Welcome to the party, pal!

The Space Review ^ | 12/12/05 | Wayne Eleazer

[KevinDavis]

Elon Musk’s SpaceX Corporation has filed a lawsuit against The Boeing Company and Lockheed Martin Corporation, charging them with “violations of antitrust, unfair competition, and racketeering laws” associated with the two firm’s dominance of the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program. In submitting this legal action SpaceX has shown itself to have shown up to the party late, very late.

In the late 1950’s and 1960’s US space launch systems were developed in the manner they were because a range of capabilities were required—and because everything was being done in big hurry. There wasn’t really much in the way of real competition. The Scout, Thor/Delta, Atlas, Titan, and Saturn series were developed to fit their own market niches, and there was little overlap in capabilities. It was true that most payloads had an inexorable tendency to get larger and larger, proceeding from Scout to Thor to Atlas in at least one example, but this really produced no competition to speak of. In fact, most payloads were designed a specific booster in mind; moving to another one was both a big pain and most of the time, unnecessary.

[KevinDavis]

[anymouse]

To summarize, eliminating competition has been an objective of US government launch plans for over 35 years. It has not worked out that way, but not through lack of trying. The ultimate result of the EELV program is at least a hundred percent better in terms of competition than was planned originally. If the two winners have decided to get together and split up the market between them, that is not significantly different from the program’s original objective.

So, as Bruce Willis said in film Die Hard, “Welcome to the party, pal!” The rules SpaceX doesn’t like are the ones we have been playing by for a long time.

Which doesn't mean that they don't need to be changed. Apparently the author is satisfied only with acknowledging the government sponsored launcher monopoly, not breaking it up. That could be explained by the fact that his career has benefited greatly from perpetuating that monopoly. What about the countless careers in the commercial launcher industry that would benefit from open competition? Not to mention the benefit to the tax payer, who has paid through the nose for decades for maintaining this monopoly of space mediocracy and those that intend to keep it that way.

[SunkenCiv]

There's also the approach used by t/Space:

http://www.transformspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=about.mission

"Under our approach, government development contracts and incentives focus on top-level goals, with technology and operational choices left to the private sector. The government sets specific top-level needs, but the 'invisible hand' of market forces will shape choices as they flow down multiple supplier chains. Contracts and incentives will be structured so that several companies in each major area have an opportunity to win this support."

also online:

t/Space Crew Transfer Vehicle
http://www.popsci.com/popsci/bown2005/aviationspace/209f1d15cc827010vgnvcm1000004eecbccdrcrd.html

Can a Small Start-up Build America's Next Spaceship?
http://www.popsci.com/popsci/aviationspace/fdd9d989caf46010vgnvcm1000004eecbccdrcrd.html

"They proposed a radical idea to NASA: Use contracts that NASA was offering for mere paper studies on next-generation spaceships to instead build actual, working hardware. In Gump's plan, incremental progress toward a fully functional vehicle would be rewarded with additional funding, allowing the project to move forward... 'What we're proposing to NASA,' Gump said, 'is a type of incremental side bet' to the big aerospace effort to build America's next spaceship—that is, a scaled-down backup and supplement to the CEV. 'Every 6 to 12 months we have performed a set of hardware milestones, and NASA has had a chance to say, ‘Well, have you actually performed what you promised?' So they never are betting the entire amount of money.' The big aerospace effort to build the next- generation CEV, which will be led by either Lockheed Martin or the team of Northrop Grumman and Boeing, will have no such requirement. But t/Space won't compete with those companies for the contract to build NASA's primary space-launch system; it will just quietly build a backup machine more quickly and at a fraction of the cost. 'We are trying hard not to claim to be a space-shuttle replacement; we are a Soyuz replacement,' Gump said, 'a simple craft to ferry people up and back rather than a self-propelled space station like the shuttle.'"