[schiffern]

>But, from a policy making standpoint, you always need to diversify at the expense of upfront money because the downsides risks are too high if you put all your eggs in one basket.

Funny how it used to be SpaceX making this argument, and ULA was fighting tooth-and-nail for "sole source" as cheaper. :-\

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSbL7o_SJsA

I don't see SpaceX pushing to discontinue ULA's contract, so it would seem they're at least treating ULA better than ULA treated them.

Competition is good, I agree.

[yarg]

SpaceX was a threat to ULA, and ULA knew it.

But is ULA any sort of threat to SpaceX? If I were Musk, I'd want them sticking around just to make me look good.

[somenameforme]

ULA (a largely anticompetitive merger of Boeing and Lockheed for those who don't know) was actively and patronizingly taunting SpaceX during their efforts at reuse, making comments along the lines of 'We tried reuse. The economics just don't work out. Good luck learning what we already did.' He (Tory Bruno, CEO of ULA) seemed to be under the impression that reuse was only possible Space Shuttle style, which was them essentially "refurbishing" engines to the point of rebuilding them after each launch, and claiming it was reuse.

There's every reason to believe that this is also exactly what they genuinely believed - that SpaceX was just going to be a failed gimmick. They made 0 efforts to try to ensure they stayed technologically ahead of SpaceX, in spite of having many orders of magnitude greater resources and manpower available to themselves. They simply watched, mocked, and became obsolete.

In any case ULA's not going anywhere. Boeing and Lockheed are both major arms dealers that the US government depends on to keep the bombs flying.

[m_mueller]

At least Bruno knows his stuff, unlike Calhoun. Believing (too long) in the conventional industry standards is to me a more forgiveable sin compared to throwing standards overboard willy nilly in the name of profit. ULA has been reliable in what they've been providing, and Vulcan looks to be a pretty capable platform - albeit it could be seen only as a bit of a plan B for the US launch industry in case Starship doesn't work out.

[quartesixte]

The refurbishment did present a problem for SpaceX, iirc.

It’s just that Elon seems to have a knack for managing Manufacturing Engineers and got Merlin production and refurb down to not just science, but magic.