Proton Beating Arianespace?

With three recent ILS launch signings, Krunichev's
Proton/Briz M has, at least temporarily, nosed ahead
of Arianespace's Ariane 5 in the race for commercial
launch contracts signed in 2003. As of September 15,
Proton has announced 5 new commercial contracts so
far this year, Arianespace 4, and Sea Launch 1. One
of the Proton contracts was said to be worth only
$48.7 million, well below the price of any equivalent
launcher.

Notably, neither U.S. EELV launcher has won a single
commercial launch contract this year.

As for longer term commercial backlogs, Ariane 5 is
still far ahead with at least 24 contracts (this does
not include the government funded ATV launches, etc.).
Sea Launch Zenit has 9, ILS Proton has 7, and ILS Atlas
has 5. Boeing's Delta III/IV *may* get some of the ICO
launches, but it seems more likely that these will be
transferred to Sea Launch. Otherwise, the big Delta
launchers have been *shut out* of the commercial market.
(As recently as late 2001, Boeing was saying that it
planned to capture 50% of the commercial launch market.)

It seems that the U.S. launch providers have purposefully
decided not to compete for commercial launch contracts.
Instead, they are helping the Russian and Ukrainian
companies undercut Arianespace, keeping it from being
profitable.

There seems to be a systematic ruthlessness to the effort
that has left me wondering. Is this free-trade at work,
or is it part of a darker international state/trade
struggle?

- Ed Kyle

(George William Herbert) :

ed kyle wrote:
There seems to be a systematic ruthlessness to the effort
that has left me wondering. Is this free-trade at work,
or is it part of a darker international state/trade
struggle?

Well, in large part what's happening is just that the game
of "prop up the prices using political games" musical chairs
has ended, and there are good US/Russian partnerships as of
the time things all fell down.

We've known for years that the real price of a Proton should
be in the low tens of millions of dollars, based on the man-years
going into building and flying one (well, some of us have;
I keep running into american engineers who 'cast disbelieve'
rather than accept how simple and low manufacturing time these
vehicles are).

North American rocket companies have been living with large profits over the
real cost of building thier machine. Empire building and paperwork may suck
up the profit so that it looks like it is very expensive to build rockets,
but infact the mangement/paperwork is not needed as we can see in the
russian/DC-X/X-Prize examples.

Earl Colby Pottinger

--
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On Tue, 16 Sep 2003 14:20:55 -0000, in a place far, far away, Earl
Colby Pottinger made the phosphor on my monitor
glow in such a way as to indicate that:

North American rocket companies have been living with large profits over the
real cost of building thier machine. Empire building and paperwork may suck
up the profit so that it looks like it is very expensive to build rockets,
but infact the mangement/paperwork is not needed as we can see in the
russian/DC-X/X-Prize examples.

Not really. The aerospace indusytry makes steady, *low risk* profits,
but not large ones. What's attractive is that they don't have to put
their own money at risk, not high profit margins.

--
simberg.interglobal.org * 310 372-7963 (CA) 307 739-1296 (Jackson Hole)
interglobal space lines * 307 733-1715 (Fax) http://www.interglobal.org

"Extraordinary launch vehicles require extraordinary markets..."
Swap the first . and @ and throw out the ".trash" to email me.
Here's my email address for autospammers:

In article ,
Earl Colby Pottinger wrote:
North American rocket companies have been living with large profits over the
real cost of building thier machine. Empire building and paperwork may suck
up the profit so that it looks like it is very expensive to build rockets,
but infact the mangement/paperwork is not needed...

Profit is, *by definition*, what's left after all expenses are paid. The
traditional Western aerospace companies generally do not make large
profits on their rockets; their high prices are because of very high
expenses. They have a long history of cost-plus contracts, which reward
inefficiency and wasted effort, and consequently they have forgotten how
to do things cheaply. If you want your rocket built by Lockheed Martin,
the management/paperwork *is* necessary, because they simply don't know
any other way to do it.

Even a hostile takeover with mass executions at corporate HQ couldn't
really fix this. They've spent many years building systems -- of hardware
and procedures -- which are inherently fat and cannot be slimmed down much
except by rebuilding them from scratch. Any careful analysis is going to
conclude that if you want low prices, it's easier and cheaper to build
your own rocket company than to start with Lockheed Martin, despite the
latter's technical expertise and established reputation.

(And although I picked on LockMart for the sake of a specific example,
much the same can be said of almost any long-established Western rocket
company.)
--
MOST launched 1015 EDT 30 June, separated 1046, | Henry Spencer
first ground-station pass 1651, all nominal! |

Earl Colby Pottinger wrote in message ...
(George William Herbert) :

ed kyle wrote:
There seems to be a systematic ruthlessness to the effort
that has left me wondering. Is this free-trade at work,
or is it part of a darker international state/trade
struggle?

Well, in large part what's happening is just that the game
of "prop up the prices using political games" musical chairs
has ended, and there are good US/Russian partnerships as of
the time things all fell down.

We've known for years that the real price of a Proton should
be in the low tens of millions of dollars, based on the man-years
going into building and flying one (well, some of us have;
I keep running into american engineers who 'cast disbelieve'
rather than accept how simple and low manufacturing time these
vehicles are).

North American rocket companies have been living with large profits over the
real cost of building thier machine. Empire building and paperwork may suck
up the profit so that it looks like it is very expensive to build rockets,
but infact the mangement/paperwork is not needed as we can see in the
russian/DC-X/X-Prize examples.


I remember that a few years back Boeing was offering Delta III
at $85 million, but the company had to file an end of year
statement that showed it only cost about $30-35 million to
build and launch one.

- Ed Kyle