Boeing and Lockmart still seem on board with the new rocket development, despite Congressional idiocy. Of course, they know that the only way to survive against SpaceX is to build a new rocket.
3 thoughts on “Vulcan And AR1”
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Boeing and Lockmart still seem on board with the new rocket development, despite Congressional idiocy. Of course, they know that the only way to survive against SpaceX is to build a new rocket.
Comments are closed.
Woah Woah! Hey are you suggesting that competition forces corporations to develop new products that perform better and cost less?
Wow what a cool brand new concept. 😉
I dunno. Reading between the lines on this, it sure seemed like the real message was, “The Air Force will do almost anything to risk-reduce the pathway to having an RD-180-free launcher that can handle the whole EELV suite, and they think that an AR-1 re-engining of the Atlas V is lower risk than relying on BO’s level of experience and teething pains for the BE-4 and new ops fun with LNG/LOX and ULA trying to cover the whole range of missions with one new architecture.”
The basic conflict here is pretty straightforward. The Air Force only cares about risk-reduction until the RD-180 brouhaha is behind us. ULA cares about building a competitive, long-term launch architecture. And Boeing and Lockmart are trying to split the difference, with Rocketdyne doing everything they can to make sure that splitting the difference isn’t on the table.
I think it makes sense for Lockmart to cover their backs with the AR-1 in case the BE-4 fails. But this will cost government cash.
Still its probably a pittance compared with the SLS or Orion even….