It would seem that the federal government is in no hurry to give its seal of approval to the United Launch Alliance, the Boeing-Lockheed Martin EELV joint venture. When the deal was announced in early May, the companies expected to close the deal by the end of the year, but required approvals from the Federal Trade Commission and the Defense Department have not been obtained yet, and Lockheed officials told AP and Reuters on Monday Lockheed officials said they don’t expect those approvals to come in the final two weeks of this year. The Decatur (Ala.) Daily reported Tuesday that Boeing and Lockheed officials had hoped that the DOD would recommend to the FTC that they approve the ULA after a “high-level meeting” on Friday, but afterwards instead asked for yet more information about the joint venture.
Besides the regulatory approvals, the ULA is still facing a lawsuit from SpaceX, who wants to block the venture as anti-competitive. Meanwhile, on Monday the National Taxpayers Union issued a press release saying that the ULA “unfairly strand[s] taxpayers with a half-billion-dollar-a-year subsidy.” NTU Director of Government Affairs Paul Gessing: “Over the past decade, the Air Force’s Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) initiative has moved from the best of intentions to the worst of results, and now the EELV is poised to go where no rocket program has gone before – toward a near-permanent government bailout of Boeing’s and Lockheed’s launch businesses.”
Apparently those writing for the NTU do not understand the priority of “assured access to space” are not cost efficiencies (although the unmanned ELV architecture alone provides manifest reductions in cost over manned RLVs), but operational redundancies.
The need for assured access to space for DoD/national security payloads was made plain by the loss of Challenger; the lack of any acknowledgment of the impact of the shuttle program’s shutdown on the EELV program in the NTU’s letter makes it clear they miss the basic point of EELV.
Of course, when one starts to consider the impact of a foreign-built main engine on the “assured access to space” criteria, Atlas V looks pretty damn suspect, especially given that P&W and LM have yet to meet the basic requirements of the original EELV RFP, namely:
1) US production of all major components;
2) A heavy-lift version of the basic vehicle;
3) Polar launch capability as a requirement of the initial bid.
Now, due to all sorts of reasons, some legitimate and some not, both Delta IV and Atlas V have been re-negotiated (to the ultimate cost of the taxpayer, as opposed to Boeing and LM’s shareholders and management), but the basic truth is that while the Delta IV/RS-68 can do what was asked for in the original EELV RFP, Atlas V/RD-180 can not, both at the moment and for the forseeable future.
The national security aspects of that reality have not been dealt with, and should cause real questions about the Atlas V’s usefulness…but they do not negate the national security requirement of redundant US-built launch vehicles.
I consider this good news. I see nothing whatsoever good in combining our two medium-class rocket manufacturers and plenty of strong negatives. Given recent history, I don’t believe the promised cost savings for a second.
— Donald
> Apparently those writing for the NTU do not understand the priority of
> “assured access to space” are not cost efficiencies
> (although the unmanned ELV architecture alone provides manifest reductions in cost
> over manned RLVs), but operational redundancies.
Manifest cost reductions??? Perhaps, if you measure cost in terms other than money. Mature RLVs should operate at about 3 times propellant cost. The “unmanned ELV architecture” operates at *hundreds* of times propellant cost.
As for “operational redundancy,” when an ELV fails, the launch safety officer blows it up. There’s no operational redundancy unless you have built a spare ELV and a spare satellite. If the budget didn’t provide for those spares, you have to go back to Congress and ask for money to build another $150-million rocket and $500-million satellite.
By contrast, an RLV could fly back to its launch site for repair. (The Air Force doesn’t blow up a transport plane the first time a light flashes red.) The RLV with the maintenance downcheck goes into the shop for repairs, and the satellite is switched to another RLV on the flight line for launch the next day.
> The need for assured access to space for DoD/national security payloads
> was made plain by the loss of Challenger; the lack of any acknowledgment of
> the impact of the shuttle program’s shutdown on the EELV program in the
> NTU’s letter makes it clear they miss the basic point of EELV.
You seem to have fallen for the big lie: that Challenger was a “manned RLV.” The Shuttle is not reusable, they way aircraft are reusable. It is rebuildable, at best. Every flight requires a complete overhaul that takes months and costs hundreds of millions of dollars. The X-15 didn’t require that. SpaceShip One didn’t require that. There’s no reason why manned RLVs should require it.
> P&W and LM have yet to meet the basic requirements of the original EELV RFP, namely:
> Now, due to all sorts of reasons, some legitimate and some not, both
> Delta IV and Atlas V have been re-negotiated (to the ultimate cost of the
> taxpayer, as opposed to Boeing and LM’s shareholders and management),
> but the basic truth is that while the Delta IV/RS-68 can do what was asked
> for in the original EELV RFP
But neither of them can replace a GPS satellite on 24-hours notice. Neither can land a smart bomb or a commando team in a terrorist anywhere in the world, within 45 minutes. Neither can carry out satellite inspection/space control missions. Neither can refuel or repair satellites on orbit or assembly structures that are much larger than a single payload. Manned RLVs could do all those things.
The EELV RFP is not the word of God. It was written by men, who are not infallible or omniscient, and it was written a long time ago. The fact that the RFP contains certain requirements does not mean those are necessarily the right requirements or the only requirements the US military will ever have.
Sure, Delta IV can provide very expensive launches, with
Before the EELV RFP, the DOD had the choice of the shuttle (ramping up) or the Titan family of ELVs (ramping down).
After Challenger, it was obvious that was not a good idea, hence EELV – which has resulted in two separate vehicles, with two separate engine families, that can sucessfully place a satellite into GTO…which was and is the point of the EELV program.
However, one of them poses very real security and requirements-compliance issues, which was the point of my initial post.
But unlike the altspace crowd, DoD has to deal with launch vehicles that exist or can be developed in a useful time frame by building upon existing technology; the sort of RLV Mr. Wright posits does not exist and is decades away from IOC, even if anyone wished to fund its development.
The X-15 etc was not an orbital vehicle, much less a launch vehicle. Mr. Rutan’s re-creation of the B-29/X-2 flight architecture notwithstanding, altspace’s collective ability to deliver the goods has more in common with de Lesseps’ dreams of the Panama Canal than anything else…
Given the choice, having US taxpayers fund and the Army Corps of Engineers build the canal made much more sense than having the Bourse try to fund it and de Lesseps try to build it.
The same holds true for the United States’ interests in space.
> Before the EELV RFP, the DOD had the choice of the shuttle (ramping up) or the Titan family of ELVs (ramping down).
Or Delta II. Or Delta III. Or Atlas. More choices than it has today.
> EELV – which has resulted in two separate vehicles, with two separate engine families, that
> can sucessfully place a satellite into GTO…which was and is the point of the EELV program.
No, that was not the point. DoD had a number of rockets that could place a satellite into GTO. EELV wasn’t the first to do that.
EELV was sold on the basis that it would reduce cost — predictably, it did not. Letting the contractors off the hook and sticking the taxpayers with the bill for the overruns has nothing to do with patriotism or national defense.
> But unlike the altspace crowd, DoD has to deal with launch vehicles that exist or can be developed
> in a useful time frame by building upon existing technology; the sort of RLV Mr. Wright posits does
> not exist and is decades away from IOC
What “technology” do you think does not exist and is decades away from IOC??? What makes you think it is required for RLVs???
A little research will show that the technology to build such vehicles has existed for decades. If the United States doesn’t do it, someone else will, and that nation will control outer space. Chest-puffing about ELVs and Apollo on Steroids notwithstanding. We cannot ensure national defense by living in the 1960’s forever.
As for the rest of your argument, the Panama Canal was justified on its merits, not on the basis of analogies to a completely unrelated project built a hundred years earlier. The fact that the government funded the Panama Canal does not mean it has an obligation to fund cost overruns on an aerospace project that has absolutely nothing to do with canals.