ULA Executive talks about SpaceX being not profitable

[kerbiloid]

So far, Falcon is just one more single-use expendable rocket with additional legs and unused fuel rest.

Edited March 18, 2016 by kerbiloid

[55delta]

Oh boy...from a legal and business perspective, these remarks were very bad. The sort of thing that the media likes to use the term 'alleged' a lot for. I think it's safe to say that he didn't resign solely because he said that ULA can't compete with SpaceX on price. I'm pretty sure we didn't need a ULA executive to tell us that, we already knew. Fortunately for ULA, it can compete by other means, or else they would have given up the business by now.

No, what forces the resignation was that too many other things were said during those remarks. I won't go over them again, or things like 'conflict of interest'. But freedom of speech doesn't protect you from implicating yourself or any of your associates in any dealings, and it doesn't protect you from embarrassing yourself or your associates. There were things said that, if substantiated, would be a world of legal hurt. It was better for ULA that he left and that they distanced themselves from his remarks.

[Nibb31]

Already covered in this thread:

 

[fredinno]

47 minutes ago, Nibb31 said:

Already covered in this thread:

 

No, Ithink this was a different one.

[Nibb31]

1 hour ago, fredinno said:

No, Ithink this was a different one.

Both threads seem to be talking about the same Brett Tobey, ULA VP of Engineering. This thread should be merged.

Edited March 18, 2016 by Nibb31

[Red Iron Crown]

Merged the threads.

[RainDreamer]

Drama llama.

We need more rockets and spacecrafts, not business and politics.

[Kerbart]

11 hours ago, Camacha said:

It is exactly that attitude that hurts so many businesses and people. That it is good for business to present your company with a coherent story, goal and strategy is a given. However, this does not mean all the employees have to be perfect carbon copies, with identical opinions and without dissent. We all know that no one is perfect and that constructive criticism keeps the blade sharp. No one buys the sugar coated story that gets regurgitated every time a camera is around - thinking this is what people need and expect is underestimating them.

This is not about a VP not being a perfect carbon copy. This is about a VP talking dirt, exposing the company to a couple of lawsuits, alienating it's customer, putting those that support you in a uncomfortable position while fueling those that dislike you. In fact, so much of what he says is hurting ULA that I'm wondering if we wasn't on his way out anyway and decided to go out with bang.

As to “he was simply being honest and didn’t know he was being recorded”—you don’t get into the position he was by being that naive, even when you have an engineering background. I doubt ULA doesn’t have media and legal training for anyone above entry level (I work in a heavily regulated industry, it’s a requirement for anyone who joins our company, even at the lowest level) and one of the things they make sure you really understand is that in this day and age, anything you say outside the office walls can show up online within a day. There’s no way he though he could speak that freely without repercussions. Unless they fed him some drugs.

[wumpus]

I can only assume that either the exec had no intention on sticking around and was already soured on ULA (an easy thing to do, but he pretty much ended his employability elsewhere as well).

The flip side of things is "can space-x compete with ULA"?  On the surface, it seems obvious: space-x is vastly cheaper and both do roughly the same thing.  The big difference is that space-x is a startup doing its own thing, while ULA is basically the space arm of the military-industrial complex.  Googling "ULA SLS NASA" didn't show much, but ULA is apparently "delivering an upper stage [of the SLS] to Boeing [nice to supply an owner with some more business]".  Since this is a relatively large chunk of the NASA budget and unlikely for any of it to go to space-x (well, the various missions may make more sense on a falcon [heavy] but the pork will keep going to politically favored contractors like ULA).

As I mentioned in an old thread about the "Death of ULA", the idea of the "space arm of the military industrial complex" going away would be a massive change in US national politics.  And a massive change that really doesn't have anyone (other than Musk, who can't get state assemblies to let him sell cars) pushing it.  ULA doesn't have to be competitive.  They may have to fake it while letting friends in the Capitol building and Pentagon subsidize them, but they don't have to really compete at the things space-x does well (and they are admittedly good at the things space-x does poorly, like launch on time).

[PS.  I'm seeing some quotes as "you don't have permission to see this".  Is this a bug in the new forum software, or was this scrubbed by moderators and merely has the wrong message (it doesn't look like it is coming from an external server, although that is possible).]

Edited March 18, 2016 by wumpus
ps: bug report.

[Kerbart]

9 minutes ago, wumpus said:

[PS.  I'm seeing some quotes as "you don't have permission to see this".  Is this a bug in the new forum software, or was this scrubbed by moderators and merely has the wrong message (it doesn't look like it is coming from an external server, although that is possible).]

I see it as well.

[Red Iron Crown]

It's an artifact of the threads being merged, the URL for the other one is no longer valid and that's the error IPS gives.

[KerBlammo]

30 minutes ago, wumpus said:

... but they don't have to really compete at the things space-x does well (and they are admittedly good at the things space-x does poorly, like launch on time).

Another thing ULA has that SpaceX doesn't (and won't for some time) is a proven reliability track record.  ULA has over 100 consecutive successful launches.  SpaceX has 3 since their last failure.  Having a much lower launch cost doesn't get you much if your $600,000,000 satellite ends up at the bottom of the Atlantic instead of in orbit.

[fredinno]

4 hours ago, KerBlammo said:

Another thing ULA has that SpaceX doesn't (and won't for some time) is a proven reliability track record.  ULA has over 100 consecutive successful launches.  SpaceX has 3 since their last failure.  Having a much lower launch cost doesn't get you much if your $600,000,000 satellite ends up at the bottom of the Atlantic instead of in orbit.

Including only Falcon 9 launches, the reliability is actually pretty good. Hell, it's a lot better than Proton.

But ULA is uncomparable in reliability, which is a major selling point. I think planetary probes will always use ULA, SpaceX is far too busy for them.

[AngelLestat]

8 hours ago, wumpus said:

(and they are admittedly good at the things space-x does poorly, like launch on time).

Now spacex can also launch military cargo, so ULA´s niche becomes smaller each day.
Spacex also gains experience fast.. so I will not count for its delays being always an issue. (no sure if I type it right, I guess every time my english is worst, I need to take the time to learn and correct all my grammatical error efore they become permanent..  or wait until AI traduction improve xd)

[fredinno]

3 minutes ago, AngelLestat said:

Now spacex can also launch military cargo, so ULA´s niche becomes smaller each day.
Spacex also gains experience fast.. so I will not count for its delays being always an issue. (no sure if I type it right, I guess every time my english is worst, I need to take the time to learn and correct all my grammatical error efore they become permanent..  or wait until AI traduction improve xd)

SpaceX has a horrible record of launching on time, and the FT seems to have made it worse.

[AngelLestat]

3 minutes ago, fredinno said:

SpaceX has a horrible record of launching on time, and the FT seems to have made it worse.

FT?  what is that?
But dont forget that spacex is very popular, so any delay they had everybody notice it, I personally I am not aware of any other kind of launch rates because I never watch them.
And even if there is any, spacex gets the worst of it, because any error is viewed by a big part of the world.
Is the hero´s síndrome.

[Motokid600]

7 minutes ago, AngelLestat said:

FT?  what is that?
 

Full thrust. The colder fuels makes for a much higher scrub chance.

[DerekL1963]

5 hours ago, AngelLestat said:

But dont forget that spacex is very popular, so any delay they had everybody notice it, I personally I am not aware of any other kind of launch rates because I never watch them.
And even if there is any, spacex gets the worst of it, because any error is viewed by a big part of the world.

You are not the only person in the world, so presuming that because you don't know nobody else does is...  simply ludicrous.  And SpaceX's 'popularity' is limited largely to the ill educated and ill informed echo chamber of space fandom, who are essentially irrelevant.

[kunok]

6 hours ago, DerekL1963 said:

And SpaceX's 'popularity' is limited largely to the ill educated and ill informed echo chamber of space fandom, who are essentially irrelevant.

Not that irrelevant, from that little group of people comes the cheap and overexploited workers of SpaceX, which it needs to be that cheap.

I will add Elon Musk fans in general, caused more because Tesla than SpaceX.