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Given the circumstances, why would the USAF not bid out the launches? My thought is that they see Lockheed and Boeing as American companies and don't really car

Given the circumstances, why would the USAF not bid out the launches? My thought is that they see Lockheed and Boeing as American companies and don't really care where the parts come from. In the end, SpaceX has shown a competive price and should have a chance to bid these launches. On another hand, the US/Russian space programs and teamwork with the ISS is largely separated from the political issues in Ukraine. There is too much to lose on either side.

fixermark 12y ago
The USAF has a history of relying solely upon firms that they have bid out to in the past. There's some logic to this (military technology should be reliable and sourced to trusted parties, so companies that have already proven reliability and have a pre-existing trust relationship have a massive advantage). But if you look at that scenario and smell the possibility for corruption, you're probably not wrong. ;)
beedogs 12y ago
> Given the circumstances, why would the USAF not bid out the launches? Maybe the bidding process was so corrupt and/or pointless that they just did away with it entirely.
InclinedPlane 12y ago
Are you kidding? The USAF has a very cozy relationship with the ULA. It was obvious to any non-naive observer at the time that the block buy was designed to lock in billions of dollars in government spending to the ULA before SpaceX would come along and smash the existing pricing structure, offering launches that ULA couldn't hope to compete with. Even if SpaceX's prices go up with EELV launches, and even if they would never incorporate reusability into EELV launches, they would still be able to offer launches for every possible EELV payload at prices far below ULA's. Anything ULA could launch on any of their vehicles SpaceX could launch on the Falcon Heavy, and many launches (like GPS birds) could happen on the even cheaper Falcon 9. With reusability, which SpaceX seems to have a good handle on, those costs get slashed, especially the cost of the Falcon Heavy. Any EELV payload could be launched on a reusable Falcon Heavy, even if it meant forgoing crossfeed. Even if the first stages could only be reused twice (a paltry amount) that would lower the cost of a reusable Falcon Heavy to around the cost of a Falcon 9, around $50 million. Keep in mind that every ULA launcher uses an RL-10 in the upper stage, and that's a $40 million engine. Even at discounted prices simply having an engine that expensive (to say nothing of the rest of the vehicle) on every launch makes it impossible to offer launches as cheap as SpaceX could.
- mrfusion 12y ago
  What is crossfeed?
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - ChillyWater 12y ago
    Usually, with aircraft or spacecraft, this is a reconfigurable plumbing setup that allows engines/jets to use the fuel source from a different engine on the fly. For instance, the Shuttle could perform OMS to RCS crossfeeds.
  - InclinedPlane 12y ago
    The Falcon Heavy uses 3 identical cores as the "first stage" of the vehicle. If each of the stages burns at the same rate and burns out at the same time then it's basically just one big stage and the Falcon Heavy would just be a 2-stage launcher. Adding more stages increases payload performance of launchers because you're dumping dead weight. The plan for the Falcon Heavy is to have cross feed between the engines so that effectively the center stage's engines are run off the outer stages' fuel tanks until those tanks are dry. Then the outer stages separate and the center stage fires alone (as a 2nd stage) until it is depleted, then the upper stage fires (as a 3rd stage), massively increasing overall payload. The Delta IV Heavy throttles down the center core during launch and peels away the outer cores first in a sort of "virtual crossfeed" scenario, though this comes at the cost of liftoff thrust. The only problem with crossfeed for the Falcon Heavy is that it leaves the center core traveling a lot faster and a lot farther down range than the first stage of a Falcon 9 normally would be, which might make it a lot harder to return to the launch site for reusability. However, as a worst-case scenario the Falcon Heavy could be operated without crossfeed with all lower stage cores burning out at the same time, which would reduce payload significantly but the cost savings would probably make it worthwhile even so.
    - mrfusion 12y ago
      You might need to dumb it down a bit more for me :-( What's a core? Why would the stages burn at the same time? I thought the second stage wouldn't turn on until the first stage is jettisoned?
rayiner 12y ago
> Given the circumstances, why would the USAF not bid out the launches? For the same reason a company that sells a CRUD app might only support Oracle and not other databases. Always working with the same vendor each time reduces technical complexity. People will knee-jerk and say "corruption" but an engineer should be able to at least see where the USAF is coming from. Given that this is national-security grade stuff, there's also some political and practical considerations. The DOD can't really allow a true market for defense equipment and services. Markets are messy, they go through transition and disruption. That's not acceptable in a national-security context.
- omegaworks 12y ago
  >Markets are messy, they go through transition and disruption. That's not acceptable in a national-security context. Then we should not beat around the bush and pretend we live in a Capitalist system when we clearly must make exceptions for only the private, for-profit contractors that we spend billions of dollars and the majority of the federal budget on.

fixermark 12y ago

The USAF has a history of relying solely upon firms that they have bid out to in the past. There's some logic to this (military technology should be reliable and sourced to trusted parties, so companies that have already proven reliability and have a pre-existing trust relationship have a massive advantage). But if you look at that scenario and smell the possibility for corruption, you're probably not wrong. ;)

beedogs 12y ago

> Given the circumstances, why would the USAF not bid out the launches? Maybe the bidding process was so corrupt and/or pointless that they just did away with it entirely.

InclinedPlane 12y ago

Are you kidding? The USAF has a very cozy relationship with the ULA. It was obvious to any non-naive observer at the time that the block buy was designed to lock in billions of dollars in government spending to the ULA before SpaceX would come along and smash the existing pricing structure, offering launches that ULA couldn't hope to compete with. Even if SpaceX's prices go up with EELV launches, and even if they would never incorporate reusability into EELV launches, they would still be able to offer launches for every possible EELV payload at prices far below ULA's. Anything ULA could launch on any of their vehicles SpaceX could launch on the Falcon Heavy, and many launches (like GPS birds) could happen on the even cheaper Falcon 9. With reusability, which SpaceX seems to have a good handle on, those costs get slashed, especially the cost of the Falcon Heavy. Any EELV payload could be launched on a reusable Falcon Heavy, even if it meant forgoing crossfeed. Even if the first stages could only be reused twice (a paltry amount) that would lower the cost of a reusable Falcon Heavy to around the cost of a Falcon 9, around $50 million. Keep in mind that every ULA launcher uses an RL-10 in the upper stage, and that's a $40 million engine. Even at discounted prices simply having an engine that expensive (to say nothing of the rest of the vehicle) on every launch makes it impossible to offer launches as cheap as SpaceX could.

mrfusion 12y ago
What is crossfeed?
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- ChillyWater 12y ago
  Usually, with aircraft or spacecraft, this is a reconfigurable plumbing setup that allows engines/jets to use the fuel source from a different engine on the fly. For instance, the Shuttle could perform OMS to RCS crossfeeds.
- InclinedPlane 12y ago
  The Falcon Heavy uses 3 identical cores as the "first stage" of the vehicle. If each of the stages burns at the same rate and burns out at the same time then it's basically just one big stage and the Falcon Heavy would just be a 2-stage launcher. Adding more stages increases payload performance of launchers because you're dumping dead weight. The plan for the Falcon Heavy is to have cross feed between the engines so that effectively the center stage's engines are run off the outer stages' fuel tanks until those tanks are dry. Then the outer stages separate and the center stage fires alone (as a 2nd stage) until it is depleted, then the upper stage fires (as a 3rd stage), massively increasing overall payload. The Delta IV Heavy throttles down the center core during launch and peels away the outer cores first in a sort of "virtual crossfeed" scenario, though this comes at the cost of liftoff thrust. The only problem with crossfeed for the Falcon Heavy is that it leaves the center core traveling a lot faster and a lot farther down range than the first stage of a Falcon 9 normally would be, which might make it a lot harder to return to the launch site for reusability. However, as a worst-case scenario the Falcon Heavy could be operated without crossfeed with all lower stage cores burning out at the same time, which would reduce payload significantly but the cost savings would probably make it worthwhile even so.
  - mrfusion 12y ago
    You might need to dumb it down a bit more for me :-( What's a core? Why would the stages burn at the same time? I thought the second stage wouldn't turn on until the first stage is jettisoned?

rayiner 12y ago

> Given the circumstances, why would the USAF not bid out the launches? For the same reason a company that sells a CRUD app might only support Oracle and not other databases. Always working with the same vendor each time reduces technical complexity. People will knee-jerk and say "corruption" but an engineer should be able to at least see where the USAF is coming from. Given that this is national-security grade stuff, there's also some political and practical considerations. The DOD can't really allow a true market for defense equipment and services. Markets are messy, they go through transition and disruption. That's not acceptable in a national-security context.

omegaworks 12y ago
>Markets are messy, they go through transition and disruption. That's not acceptable in a national-security context. Then we should not beat around the bush and pretend we live in a Capitalist system when we clearly must make exceptions for only the private, for-profit contractors that we spend billions of dollars and the majority of the federal budget on.