Slashdot Mirror
ULA Unveils Website That Lets You Price Out a Rocket 'Like Building a Car' (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: This morning, United Launch Alliance CEO Tory Bruno unveiled a new website that allows satellite makers to figure out what it will really cost to launch a vehicle on one of ULA's rockets. It's like going to "Ford or Chevy and building your car," Bruno said, except in the end you wind up with a more than $100 million rocket that can take cargo to space. And just like checking out on Amazon, the website allows you to save your rocket and submit it to ULA to start the process of finalizing a launch contract. The site, called RocketBuilder.com, looks to be ULA's attempt to further infiltrate the commercial satellite market, after launching mostly government satellites and NASA missions for the past decade. Bruno says the site is meant to provide an "unprecedented level of transparency" to commercial customers about the true cost of launching a satellite with ULA. "The sticker price on the rocket is just the tip of the iceberg," Bruno said at a press conference this morning in Washington, DC. "There is a whole host of other costs." The site is supposed to give potential customers an idea of what those costs might be. Rocket Builder allows you to pick when you want to launch and what orbit you want your satellite to go to. And then, depending on its destination and how big the satellite is, the site will help you calculate the size of your payload fairing -- the nose cone that encases the satellite on the top of the rocket -- as well as how many additional boosters you're going to need for thrust. Customers even have the option of picking customizable "service options," which include adding an onboard video system to the rocket, or conducting "expanded mission rehearsals." There's even the option of purchasing a VIP experience, where you can invite 100 customers or investors to come watch the launch as a marketing tool.
At least you're innovating the website
I want to buy one for some certain president elect...
Three straight articles without Trump? What gives? I come to TrumpDot for my fix of anti Trump articles!!!
I propose Slashdot's Law. That way we can all take credit for this shitstain topic that's ruining what little is left of this site.
Maybe Kim Jong-Un can use this to put some spy satellites into orbit rather then use his hit-or-miss rocket program. If Kim can get the right rate on multiple launches maybe he can use ULA to nuke the US. Remember ULA is really an international organization and the main stage engines are from Russia. Putin might give ULA a discount for helping North Korea nuke the United States, and Trump might be willing to partner up with his bromance pal to seal the deal.
Why is Snark Required?
This is a bad idea if it leads to more rocket launches. They pollute space with junk that can be hazardous to useful satellites. Rocket launches also burn tremendous amounts of fossil fuels, which generate carbon pollution that causes global warming. If you care about this planet, you'll want to reduce rocket launches and make them less accessible to most people.
Do you accept payment in cash?
shields? cloaking device? transporters?
Also, they should have a 1-click to calculate how many parasecs it would take to make the Kessel Run.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I only wanted to build and launch one satellite of love for $200 million, but I didn't realize I added additional ones to the cart as I refreshed the page. I'm emailing customer support to return 7 unwanted rocketships. Please refund the fees to my credit card.
interest in having another charn3l = 36400 FreeBSD
I walk away from my desktop for FIVE minutes, and my 5 year old has ordered a $100 million rocket launch to crash a load of honey ham into the Moon, because the moon-men apparently want a ham-and-cheese sandwich. Can I contest this with Visa?
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
Surely this should have been a plug-in for Kerbal Space Program. Fly your rocket in the game, order the real thing. Not holding my breath for same-day delivery though...
____ Office of Donald J. Trump President-elect of the United States
Yup, that's the problem with cash for clunkers; let's shit out tons of CO2 to build a brand new car to save a few less tons then we would have just maintaining the old car.
However, booster re-use is a gimmic designed by a marketing genius; it's been shown pretty conclusively that it's not going to be cost effective, and consequently energy effective, since very little of the rocket actually gets reused.
2400kg to GEO for $151M (includes $65M of ULA "services").
So, where's the business plan that makes $63K/kg by being in geostationary orbit? Something involving a network of 240 10kg mini-sats would be interesting.
Unfortunately, if you're splashing out $151M on the launch vehicle, and probably at least another $20M building the payloads, the political red tape will likely run another $80M or so to "get permission" for your plan - unless you are providing a tax revenue stream of $100M or more... so, we're really talking about needing to deliver $100K/kg, or $1M per mini-sat in revenue.
Still, a $250M revenue generator isn't wildly unrealistic, if you can identify an under-served need, less than $0.04 per capita if you're serving the global market, or $1 per capita if you're US market only.
Just modeled an Earth-escape mission. Was pleasantly surprised at the low sticker price of $59M. Then I saw that the real sticker price was $100M+ and that they were subtracting the value of some of their support services as "added value."
Hmm, it really is like a car dealership.
There's a teacher at my alma mater capable of running twelve miles from home to his office.
Which proves what exactly? Cripes *I* can run 12 miles if I need to but that doesn't mean it's a good idea for me to commute that way. Running that distance would take me 90-110 minutes in good weather. Each way. Do you have a spare 3 hours per day? Do you have a shower available to you at work? Do you have roads you can safely run on? I don't. I live in an area that gets lots of snow 4 months per year, I live 20 miles from work, sidewalks don't exist for much of the commute, I need to be at work before dawn most days. Not to mention that I sometimes need to visit a client so showing up sweaty and smelly isn't a good idea. So I'm supposed to get up at 4am, run to work hoping I don't get run over, be sweaty and smelly all day, and repeat the process at night? And in winter somehow avoid frostbite or hypothermia as well?
Yeah sounds great.
What's so problematic about biking for twenty miles?
Nothing if you have the time, live in an area with good weather and roads, have a shower available at your destination, etc. That doesn't describe a whole lot of us. I bike 20 miles fairly often but it's simply not practical or safe for me to commute by bike.
Anyone wanna get in on a Groupon deal with me for a ULA rocket?
Owning my own company, I am not as tied down as many people and frequently make the 4-5 hour drive to Lompoc to see Vandenberg launches. Here's my last one.
At Lompoc, you have the choice of viewing ULA launches from Ocean Avenue (2.8 miles from Pad 3) or from Hawk's Nest, the official viewing spot 8 miles away which might be out of the fog when other spots aren't. I once went to a SpaceX launch where it was so foggy on Ocean Avenue that I only heard it.
At Kennedy Space Center, you have the option of viewing from the LC-39 Observation Gantry for $50, about the best launch viewing available, but Deleware North, the consession operating tours of KSC and Cape Canaveral, sometimes declines to open it for launches.
Company viewing is in an enclosed area a floor up from the peons on the LC-39 gantry. There have been times when I would have paid real money to view on the base rather than the 10-mile-away options on public land.
Bruce Perens.
...to put Donald Trump on an Earth-escape trajectory.
Price out a rocket like buying a car? Seriously? You patterned your buying experience after the worst buying experience known to man? The one everybody in the country loathes? And your competitor also happens to run the only US auto manufacturer that doesn't put you through the horror that is the traditional auto buying experience? I don't even...
North Korea opens paypal account....
"Computers are a lot like Air Conditioners" "They both work great until you start opening Windows"
I went to the site with the anticipation that it might be a radical rocket design tool with all the known mathematics formulas and data built-in, alas I was disappointed.
Can we get a DVD player in the back for the kids? The kids get antsy on our long space trips and Dad's temple vein starts to throb when the kids pester us with 'Are we there yet?'
...I couldn't find it on the dropdown.
Cool, but I shouldn't have to plug in a variety of different options to see how they affect the price. What if I'm flexible on launch-date, and want to optimize for cost? What's the largest payload I can put on a short rocket in a given orbit?
When I read the article, it reminded me the "get the facts" campaign of Microshaft, when they were saying that Windoze has lower cost than Linux. Right...