIntruder
on 06 Mar, 2015 03:35
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Seems like a huge negative for SpaceX since they are locked out of DoD until 2019 or later (if ever), and still have to get the F9 and FH cert'd, and get NASA class 3; but ULA NGLV can show up and attempt to win commercial launches, or NASA ISS/CC, before that.
Though ESA/AS might get the short end, with SpaceX and ULA sweeping the commercial market.
SpaceX F9R, will have to have a new U/S for each new flight, but ULA RLV will have to have a first and second stage.
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#129
by
Lobo
on 06 Mar, 2015 17:49
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Tory doesn't think reusability is financially viable, this doesn't' stop SpaceX offering their recovered boosters at a discounted price (L2 members shouldn't have any problem finding this price).
ULA are going to have a tough time selling F9R payloads at these prices.
I don't know that ULA needs to -beat- SpaceX on price, if they can offer some things SpaceX can't. Like a much longer track record for more expensive payloads, and/or various other things. The more expensive the payloads, the less of a factor a few million dollars difference in launch cost is and the more of a factor reliability is.
IMHO, here's a few ways ULA could start to cut into the commercial market and be competative with SpaceX.
Overhaul their structure. As I understand, there's a lot of legacy expenses. Unions and such, that really drive up the overhead.
Eliminate all but two of their pads, for obvious reasons. Putting a second VIF at LC-41 shouldn't be too big of an expense and they could double their East coast launch capacity at LC-41.
Streamline and renegotiate their prices with suppliers. I think they'll get a good deal on BE-4 from BO as Bezos is eager to get int there and give Elon some competition. So it'll come down to how cheaply they can make the NGLV booster core, and if they can get the price of Centaur down, or come up with a new upper stage that's cheaper...possibly powered by BE-3? NGLV could certainly use more thrust than RL-10C. Or the availability of that engine could be used to negotiate better prices on the RL-10C's for Centaur, if they continued to use that.
NGLV probably really won't be competing against F9R per se, but F9E and FHR, as it will be in that payload range. Specifically GTO payloads. F9R will be the lighter payload market.
So if they are competing against an F9E, if they can make the core and upper stage for a similar price, will two BE-4's really be much more in cost than 9 M1D's? It's a larger engine but may not cost much more to make than a single M1D, depending on the production line. (Which costs more, nine new Ford F150's? Or two new Ford F350's? The F350 can tow more than twice what the F150 can, but it's not more than twice as expensive. There's a certain per-unit cost associated with a complex mechanical device irregardless of size). Can ULA get better pricing from AJR on RL-10 to be closer to a M1D-vac? or would BE-3 be close in price to it?
The potential price point of FH if they can get returning all 3 cores to landing site working well could be the real X-factor, as that should have the capability of NGLV, and only have to expend the upper stage. That'll come down to how much their recover and reprocessing costs really come out to be once they start doing it regularly.
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#130
by
Lobo
on 06 Mar, 2015 17:56
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Though ESA/AS might get the short end, with SpaceX and ULA sweeping the commercial market.
Yea, I think the real nervious player here is ESA/AS. As well as the Russians. If SpaceX is successful in getting the commercial launch market prices down, and ULA is successful and overhauling themselves and offereing a new low cost NGLV and can compete with SpaceX in the commercial market...that leaves ESA and Russia to have to subsidize their launch services more and more to get anything but their own government payloads.
If SpaceX has 4 operatial Falcon pads and if ULA has two pad but with a 2nd VIF at LC-41 so they can double their launch capacity there, that's enough affordable launch capacity for probably pretty much all the annual commercial market out there, in addition to all of the US government market, one would think.
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#131
by
Hauerg
on 06 Mar, 2015 18:07
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Is ULA preparing for a time when the assured access billion has gone away?
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#132
by
edkyle99
on 06 Mar, 2015 18:37
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Is ULA preparing for a time when the assured access billion has gone away?
When they shut down half of their launch sites and one entire production line with its cadre of subcontrators, the assured access money would at least be greatly reduced. At that point it would likely be about the same amount that SpaceX or any other contractor would receive for the same readiness.
- Ed Kyle
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#133
by
woods170
on 06 Mar, 2015 19:41
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Is ULA preparing for a time when the assured access billion has gone away?
When they shut down half of their launch sites and one entire production line with its cadre of subcontrators, the assured access money would at least be greatly reduced. At that point it would likely be about the same amount that SpaceX or any other contractor would receive for the same readiness.
- Ed Kyle
Which would translate to zero as SpaceX, or any other contractor, is not getting any readiness money. The current deal is exclusively for ULA and will go away eventually. ULA is already prepping for that situation.
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#134
by
TrevorMonty
on 06 Mar, 2015 22:36
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The game to watch is NGLV vs Ariane 6.
Both will fly about same time ie 2019 with similar performances and companies with excellent records. If ULA can bet ArianeSpace on price they should be the winner.
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#135
by
Patchouli
on 06 Mar, 2015 23:08
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Lower ISP but more thrust, that's not really an Atlas V anymore either. It'll lose performance if they don't revise the first stage.
ISP is not as important on the first stage as it is on the upper stage.
An AR-1 first stage could actually have significantly better performance if the tanks are resized for the greater thrust.
Going from the RD-180 to the AR-1 would be less of a change then going from the Atlas II to Atlas III was and certainly less then going from Falcon 9 v1.0 to v1.1.
I'm rather surprised they are not actively pushing the AR-1 as an interim solution until NGLS is ready.
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#136
by
edkyle99
on 06 Mar, 2015 23:43
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Which would translate to zero as SpaceX, or any other contractor, is not getting any readiness money. The current deal is exclusively for ULA and will go away eventually. ULA is already prepping for that situation.
SpaceX isn't getting any of those funds right now because it doesn't have a full blown EELV contract. It may garner something like that if it wins contracts. ULA says that the launch capability contract "provides for mission assurance, program management, systems engineering, integration of the space vehicle with the launch vehicle, launch site and range operations, and launch infrastructure maintenance and sustainment". Even if SpaceX wasn't awarded a "capability contract", it would have to receive similar funding in some form, perhaps cost-plus per launch, to pay for such services. The Air Force would be paying "extra" for responsiveness, and priority, and for things that SpaceX does not currently provide like vertical payload integration at the pad.
- Ed Kyle
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#137
by
TrevorMonty
on 07 Mar, 2015 00:29
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Lower ISP but more thrust, that's not really an Atlas V anymore either. It'll lose performance if they don't revise the first stage.
ISP is not as important on the first stage as it is on the upper stage.
An AR-1 first stage could actually have significantly better performance if the tanks are resized for the greater thrust.
Going from the RD-180 to the AR-1 would be less of a change then going from the Atlas II to Atlas III was and certainly less then going from Falcon 9 v1.0 to v1.1.
I'm rather surprised they are not actively pushing the AR-1 as an interim solution until NGLS is ready.
The BE4 has 2-3 year development lead on AR1 engine. All going well BE4 will be flight ready 2017 while AR1 will be more like 2019-2020.
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#138
by
Coastal Ron
on 07 Mar, 2015 00:43
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I don't know that ULA needs to -beat- SpaceX on price, if they can offer some things SpaceX can't. Like a much longer track record for more expensive payloads, and/or various other things. The more expensive the payloads, the less of a factor a few million dollars difference in launch cost is and the more of a factor reliability is.
SpaceX getting certified nullifies the "longer track record" claim, since once someone is qualified to do a task for the government how much experience they have performing that task has less weight and price becomes a bigger factor.
Overhaul their structure. As I understand, there's a lot of legacy expenses. Unions and such, that really drive up the overhead.
So getting rid of a union is easy? And Bruno has to be careful about how he reduces overhead since he's already lobbying local government to provide incentives for them to manufacture the BE-4 engine onsite. How many people they will employ will factor into any potential incentives.
He can start with a clean slate for the manufacturing part of the NGLV, but labor overall will be a challenge, especially since they have to keep legacy systems flying during the changeover.
Streamline and renegotiate their prices with suppliers.
Supposedly they've already done that with the current Bulk Buy order, which should have a lot of commonality with the supply chain for the NGLV. Not sure how much more they will be able to get.
So it'll come down to how cheaply they can make the NGLV booster core, and if they can get the price of Centaur down, or come up with a new upper stage that's cheaper...possibly powered by BE-3? NGLV could certainly use more thrust than RL-10C. Or the availability of that engine could be used to negotiate better prices on the RL-10C's for Centaur, if they continued to use that.
The real issue with the RL-10 is that it's certified and nothing else is. This is the reverse of what you were saying that SpaceX faces against ULA's proven launchers - replacing the RL-10 will take a while. That's why Bruno has said they will use the same upper stage for a while.
But using the same legacy upper stage means they can't be completely price lean, so ULA will be challenged for many years to come as they transition from the current generation of proven launchers and upper stages to a new generation of as-yet proven launchers and upper stages. Would be funny is SpaceX uses the "proven launcher" angle with them at that point in time...
The potential price point of FH if they can get returning all 3 cores to landing site working well could be the real X-factor, as that should have the capability of NGLV, and only have to expend the upper stage. That'll come down to how much their recover and reprocessing costs really come out to be once they start doing it regularly.
Even if SpaceX dramatically lowers the cost of moving mass to space, the government will want to keep competition once it has it again. So I think ULA will know they won't have to compete against SpaceX on price to a certain point, but to pick up marketshare they will have to compete out on the commercial marketplace. So it's Ariane 6 and Proton that they will really be competing against, not so much SpaceX per se.
My $0.02
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#139
by
joek
on 07 Mar, 2015 02:30
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Seems like a huge negative for SpaceX since they are locked out of DoD until 2019 or later (if ever), and still have to get the F9 and FH cert'd, and get NASA class 3; but ULA NGLV can show up and attempt to win commercial launches, or NASA ISS/CC, before that.
OTOH, was a huge negative for LM and Boeing (now ULA) 20 years ago when they invested $B of their own money. All dressed up and nowhere to go--DoD contracts, check; commercial contracts, not so much.
In any case, ULA NGLV can't just "show up" and win U.S. Government contracts; it will have to go through a certification process similar to SpaceX F9.
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#140
by
joek
on 07 Mar, 2015 02:45
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SpaceX isn't getting any of those funds right now because it doesn't have a full blown EELV contract. It may garner something like that if it wins contracts. ULA says that the launch capability contract "provides for mission assurance, program management, systems engineering, integration of the space vehicle with the launch vehicle, launch site and range operations, and launch infrastructure maintenance and sustainment". Even if SpaceX wasn't awarded a "capability contract", it would have to receive similar funding in some form, perhaps cost-plus per launch, to pay for such services. The Air Force would be paying "extra" for responsiveness, and priority, and for things that SpaceX does not currently provide like vertical payload integration at the pad.
ELC essentially includes everything but the LV. A source of continuing indigestion for some in Congress and one reason why they required splitting out the ELC budget. How something like ELC with multiple providers might be done in the future is clear as mud. However, as you suggest, something more mission-oriented is likely; funding N+1 standing armies and infrastructure on an annual basis is simply not going to fly.
NASA NLS must deal with similar issues (one-off expensive payloads with tight windows) and have been reasonably successful. Other than the potential "OMG! National Security! Gotta Launch!", which is unlikely for these payloads unless we are facing Armageddon (in which case all bets are off). I think we will see DoD move closer to the NLS model, maybe with premiums paid for a (much smaller) pool of expertise from each provider, reserved launch slots ("right of first refusal") or some-such.
Assuming more than one healthy provider, there are numerous ways achieve the DoD's goals without resorting to something like multiple ELC awards as we know it today.
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#141
by
Robotbeat
on 07 Mar, 2015 02:46
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Tory doesn't think reusability is financially viable, this doesn't' stop SpaceX offering their recovered boosters at a discounted price.
After more than a year of trying, it is still possible to ask "what recovered boosters?"
SpaceX still have to recover a booster. If and when it does, that is still just the beginning of the lengthy process needed to prove that reuse is (1)possible...
It's possible. End of story. That has already been proven, and there has NEVER (since the dawn of modern rocketry) been any reason to believe it wouldn't be possible.
And sure, cost effectiveness has not been proven, yet, but WHY do people keep questioning whether it's possible? It is 100% possible, has been shown repeatedly.
Honestly, it's absurd, but STILL you have people who should know better repeating this idea that there's some question about whether or not reuse is possible.
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#142
by
edkyle99
on 07 Mar, 2015 04:43
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Honestly, it's absurd, but STILL you have people who should know better repeating this idea that there's some question about whether or not reuse is possible.
It
seems possible, it probably
is possible, but it has yet to be proven for big liquid fueled booster stages, so of course there are questions. Until a stage lands safely
and is subsequently reused there will continue to be valid questions.
- Ed Kyle
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#143
by
ChrisWilson68
on 07 Mar, 2015 05:24
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Honestly, it's absurd, but STILL you have people who should know better repeating this idea that there's some question about whether or not reuse is possible.
It seems possible, it probably is possible, but it has yet to be proven for big liquid fueled booster stages, so of course there are questions. Until a stage lands safely and is subsequently reused there will continue to be valid questions.
I've never set foot in Alaska. It seems possible I could go there, it probably is possible, but it has yet to be proven that I personally could actually go to Alaska. Until I'm actually in Alaska, there will continue to be valid questions.
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#144
by
Patchouli
on 07 Mar, 2015 05:28
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Honestly, it's absurd, but STILL you have people who should know better repeating this idea that there's some question about whether or not reuse is possible.
It seems possible, it probably is possible, but it has yet to be proven for big liquid fueled booster stages, so of course there are questions. Until a stage lands safely and is subsequently reused there will continue to be valid questions.
- Ed Kyle
Actually a lot of those questions were answered by the X-15 program.
http://www.wired.com/2013/05/the-x-15-rocket-plane-reusable-space-shuttle-boosters-1966/The main issue is how much rework the booster needs between flights,the fix cost for the refurbishing, and the flight rate.
Everyone anti reusability likes the use the shuttle as an example as to why RLVs make no sense.
But STS had very high fixed costs because it needed a large standing army and expensive infrastructure but it's reoccurring cost actually were fairly low.
If it flew more often or had lower fixed costs it might have succeed in proving the economics of reusability.
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#145
by
Hauerg
on 07 Mar, 2015 05:54
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But that army was not idling all the time. A lot of manpower was needed to make engines, boosters and the TPS flightworthy again.
Flying more often might have helped, but really it was a little too dangerous. No crew escape option during booster phase etc..
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#146
by
IRobot
on 07 Mar, 2015 12:54
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Honestly, it's absurd, but STILL you have people who should know better repeating this idea that there's some question about whether or not reuse is possible.
It seems possible, it probably is possible, but it has yet to be proven for big liquid fueled booster stages, so of course there are questions. Until a stage lands safely and is subsequently reused there will continue to be valid questions.
- Ed Kyle
On the technical side, part of that was validated with the barge landing attempts and for me the other part was validated by the consecutive Grasshopper flights.
For me this is the end of prototyping phase and the start of production stage.
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#147
by
baldusi
on 07 Mar, 2015 13:06
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[...]
Honestly, it's absurd, but STILL you have people who should know better repeating this idea that there's some question about whether or not reuse is possible.
Nobody I knows question that it can be done, nor that SpaceX appear to basically have done it. What they are still questioning, is if it can be done economically and if you can close the business model around it. See how Cargo Dragon is not reused even though they have the technical capability. But the certification cost of reusing Dragon v1, is higher then building a new one.
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#148
by
AncientU
on 07 Mar, 2015 13:48
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Doubling their launch rate implies keeping ALL USG business and successfully competing for a dozen or more flights per year among cost-conscious businesses who abandoned ULA to Ariane and others. Those others are losing that market to SpaceX...
Halving costs not only means decreasing pads and assembly lines, but the people operating them (slight oversight on Bruno's part not mentioning this). If they are sincere on bringing in new talent, then even more of the existing workforce will have to go.
If Bruno had said that he established a Skunk Works the week he took charge, and handed them a blank sheet and blank check, he would have won the audience... and had a chance to compete. Incrementalism will not get the job done, nor will it recruit Stanford talent.
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#149
by
Space Ghost 1962
on 07 Mar, 2015 18:29
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SpaceX isn't getting any of those funds right now because it doesn't have a full blown EELV contract. It may garner something like that if it wins contracts. ULA says that the launch capability contract "provides for mission assurance, program management, systems engineering, integration of the space vehicle with the launch vehicle, launch site and range operations, and launch infrastructure maintenance and sustainment". Even if SpaceX wasn't awarded a "capability contract", it would have to receive similar funding in some form, perhaps cost-plus per launch, to pay for such services. The Air Force would be paying "extra" for responsiveness, and priority, and for things that SpaceX does not currently provide like vertical payload integration at the pad.
ELC essentially includes everything but the LV. A source of continuing indigestion for some in Congress and one reason why they required splitting out the ELC budget.
In many ways this is a holdover from the past, which had its optimality/inefficiencies from past practices.
Since the launch services business is so small, these have been endured as a part of the bargain that EELV/ULA achieve at its start.
How something like ELC with multiple providers might be done in the future is clear as mud. However, as you suggest, something more mission-oriented is likely; funding N+1 standing armies and infrastructure on an annual basis is simply not going to fly.
It is akin to the problems we have with multiple weapons systems vendors, and I'll point to the JSF as a particular example of this, or of strategic weapons delivery vehicles. Same issue - how do you maintain 2/N of these? Note that the inverse issue of too many vendors with forced consolidation (which has its problems) figures into this as well.
Many also believe that some of these markets are too limited not to have a monopoly, and the monopsony of few vendors isn't that pleasing either. The supposed power of a market economy may not work well here. Perhaps the correct means might be vertical industries as own service providers?
NASA NLS must deal with similar issues (one-off expensive payloads with tight windows) and have been reasonably successful. Other than the potential "OMG! National Security! Gotta Launch!", which is unlikely for these payloads unless we are facing Armageddon (in which case all bets are off). I think we will see DoD move closer to the NLS model, maybe with premiums paid for a (much smaller) pool of expertise from each provider, reserved launch slots ("right of first refusal") or some-such.
Perhaps like we have a "commercial" launch industrial category, "institutional" category, and even "national security" category
as qualifications/certifications of providers?
Then the institutions "pay" for vendors to maintain proficiency?
Thank you both for bringing this up, it's been on my mind.
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#150
by
Darkseraph
on 07 Mar, 2015 18:58
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Given most of the history of spaceflight, comparing what people believed would happen to what actually did happen...I'd say it pays off to be a bit bearish on predictions and not go for the hype, on average. I've seen loads of bile directed Bruno's way because he's not promising miracles. ULA of course has it's interests it must protect, but I think what he said in his talk is mostly fair. That he's not writing a blank check for a blank paper design...I hate to say it, but I think he's being a responsible businessman. I would of course cheer on such an effort and go as far as to say, resurrect Venture Star already! But its not my money on the line, so its easy to tell others how they should invest. Interesting talk overall, he's a very articulate speaker.
I am in the boring camp of hope for the best, plan for the worst! - if you know what I mean.
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#151
by
edkyle99
on 07 Mar, 2015 22:33
-
Honestly, it's absurd, but STILL you have people who should know better repeating this idea that there's some question about whether or not reuse is possible.
It seems possible, it probably is possible, but it has yet to be proven for big liquid fueled booster stages, so of course there are questions. Until a stage lands safely and is subsequently reused there will continue to be valid questions.
I've never set foot in Alaska. It seems possible I could go there, it probably is possible, but it has yet to be proven that I personally could actually go to Alaska. Until I'm actually in Alaska, there will continue to be valid questions.
Alaska exists. I know it exists because it is on maps and I've seen pictures, some of them from space. Also I know a guy who went there.
Show me a photograph of a
cryogenic liquid propellant
fuel rocket stage in the EELV class that has boosted an orbital mission, been recovered, refurbished, and re-flown.
- Ed Kyle
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#152
by
Space Ghost 1962
on 07 Mar, 2015 22:45
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... cryogenic liquid fuel rocket stage in the EELV class that has boosted an orbital mission ...
Yeah, those lazy Russian's, don't they know that kerolox and hypergolic boosters are sooo useless.
The real rockets only use LH LOx. Like say Shuttle, DIV, HII, Ariane V ... you know, those cost effective rockets, the ones that will outlast those silly Soyuz/Proton LV's.
NO
add:
Wish I had an "unlike" button for that one ...
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#153
by
Robotbeat
on 07 Mar, 2015 23:06
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[...]
Honestly, it's absurd, but STILL you have people who should know better repeating this idea that there's some question about whether or not reuse is possible.
Nobody I knows question that it can be done, nor that SpaceX appear to basically have done it. What they are still questioning, is if it can be done economically and if you can close the business model around it. See how Cargo Dragon is not reused even though they have the technical capability. But the certification cost of reusing Dragon v1, is higher then building a new one.
Did you miss what Ed Kyle said? If you hadn't trimmed my quote, you would've seen it.
EDIT:And Ed Kyle is /very/ knowledgeable; he's one of those people on this site whose posts are worth reading. Which is why it's weird that he seems to think there might be some undiscovered law of physics that prevents reusable rockets from being possible.
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#154
by
baldusi
on 07 Mar, 2015 23:44
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... cryogenic liquid fuel rocket stage in the EELV class that has boosted an orbital mission ...
Yeah, those lazy Russian's, don't they know that kerolox and hypergolic boosters are sooo useless.
The real rockets only use LH LOx. Like say Shuttle, DIV, HII, Ariane V ... you know, those cost effective rockets, the ones that will outlast those silly Soyuz/Proton LV's.
NO
add:
Wish I had an "unlike" button for that one ...
LOX is cryogenic.
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#155
by
Robotbeat
on 07 Mar, 2015 23:54
-
... cryogenic liquid fuel rocket stage in the EELV class that has boosted an orbital mission ...
Yeah, those lazy Russian's, don't they know that kerolox and hypergolic boosters are sooo useless.
The real rockets only use LH LOx. Like say Shuttle, DIV, HII, Ariane V ... you know, those cost effective rockets, the ones that will outlast those silly Soyuz/Proton LV's.
NO
add:
Wish I had an "unlike" button for that one ...
LOX is cryogenic.
But isn't a "liquid
fuel."
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#156
by
TrevorMonty
on 08 Mar, 2015 06:45
-
Halving costs not only means decreasing pads and assembly lines, but the people operating them (slight oversight on Bruno's part not mentioning this). If they are sincere on bringing in new talent, then even more of the existing workforce will have to go.
Tory did state after NLV announcement that the work force would be cut. I have not heard/read him say anything lately about workforce cuts, not surprising as it is not great PR material.
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#157
by
edkyle99
on 08 Mar, 2015 14:48
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The real rockets only use LH LOx. Like say Shuttle, DIV, HII, Ariane V ... you know, those cost effective rockets, the ones that will outlast those silly Soyuz/Proton LV's.
Sorry. I should have written "propellant" instead of "fuel" to clarify. It also would have been clearer to simply delete the word "cryogenic" altogether.
I'm not saying that I believe that recovery and reuse of liquid stages is impossible. I am saying that it has not been proven. Even the very first step - the recovery - has yet to happen nearly six decades into the Space Age.
Only when a stage is recovered can the reuse development process begin. That alone will take awhile. Engineers will have to determine, likely through structural and static testing, if a recovered stage can be made flight worthy. Only when that process is completed,
if it can be completed, will the first re-flight attempt be possible. Then, only after recovery/reflight begins, will it be possible to determine if it can be made cost effective.
A lot of smart people in this business, Mr. Bruno among them, doubt that this type of reuse can be made to pay.
- Ed Kyle
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#158
by
Robotbeat
on 08 Mar, 2015 15:08
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"Proof" only exists in mathematics.
There is mounds of evidence, however.
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#159
by
Prober
on 08 Mar, 2015 15:23
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Is ULA preparing for a time when the assured access billion has gone away?
When they shut down half of their launch sites and one entire production line with its cadre of subcontrators, the assured access money would at least be greatly reduced. At that point it would likely be about the same amount that SpaceX or any other contractor would receive for the same readiness.
- Ed Kyle
Which would translate to zero as SpaceX, or any other contractor, is not getting any readiness money. The current deal is exclusively for ULA and will go away eventually. ULA is already prepping for that situation.
I'll take a stab at it here.
SpaceX is getting readiness money; its just coming atm out of different resources. Deposits, investors, NASA, etc. Even the certification processes at NASA, and USAF is an indirect means of funding. Some is still taxpayer monies its just out of different accounts. Been saying this for some time, with few that are taking it serious, this is classic "Howard Hughes".
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#160
by
clongton
on 08 Mar, 2015 15:28
-
EDIT:And Ed Kyle is /very/ knowledgeable; he's one of those people on this site whose posts are worth reading. Which is why it's weird that he seems to think there might be some undiscovered law of physics that prevents reusable rockets from being possible.
You misread his intent. He doesn't think what you implied. If I understand him correctly he thinks that given the complicated economics of where the tipping point is between an economically viable and non-viable reusable launch vehicle, that it has yet to be demonstrated. For example, the most expensive part of any launch vehicle is the engine(s), and SpaceX have dropped the cost of their engines so low that it complicates their reusability from an economic pov. Thus it /may/ not be economical to recover and reuse a F9 1st stage because of the low cost of the engines. Then again it may. The point is that none of us have a solid handle on where that tipping point is, and that's his point. We need to see a recovered booster and get a handle on what it takes to refurbish and refly it v.s. replacing an expended booster. While I would love to see SpaceX demonstrate that it *IS* economically viable, I have to agree with Ed. We simply don't know yet,
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#161
by
Robotbeat
on 08 Mar, 2015 15:51
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Nope, I didn't misunderstand him. He was talking about the possibility of reusability as point number 1 and the economics as point number 2.
Anyway, from what Tory and others at ULA have said, there is no question at ULA about the possibility of reusability. The only question is of the economics.
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#162
by
Rocket Science
on 08 Mar, 2015 16:09
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There is nothing wrong with supporting SpaceX’s endeavors while remaining grounded in reality by letting the data speak for itself...
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#163
by
Patchouli
on 08 Mar, 2015 16:53
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... cryogenic liquid fuel rocket stage in the EELV class that has boosted an orbital mission ...
Yeah, those lazy Russian's, don't they know that kerolox and hypergolic boosters are sooo useless.
The real rockets only use LH LOx. Like say Shuttle, DIV, HII, Ariane V ... you know, those cost effective rockets, the ones that will outlast those silly Soyuz/Proton LV's.
NO
add:
Wish I had an "unlike" button for that one ...
The Ariane 5 was a cost effective LV and carries over half of large commercial GTO payloads.
The H-II wasn't but the H-IIA/B might prove successful.
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#164
by
muomega0
on 08 Mar, 2015 17:22
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EDIT:And Ed Kyle is /very/ knowledgeable; he's one of those people on this site whose posts are worth reading. Which is why it's weird that he seems to think there might be some undiscovered law of physics that prevents reusable rockets from being possible.
You misread his intent. He doesn't think what you implied. If I understand him correctly he thinks that given the complicated economics of where the tipping point is between an economically viable and non-viable reusable launch vehicle, that it has yet to be demonstrated. For example, the most expensive part of any launch vehicle is the engine(s), and SpaceX have dropped the cost of their engines so low that it complicates their reusability from an economic pov. Thus it /may/ not be economical to recover and reuse a F9 1st stage because of the low cost of the engines. Then again it may. The point is that none of us have a solid handle on where that tipping point is, and that's his point. We need to see a recovered booster and get a handle on what it takes to refurbish and refly it v.s. replacing an expended booster. While I would love to see SpaceX demonstrate that it *IS* economically viable, I have to agree with Ed. We simply don't know yet,
Most disagree. Yes, the 'answers' are known, but it of course depends on the 'question'. The economics are not complicated.
One Shots vs reuse900mT*60M/20mT 2700M. (SLS/Orion per year with no missions, or 45 flights to LEO/GEO (45 * 60M).
900mT*20M/20mT/% = $900M/% Even if 1/3 succeed, it breaks even, except for the costs of the payload.
75% (2.7B - 1.2B = 1.5B/11 = 136M) 50% (2.7B - 1.8B = 1.1B/22 = 45M) 33% - Payload $0
So the success rate dictates the value of the payload and the past model states that for 100sM to $B satellites, one needs high reliability. If there is only one launch per year, likely little value in reuse.
Alternatively, in the future model, one could build additional mission hardware or sats (since the second one is always much cheaper) (Build 3 if the success rate is 1/3) and still break even (e.g. if the satellite is 1B, build three for 1.3B). Is the crew expendable?
Separate Cargo/Crew/PropellantWhen you launch the propellant separately from the Class A Cargo and Crew, reuse offers significant savings. While there is little potential of reducing expendable launch costs, there is significant potential to reduce cost with reuse, and Economic Access to Space is Challenge number one. With SLS/Atlas/Delta phasing down, the direction and economics seem quite clear to many.
QuestionWhat is the average mT per year to be launched and does the country want to shift excess LV capacity to
missions, depots, new markets?
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#165
by
nadreck
on 08 Mar, 2015 17:27
-
Lower ISP but more thrust, that's not really an Atlas V anymore either. It'll lose performance if they don't revise the first stage.
ISP is not as important on the first stage as it is on the upper stage.
An AR-1 first stage could actually have significantly better performance if the tanks are resized for the greater thrust.
Going from the RD-180 to the AR-1 would be less of a change then going from the Atlas II to Atlas III was and certainly less then going from Falcon 9 v1.0 to v1.1.
I'm rather surprised they are not actively pushing the AR-1 as an interim solution until NGLS is ready.
The BE4 has 2-3 year development lead on AR1 engine. All going well BE4 will be flight ready 2017 while AR1 will be more like 2019-2020.
That doesn't seem to be Tory Bruno's idea of the timeline:
http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20150308/business/150309135/The Blue Origin engine, the BE-4, won't be ready for test flights until 2019 at the earliest, Bruno said. And it could be 2022 or 2023 before it would be certified by the Pentagon for national-security launches.
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#166
by
TrevorMonty
on 08 Mar, 2015 18:30
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I said BE4 will be flight READY 2017 (not flying) but the LV it is being fitted to will not be flying till 2019. For AR1 it wouldn't fly till 2021.
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#167
by
nadreck
on 08 Mar, 2015 18:34
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How is "flight ready" different from "ready for test flights"?
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#168
by
Space Ghost 1962
on 08 Mar, 2015 19:33
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Yes thank you an over claim was backed off of. Be careful of over claims here in general.
I am not in any way claiming otherwise then that (paraphrasing) "extraordinary claims require extraordinary justification
in regular use". Which has not been seen so far.
Atlas V has achieved extraordinary reliability in regular use for its entire life. It is what its designers/manufacturers/customers/owners wished it to be. And they were very particular and in the case of Lockheed Martin, not wishing to "over do" an EELV bid like Boeing did, so the ELV was extremely narrow a program for very good reasons that turned out to be true.
add:
Now, the rival to EELV are going in a novel direction that
in theory might compete using reuse.
Much of the theory has been proven to allow a form of reuse. To do Atlas V took the best engineers, skills, and experience to yield what they set forth to do. They are rightly proud of achieving what they set out to do. They did not find reuse to fit within those goals, but to be in conflict with those goals.
A great showman is currently providing a highly visible series of "circus acts" that are incrementally giving proof to those theories mentioned above, not necessarily consistent with EELV reliability or engineering, but may even be in conflict to those prior mentioned goals.
This is what Bruno was saying.NGLV - Next Generation Launch Vehicle. Is an "evolved EELV". It is still in conflict with the rival's goals/theories.
ULA isn't doing a F9R vehicle. ULA has better than its rival in every consideration. Rightly proud of it.
From their perspective, going down the rival's path surrenders what they have and are. For an unclear advantage. Quite appropriately, not unlike AS/others, they can't/shouldn't take that path.
Rival's going for broke, and why not - what do they have to lose? In the worst case, they fall back to a "Soyuz LV on steriods" that they can refine as an ELV indefinitely and own the Delta II++ launch services segment worldwide. They'll do enough with DoD to secure a subset of the existing EELV as well.
Here's where I depart from others in the up thread posts.
Don't think they have to follow EELV further to reconcile with ULA's view of the economics of EELV stage reuse. And they won't. So some won't be pleased.
ULA and its rival are NOT even remotely similar. They do compete.
I've made a thread that addresses reconciling ULA with its rival's:
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=36984.msg1343322#msg1343322Minor comment - why does there have to be so much posturing and so little justification, given that the people here know so much and can address things so exactingly? Too much pointless "king mixing", not enough crisp
"confront deny displace" to the point. As far as I'm concerned, you can all be generals/admirals as much as you like - just expose the issue so I can see your position clearly.
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#169
by
clongton
on 08 Mar, 2015 20:11
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Nope, I didn't misunderstand him. He was talking about the possibility of reusability as point number 1 and the economics as point number 2.
It's easy to lay something on "some undiscovered law of physics" to justify an unsustainable pov. It's quite another to substantiate it. So please tell me what "undiscovered law of physics" you are referring to that he thinks "prevents reusable rockets from being possible." Ed is a hell of a lot smarter that that and he would never stoop to such a thing. I am surprised you made a statement like that, so please clarify again your position on what
YOU believe
ED is basing his skepticism on.
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#170
by
Robotbeat
on 08 Mar, 2015 20:58
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Nope, I didn't misunderstand him. He was talking about the possibility of reusability as point number 1 and the economics as point number 2.
It's easy to lay something on "some undiscovered law of physics" to justify an unsustainable pov. It's quite another to substantiate it. So please tell me what "undiscovered law of physics" you are referring to that he thinks "prevents reusable rockets from being possible."...
Yup, that's what I'd love to know! I can't figure that out, either.
...Ed is a hell of a lot smarter that that and he would never stoop to such a thing.
Yeah, that's what I thought.
I am surprised you made a statement like that, so please clarify again your position on what YOU believe ED is basing his skepticism on.
Welp, this is what he said:
....
SpaceX still have to recover a booster. If and when it does, that is still just the beginning of the lengthy process needed to prove that reuse is (1)possible and (2)cost effective.....
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#171
by
Robotbeat
on 08 Mar, 2015 21:02
-
Ed hasn't backed away from that statement, so I'd like to see him clarify his view:
Were you refering purely to reuse of the F9 v1.1 booster as-is?
Or reuse in general?
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#172
by
Space Ghost 1962
on 08 Mar, 2015 21:09
-
Not to pile on, but perspective is being lost. SX is not ULA, ULA isn't doing F9R.
They'll never do what Ed Kyle wants. They'll do what they want only. That doesn't mean Ed or they are wrong.
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#173
by
clongton
on 08 Mar, 2015 21:10
-
Welp, this is what he said:
....
SpaceX still have to recover a booster. If and when it does, that is still just the beginning of the lengthy process needed to prove that reuse is (1)possible and (2)cost effective.....
So just where do you get "some undiscovered law of physics that prevents reusable rockets from being possible"? What I get from what he said is:
(1) [possible] It hasn't been done yet and until it is actually accomplished we won't know if it
can be done.
(2) [cost effective] See my original statement above about the economic viability of stage of recovery when the stage has really inexpensive engines.
I don't see any justification at all for the "undiscovered law of physics" accusation. That statement is my bone of contention. It's an absurd thing to say about him.
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#174
by
kdhilliard
on 08 Mar, 2015 21:23
-
Welp, this is what he said:
....
SpaceX still have to recover a booster. If and when it does, that is still just the beginning of the lengthy process needed to prove that reuse is (1)possible and (2)cost effective.....
Sounds spot on to me.
"Proof" only exists in mathematics.
No, not that kind of proof. "The proof of the pudding is in the eating," kind of proof.
We would all benefit from interpreting one another's posts charitably.
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#175
by
Robotbeat
on 08 Mar, 2015 21:54
-
Welp, this is what he said:
....
SpaceX still have to recover a booster. If and when it does, that is still just the beginning of the lengthy process needed to prove that reuse is (1)possible and (2)cost effective.....
So just where do you get "some undiscovered law of physics that prevents reusable rockets from being possible"? What I get from what he said is:
(1) [possible] It hasn't been done yet and until it is actually accomplished we won't know if it can be done.
...
The bolded part right there is the part I strongly disagree with.
Just because something hasn't been done yet doesn't mean we can't make quite definitive (and correct) statements about whether or not it's possible.
If there is no law of physics (or some combination) which prevents a thing from being done, then it /is/ possible.
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#176
by
TrevorMonty
on 08 Mar, 2015 23:07
-
How is "flight ready" different from "ready for test flights"?
From my limited knowledge on this. Flight ready means the engine has been put though every conceivable test on test stand including a complete flight profile and is ready to be fitted to LV.
There is nothing stopping ULA from building the LV plus launch infrastructure in parallel with engine testing. Once engine is flight ready fit to LV and fly a few weeks/months later. Of course if there are problems with engine testing/development then ULA could end up with the LV and launch infrastructure sitting idle for a long time.
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#177
by
clongton
on 08 Mar, 2015 23:25
-
The bolded part right there is the part I strongly disagree with.
You are entitled to your opinion. We're already too far off topic. We're done here.
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#178
by
Robotbeat
on 09 Mar, 2015 01:10
-
-
#179
by
TrevorMonty
on 09 Mar, 2015 01:46
-
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#180
by
deltaV
on 09 Mar, 2015 03:02
-
Well, ULA at least thinks partial reusability is possible:
http://www.ulalaunch.com/uploads/docs/Published_Papers/Evolution/EELVPartialReusable2010.pdf
The question is not whether reuse is possible (of course it is) but whether it makes economic sense. IIRC that paper says partial reusability should be economical but actions speak louder than words. If ULA believed that reusability would be cost effective then the new launcher they're developing would presumably be (partially) reusable. Of course it's possible they have secret plans for reuse that they're keeping secret for competitive reasons but I think it's more likely they haven't announced reusability plans because they don't expect the benefits of partial reusability to be worth the development costs and risks that partial reusability would be as disappointing as it was for the space shuttle.
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#181
by
RocketGoBoom
on 09 Mar, 2015 03:38
-
I watched the video and read most of the 9 pages of this thread before posting. Bruno is trying to get ULA into the new competitive situation that has been forced upon them. But it all feels like a half-hearted effort. I did not get the sense that he and ULA recognize just how much their market is being altered and what the real risks are.
I have managed a business where the competition comes in and takes 30% of revenue. Guess what ... that is enough to put many businesses into bankruptcy. Losing 30% of your market without adjusting quickly can result easily in the company bleeding money.
If SpaceX just takes 30% of the launches that ULA currently has (a very reasonable estimate) and also forces ULA to bid more competitively on the remaining 70%, the end result could be a MASSIVE reduction in ULA revenue. In fact, I would guess that they would be heavily losing money.
This scenario is coming for ULA in the next 3 years. SpaceX is going to starting winning some of these launches. ULA doesn't have 5 years years to get their act in gear. These contracts start making payments years before the actual launch. So the cash flow will start changing as soon as SpaceX starts winning some bids, which is possible in 2015.
ULA should be given credit for recognizing that they need to adapt. However I have not seen anything that indicates they are adjusting quickly enough to survive beyond the next 5 years. If they really lose 30% of their gov't launch market and have to drop their bids to maintain the other 70%, my guess is that Boeing / Lockheed will have to put in a lot of cash to keep ULA operational.
There is no way that the $1 billion per year in overhead money will continue once there is a viable competitor also bidding on launches. It might continue for an extra year or two, as a transition period for ULA to adjust to the new environment, but there will be immense Congressional pressure to cancel that subsidy.
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#182
by
GWH
on 09 Mar, 2015 03:39
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Well Tory Bruno is doing a reddit AMA on the 11th, although not discussing the NGLV...
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#183
by
clongton
on 09 Mar, 2015 04:09
-
Well, ULA at least thinks partial reusability is possible:
http://www.ulalaunch.com/uploads/docs/Published_Papers/Evolution/EELVPartialReusable2010.pdf
The conclusions section had interesting statement. Recovered engines should be more reliable as the are Flight proven.
The paper is from 2008, which in this business is a very long time ago. And notice that it did not attempt to recover the booster at all, only the engine pod, by dropping it into the sea. As expensive as the RD-180's are they still did not follow thru on it.
The RS-25 for example are expensive engines. The RS-25 DID get reused, even though it was less expensive to build a new engine than to refurbish a "Flight Proven" article. But that was only because Shuttle was committed to reuse and NASA did not need to justify a bottom line expense of the engine. I would wager that is the same reason ULA did not follow thru with RD-180 reuse as well. There was no incentive to recover and reuse the engines because the Air Force, NASA and DoD would simply pick up the tab for new engines without batting an eyelid.
Along comes SpaceX and they are attempting to create a completely reusable rocket, including the tanks and airframe, which will require boost-back and RTLS. Personally I don't see barges as a viable long term solution. There are too many variables that cannot be controlled sufficiently to build a business case on. RTLS is the 800 lb gorilla in the room and yet it is the future of reusable launch vehicles, if they are to work. Unlike the RD-180's, the F9 engines are too inexpensive to justify recovering just them. New ones come off the line for less expense than what it would take to recover and refurbish unless they come back with the launch vehicle as a package. So it is not whether or not it CAN be done, but whether it is "possible" to do that in a way that makes any sense. Sure it CAN be done. But in such a scenario there is far more to consider than the vehicle and the physics. There are huge safety regulations and impact statements that need to be complied with. And the BIG one is that politicians could scuttle the whole thing if they get enough pushback from the local constituents. Case in point is a nuclear engine. We all know they can be safely flown and yet a small but vocal group of anti-nuke advocates have succeeded in creating such fear mongering that nuclear rocket engines will never fly from the earth's surface for the foreseeable future. It is entirely possible that the same thing could happen to SpaxeX and ULA if enough grumbling happens among the locals. Those are the kinds of things that fall under the "Possible" label, not physics.
CAN it be done? Certainly. Will it be done? That remains to be seen, and I am not speaking of just the physical boost-back RTLS because we all know that will probably work. It's the rest of the story that will determine the end result. It remains to be seen. We all wish them luck, but it still remains to be seen.
It is entirely possible that it will be demonstrated to be be completely possible and yet SpaceX and ULA could end up recovering at sea because of other factors, unrelated to what is actually possible. That would drive the design of ULA's new LV and force a redesign of the F9. I have a feeling ULA is holding its breath until they see how this RTLS approach actually pans out.
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#184
by
Galactic Penguin SST
on 09 Mar, 2015 05:07
-
I watched the video and read most of the 9 pages of this thread before posting. Bruno is trying to get ULA into the new competitive situation that has been forced upon them. But it all feels like a half-hearted effort. I did not get the sense that he and ULA recognize just how much their market is being altered and what the real risks are.
I have managed a business where the competition comes in and takes 30% of revenue. Guess what ... that is enough to put many businesses into bankruptcy. Losing 30% of your market without adjusting quickly can result easily in the company bleeding money.
If SpaceX just takes 30% of the launches that ULA currently has (a very reasonable estimate) and also forces ULA to bid more competitively on the remaining 70%, the end result could be a MASSIVE reduction in ULA revenue. In fact, I would guess that they would be heavily losing money.
This scenario is coming for ULA in the next 3 years. SpaceX is going to starting winning some of these launches. ULA doesn't have 5 years years to get their act in gear. These contracts start making payments years before the actual launch. So the cash flow will start changing as soon as SpaceX starts winning some bids, which is possible in 2015.
ULA should be given credit for recognizing that they need to adapt. However I have not seen anything that indicates they are adjusting quickly enough to survive beyond the next 5 years. If they really lose 30% of their gov't launch market and have to drop their bids to maintain the other 70%, my guess is that Boeing / Lockheed will have to put in a lot of cash to keep ULA operational.
There is no way that the $1 billion per year in overhead money will continue once there is a viable competitor also bidding on launches. It might continue for an extra year or two, as a transition period for ULA to adjust to the new environment, but there will be immense Congressional pressure to cancel that subsidy.
I can't see this happening with such a market (inelastic?) like aerospace. While 30% loss of the current missions sounds about right, I can't see ULA going into deep trouble with the savings they are trying to implement, simply because the market will be expanding to the point that no single LSP could swallow them all.
And remember, everyone in the world with new LVs coming on line are trying to slash the launch price down to ~$US 50M for the "EELV-M" class missions (even the quiet Japanese). Some will probably fail to reach that point, but with BO on board I can see ULA achieving that. At $50M, the difference between the "Atlas VI" and the F9R may not be as far as people think(*).
(*)Slightly OT - my guess is that F9R may eventually lower its price to $25-30M once re-usability enters normal operations, i.e. almost the same as the "Russian missiles" that caused the X-company to come into existence. But prices of <$10M will not happen until at least 10-25 years later for a rocket of such size with new clean sheet designs. Now I need to open up a new thread for that discussion......
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#185
by
ChrisWilson68
on 09 Mar, 2015 06:57
-
Honestly, it's absurd, but STILL you have people who should know better repeating this idea that there's some question about whether or not reuse is possible.
It seems possible, it probably is possible, but it has yet to be proven for big liquid fueled booster stages, so of course there are questions. Until a stage lands safely and is subsequently reused there will continue to be valid questions.
I've never set foot in Alaska. It seems possible I could go there, it probably is possible, but it has yet to be proven that I personally could actually go to Alaska. Until I'm actually in Alaska, there will continue to be valid questions.
Alaska exists. I know it exists because it is on maps and I've seen pictures, some of them from space. Also I know a guy who went there.
Show me a photograph of a cryogenic liquid propellant fuel rocket stage in the EELV class that has boosted an orbital mission, been recovered, refurbished, and re-flown.
My analogy was comparing X, "stage reusability", with Y, "me being in Alaska". Your responses confuses that with Y being "Alaska existing". That's not what I was comparing. So your answer doesn't negate my point. It doesn't even actually address the point of my analogy.
The point of my analogy is that the line of reasoning "X hasn't happened therefor we don't know if it's possible" is not valid. Sometimes, even if X hasn't happened, we can reasonably conclude it's possible.
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#186
by
TrevorMonty
on 09 Mar, 2015 07:32
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ULA may lose 30% the govt launches to SpaceX, but a lower cost NGLV should pickup a few commercial satellite launches (at expense of ArianeSpace) plus there the ISS CST100 missions and maybe additional COTS missions, depending who wins CRS2. In addition there is still Bigelows private station which will have CST100 missions plus possibility of CST100 tourist flights.
I predicting they will still do 12+ launches a year.
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#187
by
edkyle99
on 09 Mar, 2015 13:15
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The point of my analogy is that the line of reasoning "X hasn't happened therefor we don't know if it's possible" is not valid. Sometimes, even if X hasn't happened, we can reasonably conclude it's possible.
Sometimes we can, but when it comes to cost-effective orbital liquid rocket stage recovery and reuse, I personally cannot yet make that leap.
- Ed Kyle
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#188
by
Proponent
on 09 Mar, 2015 15:58
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If SpaceX just takes 30% of the launches that ULA currently has (a very reasonable estimate) and also forces ULA to bid more competitively on the remaining 70%, the end result could be a MASSIVE reduction in ULA revenue. In fact, I would guess that they would be heavily losing money.
This scenario is coming for ULA in the next 3 years. SpaceX is going to starting winning some of these launches. ULA doesn't have 5 years years to get their act in gear. These contracts start making payments years before the actual launch. So the cash flow will start changing as soon as SpaceX starts winning some bids, which is possible in 2015.
ULA should be given credit for recognizing that they need to adapt. However I have not seen anything that indicates they are adjusting quickly enough to survive beyond the next 5 years. If they really lose 30% of their gov't launch market and have to drop their bids to maintain the other 70%, my guess is that Boeing / Lockheed will have to put in a lot of cash to keep ULA operational.
There is no way that the $1 billion per year in overhead money will continue once there is a viable competitor also bidding on launches. It might continue for an extra year or two, as a transition period for ULA to adjust to the new environment, but there will be immense Congressional pressure to cancel that subsidy.
I hope you're right about the amount of pressue ULA will be under in the next years (just to be clear, I'm not hoping that it will go bust, rather that it will successfully respond and innovate). I could imagine, however, Congress discovering a need to have more than one launch provider for DoD and NRO missions (despite the fact that with ULA it's been content to live with a single provider for years). I don't see ULA getting a full gigabuck a year anymore, but I could imagine some significant fraction of that going its way for years to come. Congress [SLS fans please ignore]has, after all, defined a need for SLS and[/SLS fans please ignore] is completely uninterested in whether cheaper, better alternatives to SLS might exist.
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#189
by
Space Ghost 1962
on 09 Mar, 2015 17:44
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Suggest that the compromises by ULA's rival can only be accepted by ULA in the light of actual flight history as it unfolds. Beyond NGLV.
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#190
by
Lobo
on 09 Mar, 2015 18:34
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ULA may lose 30% the govt launches to SpaceX, but a lower cost NGLV should pickup a few commercial satellite launches (at expense of ArianeSpace) plus there the ISS CST100 missions and maybe additional COTS missions, depending who wins CRS2. In addition there is still Bigelows private station which will have CST100 missions plus possibility of CST100 tourist flights.
I predicting they will still do 12+ launches a year.
@this.
Here's the main thing. Right now ULA does almost exclusively government payloads (with a few exceptions). SpaceX could come in and take 30% of those payloads. But in doing so, they'll become the redundant launch provider, which will take the shackles off of ULA (velvet shackles, but still shackles) to start to do what they choose to do to lower their costs. Moves which the government hasn't allowed them to do thus far, and frankly there wasn't just need to do them. If you sole customer wants you to keep the status quo, and is willing to cover your costs and pay you a tidy profit to do so...there aren't a lot of businesses that will be fighting to upset the apple cart.
So with SpaceX's competition, comes the freedom to make changes. A 30% reduction in government payload contracts could probably be easily absorbed by being able to shut downt he Delta line and facilities. So it might not be as big of a blow as some suggest. Beyond that, a new LV that's competative with SpaceX on the open market then opens the door for ULA to take some of the commercial business that SpaceX has been developing a bit of a monopoly on themselves. (Not quite as there's international competition, but they've been doing very well in that EELV-medium sat market, and really building up a large market share there). ULA may come and nibble into that if they can drop their costs enough. They may have some issues with legacy and unions there that SpaceX doesn't have, so how aggressive will they be in their structuring to punch back at SpaceX?
How much with SpaceX's prices go up as they accomodate USAF/DoD certifications/hurdles?
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#191
by
TrevorMonty
on 09 Mar, 2015 19:27
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SpaceX's launches have progressively increased over the years and will likely increase with inflation. Their only hope to contain and drop prices is reusability.
The NGLV booster should be cheaper than F9 to build, auto pressurisation should eliminate He and all it's expensive tanks and fittings. The fitting costs for 2 engines would be cheaper than 9.
If ULA build BE4 under license then the actual build (includes testing) cost for 2x BE4 using additive manufacturing (which it was designed for) would be cheaper than 9x Merlin's. ULA will still have to pay Blue a royalty, price unknown.
In near term they will be stuck with existing expensive upper stage. The replacement ACES upper stage should be cheaper than Centuar and considerably more capable than F9 for BEO missons.
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#192
by
The Amazing Catstronaut
on 09 Mar, 2015 19:50
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SpaceX's launches have progressively increased over the years and will likely increase with inflation. Their only hope to contain and drop prices is reusability.
The NGLV booster should be cheaper than F9 to build, auto pressurisation should eliminate He and all it's expensive tanks and fittings. The fitting costs for 2 engines would be cheaper than 9.
If ULA build BE4 under license then the actual build (includes testing) cost for 2x BE4 using additive manufacturing (which it was designed for) would be cheaper than 9x Merlin's. ULA will still have to pay Blue a royalty, price unknown.
In near term they will be stuck with existing expensive upper stage. The replacement ACES upper stage should be cheaper than Centuar and considerably more capable than F9 for BEO missons.
Well, I wouldn't say "their only hope" - everything under the sun increases in cost with inflation, including ULA's launch costs, manufacturing costs, import costs, and the rest. The same applies for SpaceX and everybody else, so inflation expenses is a little bit straw man.
For SpaceX to lose out in the foreseeable future would require them to stop innovating on their tech and business model. That stoppage hasn't had any precedents, and I'll eat my trilby if it occurs.
Cost of launch isn't just in the manufacturing cost of the rocket, it runs a lot deeper than that. Also, SpaceX has got Merlin engine mass production down to an art; you're saying an engine that is produced in far greater numbers than the BE4 will become somehow more expensive than the BE4? What are you basing that upon?
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#193
by
jongoff
on 09 Mar, 2015 22:11
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SpaceX's launches have progressively increased over the years and will likely increase with inflation. Their only hope to contain and drop prices is reusability.
The NGLV booster should be cheaper than F9 to build, auto pressurisation should eliminate He and all it's expensive tanks and fittings. The fitting costs for 2 engines would be cheaper than 9.
If ULA build BE4 under license then the actual build (includes testing) cost for 2x BE4 using additive manufacturing (which it was designed for) would be cheaper than 9x Merlin's. ULA will still have to pay Blue a royalty, price unknown.
In near term they will be stuck with existing expensive upper stage. The replacement ACES upper stage should be cheaper than Centuar and considerably more capable than F9 for BEO missons.
I guess you're saying that as expendable boosters, NGLV could likely be cheaper to build/operate than Falcon 9v1.1. It's possible, but I'm skeptical. It may be close enough to keep ULA in the game though. But the real question is, where will SpaceX be in 2019 when NGLV starts flying. If SpaceX is recovering F9R first stages and reusing them before then (high probability IMO), just competing with an expendable F9 won't be enough. The good news is that I think SpaceX will be far enough into reusability before the NGLV first stage design is totally locked down that ULA might just be able to play second-mover in the reusability world.
It'll be fun to watch. As much as I love SpaceX and what they're doing for the industry, it's good to have two solid and affordable providers. And so far my experience has been that ULA is easier to work with than SpaceX (unless you happen to be a satellite customer), so keeping them competitive would be good.
~Jon
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#194
by
Robotbeat
on 09 Mar, 2015 22:36
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It's an annoying, over-used buzzword, but "disruption" is a real thing. When a genuinely disruptive competitor comes along, all bets are off.
ULA's survival is not guaranteed. Certainly, staying at their current 12+ flights per year is not guaranteed. (Neither is SpaceX's future dominance or even continued survival, of course.)
When you have a significant change in the launch industry, like the introduction of reuse or a new competitor in the usually staid world of launch, then you can easily have a dramatic change happen fairly rapidly, and previous safe bets may no longer be set in stone.
Palm Pilot. Nokia. Blackberry.
I don't think ULA can count on sticking around (or at least doing anywhere near 12 launches a year) without a fight. Tory Bruno, though, seems intent on giving Elon Musk a run for his money, and good for him!
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#195
by
Robotbeat
on 09 Mar, 2015 23:00
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He said his goal of his tenure, compared to prior CEO Gass's goal of the formation of ULA, was to find a way for ULA to survive.
I believe him capable of it.
I actually kind of hope he (partially) fails and ULA is sold to, say, Blue Origin.
ULA has some AWESOME engineers. They deserve to be free of Boeing/LM.
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#196
by
su27k
on 10 Mar, 2015 13:09
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http://www.discoverula.com/Our SMART reuse initiative, beginning in 2015, will study ways to refurbish the components of our rockets that provide meaningful benefits to the environment and our customers.
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#197
by
Chris Bergin
on 10 Mar, 2015 13:58
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This thread is tired and factional, even with trims.
So let's end it here and you can all get on with your business.
It's the same story all over again:
) things get more complicated. SpaceX is however the only one currently trying to "do-it" with an actual first stage rather than a limited test vehicle.
