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The US lost a significant part of their launch capability and ULA was the only provider left. They were free to charge whatever they wanted, and it was in the n

The US lost a significant part of their launch capability and ULA was the only provider left. They were free to charge whatever they wanted, and it was in the national interest for them to stay in business, hence the subsidy. Now spacex is starting to compete, costs will come down. Is something not going as expected?

adventured 9y ago
Seems to be working extraordinarily well given the technology lead that SpaceX and Blue Origin are working on or already have versus Russia and China. That lead should widen significantly in the next three or four years.
marze 9y ago
They were the only one left because the two remaining competitors merged to form ... ULA. ULA used all of their political connections to keep SpaceX out of the government launch as long as they could, to maintain their monopoly pricing.
- sjburt 9y ago
  But it was Congress that forced the creation of ULA. Both Boeing and Lockheed were planning to leave the launch business and leave the US with nothing (except the Shuttle). Launch is an ugly business, you have big fixed costs but very lumpy revenues since you get paid when the rocket leaves the ground (which can be delayed for years due to late payloads, political roadblocks etc), and Delta and Atlas weren't competitive in the commercial market so they couldn't smooth things out. So Congress told them to form ULA and they would give them a readiness contract to make it worth it to them even if they weren't launching often. Basically, it was that or lose the heavy launch capability which would have been a huge national security problem. Obviously, that changes with SpaceX around, but what hasn't changed is that if Congress pulls that contract, they'll just kill ULA and the Delta and Atlas will be gone. Lockheed and Boeing still don't really want to be in this business and there is nothing they can do to make Atlas price competitive with Falcon, since their customer won't let them change anything.
  - gozur88 9y ago
    >Launch is an ugly business, you have big fixed costs but very lumpy revenues since you get paid when the rocket leaves the ground (which can be delayed for years due to late payloads, political roadblocks etc), and Delta and Atlas weren't competitive in the commercial market so they couldn't smooth things out. Add to that the real money is in the satellites themselves. If you were a big company like Lockheed it made far more sense to stick to building sats and buying launch services from someone else. >Obviously, that changes with SpaceX around, but what hasn't changed is that if Congress pulls that contract, they'll just kill ULA and the Delta and Atlas will be gone. Congress will probably allow Delta to die, but they're not going to be 100% dependent on Falcon. All it takes is a failed launch and nothing goes up for six months while investigators figure out what happened.
    - badwolf 9y ago
      I definitely agree that Delta will die. Probably not before there's another launch provider with reusable rockets (Looking your way Blue Origin/New Glenn)
    - elif 9y ago
      I am not a rocket scientist... but it seems like a 6 month investigation delay would be comparable to the time it would take to procure and integrate the payload into a completely different rocket? Also if the launch savings exceed the total payload costs, in a pinch couldn't they just roll the dice given falcon's success %? (The last falcon investigation delay was only ~4 months)
      - gozur88 9y ago
        The problem is a six month delay pushes everybody's launch back six months. So if you had an interplanetary probe scheduled for the next Mars launch window in April of 2018, a six month delay starting today would mean your probe doesn't get launched until the next window in July of 2020 unless you have enough clout to bump other launches.
  - nickik 9y ago
- InclinedPlane 9y ago
  Almost. There were two companies who were competing to provide EELV launches (Boeing and LockMart). They decided to merge their launch business into ULA to settle an industrial espionage court case that had begun spiraling out of control and threatened to doom Boeing's launch contracts.
SamUK96 9y ago
Blame it on the cost-plus contract. NASA paid cost-plus to ULA and the ilk initially (think 60's -90s) mainly because rocketry was a very new field and it was near impossible to reliably estimate the final cost the manufacturer would incur in fulfilling the contract, so NASA just said "spend whatever you want and we'll pay your spend plus 6%". However it's well known now how much researching and building rockets costs, so cost-plus contracts are, essentially a very bad contract cost model. It's mainly because ULA and such have become _far_ too comfortable on their half-a-century monopoly and simply don't want their scam to end.

adventured 9y ago

Seems to be working extraordinarily well given the technology lead that SpaceX and Blue Origin are working on or already have versus Russia and China. That lead should widen significantly in the next three or four years.

marze 9y ago

They were the only one left because the two remaining competitors merged to form ... ULA. ULA used all of their political connections to keep SpaceX out of the government launch as long as they could, to maintain their monopoly pricing.

sjburt 9y ago
But it was Congress that forced the creation of ULA. Both Boeing and Lockheed were planning to leave the launch business and leave the US with nothing (except the Shuttle). Launch is an ugly business, you have big fixed costs but very lumpy revenues since you get paid when the rocket leaves the ground (which can be delayed for years due to late payloads, political roadblocks etc), and Delta and Atlas weren't competitive in the commercial market so they couldn't smooth things out. So Congress told them to form ULA and they would give them a readiness contract to make it worth it to them even if they weren't launching often. Basically, it was that or lose the heavy launch capability which would have been a huge national security problem. Obviously, that changes with SpaceX around, but what hasn't changed is that if Congress pulls that contract, they'll just kill ULA and the Delta and Atlas will be gone. Lockheed and Boeing still don't really want to be in this business and there is nothing they can do to make Atlas price competitive with Falcon, since their customer won't let them change anything.
- gozur88 9y ago
  >Launch is an ugly business, you have big fixed costs but very lumpy revenues since you get paid when the rocket leaves the ground (which can be delayed for years due to late payloads, political roadblocks etc), and Delta and Atlas weren't competitive in the commercial market so they couldn't smooth things out. Add to that the real money is in the satellites themselves. If you were a big company like Lockheed it made far more sense to stick to building sats and buying launch services from someone else. >Obviously, that changes with SpaceX around, but what hasn't changed is that if Congress pulls that contract, they'll just kill ULA and the Delta and Atlas will be gone. Congress will probably allow Delta to die, but they're not going to be 100% dependent on Falcon. All it takes is a failed launch and nothing goes up for six months while investigators figure out what happened.
  - badwolf 9y ago
    I definitely agree that Delta will die. Probably not before there's another launch provider with reusable rockets (Looking your way Blue Origin/New Glenn)
  - elif 9y ago
    I am not a rocket scientist... but it seems like a 6 month investigation delay would be comparable to the time it would take to procure and integrate the payload into a completely different rocket? Also if the launch savings exceed the total payload costs, in a pinch couldn't they just roll the dice given falcon's success %? (The last falcon investigation delay was only ~4 months)
    - gozur88 9y ago
      The problem is a six month delay pushes everybody's launch back six months. So if you had an interplanetary probe scheduled for the next Mars launch window in April of 2018, a six month delay starting today would mean your probe doesn't get launched until the next window in July of 2020 unless you have enough clout to bump other launches.
- nickik 9y ago
InclinedPlane 9y ago
Almost. There were two companies who were competing to provide EELV launches (Boeing and LockMart). They decided to merge their launch business into ULA to settle an industrial espionage court case that had begun spiraling out of control and threatened to doom Boeing's launch contracts.

SamUK96 9y ago

Blame it on the cost-plus contract. NASA paid cost-plus to ULA and the ilk initially (think 60's -90s) mainly because rocketry was a very new field and it was near impossible to reliably estimate the final cost the manufacturer would incur in fulfilling the contract, so NASA just said "spend whatever you want and we'll pay your spend plus 6%". However it's well known now how much researching and building rockets costs, so cost-plus contracts are, essentially a very bad contract cost model. It's mainly because ULA and such have become _far_ too comfortable on their half-a-century monopoly and simply don't want their scam to end.