12 thoughts on “Gass Canned?”

  1. Nice title, Rand. It might even be true. But it also might not. With ULA’s next pair of RD-180’s due a mere week hence, Mr. Gass might have seen the wisdom of letting some other poor dumb SOB contend with the corporate implosion that will follow upon their non-arrival. Could be he knows something the rest of us won’t find out until next week.

    1. Could be. It’s not clear whether he was fired, or quit. Either way, I wouldn’t want his job in current circumstances (and that doesn’t even include the RD-180 issue).

    2. Dick, that’s an interesting angle.

      Aug 20th is the scheduled delivery date, and that’s fast approaching.

      If I was playing this from the Russian side, I’d want a cutoff of engines to have maximum effect, so what I’d do is pretend the delivery was going ahead. The reason; so ULA will keep using its stock of RD-180’s on non-essential launches instead of reserving them for DOD use.

      So, come Aug 20th, I’d tell ULA; “Sorry, just a few delays due to manufacturing issues; don’t worry, they’ll be delivered soon.”

      ULA might well play along if they are given plausible excuses, in order to avoid admitting the problem.

      This strategy, of course, could only work if we have utter morons in charge in DC who would let ULA and the Russians get away with painting us even deeper into the corner.

      1. Quite so, AZCJ. The Russians typically go for maximum ambiguity and FUD. They’ll string everyone along for as long as the rubes are buying their line of crap, whatever that tuns out to be.

        This strategy, of course, could only work if we have utter morons in charge in DC

        I think the Russians are pretty confident that this precondition has long since been met. That’s one of the few things about which the Russians and I are in total accord.

  2. You’ve got three scenarios for the future of ULA, in my opinion. There’s the easy option, which is to just continue on as they’ve done and accept whatever business comes their way and eventually wander into the twilight of obsolescence. There’s the hard-ball option, which is to work every government connection they have at their disposal to the bone to continue suckling the government teat to the greatest benefit with the least effort, regardless of government fairness, until they burn out in a blaze of glory (and possibly indictments). Then there’s the evolution option, changing into a company capable of developing launch vehicles that will be viable and competitive in the open launch market over the next several decades.

    I don’t think ULA has the guts or the capability for #3, and that’s the only way they survive long enough to still be relevant in a decade.

    1. There’s the hard-ball option, which is to work every government connection they have at their disposal to the bone to continue suckling the government teat to the greatest benefit with the least effort, regardless of government fairness, until they burn out in a blaze of glory (and possibly indictments).

      Option 2 is already in play with 4 congressmen carrying the water for them.

    3. #2 and #3. Delta is not affected by the Russian embargo and Lockheed Martin should have another card up their sleeve.

    4. Robin,

      Just being in existence a decade hence is going to be quite a trick. I think relevance may be too much to expect on top of that.

      The absolute best scenario ULA can hope for is that the Russian engines continue to arrive and that they prevail against SpaceX anent the block buy. I consider each of these required events to be massively unlikely. But if ULA beats the odds, it still only gives them three or four years, at most, before follow-on contracts are subject to real competition. By that time they will also have the Falcon Heavy and the Mk2 Antares to contend with and maybe the Stratolaunch Thunderbolt as well. With two SpaceX vehicles and two Orbital vehicles in the mix, USAF could legitimately cut ULA out of further launch services deals entirely without compromising its goal of having at least two independent suppliers. In this scenario, ULA could still disappear as soon as 2018.

      All other scenarios seem to spell doom even quicker. If Russia cuts off engines, the SpaceX lawsuit becomes moot as ULA will no longer have the wherewithal to complete it as written. With Atlas V scuppered, there would no longer be much reason for ULA to continue in existence. Its lifespan would pretty much be the length of time it took to build Atlas V’s in numbers equal to their remaining engine inventory. At that point, ULA would dissolve and Boeing would take back the Delta IV division. The future of Delta IV as a standalone entrant in future USAF launch competitions would be even more bleak than that of the current ULA.

      If the RD-180’s continue to arrive but SpaceX prevails in court, the block buy gets cracked open and ULA’s future profitability takes a big hit. As other competitive vehicles get certified, the situation simply gets worse. USAF may well try to do what NASA has done with CRS, spread the work over as many suppliers as possible with the cheapest getting most, the next cheapest getting next most, etc. ULA would probably be reduced to a level of business that barely covered their costs and made them an essentially break-even proposition. They might not even do that well. How long either or both Boeing and LockMart would care to keep ULA going when it ceases to contribute much to either parent’s bottom line is a question that probably does not have a happy ending where ULA is concerned. If ULA starts booking actual losses, its parents will do the ancient Greek thing and put it out on the side of a mountain to die.

      I don’t think I need to elaborate further on what happens to ULA if both its Atlas V engine supply is cut off and it loses to SpaceX in court.

      I just don’t see any way these guys are still around even five years hence, never mind a whole decade.

      1. Realistically I think the best case scenario for ULA might be a disaster. If the Russians hold to their RD-180 embargo and something else happened (maybe a Delta IV crash, maybe the block buy is invalidated) then they might be shaken up enough to actual transform themselves into a different company.

        There are some who think that the ULA as it exists now could compete with SpaceX in the future just by building new rockets. That’s fantasy, they are too bureaucracy drivem, too risk averse, too slow to actually innovate fast enough. They need to become a new company or spinoff talent into new divisions under new management to compete.

        The thing is, if you try to target the partially reusable Falcon 9 as the competition by the time you come to market SpaceX will already have advanced several iterations ahead of where you were aiming. It’s all about the OODA loop and innovation velocity. Orbital rocketry will change as much over the next 20 years as it has over the last 100. And over that period if you can’t keep up you’ll definitely be left behind.

        1. I’m inclined to agree that the only even slightly probable way ULA has any future is to crash and be sold for a song by its dinosaur parents to some management group or turnaround artist who will ruthlessly prune the dead wood in ULA’s ranks and commit the remaining hands to the development of a new vehicle that is competitive with Falcon 9R. I would rate odds of this happening at less than 5% and diminishing steadily as time passes.

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