“Anyway ULA right now ULA is doing some interesting work towards cost savings. I think they are just milking the situation as long as possible.”

Yep. Milking the taxpayers.

“They are working towards replacing the venerable RL-10 and they could in theory drop the delta line.”

They would have to bring Atlas V Heavy online before doing that, if they want to keep the DoD/NRO business. That would be a pretty expensive undertaking, and the Air Force would likely not be inclined to help pay for that. I’m not so sure about that.

Regarding the RL-10, I think that replacement would help, but not significantly. But I hope XCOR succeeds, since that will provide a standard LH2/LO2 engine for everyone else, with ULA to thank for the development.

At the moment Space X isn’t much of a competitor. Falcon 9 lifts a little less than Atlas. FH is the only thing that threatens ULA at the moment and FH won’t be ready till about 2013 or 2014. DOD certification would come later. Basically they don’t have to worry about lowering prices until maybe 2016 or so. That is how long it will take for FH to prove itself a reliable launcher. Falcon 9 is replaces the Delta II, which is a rocket they are(or have) phased out.

ULA has completion on the small end for it’s Athena rockets with both Space X and Orbital, but their meat and butter rockets Atlas and Delta heavy, nope.

“More likely what we will see is ULA adjusting to compete with SpaceX.”

So far all of their price adjustments have been to dramatically INCREASE prices, not decrease them.

It appears that their strategy is to 1) hope that no other companies become certified to compete with them, and 2) to maximize their profits while they still hold a monopoly. That’s fine as like as #1 doesn’t change, but if it does, they are setting themselves up for a big fall.

Sad. Real sad.

I think you may be combining two aspects. Marco Polo and Vikings were exploring outside Europe. There was also trade going on in limited terms. A roman ship was discovered off the coast of Brazil and a roman coin was found in a native american burial site that was dated at about 1600 years ago.

I believe humans across the planet have always explored past boundries that our generation have erected and said they never went past them.

When you talk about the flood of people following the explorers and traders you are more talking about migrations. It looks like when mass migrations voluntarally take place ( not moved by disaster or war) they expect something at the end of the rainbow. Historicially this has mean’t free land and the resources on that land.

Personally I do not see migrations to space until property rights are established and people can claim the land on the moon with ice, PMG, etc. for free or relatively free.

You’re pretty right about the guy. But you gotta admit, when he puts his money in it, some really nice products roll out for others to eventually use. Case in point his $$ (and his person, of course), went into that DeepSea Challenger. So who cares, if in these early dives, we wound up also seeing every pore on his face & pondered the frightful depths of his nostrils, during the resulting NatGeo documentary?

As a result, we now have technology that can go 7+ miles down, and eventually marine scientists & engineers will fix those operating bugs, expand its envelop for new missions get down to some for-real exploration, including discovering new resources (for exPLOITation).

Totally unsubstantiated and nothing but nuspace fanboi spewing.

Cameron’s got an interest and his egocentism is legendary in media circles with a tendancy to drive aawy partners. Je likes to be ‘king of the world’ — or at least his worlds. And w/projects he’s taken an interest in, all things eventually involve and revolve around him.