commercial support of ISS and lunar base

On Sat, 17 Jan 2004 17:13:30 -0600, Phil Fraering pgf@AUTO wrote:


Since Boeing ended up being a bunch of crooks who stole the EELV
competition from Lockheed, the Air Force bending the rules for Atlas V
can be overlooked.

So in short, you believe Lockheed should be allowed to cheat, but
Boeing shouldn't.

Lockheed has a history of dubious contract practices, but I don't see
where they cheated on the EELV contract.

Brian

In article ,
Phil Fraering pgf@AUTO wrote:
(Also note that Sea Launch in particular, since it uses foreign-made
rockets, is not considered a US launch supplier and hence is ineligible
for government business.)

But Atlas V sneaks in under the wire, somehow?

Atlas V's use of a foreign-made engine has long been a pet peeve of its
USAF sponsors. Use of *some* foreign components is okay, but getting
something as major as engines from abroad is frowned on. Originally,
LockMart & friends promised to set up a US production line for it, and
that officially got them off the hook.

Then setup work for that line was delayed badly by government export (!)
paperwork; LM must have been quietly delighted. Then it was announced
that commercial launches would use Russian-built engines because they
would be significantly cheaper. Then Boeing got 2/3 of the big initial
USAF EELV order, and the commercial market slumped badly. The operational
date of the US RD-180 production line kept moving into the future, and
last I heard it was "maybe someday".

The USAF et al are not really happy about all this, but they badly want to
keep both EELV suppliers in business. Given the current state of the
commercial launch market, they have no real options short of giving LM a
bunch of extra money to finance US engine production, which they don't
want to do.
--
MOST launched 30 June; science observations running | Henry Spencer
since Oct; first surprises seen; papers pending. |