Bill,
All due respect, but your failing to see a market for superior deep
space capabilities does not strike me as dispositive. I might observe
that it wasn't all that long ago that you couldn't see any benefit to
SpaceX in reusing first stages either, or before that, any benefit in
their significantly increasing overall world launch capacity. But absent
something new either of us might bring to this discussion, perhaps best
we agree to disagree until there's once again more data.
As for Boeing and Lockmart also failing to see such a market for
capabilities ULA still has a considerable lead in developing? My view
is this presents a considerable opportunity for someone with resources
plus the knowledge and nerve to get in on the ground floor of the next
significant space transport market.
Your mileage may, of course, vary.
Henry
On 6/30/2019 9:41 AM, William Claybaugh wrote:
Henry:
Fair enough on knotholes.
I do not see the superior technology to which you refer; nor do I see any near term market for it that would justify my buying that technology, which I’m sure the owners would be happy to sell, if you want to buy it.
Companies do not run on technology, they run on sales. Sales are declining and can be expected to continue to so do. Once Blue enters the market there will be no national security justification for continuing to overpay to ULA and that’s that.
Bill
On Sun, Jun 30, 2019 at 10:19 AM Henry Vanderbilt <hvanderbilt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:hvanderbilt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
Bill:
Rude personal remarks about knotholes aside, we seem to be talking
past each other.
You keep coming back to, ULA has problems with competing on price
in the current LEO launch market, and thus clearly should be
killed as profitably as possible.
I keep pointing out that ULA has the option to compete instead on
technology in a new market area where they're much stronger and
have a significant lead, but their corporate parents have been too
short-sighted to apply a modestly larger slice of the substantial
current ULA operating profits to developing that technology.
Now, I'd listen to arguments as to how soon that new deep-space
market might arrive and how large it might become. Or as to just
how much of a technological lead ULA might actually have. So far
though, all you've come up with is repeated assertion that ULA
loses on price and, implicitly, that price is the only thing.
I know you can do better than that.
Because fundamentally, your argument so far, translated to another
hi tech field, is that Apple cannot exist, since price trumps
technical superiority every time. Apple's stockholders would be
amused to hear that, I'm sure, because as of a few days ago
Apple's market cap is just north of $900 billion, produced
entirely by a consistent corporate approach of providing technical
superiority (or at least the perception thereof) at a
significantly higher price point.
Failing to even acknowledge the possibility that ULA might compete
on superior technology and that its owners might just be missing
that betrays, dare I say it, a view through a bit too narrow a
knothole.
Henry
On 6/30/2019 4:32 AM, William Claybaugh wrote:
Henry:
You might want to find a bigger knothole from which to view the
problem: even if ULA were able to match SpaceX’s costs, ULA’s
pension obligations assure they could not match SpaceX's
pricing. Because ULA is structurally committed to paying higher
wages than SpaceX and because SpaceX requires more hours from
it’s workers, there is no plausible investment in ULA that makes
it a viable competitor. Then there is Blue Origin.
Given that the owners have many other and better alternative
investments, liquidating ULA is the correct strategy for the
owners. Indeed, it is common knowledge that one of the owners
would sell it’s share if they could, in order to put that money
to more profitable use.
Bill
On Sat, Jun 29, 2019 at 8:27 PM Henry Vanderbilt
<hvanderbilt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:hvanderbilt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>>
wrote:
I agree with part of what you imply, that ULA shouldn't try
to compete with SpaceX on price.
I disagree strongly with your main assertion, that ULA
obviously has no future and that Boeing and Lockmart are
correct in treating it as a limited-life cash cow and
minimizing investment in its future capabilities. (FWIW,
what they are currently investing - chiefly in Vulcan -
despite their parents apparently agreeing with you is I think
explainable in terms of their main government customer
insisting on a US-engined Atlas 5 replacement.)
My point is that ULA has a window of opportunity to compete
with SpaceX in a growing new beyond-LEO market on
*performance* - on superior ability to execute complex
high-performance missions in deep space. And then to charge
what the traffic will bear to those in need of those unique
capabilities - a sweet spot to be in.
But they're in growing danger of missing the window, due to
deliberate underinvestment in that specific (ACES)
capability, and to SpaceX now working toward eventual (more
or less) similar capability via LEO-repropellanted Starship.
"That kid will never amount to anything" is self-fulfilling
prophecy if on that basis you starve them and stunt their
growth. "Hello? CPS?"
Henry
On 6/29/2019 6:03 PM, William Claybaugh wrote:
None of ULA’s investments are likely to beat SpaceX’s
current prices, much less their future pricing. Company B
and Company L are acting appropriately. Indeed, one wonders
why they are supporting any future investment in ULA....
Bill
On Sat, Jun 29, 2019 at 4:36 PM Henry Vanderbilt
<hvanderbilt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:hvanderbilt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
Yes, ACES. Which, when you get down to it, could be the
first true space ship. It'll have electric power,
maneuvering jets, and main propulsion for as long as it
has LOX and LH2. And once you're able to top those up
in space, it can keep flying missions until it needs
maintenance.
Too bad Boeing and Lockmart keep treating ULA as a cash
cow rather than letting them plow enough back into
development to move forward with Vulcan and ACES
simultaneously. Padding the current bottom line at the
expense of ULA's near-term chance to be the dominant
player for beyond-LEO ops, IMHO. "Hello, CPS? I want to
report a case of child abuse. Biological parents? No,
corporate."
As for ULA and Roush, well, as an ex-XCORian, mixed
feelings. That wasn't entirely the match we were trying
to make...
Henry
On 6/29/2019 10:26 AM, John Schilling wrote:
Also a GH2-GOX auxiliary power unit running at tank
pressure and hopefully replacing the limited and
sometimes troublesome batteries on the Centaur. Which,
since turbines aren't the right answer at that scale
and ULA knew they needed outside talent for this,
offers the ineffable coolness of a high-performance
deep space transfer vehicle running on a flat-six
internal combustion engine out of NASCAR
<https://www.roush.com>.
One more reason to lament the lack of sound in space...
John Schilling
john.schilling@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:john.schilling@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
(661) 718-0955
On 6/28/2019 7:05 AM, Doug Jones (Redacted sender
randome for DMARC) wrote:
Frank Zegler has lead a lot of interesting work on low
pressure RCS/ullage thrusters at ULA under the
integrated vehicle fluids project. They've
demonstrated GH2-GOX motors running at Centaur tank
pressure.
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__forum.nasaspaceflight.com_index.php-3Ftopic-3D37206.160&d=DwICaQ&c=clK7kQUTWtAVEOVIgvi0NU5BOUHhpN0H8p7CSfnc_gI&r=rPTfWqtJdrL0Ber-yr0E_hSjRXuvJH6ZmQx03u8-2as&m=oyeKvE-Ctx7THbIwvpFEy8V9Qi_PwAXdFqkzOjSG1NI&s=Xm5pQ5-eerXNuSNwzL7d3s5aZfQN6nMy2-qP9udRUmw&e=
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.ulalaunch.com_docs_default-2Dsource_extended-2Dduration_integrated-2Dvehicle-2Dpropulsion-2Dand-2Dpower-2Dsystem-2D2011.pdf&d=DwICaQ&c=clK7kQUTWtAVEOVIgvi0NU5BOUHhpN0H8p7CSfnc_gI&r=rPTfWqtJdrL0Ber-yr0E_hSjRXuvJH6ZmQx03u8-2as&m=oyeKvE-Ctx7THbIwvpFEy8V9Qi_PwAXdFqkzOjSG1NI&s=YXKfS5zGfRnKBL8_xSyDppfRB3mScZlu__EOKUWk5Z0&e=
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.ulalaunch.com_docs_default-2Dsource_supporting-2Dtechnologies_space-2Daccess-2Dsociety-2D2012.pdf&d=DwICaQ&c=clK7kQUTWtAVEOVIgvi0NU5BOUHhpN0H8p7CSfnc_gI&r=rPTfWqtJdrL0Ber-yr0E_hSjRXuvJH6ZmQx03u8-2as&m=oyeKvE-Ctx7THbIwvpFEy8V9Qi_PwAXdFqkzOjSG1NI&s=FREtyHVwAizwv3nQBzAodMoGAWiBiwX4sH9P44Udvgw&e=
On 2019-06-27 6:17 PM, Keith Henson wrote:
On Wed, Jun 26, 2019 at 10:07 PM Henry Spencer
<hspencer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
<mailto:hspencer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Wed, 26 Jun 2019, Doug Jones wrote:Space junk makes building power satellites in LEO and
Net Positive Suction Pressure (NPSP) required forThe original Centaur had quite low tank pressures,
most LH2 rocket
engines is in excess of 50 psia. Gossamer tanks are
an accident looking
for a time to happen.
just enough for
structural needs, with boost pumps (driven by
peroxide turbines) at the
tank exits to deliver adequate pressure to the
engines. But the boost
pumps proved unreliable, and for other reasons the
performance demands on
Centaur were relaxed a bit, and they eventually
decided to ditch the boost
pumps and accept somewhat higher pressures and
thicker tank walls.
moving them out
to GEO using electric thrusters close to impossible.
(They get hit
too many times which is bad, the hits make more
debris which is
worse).
The current proposal (credit to Roger Arnold) is to
accumulate
15-16,000 tons of power satellite parts and 5000 tons
of reaction mass
in LEO then push the stack of parts and reaction mass
up with chemical
propulsion via Hohmann transfer orbit to 2000 km.
That puts the
construction orbit above almost all the junk. Two of
these stacks are
enough for a 32,000-ton power satellite plus the
reaction mass needed
to move it out to GEO.
The delta-V for the two impulses is 827 m/s. That
translates into a
reaction mass fraction of slightly less than 20% for
hydrogen and
slightly more than 20% for methane. This includes
enough fuel to get
the tug from 2000 km back to LEO. The exhaust
velocity is not so
important when the delta-V you need is small compared
to Ve.
If the ground to LEO is Skylon, then hydrogen may be
the least
complicated since we can pump out any leftover Skylon
hydrogen and
oxygen. Methane may be better if ground to LEO
rockets are using it.
Roger makes a case that we can use lightweight,
low-pressure engines
and still get the same exhaust velocity since there
is no atmosphere.
I don't know much about low-pressure engines.
The reaction mass would be around 20% of 21,000, call
it 4200 tons.
The engines and tanks and structure should come in at
about 10% of the
reaction mass, roughly estimate the tug at 400 tons.
For the normal ratio of hydrogen to oxygen, the
reaction mass would be
3500 tons of LOX and 700 tons of LH2, about 10,000
cubic meters. That
gives a radius of 28.7 for a sphere or a diameter of
about 57 m. It
would be subject to around 1/10th of a g and the have
to carry the
entire cargo mass.
Does this make sense?
Keith
