Also to match costs, you have to look at the payloads and the distance to space.
Falcon 9 - $56M - 4.8 metric tons to GTO
Falcon 9H - $135M - 21 metric tons to GTO
Atlas IV/V - $160M - 7 metric tons to GTO or 21 tonnes to LEO
Ariane V - $200M - ? metric tons to GTO
http://spaceflightnow.com/falcon9/007/131124commercial/#.U1q...
These other companies justify the higher price because they have a better track record. If you're a military customer and your payload needs to get to space, you probably will choose the "safe" bet. Its a catch-22. SpaceX needs more flights to prove their record, but they can't get more flights because of their record.
In response to your edits:
>but they can't get more flights because of their record
The Air Force required 3 successful flights in the exact configuration the Air Force would fly. SpaceX provided the "record" as stipulated by the Air Force, which nevertheless committed to a large block-buy contract with ULA. By the Air Force's own standards, the billion-dollar subsidy is not necessary for their needs-to-get-to-space payloads.
Also, "the other companies" is just a single supplier, ULA.
But sometimes we would see unimaginative stuff like a specification of the LED layout on the front panel or very specific weight restrictions that happened to fall between our hardware and the preferred vendor.
In the government's defense, though, the system is set up to combat this tendency, at least for smaller contracts. When I was on the other side (having left the vendor to work for our civil service customer) we would routinely get pointed questions from the purchasing people regarding this or that line of the RFP - was it really required, or were we trying to wire the contract?
and my understanding that this supply is limited to the what had already been manufactured long time ago. Beside the inventory issues, one can easy imagine Putin saying "bad Americans, no more gas ... err... rocket engines for you"
NK-33 - from which AJ-26 are made - aren't manufactured today. It's a question if the manufacturing will restart. There are a few tens of them in US. Orbital Sciences has that question in the middle of their table, or close to it.
Russian-American relationships in space trace back to at least 1975, deep Cold War. We're not at that state of affairs just yet. As somebody mentioned on The Space Review, ISS is a front-runner for Nobel peace prize, so let's not jump the gun too early. It doesn't seem to be too desirable for Putin to close that particular relationship.
I used to intern for a company trying to break into aerospace software---not hardware, just tracking and modeling. At the time, they faced a nearly-vertical climb into the market to get around the big names in aerospace; they couldn't sell to them directly (the people involved in the purchasing decisions were the people who would be getting downsized if the software proved to be as good as advertised) and they couldn't sell to the Air Force (it's basically nearly impossible to get into an AF contract cycle if you haven't been in an AF contract cycle).
Their break-in point was the US Army; at the time, the Army had a relatively small air asset capability (relative to the other branches), but a sudden need to know what was up with the GPS constellation AT ALL TIMES relative to their land and air deployments. The company was able to get face-time with the Army reps because the regular aerospace names wanted to sell them software that came at a price-point that usually bundled a shiny new fighter jet or stealth asset with it, and they weren't willing to drop their prices because they didn't want their regular Air Force customers asking "Why is the Army getting this software for a tenth of the up-charge you quoted us when we closed this whole contract last year?"
Sadly, that was years ago and I have no idea of the shape of the market now. My only other data point is the portrayal of the aerospace industry in the movie _The Aviator_ and the observation that it hadn't changed much between then and the early-21st century. ;)
I guarantee there will be a congressional committee hearing about this very soon. Reminds me of what Howard Hughes had to go through to break Pan American Airways' legal designation as the United States' sole international carrier. Most portray Elon M. as a the new "Steve Jobs"; wrong I live in Nevada and an early study was of Howard Hughes. Elon M. is a modern day Howard Hughes. Once you understand that, things fall into place.
These are the relevant rockets and their first stage engines that fly from US soil:
1) ULA Delta IV: US made RS-68 (new).
2) ULA Atlas V: Russian made RD-180 (new).
3) SpaceX Falcon 9: US made Merlin-1 (new).
4) Orbital Sciences Antares: Soviet made NK-33 (decades old, now refurbished in USA).Suing the government for mismanagement of a procuration process is a short-term path to selling more of the same.
Demonstrating landing ability, then refueling and launching within a day is a medium-term path to completely changing space flight.
[added] When I say short-term vs medium-term, I mean it wrt strategy. I wouldn't bet on the short-term issue being solved first...
The RD-180 argument is definitely weaker. Cost & reusability are much stronger arguments for canceling/recompeting the ULA block buys.
That said, I can't wait until we have genuine competition in the space launch sector, especially with lightning fast turn times. It would be a genuine revolution in space access—even if money were no object, there's no one in history that has had the technology to support continual launches to orbit.
See PDF page 17 of http://www.gao.gov/assets/520/511460.pdf
When we'll be a "space race", I doubt it will matter much whether those sent into space are Americans, or Russians or Chinese or Germans.
Maintaining good relations between NASA and the RKA is valuable for everybody. SpaceX/RKA relations are less important however.
Your "Fuck the Russians" comment upthread was another bad one. It derailed the conversation into an off-topic, indignant subthread. These are the thistle patches of HN.
Please don't post any more comments like these to Hacker News.
However the collaboration with the ISS is something that forces communication and trust on a joint project at a high level. It is not just that it is important for space research, it is even more important for soft diplomacy. It forces the governments into situations where they have to talk about something other than sabre rattling on a regular basis.
Of course the way Russia took Crimea wasn't very good, and was just to secure naval base, but they did it without bloodshed, which wouldn't be possible if people there wanted to stay with Ukraine.
The main problem imho is that the last time destabilization and military [threat] was used to steal land areas around Europe, it was by guys in mustasches... And the motivation was similar -- "protect" Russi... German speaking populations.
And right now the same methods are used in another area. Just like the 1930s, too.
That second area will hardly be the last, if it works again. "Peace in our time" failed last time...
As an European, this is just scary and everything really needs to be done to stop this before there is another big war.
He's certainly not making friends in Russia today. That said, I feel like the ISS is too important to be left to the whims of the US Congress. IIRC NASA plans to deorbit the American part of it within the next decade, while Russia keeps the rest aloft and turns it into a waystation for planetary missions.
So he's probably got a grudge or two.
> the Russians spiked the price at the last minute
What's the source for this part?
They had two more trips scheduled to Russia; now Ressi
decided, as he says, "I didn't like dealing with Russians,"
and told Musk he wasn't going back. Musk went anyway. On
the second trip, Musk brought his wife, Justine — "I think
that's the trip when the lead Russian designer started
spitting at us," Cantrell says — and on the third and final
trip he brought his money. He was ready to buy three Russian
ICBMs for $21 million when the Russians told him that no,
they meant $21 million for one. "They taunted him," Cantrell
says. "They said, 'Oh, little boy, you don't have the money?'
I said, 'Well, that's that.' I was sitting behind him on the
flight back to London when he looked at me over the seat and
said, 'I think we can build a rocket ourselves.'"
It's a great article.
The U.S. government, especially its intelligence agencies, have many potentially grave flaws for a democracy. Putin and the Russian government, however, are decidedly worse leaders for freedom, and no friend of the US government or its citizens. Therefore, it's not unreasonable to look to be less dependent on their honesty, integrity and goodwill.
So stop being so F*ing judgmental.
Here's their handout, from one of the reporters there:
https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/459734785314013184
Playing politics a bit, Elon's claiming a ~ 75% reduction in launch costs by using Falcon 9 rockets instead of the block buys allocated to ULA, so he's filing a lawsuit to give his company access to this market. He even goes into details of how some of ULA's engines are manufactured in Russia, and given the festivities in the Ukraine our legislators would rather be less dependent on Russia for space access. He even whets the politicians' appetites with his blurb at the bottom describing how $1B per year could instead pay for operating a fleet of A-10's, or 15 Marine Corps battalions, or 12 F-16 squadrons ... or it could instead pay for purchasing 10 F-35's, 2 LCS's, or 50 UH-60 Black Hawks.
Politicians (and Beltway reporters) definitely respond to money dangled in front of their face.
Here's how he arrives at the ~75% reduction, btw:
• ULA annual cost: $3.0-3.5B
• ULA cost per launch: ~$460M
• Falcon 9 cost: "under $100M"
This forum has tons of live-blog style commentary leading up to and during the press conference.
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?PHPSESSID=lsmvrej...
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(edited to clarify about ULA engine sourcing; thanks physcab)