"Greg \(Strider\) Moore" wrote:

"Greg (Strider) Moore" wrote in message
...

"David Spain" wrote in message news

On 2/15/2018 9:12 AM, Greg (Strider) Moore wrote:
One hope I have now is that Falcon Heavy flies enough to convince
Congress to put the nail in the coffin for SLS and redirect that money
elsewhere.


Won't happen due to FH. It just won't fly enough nor the "right" type of
missions to make Congress wake up and smell the coffee. Even though I
agree it should...

OTOH BFR/BFS, once it starts to fly, will definitely be the tombstone for
SLS. Musk says it will definitely end FH and likely F9 or stop further
production of F9's until they are all expended.

But Musk time doesn't jibe well with real time, so we'll see...
There are a ton of fixed costs (mainly time, some money, and big time
infrastructure) for BFR/BFS development that I think Elon is discounting
right now... But maybe he's much further along on the curve than I believe
he is? We'll see...

As per cost vis-a-vis ULA, I read an article on Ars Technica from Eric
Berger where there is a contract with ULA that will expire soon that will
cause fixed costs of D-IVH to rise well above that $350 million figure.
(Don't have time to look up the link now, Google it yourself). ULA knows
that it *has* to get its Vulcan rocket flying ASAP. It will be interesting
to see how well it can compete with F9 and F9H when reuse of Vulcan AT
BEST will require some reassembly (re-mating used methalox BE-9(?) engines
with core tanks EVERY SINGLE TIME), vs inspection and resetting of landing
legs and not even bothering with a paint job for the F9.

Dave

Oh and one more thing to consider. Falcon Heavy is flying NOW.
Vulcan at best won't fly until 2020.
If I was a customer I know which one I'd be looking at.

My guess, Vulcan will fly a few DOD flights and then fade into the
background.


I know it's bad form to reply to oneself, but another thought came up:
Again, Vulcan's plan for heavier payloads is "MOAH SRBs!"

Again, added complexity and supporting multiple configurations. A more
complex system.

I really don't think ULA gets it.


And they don't really have to. Vulcan will stick around and get
flights almost regardless of costs simply because DoD doesn't like
having all their eggs in a single basket.


--
"Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute."
-- Charles Pinckney