6 ms·

Glad this is happening. ULA is a good launch provider even if they are insanely expensive vs SpaceX. Yes, Elon is right, SpaceX did it cheaper, faster everythi

Glad this is happening. ULA is a good launch provider even if they are insanely expensive vs SpaceX. Yes, Elon is right, SpaceX did it cheaper, faster everything that you'd dream of. But, from a policy making standpoint, you always need to diversify at the expense of upfront money because the downsides risks are too high if you put all your eggs in one basket. That said - I do wish Boeing+ULA would get it's act together. Because nearly 80%+ cost to the tax payer for hedging is quite expensive. US Gov definitely enables this. I've said contradicting statements. My conclusion is, this is overall net positive even if pricy.

schiffern 2y ago
>But, from a policy making standpoint, you always need to diversify at the expense of upfront money because the downsides risks are too high if you put all your eggs in one basket. Funny how it used to be SpaceX making this argument, and ULA was fighting tooth-and-nail for "sole source" as cheaper. :-\ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSbL7o_SJsA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSbL7o_SJsA I don't see SpaceX pushing to discontinue ULA's contract, so it would seem they're at least treating ULA better than ULA treated them. Competition is good, I agree.
- yarg 2y ago
  SpaceX was a threat to ULA, and ULA knew it. But is ULA any sort of threat to SpaceX? If I were Musk, I'd want them sticking around just to make me look good.
  - somenameforme 2y ago
    ULA (a largely anticompetitive merger of Boeing and Lockheed for those who don't know) was actively and patronizingly taunting SpaceX during their efforts at reuse, making comments along the lines of 'We tried reuse. The economics just don't work out. Good luck learning what we already did.' He (Tory Bruno, CEO of ULA) seemed to be under the impression that reuse was only possible Space Shuttle style, which was them essentially "refurbishing" engines to the point of rebuilding them after each launch, and claiming it was reuse. There's every reason to believe that this is also exactly what they genuinely believed - that SpaceX was just going to be a failed gimmick. They made 0 efforts to try to ensure they stayed technologically ahead of SpaceX, in spite of having many orders of magnitude greater resources and manpower available to themselves. They simply watched, mocked, and became obsolete. In any case ULA's not going anywhere. Boeing and Lockheed are both major arms dealers that the US government depends on to keep the bombs flying.
    - m_mueller 2y ago
      At least Bruno knows his stuff, unlike Calhoun. Believing (too long) in the conventional industry standards is to me a more forgiveable sin compared to throwing standards overboard willy nilly in the name of profit. ULA has been reliable in what they've been providing, and Vulcan looks to be a pretty capable platform - albeit it could be seen only as a bit of a plan B for the US launch industry in case Starship doesn't work out.
    - quartesixte 2y ago
      The refurbishment did present a problem for SpaceX, iirc. It’s just that Elon seems to have a knack for managing Manufacturing Engineers and got Merlin production and refurb down to not just science, but magic.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
dotnet00 2y ago
The diversity argument does ring slightly hollow when iirc Boeing has only made two Starliners and it only has enough rockets for the 6 missions in the contract. Basically they're set up to have one capsule in refurb while the other is at the station, and once the 6 Atlas V's are spent, someone has to cough up the money to do the stack of paperwork for crew rating the combo of Starliner and Vulcan.
- walkabilitee 2y ago
  In case anyone asks, "why don't they just build more Atlas V rockets," it's because they rely on Russian engines which have been phased out due to politics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RD-180 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RD-180
  - dotnet00 2y ago
    Plus, the production lines for Atlas V have already been retooled with those for Vulcan, so even if they did have the engines, they couldn't make the rockets. IIRC ULA did have a license to manufacture their own domestic RD-180s (or was considering getting it), but the factory for those would've been very expensive and not worth it with Vulcan in its early design stages.
    - panick21_ 2y ago
      I don't think the line has been retooled. They still have to build a number of Atlas 5s for Amazon. They don't have all of those in storage.
      - dotnet00 2y ago
        That's a very good point, I could've sworn Tory Bruno had said that the line had been retooled and all the remaining cores were in storage, but the closest tweet to that seems to be referring to having the engines in storage.
        2y ago
YeBanKo 2y ago
Without SpaceX DoD would locked into a single maker, but also into a Russian made engine. 5 years behind the schedule and only after congress mandated it n
- jvanderbot 2y ago
  You're not wrong, but this doesn't contradict or support anything posted above, so I'm not sure what your point is.
ikekkdcjkfke 2y ago
Hedging against what? Boeing should be allocated to making weapons now
- fch42 2y ago
  according to https://www.statista.com/statistics/268999/sales-in-defense-of-boeing/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/268999/sales-in-defense-... roughly 1/3rd of Boeing's current revenue already is from their defense business. Also, their commercial airliner side used to be a "balancer" and a backup, they never were tied to the "next big gun thing" like maybe Raytheon or Lockheed are. Funny as it sounds ... Boeing's current struggles can't be blamed on them being overly cosy with government, or overly wasteful thanks to the Pentagon's deep pockets. Not sure though that more defense money/contracts would help. "solve" what is reported about their inner culture. would you elaborate ?
  - ikekkdcjkfke 2y ago
    I was talking about the wasted time competing with SpaceX which has taken the industry to a whole other level, and that the time could be spent on more pressing matters, like mass drone warfare both defense and attack
somenameforme 2y ago
The chances of SpaceX failing in an irrecoverable way are zero. In some sort of crazy black swan event, a public offering of stock/equity would easily bring in vast sums for them. They even managed to get through COVID unscathed. The main danger of relying on a single provider is them taking advantage of that position and charging unreasonable rates, exactly like Boeing/Lockheed have been doing for decades (two companies, exact same issues - go figure). But SpaceX is ideologically motivated and minimizing the costs of spaceflight, as they have now been doing for decades, is a fundamental part of their goal. To use an obvious example, we didn't build out two identical Apollo programs. Space is orders of magnitude more complex than air flight, and Boeing is now left struggling even with the latter. China has a highly advanced space program and have successfully launched/manned their own space station, and much more. Yet even they are technologically far behind SpaceX - the same is true of Russia. I don't actually understand why this is, as it's not like SpaceX is relying on any sort of just extremely well guarded secrets, but whatever the reason, it is what it is. And so with this context, I don't think there's any realistic chance of Boeing "getting its act together" anytime in the foreseeable future. So it turns these gestures into little more than lighting tens of billions of dollars on fire. And that's a pretty big fire.
- ijustlovemath 2y ago
  COVID was a single DARPA grant cycle in length. These companies move at glacial paces compared to the SaaS plays that the typical HN dev is familiar with. I'm guessing COVID never really threatened big programs like Starliner.
  - somenameforme 2y ago
    Your guess would be incorrect. Boeing felt they were in risk of collapse during COVID and immediately went to the government asking for a $60 billion bailout. The government wanted equity in exchange for this bailout, which Boeing didn't want to offer. So they ended up offering Federal Reserve facilitated 'Boeing bonds', and took in about $25 billion to stay afloat. [1] Amusingly a big part of the reason they ended up in such catastrophic danger is that they'd been dumping all their cash reserves into buying their own stock, to try to bring its flagging price up. [2] [1] - https://www.chicagotribune.com/2020/05/04/how-boeing-was-rescued-by-the-fed-without-a-bailout/ https://www.chicagotribune.com/2020/05/04/how-boeing-was-res... [2] - https://archive.is/eO3FJ https://archive.is/eO3FJ (WaPo archive)
DonHopkins 2y ago
Are you saying SpaceX is benefiting from NASA's diversity initiative?
throwawaymaths 2y ago
> Glad this is happening Will you stand by that statement when two astronauts die this weekend?

schiffern 2y ago

>But, from a policy making standpoint, you always need to diversify at the expense of upfront money because the downsides risks are too high if you put all your eggs in one basket. Funny how it used to be SpaceX making this argument, and ULA was fighting tooth-and-nail for "sole source" as cheaper. :-\ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSbL7o_SJsA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSbL7o_SJsA I don't see SpaceX pushing to discontinue ULA's contract, so it would seem they're at least treating ULA better than ULA treated them. Competition is good, I agree.

yarg 2y ago
SpaceX was a threat to ULA, and ULA knew it. But is ULA any sort of threat to SpaceX? If I were Musk, I'd want them sticking around just to make me look good.
- somenameforme 2y ago
  ULA (a largely anticompetitive merger of Boeing and Lockheed for those who don't know) was actively and patronizingly taunting SpaceX during their efforts at reuse, making comments along the lines of 'We tried reuse. The economics just don't work out. Good luck learning what we already did.' He (Tory Bruno, CEO of ULA) seemed to be under the impression that reuse was only possible Space Shuttle style, which was them essentially "refurbishing" engines to the point of rebuilding them after each launch, and claiming it was reuse. There's every reason to believe that this is also exactly what they genuinely believed - that SpaceX was just going to be a failed gimmick. They made 0 efforts to try to ensure they stayed technologically ahead of SpaceX, in spite of having many orders of magnitude greater resources and manpower available to themselves. They simply watched, mocked, and became obsolete. In any case ULA's not going anywhere. Boeing and Lockheed are both major arms dealers that the US government depends on to keep the bombs flying.
  - m_mueller 2y ago
    At least Bruno knows his stuff, unlike Calhoun. Believing (too long) in the conventional industry standards is to me a more forgiveable sin compared to throwing standards overboard willy nilly in the name of profit. ULA has been reliable in what they've been providing, and Vulcan looks to be a pretty capable platform - albeit it could be seen only as a bit of a plan B for the US launch industry in case Starship doesn't work out.
  - quartesixte 2y ago
    The refurbishment did present a problem for SpaceX, iirc. It’s just that Elon seems to have a knack for managing Manufacturing Engineers and got Merlin production and refurb down to not just science, but magic.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

dotnet00 2y ago

The diversity argument does ring slightly hollow when iirc Boeing has only made two Starliners and it only has enough rockets for the 6 missions in the contract. Basically they're set up to have one capsule in refurb while the other is at the station, and once the 6 Atlas V's are spent, someone has to cough up the money to do the stack of paperwork for crew rating the combo of Starliner and Vulcan.

walkabilitee 2y ago
In case anyone asks, "why don't they just build more Atlas V rockets," it's because they rely on Russian engines which have been phased out due to politics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RD-180 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RD-180
- dotnet00 2y ago
  Plus, the production lines for Atlas V have already been retooled with those for Vulcan, so even if they did have the engines, they couldn't make the rockets. IIRC ULA did have a license to manufacture their own domestic RD-180s (or was considering getting it), but the factory for those would've been very expensive and not worth it with Vulcan in its early design stages.
  - panick21_ 2y ago
    I don't think the line has been retooled. They still have to build a number of Atlas 5s for Amazon. They don't have all of those in storage.
    - dotnet00 2y ago
      That's a very good point, I could've sworn Tory Bruno had said that the line had been retooled and all the remaining cores were in storage, but the closest tweet to that seems to be referring to having the engines in storage.
      - 2y ago

YeBanKo 2y ago

Without SpaceX DoD would locked into a single maker, but also into a Russian made engine. 5 years behind the schedule and only after congress mandated it n

jvanderbot 2y ago
You're not wrong, but this doesn't contradict or support anything posted above, so I'm not sure what your point is.

ikekkdcjkfke 2y ago

Hedging against what? Boeing should be allocated to making weapons now

fch42 2y ago
according to https://www.statista.com/statistics/268999/sales-in-defense-of-boeing/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/268999/sales-in-defense-... roughly 1/3rd of Boeing's current revenue already is from their defense business. Also, their commercial airliner side used to be a "balancer" and a backup, they never were tied to the "next big gun thing" like maybe Raytheon or Lockheed are. Funny as it sounds ... Boeing's current struggles can't be blamed on them being overly cosy with government, or overly wasteful thanks to the Pentagon's deep pockets. Not sure though that more defense money/contracts would help. "solve" what is reported about their inner culture. would you elaborate ?
- ikekkdcjkfke 2y ago
  I was talking about the wasted time competing with SpaceX which has taken the industry to a whole other level, and that the time could be spent on more pressing matters, like mass drone warfare both defense and attack

somenameforme 2y ago

The chances of SpaceX failing in an irrecoverable way are zero. In some sort of crazy black swan event, a public offering of stock/equity would easily bring in vast sums for them. They even managed to get through COVID unscathed. The main danger of relying on a single provider is them taking advantage of that position and charging unreasonable rates, exactly like Boeing/Lockheed have been doing for decades (two companies, exact same issues - go figure). But SpaceX is ideologically motivated and minimizing the costs of spaceflight, as they have now been doing for decades, is a fundamental part of their goal. To use an obvious example, we didn't build out two identical Apollo programs. Space is orders of magnitude more complex than air flight, and Boeing is now left struggling even with the latter. China has a highly advanced space program and have successfully launched/manned their own space station, and much more. Yet even they are technologically far behind SpaceX - the same is true of Russia. I don't actually understand why this is, as it's not like SpaceX is relying on any sort of just extremely well guarded secrets, but whatever the reason, it is what it is. And so with this context, I don't think there's any realistic chance of Boeing "getting its act together" anytime in the foreseeable future. So it turns these gestures into little more than lighting tens of billions of dollars on fire. And that's a pretty big fire.

ijustlovemath 2y ago
COVID was a single DARPA grant cycle in length. These companies move at glacial paces compared to the SaaS plays that the typical HN dev is familiar with. I'm guessing COVID never really threatened big programs like Starliner.
- somenameforme 2y ago
  Your guess would be incorrect. Boeing felt they were in risk of collapse during COVID and immediately went to the government asking for a $60 billion bailout. The government wanted equity in exchange for this bailout, which Boeing didn't want to offer. So they ended up offering Federal Reserve facilitated 'Boeing bonds', and took in about $25 billion to stay afloat. [1] Amusingly a big part of the reason they ended up in such catastrophic danger is that they'd been dumping all their cash reserves into buying their own stock, to try to bring its flagging price up. [2] [1] - https://www.chicagotribune.com/2020/05/04/how-boeing-was-rescued-by-the-fed-without-a-bailout/ https://www.chicagotribune.com/2020/05/04/how-boeing-was-res... [2] - https://archive.is/eO3FJ https://archive.is/eO3FJ (WaPo archive)

DonHopkins 2y ago

Are you saying SpaceX is benefiting from NASA's diversity initiative?

throwawaymaths 2y ago

> Glad this is happening Will you stand by that statement when two astronauts die this weekend?