In article ,
says...

On 2018-05-19 07:59, Jeff Findley wrote:

past hey had a monopoly). Again, they simply won't be making the sort
of money they used to make.

While I agree with this, you forgot one variable: a growing demand for
launches. ULA/Boeing may not win new business from that growing market,
but they may be able to keep their existing portion of military/NASA
spending.

And you ignored the part where the US DOD really only needs two
certified EELV class launch providers. Maybe ULA can keep half of the
Delta IV Heavy business, since very large payloads are "unique", but
that's a tiny part of their business. The rest of their 1/2 of launches
could go to Orbital ATK or Blue Origin.

That assumes that Orbital ATK won't be able to certify their new EELV
class launch vehicle for US Government launches and that it won't be
cheaper than Vulcan.

So what happens? ULA is folded up, and Boeing focuses on satellites for
ist space business ?

ULA isn't Boeing! ULA is a joint venture only part of which is owned by
Boeing.

No we don't, but let's cut their goals in half, just as a thought
experiment.

I also agree that even if SpaceX achieves only half the re-usability
that they promise, they are still revolutionizing the launch business.

But my point was that until you know what SpaceX actually achieves, if
you're a potential competitor, you can't target the design of your own
product to beat SpaceX.

No Boeing "rocket" is going to "come back and land". WTF are you
talking about? Boeing is going to be making SLS, which is completely
expendable. If you're thinking about ULA, eventually they may be
snagging the engines under parachutes with a helicopter, but they're not
going to be landing any stages either.

Sorry, I used ULA/Boeing interchangeably. My bad.

snip

ULA isn't working on anything ground breaking to compete with SpaceX.
They just can't. It's not in their corporate DNA anymore to actually
innovate. They've been doing launch operations for far too long while
their development staff atrophied, retired, or simply went to work for
another company.

The SpaceX steamroller (launch cadence) is just starting to build up
speed. There's likely no stopping it now.

Isn't there a capacity limit imposed by capacity of launch pads? And
they still need to attach the stage2/payload to stage1 , even if the
later landed next door and is still hot when it gets to assembly
building. Doesn't that become a bottleneck in terms of launch rates?

If you'd been paying attention you'd know that SpaceX has been
developing GPS based range safety. This would allow a greater launch
cadence from KSC/Cape Canaveral (two pads there) and possibly even
Vandenberg (one pad there). SpaceX has been optimizing their operations
for a high launch cadence. 2018 is already shaping up to be the highest
launch cadence for the company ever.

Jeff
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