Brett Buck wrote in message ...
ed kyle wrote:

3. Current plans show an average of only about 4 launches per year
for Delta IV and Atlas V combined.

4. Both of these rockets cannot survive under existing market
conditions.

Both will almost certainly survive to provide redundant access for
military payloads. Commercial viability was/is essentially moot - they
are required national resources. All that a viable commercial market
does is reduce the price.


Wouldn't lower launch costs benefit national security?

Boeing has offloaded it's BLS commercial launches to Sea Launch
- and right now Sea Launch has a larger backlog than Delta IV.
If Boeing brought those payloads to Cape Canaveral it would
double the Delta IV launch rate (to 4/year) and cut the
per-launch cost for all customers. That's still probably not
enough, though. Arianespace is losing money at it's current
4-6/year Ariane 5 launch rate. Ariane 4 made money at
8-12/year.

Combine the Delta IV and Atlas V manifests, keeping one of the
two rockets, and bring at least some of the Zenit/Proton
commercial launches home. Then you would have a viable,
commercially-competitive U.S.-based space launcher that could
serve the government more efficiently.

- Ed Kyle