Matt wrote:
Strictly personal opinion: we won't see an Altas V heavy, any more
than
the government will ever see a dime of savings from this monopoly.

It won't be cheap to move the Atlas production line.
Once moved, it will share a roof with Delta, but will
still require separate tooling and a largely separate
workforce. They'll be able to cut security staff,
jobs in the parts office and in the payroll department,
etc., but its hard to see how they get $100 million
in annual savings. By my figuring, $100 million means
that Space Launch Alliance is going to have to cut
1,000 jobs or so, more than 25% of those now employed
in the EELV programs. It could be argued that cuts
this deep could affect national security by making
the launchers less reliable. Just one extra launch
failure (which would cost $100s of millions at least,
including the payload) would erase the "savings" and
then some.

- Ed Kyle