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Old May 21st 18, 04:50 PM posted to sci.space.policy
Fred J. McCall[_3_]
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Default Continuing drop in prices?

JF Mezei wrote on Sun, 20 May 2018
14:26:47 -0400:

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.


I don't think he forgot anything. There were some 90 launches
worldwide last year. Of those 90, 18 were on Falcon 9. Some 19 of
them are Russian and will stay Russian. Some 18 of them are Chinese
and those aren't going to move. One is Japanese and 5 are from India,
and those aren't going to change, either. Around 11 launches are ESA
and few of those will move. That leaves less than 30 launches up for
grabs. SpaceX is talking about 60+ launches a year. That means if
you assume 10% growth a year it takes quite a few years to exceed
their current plan. They have all kinds of time to react. Remember,
Elon Musk considers 5 years to essentially be 'forever'. Also keep in
mind that one of the goals is to refly a booster in less than 24
hours. That means that SpaceX would be able to manage a 'surge'
launch rate of hundreds of launches per year.



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 ?


Stranger things have happened.



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.

Look back at the late 1990s. Boeing was losing bad against Airbus. They
came out with their "Sonic cruiser" plane to replace the 767, a plane
that would fly faster, just under sound barrier.

The response from the market: Airlines were not interested (costs too
much to operate), and more imkportantly, marklte lost confidence that
Boeing could compete.

Behind the scenes, Boeing was busy spending some NASA money to study
all-composite fuselages. And when time came to admit Sonic Cruiser was a
bad idea, Boeing came back with the 787 which brought Boeing back to
life not just with sales, but also image of its ability to innovate and
get ahead of Airbus.


Yeah, and all that hurt them in a pretty major way.


I would qualify the Vulcan right now as being at the "Sonic Cruiser"
stage. Cute but nobody wants it because it will just cost too much.

You may recall I had stated many moons ago that SpaceX had yet to prove
it could consistently deliver on reusablility and know the real
economics of it.

2017 was an important year because SpaceX started to prove it does
deliver on re-usability. And even at low re-usability rates of block 4,
put the Vulcan into an "also ran" category.


You're obsessesd with 2017. Anyone with a clue figured it out three
years earlier.


Put yourself in ULA's feet: newbie claims it will revolutionize launch
business. You're not sure newbie can deliver, you're not sure newbie has
enough money to get it done. Do you cannibalize your Vulcan project just
in case or do you trod along with the project and then if/when SpaceX
proves their are a worthy competitor, you will rethink it?


You're confused about how companies make decisions. If you're ULA you
don't care what SpaceX can do. You care what you can do to maximize
profit.


I think ULA is at that stage now. It would not surprise me if they
converted their Sonic Cruiser Vulcan project into a properly re-usable one.


It would astonich me, since things like reuse need to be designed in
up front.


The other options are to buy SpaceX,


You need to stop imagining this. SpaceX currently has a market value
of $21 billion


... or get out of the launch business
once the military is happy that there is more than 1 "newbie" launch
companies to replace ULA.

Consider the Wall Street Casino Analysts who question whether Musk has
enough money to do SpaceX, BFR, Tesla, the Boring company, hyperloop and
whatever else he thinks of. Boeing/ULA may just be waiting for the money
where Musk is caught with a big need for cash and just offer to buy
SpaceX from him so he can fund all his other projects.


SpaceX generates net profit. If push comes to shove, it stays and
Tesla goes.

But if Musk manages to make Tesla profitable and prove analysts wrong,
the Boeing/ULA will be stuck with a competitor they can neither beat nor
buy.


If Musk doesn't manage to make Tesla profitable, Tesla goes away and
SpaceX stays.



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?


Yes, but it's nowhere near any possiblity. SpaceX won't have
'bottleneck' problems.


--
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable
man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore,
all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
--George Bernard Shaw