Blue Origin is also likely future competition in the field, yes. But
Blue is still just starting to test fire the engine for that stage.
And it's some distance even then from an initial expendable upper stage
to a long-duration deep-space transport with potential for
re-propellanting reuse. Somewhere I saw mention that they're starting
to look into boiloff-powered APU and maneuvering. Starting. What does
their motto translate to, again? "Ferociously methodical"? Nothing
against Blue. But given ULA having worked on ACES systems at least
since 2008 that I'm aware of, I would guess at their still having a
significant lead - IF they sometime soon get to plow a bit more of their
profits into implementation.
Henry
On 7/1/2019 10:30 AM, Philip Hahn wrote:
Blue Origin will have a relatively high performance hydrogen upper stage from flight #1. Once they get past the early flight learning curve they should eclipse Vulcan's deep space capability, significantly.
philip
On Mon, Jul 1, 2019 at 12:20 PM Henry Vanderbilt <hvanderbilt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:hvanderbilt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
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
Net Positive Suction Pressure (NPSP) requiredThe original Centaur had quite low tank
for most LH2 rocket
engines is in excess of 50 psia. Gossamer
tanks are an accident looking
for a time to happen.
pressures, 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.
LEO and 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