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Lockheed, SpaceX Trade Barbs
Lockheed Martin and Boeing have been getting all government launch contracts for the past six years. That is, until SpaceX demonstrated they could reach the International Space Station successfully this year. Asked about the new competition brought by SpaceX, Lockheed CEO Robert Stevens made light of the younger company's success. "I’m hugely pleased with 66 in a row from [the Boeing-Lockheed alliance], and I don’t know the record of SpaceX yet," he said. "Two in a row?" When he was asked about the skyrocketing price of launching his sky rockets, he said, "You can thrift on cost. You can take cost out of a rocket. But I will guarantee you, in my experience, when you start pulling a lot of costs out of a rocket, your quality and your probability of success in delivering a payload to orbit diminishes." SpaceX CEO Elon Musk was blunt about the source of the price difference between the companies: "The fundamental reason SpaceX’s rockets are lower cost and more powerful is that our technology is significantly more advanced than that of the Lockheed-Boeing rockets, which were designed last century." The Delta IV and Atlas V rockets of Lockheed-Boeing average about $464 million per launch, while SpaceX's Falcon 9 launches for $54 million. Its upcoming Falcon Heavy will go up for $80-125 million.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
- some baldie
Lockheed traded Barb Williams to SpaceX in return Barb McIntosh and a sum of $3 million. No word yet on what that will do for their chances of winning the Goddard Trophy, the long-time rocketry championship, but the expectation is that this will allow Lockheed to unload an unfavorable contract while making SpaceX more competitive in the playoffs.
I am officially gone from
Robert Stevens should well be aware of that by now.
Musk, is essentially running a massive experiment to see what costs can be squeezed out of building and operating launch systems. Much of it has to do with using off the shelf technology (as opposed to the proverbial gold-plated screws...), and flattening his supply chain.
Obviously, it's working, as the old guard are getting butthurt that they're uncompetitive after growing fat and lazy off government space and defence contracts.
Gotta love free markets when they work well.
He doesn't seem to know the difference between "cost" and profit. He keeps using the word cost but I'm not sure he actually knows what it means. Well boo hoo and let me get out the world's smallest violin now that they have to compete on price in their former monopoly market.
You, sir, have won the internets!
I, for one, welcome our new SpaceX overlords.
"Chance favors the prepared mind." ~Me
I can be blunt about the cost difference as well: SpaceX has an unfair advantage on price. SpaceX is not an accredited CMMI organization. Therefore, the quality is lower and so is their cost.
about $464 million per launch
That figure is flat out unacceptable. What percent of the Nasa budget is gobbled up by this lunacy?
You must gather your party before venturing forth.
Where as it is true that administrative cost are much lower for spacex, they have only 2 launch under their belt. So their reliability is unknown. It could be that once the product sacex matured enough to have 50-100 launch, there is indeed a lower reliability overall for spaceX.
There's some truth to it. SpaceX is built like an Internet startup - failure is always an option. The "old technology" is from an age when every launch was a national news event and failure was no option.
Read this:
http://www.fastcompany.com/28121/they-write-right-stuff
and then realize that while everything NASA seems to be luxury spending, their software development manages to have at least two orders of magnitude fewer bugs than any commercial software company.
If your life depends on it - would you rather fly a NASA Space Shuttle or a Microsoft Rocket ?
SpaceX deserves a lot of credit, no doubt. Among other things, they have revitalized the "space exploration is cool" meme. And with it the willingness to take risks.
But how about we talk about costs when they've had their first two or three explosions and resulting fallout in costs, publicity, etc.?
I'd be mightily surprised if the learning wouldn't go two-way. Old tech learns from SpaceX how to cut costs while SpaceX learns from old tech which costs you shouldn't save on.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
"You can thrift on cost. You can take cost out of a rocket. But I will guarantee you, in my experience, when you start pulling a lot of costs out of a rocket, your quality and your probability of success in delivering a payload to orbit diminishes."
Fishy argument. Most of the payload I gather is pretty cheap stuff to make astronauts' life on ISS possible.
In a way, price gauging of the launchers has resulted in the reactive price gauging of the payload. But if one can cheaply transport materials to the ISS, some stuff can be actually built and assembled right there - instead of creating the stuff on surface up to the very high standards, required for it to survive the lift off.
All hope abandon ye who enter here.
Having worked as a contractor for Goddard Space Flight Center years ago on a few projects, I can assure you that SpaceX's way of doing business is completely different than the old school space business. Coming from NASA, which trickles down to Boeing and Lockheed, the standard mentality is do everything at least twice, and usually triple checking all of that. New processes are frowned upon and twenty year old technology is still considered new, potentially even unproven. It is a frustrating way to work for a lot of people because it moves so slow. However, it is fairly safe and effective.
Now, enter SpaceX. I suspect they have a lot of the old NASA engineers, so they have the experience to cut corners. However, they've designed the thing intentionally to tolerate failures - they stuck 9 engines on the rocket. And you definitely want to tolerate failures, however, it does lead to mistakes. Look what happens though when one engine fails - the extra burn time meant the Orbcomm secondary payload on the last mission failed and never made it into orbit. That wasn't highly publicized, but it was a partial failure.
Now, what we're going to run into the standard cost/benefit of the extra work that goes into Boeing rockets. Is it worth it? Well, I suspect once you start sticking people on the top of the rockets the tolerance for failure goes down. Personally, I love what SpaceX is doing and I think a lot of the stuff is cutting edge. It is the direction we need to be headed, and I personally think the risks are worth it.
Better - Faster - Cheaper
You only get two.
----- obSig
Musk once alluded to a better manufacturing process for actually building rockets. So, instead of saying that he's taking shortcuts and what not and doesn't have layers of bureacracy, what if he just has a cheaper way to build rockets that are better?
This is my sig.
66 in a row was once 2 in a row, 64 launchs ago. guess he forgot. been nice knowing you.
Solid+Liquid can be the best way to go performance-wise, although there's that cost penalty from heterogeneity.
The problem with solid fuel rockets is, you can't turn it off and back on once you light it. With the proper engineering, you can with a liquid fueled rocket.
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
They two test vehicle crash landed and exploded during test flights that were less than 20 feet high.
That's not the case with a hybrid. In that setup, you have a solid fuel and a liquid oxidizer. By varying the oxidizer feed you can control the thrust.
SpaceX isn't pulling costs out of a rocket. SpaceX isn't putting them in in the first place.
That's not the case with a hybrid. In that setup, you have a solid fuel and a liquid oxidizer. By varying the oxidizer feed you can control the thrust.
They're notoriously tempermental.
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
"Ignition!" is available as a PDF somewhere and is one of the most entertaining books about chemistry and chemists ever written. Please read it.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Apart from the completely irrelevant dragging in of China, where is the argument? A level of staffing and competence is needed for a project but large companies are full of bureaucracy and private empires that make products worse and more expensive. Government needs to stop being addled by size and cronyism.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Which is why the the continual Luddite refrain that the Apollo program was just a way to build a better ICBM is so nonsensical. Even a Saturn I would have been a horrible ICBM...
Ignoring the ad-hominem attack which does nothing to support your claim, your statement is overlooking something. You claim that the various rockets would have been poor weapon platforms, but your thesis statement is that the Apollo program wasn't tied to ICBM development. You are correct that the Saturn rockets would be lousy weapons, but you overlook that there were a lot of things probably learned in the civilian rocket programs that got applied to ICBM development. A lot of times studying field 'A' will teach you a lot about field 'B'. We figured out nuclear energy and weapons after studying stars.
Recall that the space race was closely tied to the cold war, and that by showing the US that they could put a satellite in orbit, the Russians were showing us that they could drop a nuke anywhere they wanted to. The primary goal of the Apollo program was to put civilian ships in space, but you are deeply deluding yourself if you think that the Air Force (the guys who controlled the ICBMs) wasn't watching or advising every step of the way.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
They're in routine use in hobby and amateur rocketry.
Any particular reason or is this just a random book review?
During the challenger inquiry, NASA managers estimated the possibility of failure at 1/100,000.
In real life, the likelihood of catastrophic failure turned out to be 2/135.
So - even with cost-no-object engineering, reality may not be as safe as your spreadsheet says it is.
I like the idea of running enough experiments to know how safe it is before you put a human on top.
"Innovation" can be to "make something cheap and reliable enough for new customers". If Musk cloned von Braun and then made the clone build something like the Saturn V at low cost, WHAT THE FUCK WOULD BE WRONG WITH THAT ??
Some Nazi technology is still top-notch; see who actually designed the engines to the Tu 95 which regularly practice nuking out some Alaskan shithole and Edingburgh. These engines are STILL the most powerful turboprops !
It's not just Lockheed. It's a joint venture with Boeing that Robert Stevens is presiding over.
And yeah, that's the same Boeing that ate McDonnell Douglas and killed the Delta Clipper program.
Yeah? Well, you know, that's just like your opinion, man.
Hahah...
But as for the question of people's fear of fat versus fear of sharks, people aren't more afraid of sharks because of irrationality, they're more afraid of sharks because no one has yet made a gripping, compelling horror movie about fat insidiously killing people, with instantly recognizable music featuring minor second intervals repeated over and over, building towards a crescendo!
(That last part means 'duhhh dum... duhhh dum... duhhh dum duhhh dum duhh dum Duh Dum Duh Dum DUH DUM Duhdhda DA, DUDA DA!' Get it?)
Someone should make such a film, then people would be scared of high calorie foods. Or maybe a horror movie about someone going around murdering fat people... oh wait, didn't that happen in Seven?
They have a couple of dead loads up so far. No man rating for distribution, yet. So next couple of flights to prove man lift ability? How about they lose one, have to get "insurance", just in case, Remember those others design was to prove man in space, anything after is not prove of prior art? Remember they are not designing to get a man on unproven, deadly technology. Some one already died to prove it can be done. Now it's just done. Are they not just the next step, some one gave up the science, so another can develop it further, until you have a death star. Don't bash the dream, be part of it.
8 years ago, shortly after the Ansari X-Prize was claimed, I was a new graduate who just started at one of Lockheed when Bob Stevens came to our office and held a townhall. Working up the nerve, I asked what impact he saw the X-Prize having, to which he replied "None, they spent $25 million to win a $10 million prize, so I don't see that being a good business model." Shocked by his lack of forward looking vision, I re-phrased "Do you think the fact that commercialization of space travel will change the shape of our industry?" (we were heavily involved in satellites at that location) Once again he brushed it off, saying that we had looked at the type of technology they were using long ago and decided it was not feasible to do profitably. And that was when I knew that Bob Stevens has absolutely zero vision, and is merely a bean counter. The only business model Lockheed knows is 1) Hire former military/government officials 2) Pay them gobs of money 3) Send them to schmooze their old buddies in the government and 4) Convince them to buy ridiculously expensive systems, whether the country really needs them or not (can't tell you how much completely wasted spending goes on because some general gets convinced that he needs his own satellite/plane/vehicle/etc rather than sharing the ones already available because he doesn't want to share with some other branch of the military or agency).
And there is the hope that once SpaceX gets the reusable rocket working, the cost would really go down a lot. They just tested the first staging reusable prototype a few days ago, so they're actively working on it.
I'm interested in reading how: 1. Smaller engines are cheaper to develop and build than big engines 2. SpaceX had to use more complex/heavier/expenise plumbing system and thrust structure. From my reading, they're using 9 engines because this is the engine they developed for Falcon-1, which is a small rocket, by reusing it they get Falcon-9 ready fast and cheap, so it's more like "making applepie out of apples".
It's in AviationWeek but behind a paywall, you can find the link in SpaceX website, for actual Chinese launch price you can check the PDF from FAA which you probably already have seen: LM4B=$50M, LM3B=$60M, LM3A=$50M, considering the payload capability of LM3A/3B/4B, I think the statement is not far fetched.
Of course your price for Atlas V is correct, so yeah the price difference is that big, yet.
There is a reason why Scaled Composites is jettisoning its foray into hybrid rocket motors. They are temperamental and cause all sort of problems. Unfortunately Scaled Composites also lost some good people to those tests.... something that sort of tempers you view as well when you are trying to evaluate the viability of a particular technology (regardless of what you may think about its use).
I may be misinformed on this as well, but SpaceShip One did use a hybrid motor for its flights into space.
It's about the development of rocket fuels, and has a very good chapter on hybrids. Definitely worth a read.
It has a bit on hybrids, but it's somewhat outdated. Some more research has made them more viable on a larger scale, and they could likely be scaled up farther.
Not a sentence!
Actually, Space Ship Two also has a hybrid engine and they are continuing development.
They had ONE accident while testing the oxidizer flow (which would have likely been needed for a liquid fueled engine as well), but development continued since that danger was in no way specific to hybrid motors.
Yeah. I'll get some references on how having more engines means more plumbing and thrust structure. After all, when I install a second faucet in my kitchen, I don't have to add plumbing... The water just magically appears. (And even if I did have to add pipe, my plumber would give me the pipe for free, and not charge me any labor for all the additional joints.)
Etc... etc...
Seriously, are you that fucking clueless to believe that driving up the complexity of a system doesn't come at a price?
Bingo. Arianespace, particularly with the Ariane 5 and with a lot of elements in the Ariane 4, was IMO the 1st Western launch operator to pioneer the concept of the launcher, launch process, and much of the launch as a repeatable process to be streamlined and continuously improved upon, rather than every launch is unique (they are not) because every payload is unique (they are not). Space X I think is taking it to the next level. United Launch Alliance has had to adopt the same approach, but are saddled with a lot of legacy systems and practices that take time to overcome. ULA has the benefit of a captive customer (US DoD) that (with some reason) has to value significantly reliability over cost (in spite of all the low-bidder jokes). A lot of that is wrapped up in documentation that may provide little value until there is an incident; then there's a pedigree of every piece, part, and process done to the launcher and payload to help figure out what happened.
Russians took a different approach to low cost - build lots and lots of the same relatively simple design (see Soyuz) and gain the benefits of the learning curve. Especially relevant when the Shuttle was flying - we went for a complex but sort of reusable vehicle we built few of, they used a simpler but very reusable design and built many.
Having recently survived a Level 3 CMMI SCAMPI, SEI (or to whomever the sell the CMMI accredidation business) really need to issue a suitable patch I can add to my old Scout merit badge sash. Probably next to "Animal Husbandry" (seems appropriate after helping birth that whale calf) and "Useless Camp Gadgets" (for relevancy).
Throwing words like PR, fucking or clueless around just to cover up your baseless claim is pathetic, and good use of kitchen analogs, that'll solve everything (not).
r in the same package, how about that, Mr. photographer?
That does sound like I good read. I found it at http://library.sciencemadness.org/library/books/ignition.pdf and I will read it.
Elon using liquid oxy-kerosene rockets a russian design, from before 1920, while using rocket scientists fired from NASA by his butt ie, barry soretoe, does not have to pay the costs endured by Lockheeds long term R&D, neither the costs of launch facilities, his claim of costs are delusional, as is elon, anyone could start up a rocket company using, technology, facilities, equipment material processes, developed by other companies, without having to pay for the R&D, or original designs, and do anything musk does, cheaper than musk. who, as a bankruptcy expert, is accustomed to using others ideas, designs, R&D, experience, previous manufacturing processes, without having to pay what it cost the founders, or original designers, he uses in his life of plagiarism, american taxpayer money, because he was a donor to obamas campaign. He should be on the top 10 most wanted criminals in our nation, obama should be at the end of americas rope of treason, and not herald as someone who discovered anything, what so ever, because he discovered nothing, and as a business manager he is a tyrant, running around screaming, refusing to be addressed because he knows little about what his people actually do, while claiming all their discoveries as his own, he is similar to chu, and only serves to illustrate our pseudo commander and chief has little understanding of science, economics, and is a terrible judge of people, a person who spent the better part of his free time in chicago's south side all gay bath houses, is where he is because of massive criminality from criminal acts, gifts, like soro's and many other rich deluded people destroying america and the free world, in their bid to create a one world power with their stolen, cartel of oligopolies, who supply the world with goods and services. However time will not allow them to pass, as Truth is the only thing to pass time, not the lie---their reign is nearing its end time, they exist as some 250 dynasties or proxies world wide, trying to control the world through its monetary systems and exchange laws, their finger on America, the federal reserve, fears america as a potential threat to their one world government or a return to nobility, because of Lincoln, Garfield, Kennedy, 3 presidents who demanded the federal reserve be tossed out of controlling americas money supply, they murdered all 3, they foresee a world where slaves and hirelings make their trash, while poverty stricken hirelings hawk it to their middle class protectorate, while common man is composed of the lower classes.CASTES, Their crushing blow to america, who led the free world, was globalization, fostered by their puppet presidents, who served to export our manufacturing infrastructure to slave nations, while returning the slave goods to america into their slave goods super markets who closed most sectors of small business america, permitting slavers to import goods without paying customs and duty, used to ensure slavers paid the same accrued taxation american industry is required to pay------before free trade we made in america what we consumed, and exported to the world in a nation with more jobs that people, now nearing the end of our time, jerked around by a gang of lawyers, judges, politicians, lobbies, and financial magnates who dominate the money supply and write up our laws then with lobbies bribe them into enactment by a government who no longer serves our nation, elon is one of them, a near idiot, picked out because he will do anything he is told to do, and wasted billions over the last 10 years, in his stolen designs, companies, funded with taxpayer money because he gives barry a lot of money in for election frauds---their time is nearing an end, as anarchy and True Crime will destroy the entire lot, one way or another, like in history whenever monarchy rears its ugly head anarchy emerges to end it. In olden times they simply moved on to new countries, in these times the world is a small place after all, the only frontier is south america, where mexitos are already onto their game, they will hav
The presumption globalization will work, or, wars are over, with the advent of the telephone, may work as an OB answer for dismantling our military and privatizing something as important as low earth orbit optical platforms, if there were to be another war, is akin to absolute treason. Ending shuttle 2, constellation, where such government spending if adding spinoff jobs, results in more incoming revenue into our treasury than is spent from our treasury--- would take an IDIOT to end the scientific development achieved with a science team 60 years in the making, shuttle 1 the worlds only manned vehicle capable of operating independently of earths magnetosphere was a step in a manned aerospace vehicle to mars and beyond. Pretending to privatize the developments and discoveries of NASA, can only be accomplished by a gang of fools---Our nations government no longer serves america, or anything else other than themselves, and green fees---Its leader is an obamanation, not duly elected, little more than a common criminal idiot,
Our responsible people in government. (who swore to uphold our constitution) should meet without political intervention, declare martial law, adjourn the senate, white house, congress, while responsible government is restored in our nation, before it is terminated and falls into massive crime, with countries like china and the UN of NYC, come for our arms, as we descend into a 3rd world nation, where we become like the ghetto rule of most of our larger cities, who themselves are ruled by criminals. spacex. solar city, tsla, added up would reveal how far we have fallen, when a government funds people who donate to the election frauds of today, where a return to the 60's splashdown era is herald as forward progress, and its idiot actually dares states he will send people to mars for 300,000 dollars, using hyper loop, incapable to describe it, an idea he got from a science fiction movie. Its becoming a sad time to beholden the end of american science and technology related to military development funding. Jerked around by a gang of literal criminal lawyers, who allow a guy to head office who would never be able to pass security clearance to more than comic books.