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It would really help if Boeing and ULA could score some wins. They're having trouble competing on price, schedule, and quality. We need more than one healthy la

It would really help if Boeing and ULA could score some wins. They're having trouble competing on price, schedule, and quality. We need more than one healthy launch provider to maintain competition. https://www.fool.com/investing/2020/10/22/boeing-has-a-delta-iv-rocket-problem/ https://www.fool.com/investing/2020/10/22/boeing-has-a-delta... https://spacenews.com/starliner-test-flight-slips-to-early-april/ https://spacenews.com/starliner-test-flight-slips-to-early-a...

generalizations 6y ago
I totally agree, but I think that first Boeing and ULA need to figure out how to earn those wins by improving their product.
- kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
  I predict that Bezos is prepping to buy ULA if the Vulcan proves to be a success. It's the natural growth option for Blue Origin to buy their way into an orbital vehicle.
  - nexuist 6y ago
    It was my understanding that ULA was a joint alliance rather than an individual company? Isn't it comprised of Boeing and Lockheed Martin among others? Wouldn't Bezos have to buy it from them?
    - skissane 6y ago
      ULA is a 50-50 joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin, yes. So if Blue Origin wants to buy ULA, it has to negotiate with both Boeing and Lockheed Martin to be able to do it. I have no idea if Boeing and Lockheed Martin would be interested in selling. Both Boeing and Lockheed Martin have their own space businesses separate from ULA, and likely view part-owning ULA as having some synergies with their own space businesses, and selling ULA to Bezos could threaten those synergies. OTOH, as they say, everyone has their price, and Bezos has enough money to pay just about anybody's.
      - prox 6y ago
        Wouldn’t it make more sense to become BULA ? So just add to the joint venture?
        usrusr 6y ago
        Eventually ULA could be so far behind in technology that its worth would be scrap value minus workforce disposal (whoever buys them would have to either stomach continued wages or the political impact of mass layoffs). And Boeing/Lockheed Martin can't be entirely unaware of it, negotiations shouldn't be that hard. Infusing the existing org with a state of the art rocket/rocket development process has many failure modes (the new becoming "infected" with the stagnant mindset), but it could also work quite well, pairing the "cowboys" who know how to land a rocket stage with skilled "regulation jockeys". But BO has a much better chance of succeeding without ULA than ULA has without BO and in this situation entering in an alliance of equals would just be silly. The icing on the cake is that the failure mode (stagnancy infection) would also be far more likely in arm alliance of equals.
        prox 6y ago
        So Boeing and LM should be wise to maybe invest or partner up with BO in this scenario. Could be interesting. But ULA still got some good contracts from the military afaik. On the short term they aren’t going anywhere.
        skissane 6y ago
        > Infusing the existing org with a state of the art rocket/rocket development process has many failure modes (the new becoming "infected" with the stagnant mindset) It is funny saying that ULA might infect BO with a "stagnant mindset", given how little BO has actually delivered so far. BO had a two year head start over SpaceX, but in the same time that SpX has had over 100 successful orbital missions, BO hasn't made it to orbit once. In fact, thus far BO's only paying customer appears to be ULA – BO is supplying rocket engines to ULA's new Vulcan Centaur rocket. Vulcan Centaur is supposed to have its maiden launch by the end of this year; I wouldn't be surprised if it slips to next – but still, for all we know, Vulcan Centaur might make it to orbit before New Glenn does.
  - the_duke 6y ago
    Blue Origin is making slow but steady progress on New Glenn, which is about as capable as Falcon Heavy and has a reusable first stage. First flight could be next year. If they bought ULA it would be for the established cont(r)acts , but it would feel like an odd lateral move after investing so much money and effort into to their own vehicle, and a non reusable one at that. ULA s next rocket also uses the engine developed by BO for New Glenn, but is also not reusable apart from an optional future possibility of catching the engines with a helicopter.
    - manicdee 6y ago
      There's a lot more to ULA than just assembling old-space rockets. There are people there with the experience in designing, testing and launching rockets and all the equipment required to support them. There's also the real estate already zoned for rocket manufacturing. Massive win for BO if this comes to pass.
    - hourislate 6y ago
      I don't know much about New Glen or what Blue Origin is doing. Do they have a working rocket (New Glen) or is it still under design? I know Blue Origin was launching a rocket called New Shepard at one point, did they ever get anywhere with that? I was under the impression Blue Origin was more like a Virgin Galactic type of company.
      - kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
        Blue Origin builds the engines for the Vulcan. That will be their money maker.
        nickik 6y ago
        No sorry it wont. The Vulcan only requires 2 engines and will have very low launch rate. That is nowhere near enough money to finance what Blue is spending. Blue Origin business model now and for years to come is selling Amazon stock.
      - rst 6y ago
  - phreeza 6y ago
    Isn't ULA a consortium of Boeing and Lockheed Martin? I believe buying those would be beyond even Bezos means...
    - T-A 6y ago
      I just had to look up the numbers. Boeing market cap: 126.7 billion Lockheed market cap: 93.95 billion Bezos net worth: 197 billion So he doesn't have quite enough to buy both outright. On the other hand, both are diversified aerospace companies. If he just wanted their space parts, who knows...
    - ascorbic 6y ago
      It's a joint venture owned by Boeing and Lockheed Martin. Buying United Launch Alliance, LLC wouldn't require buying the parent companies.
  - nickik 6y ago
    That's incredibly unlikely. Blue Origin has spend a huge amount of money already to develop their own orbital rocket. The build a huge rocket factory and a huge engine factory. They have their own control rooms and the own launch pads. The literally just spend the last 3 year rebuilding everything ULA already has from the ground up. All of that would be incredibly stupid if they would want to buy ULA.
JKCalhoun 6y ago
I would suggest that many people commenting in this thread are not allowing for the dynamic if/when Taikonauts walk on the surface of the Moon. That would likely change everything.
- avmich 6y ago
  Unlikely. It's not going to be that much of qualitative difference, some 50+ years after Apollo, so the question would be "who's Moon base is more impressive". Just some new boots on the Moon wouldn't be enough. Of course if China will manage to put a kind of a permanent base on the Moon, even some years after USA, that will be quite noteworthy.
  - JKCalhoun 6y ago
    I don't know. If China one-ups the U.S. in space, pride might come into play.
    - simonh 6y ago
      I agree, right now the US has been talking about going back to the moon for years and put out a whole series of timelines that have slipped by. If the Chinese made concrete progress towards doing it, I think that would really focus minds in the US. The Boomer generation beat the Soviets, can the current generation beat the Chinese?
      - iso1210 6y ago
        Boomer generation started in 1946, they didn't leave college until 1968. It was the previous generation that built NASA and landed on the moon. Boomers were the ones who stopped the space program and turned it into a jobs program. Gen X graduated at the end of the 80s and brought new energy into the 90s to build the first dot com and the internet economy, and people like Musk and Beck are the ones shaking up the space industry. Boomers were involved in Viking and Voyager, but their main contribution to space was the Shuttle and the ISS.
- deleted 6y ago
redis_mlc 6y ago
ULA's business model is cost-plus. (There's an infamous interview about 10 years ago with their spokeswoman emphazing that, and how their goal is to never compete with SpaceX.) So they will stick to programs with massive cost overruns, or only secret military projects.
aero-glide2 6y ago
Any competitive launcher should be reusable. Blue Origin's New Glenn could be SpaceX's biggest rival.
robomartin 6y ago
> We need more than one healthy launch provider I believe we have to maintain this by law. Which, of course, means throwing money at whoever stands in the #2 spot, even if their product costs ten times more than #1. This means they have to keep throwing money at the likes of Boeing (which is likely one of the things that's helping keep them alive). Until they can violate this mandate and stop burning cash like it is rocket fuel these inefficient programs and companies are going to keep doing what they do. No incentive to improve when the fitness function always outputs 100% regardless of what you do.
- londons_explore 6y ago
  SpaceX could voluntarily split into two arms-length competing companies, neither of which are as competitive as SpaceX today (because each only has half the resources), but both are more competitive than ULA.
  - londons_explore 6y ago
    Doing so would reveal that Boeing is supported not only because it's worth having at least 2 launch providers, but because politicians friends have investments there...
  - throwaway316943 6y ago
    That would be interesting and maybe not even unprecedented after the Texas vs Florida build off with starship. It might be hard to replicate the leadership team though.

generalizations 6y ago

I totally agree, but I think that first Boeing and ULA need to figure out how to earn those wins by improving their product.

kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
I predict that Bezos is prepping to buy ULA if the Vulcan proves to be a success. It's the natural growth option for Blue Origin to buy their way into an orbital vehicle.
- nexuist 6y ago
  It was my understanding that ULA was a joint alliance rather than an individual company? Isn't it comprised of Boeing and Lockheed Martin among others? Wouldn't Bezos have to buy it from them?
  - skissane 6y ago
    ULA is a 50-50 joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin, yes. So if Blue Origin wants to buy ULA, it has to negotiate with both Boeing and Lockheed Martin to be able to do it. I have no idea if Boeing and Lockheed Martin would be interested in selling. Both Boeing and Lockheed Martin have their own space businesses separate from ULA, and likely view part-owning ULA as having some synergies with their own space businesses, and selling ULA to Bezos could threaten those synergies. OTOH, as they say, everyone has their price, and Bezos has enough money to pay just about anybody's.
    - prox 6y ago
      Wouldn’t it make more sense to become BULA ? So just add to the joint venture?
      - usrusr 6y ago
        Eventually ULA could be so far behind in technology that its worth would be scrap value minus workforce disposal (whoever buys them would have to either stomach continued wages or the political impact of mass layoffs). And Boeing/Lockheed Martin can't be entirely unaware of it, negotiations shouldn't be that hard. Infusing the existing org with a state of the art rocket/rocket development process has many failure modes (the new becoming "infected" with the stagnant mindset), but it could also work quite well, pairing the "cowboys" who know how to land a rocket stage with skilled "regulation jockeys". But BO has a much better chance of succeeding without ULA than ULA has without BO and in this situation entering in an alliance of equals would just be silly. The icing on the cake is that the failure mode (stagnancy infection) would also be far more likely in arm alliance of equals.
        prox 6y ago
        So Boeing and LM should be wise to maybe invest or partner up with BO in this scenario. Could be interesting. But ULA still got some good contracts from the military afaik. On the short term they aren’t going anywhere.
        skissane 6y ago
        > Infusing the existing org with a state of the art rocket/rocket development process has many failure modes (the new becoming "infected" with the stagnant mindset) It is funny saying that ULA might infect BO with a "stagnant mindset", given how little BO has actually delivered so far. BO had a two year head start over SpaceX, but in the same time that SpX has had over 100 successful orbital missions, BO hasn't made it to orbit once. In fact, thus far BO's only paying customer appears to be ULA – BO is supplying rocket engines to ULA's new Vulcan Centaur rocket. Vulcan Centaur is supposed to have its maiden launch by the end of this year; I wouldn't be surprised if it slips to next – but still, for all we know, Vulcan Centaur might make it to orbit before New Glenn does.
- the_duke 6y ago
  Blue Origin is making slow but steady progress on New Glenn, which is about as capable as Falcon Heavy and has a reusable first stage. First flight could be next year. If they bought ULA it would be for the established cont(r)acts , but it would feel like an odd lateral move after investing so much money and effort into to their own vehicle, and a non reusable one at that. ULA s next rocket also uses the engine developed by BO for New Glenn, but is also not reusable apart from an optional future possibility of catching the engines with a helicopter.
  - manicdee 6y ago
    There's a lot more to ULA than just assembling old-space rockets. There are people there with the experience in designing, testing and launching rockets and all the equipment required to support them. There's also the real estate already zoned for rocket manufacturing. Massive win for BO if this comes to pass.
  - hourislate 6y ago
    I don't know much about New Glen or what Blue Origin is doing. Do they have a working rocket (New Glen) or is it still under design? I know Blue Origin was launching a rocket called New Shepard at one point, did they ever get anywhere with that? I was under the impression Blue Origin was more like a Virgin Galactic type of company.
    - kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
      Blue Origin builds the engines for the Vulcan. That will be their money maker.
      - nickik 6y ago
        No sorry it wont. The Vulcan only requires 2 engines and will have very low launch rate. That is nowhere near enough money to finance what Blue is spending. Blue Origin business model now and for years to come is selling Amazon stock.
    - rst 6y ago
- phreeza 6y ago
  Isn't ULA a consortium of Boeing and Lockheed Martin? I believe buying those would be beyond even Bezos means...
  - T-A 6y ago
    I just had to look up the numbers. Boeing market cap: 126.7 billion Lockheed market cap: 93.95 billion Bezos net worth: 197 billion So he doesn't have quite enough to buy both outright. On the other hand, both are diversified aerospace companies. If he just wanted their space parts, who knows...
  - ascorbic 6y ago
    It's a joint venture owned by Boeing and Lockheed Martin. Buying United Launch Alliance, LLC wouldn't require buying the parent companies.
- nickik 6y ago
  That's incredibly unlikely. Blue Origin has spend a huge amount of money already to develop their own orbital rocket. The build a huge rocket factory and a huge engine factory. They have their own control rooms and the own launch pads. The literally just spend the last 3 year rebuilding everything ULA already has from the ground up. All of that would be incredibly stupid if they would want to buy ULA.

JKCalhoun 6y ago

I would suggest that many people commenting in this thread are not allowing for the dynamic if/when Taikonauts walk on the surface of the Moon. That would likely change everything.

avmich 6y ago
Unlikely. It's not going to be that much of qualitative difference, some 50+ years after Apollo, so the question would be "who's Moon base is more impressive". Just some new boots on the Moon wouldn't be enough. Of course if China will manage to put a kind of a permanent base on the Moon, even some years after USA, that will be quite noteworthy.
- JKCalhoun 6y ago
  I don't know. If China one-ups the U.S. in space, pride might come into play.
  - simonh 6y ago
    I agree, right now the US has been talking about going back to the moon for years and put out a whole series of timelines that have slipped by. If the Chinese made concrete progress towards doing it, I think that would really focus minds in the US. The Boomer generation beat the Soviets, can the current generation beat the Chinese?
    - iso1210 6y ago
      Boomer generation started in 1946, they didn't leave college until 1968. It was the previous generation that built NASA and landed on the moon. Boomers were the ones who stopped the space program and turned it into a jobs program. Gen X graduated at the end of the 80s and brought new energy into the 90s to build the first dot com and the internet economy, and people like Musk and Beck are the ones shaking up the space industry. Boomers were involved in Viking and Voyager, but their main contribution to space was the Shuttle and the ISS.
deleted 6y ago

redis_mlc 6y ago

ULA's business model is cost-plus. (There's an infamous interview about 10 years ago with their spokeswoman emphazing that, and how their goal is to never compete with SpaceX.) So they will stick to programs with massive cost overruns, or only secret military projects.

aero-glide2 6y ago

Any competitive launcher should be reusable. Blue Origin's New Glenn could be SpaceX's biggest rival.

robomartin 6y ago

> We need more than one healthy launch provider I believe we have to maintain this by law. Which, of course, means throwing money at whoever stands in the #2 spot, even if their product costs ten times more than #1. This means they have to keep throwing money at the likes of Boeing (which is likely one of the things that's helping keep them alive). Until they can violate this mandate and stop burning cash like it is rocket fuel these inefficient programs and companies are going to keep doing what they do. No incentive to improve when the fitness function always outputs 100% regardless of what you do.

londons_explore 6y ago
SpaceX could voluntarily split into two arms-length competing companies, neither of which are as competitive as SpaceX today (because each only has half the resources), but both are more competitive than ULA.
- londons_explore 6y ago
  Doing so would reveal that Boeing is supported not only because it's worth having at least 2 launch providers, but because politicians friends have investments there...
- throwaway316943 6y ago
  That would be interesting and maybe not even unprecedented after the Texas vs Florida build off with starship. It might be hard to replicate the leadership team though.