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More Solid Rocket Food Fights

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
April 11, 2016
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More Solid Rocket Food Fights

Industry Jockeys Over ICBM Motors For Commercial Space Launch, Defense News
“Newer companies generally use liquid-fuel rocket technology, considered more cost-effective for certain missions. It only makes financial sense to build a commercial version of a launch vehicle fueled by solid ICBM rocket motors if the US government pays the majority of the cost, argued Richard DalBello, Virgin Galactic vice president for business development and government affairs. “I have heard the argument that anybody could use these [ICBM] assets. But all new, efficient, launch companies have chosen liquid rocket technology over solid technology,” said DalBello. “Saying everyone could use these assets is like offering railroads and airlines all the used boxcars they want. The problem is that the airlines are not in the boxcar business.”
Keith’s update: Its funny how one company that was given a brand new spaceport by taxpayers – a spaceport that currently has nothing flying into space – is complaining about the possible use of taxpayer-funded rocket motors by other space companies – motors that taxpayers are paying to store in a warehouse. Space companies should be focusing on flying things into space instead of trying to keep others from doing so.
Why Not Use Old Missiles To Launch New Satellites?, earlier post
U.S. Aerospace Trade Groups Are Stuck In The Last Century, earlier post

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

8 responses to “More Solid Rocket Food Fights”

  1. Bernardo de la Paz says:
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    “Space companies should be focusing on flying things into space instead of trying to keep others from doing so.”

    Amen to that!

    • Jeff2Space says:
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      That said, the playing field should be “level”. A company building and flying new vehicles should not have to compete with another company who gets a sweetheart deal to purchase government surplus missile stages.

      Note that this is doubly true if the company doing so is essentially “double dipping” because they were the company who manufactured the stages in the first place and are the only company who can reasonably use them without some very expensive, up front, research and development.

      • Bernardo de la Paz says:
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        Blue Origin & Virgin are the only one without a “sweetheart deal” with the government. So far – we’ll see if they continue to resist the temptation of the public feeding trough…

        • duheagle says:
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          Actually, as the proprietor of this site has pointed out numerous times, VG has a huge “sweetheart deal” in the form of Spaceport America. Orbital also has a lot of government contracts including a new one to put together a vacuum-optimized version of Blue Origin’s BE-3. If VG doesn’t want Orbital to get those surplus stages, they can always outbid Orbital for them. So can anyone else with sufficient interest and funds.

          • Bernardo de la Paz says:
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            Thanks for the reminder, you are quite correct. I forgot about Virgin’s spaceport deal in NM. I also forgot about Blue Origin’s venture with ULA for a big slice of DoD pie.
            Didn’t whatever is left of Xcor get a juicy incentive deal to move to Midland?
            Probably there are no innocents in this game.

          • duheagle says:
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            If by “innocents” you mean those with no government money of any kind on their backtrail, you are quite correct. But there are certainly gradations and shades.

            Relative to what it would have cost NASA to do their jobs itself, for example, what it paid SpaceX and Orbital to develop Falcon 9-Dragon and Antares-Cygnus has already paid off handsomely. Now that space freighters are no longer in R & D mode (except Sierra Nevada’s – partly), there is no more shame in SpaceX and Orbital supplying services to the government than there is when Federal Express does the same dirtside. The same will be true when Commercial Crew transitions from contract R&D to contract services a year and a half from now.

            What VG got in terms of Spaceport America, though, is much less defensible. One can say the same, I suppose, about the Midland deal for XCOR if it wasn’t just one – and a relatively minor one at that – of the targets Texas went after in its ongoing campaign to denude California of its overtaxed and over-regulated businesses. And one should also note that the city fathers of Midland are likely to get a whole lot more for a whole lot less than their counterparts in New Mexico did. Even if neither company ever produces a viable spacecraft, Midland is much more capable of shrugging off its comparatively petty losses.

          • Bernardo de la Paz says:
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            “Relative to what it would have cost NASA to do their jobs itself, for example, what it paid SpaceX and Orbital to develop Falcon 9-Dragon and Antares-Cygnus has already paid off handsomely.”

            Actually, not so handsome at all when you look at the numbers.

            Consider shuttle costs to fly ISS logistic (2009 for example, because that was the first I found):
            At $2.98B total annual cost for 5 flights and a main payload bay capability of 23,088 pounds of a typical supply flight around that time (not including the tare weight of the MPLM logistics module itself), the cost works out to about $25,814/pound for main payload bay cargo. That doesn’t include mid-deck payload or the 7 person crew.
            https://en.wikipedia.org/wi
            https://en.wikipedia.org/wi
            https://en.wikipedia.org/wi

            On the other hand, CRS1 operational costs are $1.6B for 12 Dragon flights and $1.9B for 8 Cygnus flights (projected, prior to delays and overruns), with total payload capacities of 7300 pounds and 7100 pounds (Enhanced) respectively. That works out to $18,265/pound and $33,451/pound respectively.
            https://en.wikipedia.org/wi
            https://en.wikipedia.org/wi
            https://en.wikipedia.org/wi

            However Dragon has a much smaller return capacity than shuttle and Cygnus none at all and neither vehicle can simultaneously carry crew as shuttle did.

            Obviously, continuing to use shuttle to service ISS would have been cheaper than the CRS / commercial crew systems on an operational cost per pound and per person. Considering that the shuttle development costs were sunk costs long prior to the beginning of ISS logistics, when considering the development cost of CRS, it looks like a very unhandsome trade versus continued shuttle flights indeed.

      • Skinny_Lu says:
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        Precisely stated. Strongly agree. Perhaps Orb/ATK could pay back everything the Government paid them for those missiles. A full refund, cost plus? Ha!