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 for mostThe original Centaur had quite low tank pressures, just
LH2 rocket
engines is in excess of 50 psia. Gossamer tanks are an
accident looking
for a time to happen.
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
