A Reuters article late Tuesday states that Ken Kreig, the Defense Department’s undersecretary for acquisition, that he “regretted” the continued delays in government approval for the United Launch Alliance, the Boeing-Lockheed Martin EELV joint venture. The ULA was announced a year ago last week, and still has not received the required approvals from the Federal Trade Commission. Kreig said the Pentagon has provided its suggestions on the terms that the ULA should operate under in order to gain approval, and suggested that the emphasis of the venture had shifted from keeping both the Delta and Atlas lines in operation to alternatives that might lead to the retirement of one or the other: “So ultimately, the question is, given how many launches there are, does the current model provide you assurance or is there a different way to do it.”
If the ULA does finally get approval and move ahead, one aspect of the merged venture will be ready, according to a Wednesday morning press release from Labwire Inc.:
Labwire Inc. (Pink Sheets:LBWR), a leading Employee Screening Solutions Provider, today announced it has completed the initial setup to provide its drug and alcohol and compliance services to facilitate a “united launch alliance” by two top Aerospace firms. Labwire is providing these services under its previously announced agreement (issued in an April 24, 2006 company news release) with a large international placement company.
Recently, two giants in the Aerospace Industry entered into an agreement to create a joint venture that will combine the production, engineering, test and launch operations associated with U.S. government sanctioned launches of rockets. The joint venture will reduce the cost of meeting the critical national security and NASA expendable launch vehicle needs of the United States.
So at least we’re safe in knowing that workers will not be under the influence while building one or both families of rockets, even if the continued delays at the moment might be tempting some to seek liquid solace. Just say no, at least until the FTC says yes (unless, of course, it also says no…)
I’ve reread the Reuters article several times now and can’t see where Krieg suggests at all that the “emphasis of the venture had shifted from keeping both the Delta and Atlas lines in operation to alternatives that might lead to the retirement of one or the other”.
The statements in the Reuters article indicate that the goal remains to keep two rocket families – “… to ensure that it could launch key satellites into space whenever it needed, even if one rocket had failed.”
In my understanding, the “model” for assurance referred to in the quote that was used in the post – “So ultimately, the question is, given how many launches there are, does the current model provide you assurance or is there a different way to do it.” – refers to whether you have two separate companies producing two vehicles (the current model) or a single entity producing two vehicles (the ULA model). It was not a consideration of the retirement of either EELV vehicle.
ME: there has been a fair amount of rumormongering about the possibility of closing one of the EELV lines should the ULA be approved; one can certainly read through the lines of Krieg’s statements to think that this option has at least been considered. It all depends on how tightly they cling to the concept of “assured access”, which is a bit of a myth: one can argue that it doesn’t exist today, and forming the ULA, with its consolidation of manufacturing operations, doesn’t strengthen it (imagine what happens the next time there’s a strike, or if an F5 tornado plows through Decatur.)