Who will compete with SpaceX? The last two and next two years.

[AncientU]

D: Lets get more realistic (a bit at first) and say, the SpaceX constellation will be launched and successful. ...

E: Lets get every launch vehicle on the same footing: All new launcher concepts work as advertised. ...

D. Game over.

E. F9/FH/ITSy dominate world-wide competed market and stimulate growing space economy, including BEO exploration in the 2020s.  China, Russia, Arianespace, maybe ULA retain domestic (uncompeted, or 'managed competition') launch base, though market share at best (primarily China) remains the same, or at worst drops to marginally sustainable launch rates.

D: Why game over?

Game over, in the sense that SpaceX will have achieved its primary goal (low cost access to space) and have more than ample funding to achieve its remaining goals. 

1. Launch costs/prices will be sufficiently low that any ventures that had been inhibited by cost will be unleashed,
2. ITSy, as a fully reusable launch system, will likely already be flying BEO, and
3. Mars will be achievable if not already achieved.

At this point, if there is to be a new space age, it will already have begun.

[jpo234]

Why wouldn't F9, FH, and ITSy be sufficient without New Glenn?

Because they aren't.  Still too much in common and ITSy is not a replacement for F9.   And if it was, Spacex would not keep F9 going.

Spacex is not taking over the US launch business no matter how much you wish it.

Vulcan is going to be around for a few decades.

That's quite a crystal ball you have, Jim.
We don't really know if Vulcan will ever become viable, let alone how long expendable launchers will exist.

Quite a while on expendables.  Even Falcon 9 is partly to fully expendable.  Most of its GTO missions this year (the meat and potatoes of the business) were fully expendable.

 - Ed Kyle

The future is tricky to predict.

But one item mostly overlooked is that the big launchers 100+mt size and even some of the 50+mt size(FH/NG) are aiming at very different payloads and customers many of which currently do not exist. This is such that the existing payload market would still need rides on smaller LV's. This split will continue until a LEO industrial infrastructure has been built up that practically builds/assembles sats on demand in-orbit (something kin to a Dell computer method of assemble to order from a wide mix of interchangeable bus subsystems and attachable instruments). This is somewhere around 5 to 10 years after he high flight rate capability of very cheap heavy lifters 100+mt are established. So for the next 12 to 20 years the partial and even expendable boosters will still be in operation with them slowly morphing into highly specialized launchers for a highly specialize payload customer. As the primary bulk market grows this specialty payload markett may grow as well but likely not shrink.

As we have recently seen, it's quite possible to launch a small payload on an oversized launcher. If the coming superheavies can launch cheaper than the current generation of LVs, than there is no reason to keep the current generation flying.

[AncientU]

Once the Raptor family is proven and full reuse is the norm, Falcon family could easily be replaced by a 5-ish meter methlox booster that nicely fills the smaller payload niche and uses the existing launch facilities.

Launch rates from each of four pads of this sub-ITSy booster could approach daily.

[AncientU]

Looking at SpaceX infrastructure limitations.

1- Each pad can turnaround reliably in 14 days -> 24 times a year with only 14 days schedule padding for slips

2- Only 4 pads for at least 6 years and only 3 pads through late 2019.

...

Static fire goes away when Block 5 is flying routinely (in a year or so) -- doubles the pad productivity.  Second stage fabrication and/or reuse can be rapidly expanded if needed.  Only bottleneck will be payloads, IMO.

6- Stage storage/rework/inspection floor space becomes a significant problem.  If the time for turn around of a 1st stage from launch to launch again is a minimum of 2 months...

SpaceX says 24 hours... where does your 2 months come from?  Besides, your figure of $5k/mo for storage is insignificant for $30-40M boosters.

[jpo234]

Once the Raptor family is proven and full reuse is the norm, Falcon family could easily be replaced by a 5-ish meter methlox booster that nicely fills the smaller payload niche and uses the existing launch facilities.

Launch rates from each of four pads of this sub-ITSy booster could approach daily.

From https://zlsadesign.com/post/tom-mueller-interview-2017-05-02-transcription/

That rocket (jpo: the Mars rocket, aka ITSy) is going to be the real game-changer. I would say that the Falcon 9 is evolutionary, you know, a reusable rocket that greatly reduces the cost of access to space. Maybe we can achieve ten reduction in cost over, you know, like what ULA or the Russians or the Chinese are doing, with the Falcon. But we want like a hundred or more reduction in costs; and that’s what the Mars rocket’s gonna do. That’s going to be the revolutionary rocket.
So once we’re flying that, all other rockets will probably be obsolete.

[TrevorMonty]

While DOD and NASA are building >$500m and nuclear(RTG) payloads ULA will have a future.

[AncientU]

While DOD and NASA are building >$500m and nuclear(RTG) payloads ULA will have a future.

Aren't you assuming that only ULA can fly these payloads?  Forever?

Question: Is it harder to qualify to fly crew than $500M payloads or RTGs? 
Atlas isn't yet qualified to fly crew...

[oldAtlas_Eguy]

While DOD and NASA are building >$500m and nuclear(RTG) payloads ULA will have a future.

Aren't you assuming that only ULA can fly these payloads?  Forever?

Question: Is it harder to qualify to fly crew than $500M payloads or RTGs? 
Atlas isn't yet qualified to fly crew...

Until someone decides that getting certified to launch nuclear materials is in their best interests there will not be a compatitor for this service.

An answer to which certification is stricter, the nuclear materials one is actually stricter than the crew certification.

Order of strictness/difficulty of certification:
NASA general payloads
DOD general payloads
Manned flights
Nuclear materials

[Rebel44]

While DOD and NASA are building >$500m and nuclear(RTG) payloads ULA will have a future.

Aren't you assuming that only ULA can fly these payloads?  Forever?

Question: Is it harder to qualify to fly crew than $500M payloads or RTGs? 
Atlas isn't yet qualified to fly crew...

Until someone decides that getting certified to launch nuclear materials is in their best interests there will not be a compatitor for this service.

An answer to which certification is stricter, the nuclear materials one is actually stricter than the crew certification.

Order of strictness/difficulty of certification:
NASA general payloads
DOD general payloads
Manned flights
Nuclear materials

Since SpaceX considers Mars missions to be their goals, they are likely to pursue Nuclear materials certification sooner or later.

IMO, its not unreasonable to think that SpaceX will pursue that certification by the end of 2018, if they dont have another accident (in which case they should have around 50 successful missions in a row at that time)

[AncientU]

Quite a while on expendables.  Even Falcon 9 is partly to fully expendable.  Most of its GTO missions this year (the meat and potatoes of the business) were fully expendable.

 - Ed Kyle

A few decades?  'Quite a while' is 30+ years?

Those who trudged through the last 3-4 decades might be least qualified to say what the next few will hold -- especially those who don't think the industry stagnated during those years.  Just my opinion, of course.

I certainly don't think that the space launch business "stagnated" during the last 4 decades.  This was a period of great change.  During the 1970s-80s, when this period began, IRBM/ICBM-based launchers were still prevalent, with the exception of Europe's growing Ariane 1-4 family.  GTO payloads were mostly in the 1 to 2 tonne range.  Governments owned and operated pretty much all of the launch vehicles.  The Cold War was still on.  The change that's happened since, even before SpaceX appeared, has been astonishing.

 - Ed Kyle

The last flight in the USA was on a converted ICBM.  ULA still uses 1960s technology Centaurs and RL-10s, Delta, Atlas, Ariane, Soyuz, Proton expendable rocket families were already a decade old... and governments still essentially quasi- or outright 'own and operate' all of them.  The cold war is irrelevant. 

RS-25/Shuttle system was new in 1981, probably the last significant development until this new century.
Payloads to GTO increased by a factor of a few in 40 years. 

Meets the common man's definition of stagnation.  'Astonishing' it is not.

But like I said:

Those who trudged through the last 3-4 decades might be least qualified to say what the next few will hold -- especially those who don't think the industry stagnated during those years.  Just my opinion, of course.

 

[woods170]

Why wouldn't F9, FH, and ITSy be sufficient without New Glenn?

Because they aren't.  Still too much in common and ITSy is not a replacement for F9.   And if it was, Spacex would not keep F9 going.

Spacex is not taking over the US launch business no matter how much you wish it.

Vulcan is going to be around for a few decades.

That's quite a crystal ball you have, Jim.
We don't really know if Vulcan will ever become viable, let alone how long expendable launchers will exist.

Quite a while on expendables.  Even Falcon 9 is partly to fully expendable.  Most of its GTO missions this year (the meat and potatoes of the business) were fully expendable.

 - Ed Kyle

Courtesy of FH being 3 years late. But once it start flying succesfully most GTO missions will become partly reusable.

[Pipcard]

Once the Raptor family is proven and full reuse is the norm, Falcon family could easily be replaced by a 5-ish meter methlox booster that nicely fills the smaller payload niche and uses the existing launch facilities.

Launch rates from each of four pads of this sub-ITSy booster could approach daily.

Why not go with the 5-meter booster first if the Raptor family needs to be "proven"?

[AncientU]

Once the Raptor family is proven and full reuse is the norm, Falcon family could easily be replaced by a 5-ish meter methlox booster that nicely fills the smaller payload niche and uses the existing launch facilities.

Launch rates from each of four pads of this sub-ITSy booster could approach daily.

Why not go with the 5-meter booster first if the Raptor family needs to be "proven"?

As discussed before, why not obsolete someone else's launcher instead of your own?

[Jim]

ULA still uses 1960s technology Centaurs and RL-10s,

No different than the  SR-71 flying into 2000.   They are still ahead of their times.

[Jim]

Meets the common man's definition of stagnation.  'Astonishing' it is not.

Unsupported claim. 
1960's vs 2010's modes of transportation.  I don't see any major changes, so they must of stagnated too

[wannamoonbase]

Looking at SpaceX infrastructure limitations.
...In fact I do not think they will reach this theoretical maxed out rate but something closer to 50-75% of it of 50 to 75 launches/yr.....

If SpaceX is flying 50 flights a year in 2020 I'd say they are being wildly successful.

1 per week, sustained, would be amazing and a pretty significant revenue stream.

[RedLineTrain]

Unsupported claim. 
1960's vs 2010's modes of transportation.  I don't see any major changes, so they must of stagnated too

Yes, they all stagnated.

[Lar]

I think the analogy ran its course, right?

[meberbs]

Those who trudged through the last 3-4 decades might be least qualified to say what the next few will hold -- especially those who don't think the industry stagnated during those years.  Just my opinion, of course.

...
These new generations were all important steps away from previous launch methods, and not just because of their launch vehicle tech.  Each introduced new types of launch processing methods.

You seem to be missing the point. You are familiar with all of the ins and outs of the various incremental improvements and how much work went in to them, so you don't see that as a stagnant period. As a result you are ripe do be blindsided by the coming changes. This isn't to say that what happened in that period isn't good, but we seem to be on the verge of much more rapid and significant changes.

Jim brought up cars above and that is a great example. Over the past 50 years, we have incrementally made improvements to combustion engines, fuel efficiency, and emissions control. These have added up to quite a bit, but at the same time even the total of those changes pales with what seems to be coming: self-driving, all electric cars, or maybe high speed pods in partial vacuum tubes.

I honestly don't believe any predictions more than about 3-4 years out right now, too many potential game changers are scheduled. Until we know which pan out, it will be hard to predict what comes next.

That said:

Expendable rocket are not obsolete.

I think SpaceX has demonstrated the benefits of partially reusable rockets sufficiently, though I could see some wanting more evidence, which will be coming soon enough. At least large expendable rockets are obsolete. (Jury is still out for everything on smallsat launchers.) People continuing to use expendable rockets doesn't mean anything, since people continue using obsolete stuff all the time. At this point anyone not planning on at least partial reusability should rework their plans. And they should be careful about it, because in 5 years full reusability could be approaching where partial reusability is today.

[RedLineTrain]

Centaur and RL-10 are still used because they provide still-unparalleled performance (mass ratios and ISP).  They've both been substantially upgraded since the 1960s.

You are indeed very conservative in your expectations for positive change.  We went from early Goddard to Saturn V in a similar duration as those RL-10 upgrades.