SpaceX Cleared For US Military Launches

An anonymous reader writes: The U.S. Air Force has given private rocket company SpaceX clearance to launch military satellites into orbit. This disrupts the lock that Boeing and Lockheed Martin have had on military launches for almost a decade. SpaceX will get its first opportunity to bid for such launches in June, when the Air Force posts a contract to launch GPS satellites.

Comments

Time to buy some SpaceX stocks....oh wait...

[Eloking]

Good news for them. If there's a sector where Aerospace with a huge margin (if not the only one), it's in the military. Look like SpaceX is entering the major league.

Re:Time to buy some SpaceX stocks....oh wait...

[Lab Rat Jason]

Spelling "foul"... spelling is for the birds.

Re:Time to buy some SpaceX stocks....oh wait...

[Eloking]

Yeah, forgot to add "sry for my bad English"

Re:Time to buy some SpaceX stocks....oh wait...

[LWATCDR]

Not as much as you might think and it is not as "reliable" as it once was.

Re:Time to buy some SpaceX stocks....oh wait...

[Eloking]

I agree that it's not the cash cow that it was before, but it's still the biggest profit maker in the domain. Considering how much money the US military is paying for the Atlas 5 compared to the projected price for Musk's Falcon 9, I'm convinced they will give them huge margin to cover the cost of creating a "US Top secret grade" department.

Re:Time to buy some SpaceX stocks....oh wait...

[Rei]

Yep.. and the etymologies are totally unrelated. "Foul" is believed to possibly trace back back to an onomatopoeic word "*pu", meaning foul or rotten, being the sound a person makes when smelling such an object (*p underwent an early shift to f). "Fowl" and "fly" are both believed to trace back to "*pleuk", meaning to fly. The proto-germanic for bird, fuglaz, could be thought of as "that which flies". There are lots of cognates in modern languages - for example, in Icelandic, "u" often equates to an "ow" sound in English, and "gl" to a "wl" sound (aka, closer to Old English than modern). So the Icelandic "fugl" (bird) equates "fugel" in Old English and "fowl" in modern English. Other examples are ugl(a) -> owl, hund(ur) -> hound, turn -> tower, bund(inn) -> bound, and even sund->sound (in both cases, in the context of "a large body of water connected to the ocean", like "Puget Sound").

Obligatory.

Re:Slashdot problem

[truavatar]

Surely you could find a better forum to make this request than in the first comment on an article that hasn't even been replied to and is not even demonstrating the problematic functionality. Also, go space!!

Re:So, does this make them part of

[gatkinso]

Industry serving the military. Hmm. You decide.

Great way to cut back on military spending!

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

>> disrupts the lock that Boeing and Lockheed Martin have had

Wow, that seems like a great way to cut back on military spending!

>> (reality)

Oh sh*t. Nevermind.

Elon Hours

[gatkinso]

And now Elon Musk will encounter the hordes of defense contractors who will refuse to work his infamous 60 hour weeks.

Re:Elon Hours

[mwvdlee]

So basically you got paid the equivalent of less than 35K/year.

100k/year.
50k/year for 40 hours.
34.4k/year for 251 days/year.

Re:Elon Hours

[Bob the Super Hamste]

So you are saying that you got a shitty job with what works out to bad pay. Big deal you got paid $200,000 but depending on how one parses your sentence you either worked something around 4200 hours or 8400 hours to acquire that. So in a best case you were getting something around $50/hr or $25/hr in a worse case and apart from a pile of money you got to basically work, shit, and sleep for 2 years. If it was the latter amount then I did better than you on a per hour basis (go go double time, shift differentials, and the scholarship program they offered) when I worked at a gas station almost 20 years ago when I would pull similar shitty hours to get enough money over the summer to pay for college.

Re:Elon Hours

[gatkinso]

That's great, but you can make those bucks without that kind of effort.

Re:Elon Hours

[gatkinso]

What parties?

Re:Elon Hours

[Anonymous Coward]

That is before taxes.

According to US income tax brackets on Wikipedia (I'm not a US citizen) and some calculations you would pay about 4800,- federal income tax if you earn 35K per year. With a yearly income of 100K you pay 21300,- federal taxes. Doing a little more calculation we get that the hourly net income with 100K with 80 hours per week for 52 weeks is less than a normal job for 31K per year.

So basically he got paid the equivalent of less than 31K/year.

Context

[Bruce Perens]

This ends a situation in which two companies that would otherwise have been competitive bidders decided that it would cost them less to be a monopoly, and created their own cartel. Since they were a sole provider, they persuaded the government to pay them a Billion dollars a year simply so that they would retain the capability to manufacture rockets to government requirements.

Yes, there will be at least that Billion in savings and SpaceX so far seems more than competitive with the prices United Launch Alliance was charging. There will be other bidders eventually, as well.

Re:Context

[budgenator]

Don't worry, Bruce, now that the Air Force has experienced real competition, they want to keep it even if they have to pay a lot more to keep United Launch Alliance in business.

Re:Context

[nitehawk214]

ULA was the result of exactly this. The four biggest aerospace companies all merged into two, Boeing/McDonald Douglass and Lockheed/Martin, then those two formed ULA as a joint venture. This is why ULA's Delta and Atlas are entirely different systems. They were created by different companies. They realized it was smart to not compete since they had nearly all big military launches.

Presumably their next rocket, Vulcan, will be a replacement for both Delta and Atlas.

Also, Alliant bought Orbital to form Orbital ATK, doing the exact same thing.

Re:Context

[pavon]

The Orbital ATK merger is different because they had complementary capabilities and weren't really competitors. Orbital didn't have any experience building rocket motors; they have always refurbished ICBMs for military launches, or purchased motors for their private launches. Whereas Thiokol produced many of those original ICBM motors that Oribital was reusing, and was already contracting with them to produce new motors for Antares. There was/is some overlap in the non-launch services parts of the companies, but as far as launch goes it was a pretty natural fit for them to merge.

Re:Context

[nitehawk214]

That is a good point, Orbital ATK was more of a vertical integration move. This seems like it is more possible to create efficiency instead of trying to screw the customer (the US government) out of more money.

Though it is a nice system. Thiokol got government contracts to build way too many ICBMs, and Orbital gets contracts to turn those ICBMs into satellite launchers.

Either way, they understand the future is their own completely new rockets. Antares will be flying again soon.

Re:Context

[Bruce Perens]

Thank you both for putting some actual discussion in this otherwise really noisy pile of ... comments. Not sure where the moderators are.

Re:Context

[nitehawk214]

Too busy making comments, probably.

what's reassuring about this

[goombah99]

I love it that the Military is making this a level playing field. In the past there have been instances where the Military industrial complex promised jobs to retiring Majors close to the purchase reccomendation process, tilting things. Then there's the stockholm syndrome and the nobody-ever-got-fired for buying IBM decision.
But for the past decade the military has gone very pragmatic. It's all about what protects the warfighter. What works. It even tells congress it doesn't actually want a lot of the boondoggles congress shoves down its throat. Not that it's in any way perfect or there aren't some empire builders left in the system. But it's really nice to see evidence of this in things like Space-X cutting in on these dance partners.

Re:what's reassuring about this

[SvnLyrBrto]

Maybe the Army has been pretty pragmatic about what works and getting rid of boondoggle projects this last decade. But the Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps sure do seem to be fully committed to burning billions upon billions of dollars in the F-35 money pit.

Re:what's reassuring about this

[jonwil]

Even worse is that they not only suckered the Australian government into buying that flying piece of crap but got them to place a second order for more of them :(
There are far better things our government could be spending money on than shiny new toys for our military.

Re:what's reassuring about this

[Harlequin80]

While I think the f35 is a complete waste Australia needed a replacement for the f111s and the super hornets are only a stop gap. Because of our geography we need a decent airforce to protect the country, too much land and too much coast. If you accept that Aus needs a military at all then you have to accept we need a decent fighter platform.

Re:what's reassuring about this

[jonwil]

We do need an air force but I don't buy into the argument that Australia is going to be invaded or attacked anytime soon and therefore we need a top-of-the-line air force with the most expensive fighters money can buy. There are plenty of fighter options (both from the yanks and from Europe) that give Australia what it actually needs but don't cost anywhere near as much as the F-35 is costing us.

The whole "China is a threat" thing is overblown. Why would China attack Australia or the US?

Re:what's reassuring about this

[Harlequin80]

I agree with you about the F35. I think it is a terrible waste of money. So far it isn't even lining up as being particularly good. That said the f111s were getting very long in the tooth and needed significant upgrades to remain viable. The biggest problem, as I see it, with the F35 is it is trying to be everything to everyone. Instead they should have built 2 different planes. One an air superiority fighter and one ground attack.

As for the China threat, the issues will come around territorial claims. Have a look at what is happening at the Spratly Atoll in the South China Sea. At the moment there is a bunch of shallow reefs that are claimed by pretty much everyone. China has moved into the region and started building artificial islands there and outfitting them with landing strips and deep water ports. The US is concerned by this for two main reasons. The first is that they are legally required to defend Taiwan and Taiwan has a claim on those Islands, which means the US could get dragged in. The second is that allowing China to claim territorial control of the South China Sea means China will take control of one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world.

I don't think China will attach the US or vice-versa on purpose. But I can see nasty scuffles happening through grandstanding between both sides.

Unfair competition

[DickBreath]

Maybe Space X will have a requirement to sell space launches through dealer networks, but United Launch Alliance will not have such a requirement.

Re:So, does this make them part of

[gatkinso]

Maybe.

Re:So, does this make them part of

[taiwanjohn]

Yes and no... Yes, they are competing in the same market; No, they are not "joined at the hip" with the rest of them. Yes, they do business with many, but SpaceX is not yet "assimilated" into the BORG. And as a privately held company, it's much easier to resist that pull. Elon has been quite clear on this. He won't do a SpaceX IPO until he's certain the company is going to Mars, with or without him.

More to the point, I would argue that membership in the MIC would imply a disposition toward warfare befitting a military contractor. I don't see that coming from SpaceX anytime soon. They have their own agenda, and lunching satellites helps them pay for that agenda. I'd wager that if the Air Force put out a bid request for a new fleet of ICBMs, SpaceX would take a pass on that project.

Re:Slashdot problem

[tlambert]

mailto:feedback@slashdot.org

Re: So, does this make them part of

[Surak_Prime]

Why? *Someone* is going to get that contract if there's a bid request, so it may as well be the company that will do what we would regard as the most good with the profits from the sale.

Re:Slashdot problem

[Surak_Prime]

He's not your guy, pal.

Russian rocket motors

[evanh]

Isn't this just the result of Russia withdrawing supply of motors for military use?

Re:Russian rocket motors

[slew]

As I understand it, Russia threatened to, but didn't actually withdraw the supply of rocket motors (i.e., the RD-180 used by the Atlas V), but the US Congress has prevented any military contractors from giving Russia any money (e.g, ULA for rocket motors) because of the Crimea/Ukraine situation. Sadly, Russia probably just inadvertently seeded the idea to the US congress and they ran with it...

Apparently, there is an out. In the event of a national emergency, NASA can actually finish purchases of these rocket motors from Russia and sell them to the ULA because the ban technically only applies to military contracts, not civilian contracts. This is totally stupid as either way the bulk of the money is going to the same Russian company: NPO Energomash. Of course the biggest beneficiary of the ban this might be SpaceX (and maybe even the ULA if you count the additional money the congress threw at them to get the votes for the ban and the fact that they will probably eventually get permission to buy enough engines to tide them over until Vulkan launches).

Re:Russian rocket motors

[Bruce Perens]

Russia would like for us to continue gifting them with cash for 40-year-old missle motors, it's our own government that doesn't want them any longer. For good reason. That did not cause SpaceX to enter the competitive process, they want the U.S. military as a customer. But it probably did make it go faster.

Also, ULA is flying 1960 technology, stuff that Mercury astronauts used, and only recently came up with concept drawings for something new due to competitive pressure from SpaceX. So, I am sure that folks within the Air Force wished for a better vendor but had no choice.

Re:Russian rocket motors

[evanh]

Hehe, in other words:
Party A: You're fired!
Party B: Too late, I quit!