ULA Unveils Website That Lets You Price Out a Rocket 'Like Building a Car' (theverge.com) 58
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: This morning, United Launch Alliance CEO Tory Bruno unveiled a new website that allows satellite makers to figure out what it will really cost to launch a vehicle on one of ULA's rockets. It's like going to "Ford or Chevy and building your car," Bruno said, except in the end you wind up with a more than $100 million rocket that can take cargo to space. And just like checking out on Amazon, the website allows you to save your rocket and submit it to ULA to start the process of finalizing a launch contract. The site, called RocketBuilder.com, looks to be ULA's attempt to further infiltrate the commercial satellite market, after launching mostly government satellites and NASA missions for the past decade. Bruno says the site is meant to provide an "unprecedented level of transparency" to commercial customers about the true cost of launching a satellite with ULA. "The sticker price on the rocket is just the tip of the iceberg," Bruno said at a press conference this morning in Washington, DC. "There is a whole host of other costs." The site is supposed to give potential customers an idea of what those costs might be. Rocket Builder allows you to pick when you want to launch and what orbit you want your satellite to go to. And then, depending on its destination and how big the satellite is, the site will help you calculate the size of your payload fairing -- the nose cone that encases the satellite on the top of the rocket -- as well as how many additional boosters you're going to need for thrust. Customers even have the option of picking customizable "service options," which include adding an onboard video system to the rocket, or conducting "expanded mission rehearsals." There's even the option of purchasing a VIP experience, where you can invite 100 customers or investors to come watch the launch as a marketing tool.
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The problem is that the dealer lobby will try to block ULA from selling directly to their customers via the website, insisting that customers must be protected by requiring a middle man.
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Yeah, rockets. They're not exactly brain surgery [youtube.com].
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care to elaberate im gitty with anticipacion.
Feeling gitty is normal for gits.
Do they have a Black Friday sale? (Score:3)
Maybe Kim Jong-Un can use this to put some spy satellites into orbit rather then use his hit-or-miss rocket program. If Kim can get the right rate on multiple launches maybe he can use ULA to nuke the US. Remember ULA is really an international organization and the main stage engines are from Russia. Putin might give ULA a discount for helping North Korea nuke the United States, and Trump might be willing to partner up with his bromance pal to seal the deal.
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Remember ULA is really an international organization and the main stage engines are from Russia.
...scheduled to get a nice domestic methane upgrade Real Soon Now...
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Are their discount codes?
Are their discount codes what?
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There's something about ULA added value that's supposed to bring the "Cost" down $65M below the "Purchase Price" - I don't know if this is "money in your pocket" discount, or just things that ULA is doing "for you" that some customers do for themselves and an approximate cost.
Re:We need fewer rocket launches, not more (Score:4, Interesting)
They pollute space with junk that can be hazardous to useful satellites.
Fixed by treaties, and by technological improvements in de-orbiting, again enabled by more frequent launches.
Rocket launches also burn tremendous amounts of fossil fuels, which generate carbon pollution that causes global warming. If you care about this planet, you'll want to reduce rocket launches and make them less accessible to most people.
All the rocket fuel used annually is absolutely dwarfed by, e.g., automotive fuel. If you care about this planet, start moving your lazy fat ass around.
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A different AC here.
> If you care about this planet, start moving your lazy fat ass around.
You are absolutely right. I'm already doing that (I don't even own a driver's license!). The biggest elephant in the room is auto industry, which, at the price of full-out brib^H^H^H^H lobbying wants to keep status quo against all common sense.
The VW scandal is just a little side entertainment. The real action is those bastards pushing their SUVs and pick-ups into the market, which pollute far more per mile than th
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Once we get *that* controlled we might start thinking about rockets. We *must* do that, eventually. Booster reuse might be a first ste
I'm pretty much willing to bet that the carbon emissions from the rocket manufacturing process dwarf the carbon emissions from the fuel used for launched as well. After all, it seems that CO2 output is well correlated with economic value generated and the rocket costs over two orders of magnitude more than the launch fuel.
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Whose boosters are you talking about? Certainly not SpaceX; the entire first stage (the majority of the rocket) gets reused. Are you thinking of the Shuttle SRBs? Technically the "majority" was reused, as the casing was, but because they're solids, it's not a simple matter of refilling; you have to tear down the booster and recast the propellant mixture, which is a ton of work. Indeed, there weren't a fixed "set" of boosters; a given launch may involve segments that had never been part of the same boos
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Reused many times on the test stand, and in prep for relaunch.
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You're probably right. I guess I'll just bike the 20 miles to college and back
There's a teacher at my alma mater capable of running twelve miles from home to his office. What's so problematic about biking for twenty miles?
. bike to and from the supermarket 10 miles away and to bike home with a hundred lb of food
No, that would make you fat.
Commuting on foot or by bike (Score:2)
There's a teacher at my alma mater capable of running twelve miles from home to his office.
Which proves what exactly? Cripes *I* can run 12 miles if I need to but that doesn't mean it's a good idea for me to commute that way. Running that distance would take me 90-110 minutes in good weather. Each way. Do you have a spare 3 hours per day? Do you have a shower available to you at work? Do you have roads you can safely run on? I don't. I live in an area that gets lots of snow 4 months per year, I live 20 miles from work, sidewalks don't exist for much of the commute, I need to be at work be
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All the rocket fuel used annually is absolutely dwarfed by, e.g., automotive fuel.
Check out this flowchart [llnl.gov] of where roughly 97.4% of US energy comes from/goes to. Note the massive waste (rejected energy) in transportation AND electric generation. However a move to electric vehicles over the next few decades will still reduce wastage because of lower amounts of energy consumed overall. Plus the wastage in energy generation and transmission can also be greatly reduced.
But we have to admit this is a problem. For example shifting from coal to natural gas, which is happening because gas is
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If you care about this planet, you'll want to reduce rocket launches and make them less accessible to most people.
Yeah because this makes rocket launches accessible to most people. Most people with 100+ million to spare and a satellite that they want to put in orbit that is. Most people want to do that, I know I do, I've just been waiting for someone to make it accessible. Better get on it now before the queue starts.
Hi, this is Kim Jong-un; question please (Score:2)
Do you accept payment in cash?
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Hi, this is Kim Jong-un; Do you accept payment in cash?
Considering that North Korea is a notorious counterfeiter [wikipedia.org], no, they would not even if there wasn't a trade embargo.
missing options (Score:2)
shields? cloaking device? transporters?
Also, they should have a 1-click to calculate how many parasecs it would take to make the Kessel Run.
Reusable first stage booster (Score:2)
Refund pls (Score:2)
I walk away from my desktop for FIVE minutes, and my 5 year old has ordered a $100 million rocket launch to crash a load of honey ham into the Moon, because the moon-men apparently want a ham-and-cheese sandwich. Can I contest this with Visa?
Missed partnership opportunity? (Score:2)
Surely this should have been a plug-in for Kerbal Space Program. Fly your rocket in the game, order the real thing. Not holding my breath for same-day delivery though...
This will become prohibited (Score:1)
Not bad, if you've got $150M (Score:2)
2400kg to GEO for $151M (includes $65M of ULA "services").
So, where's the business plan that makes $63K/kg by being in geostationary orbit? Something involving a network of 240 10kg mini-sats would be interesting.
Unfortunately, if you're splashing out $151M on the launch vehicle, and probably at least another $20M building the payloads, the political red tape will likely run another $80M or so to "get permission" for your plan - unless you are providing a tax revenue stream of $100M or more... so, we're
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The interesting numbers are: $150M to actually deliver 2400kg to geostationary.
People throw around $100M+ for a launch vehicle, mass is very limited/expensive, Geostationary is even MORE costly... this puts you at a clear picture of $100/gram for payload delivered to Geostationary, including presumed costs of red tape.
If you could deploy a 5000lb reflector sail with peoples' names etched on it, you could charge three easy payments of $29.95 each to have your name on the new brightest star in the evening sk
ULA "Added Value" Subtracted from the Price (Score:1)
Just modeled an Earth-escape mission. Was pleasantly surprised at the low sticker price of $59M. Then I saw that the real sticker price was $100M+ and that they were subtracting the value of some of their support services as "added value."
Hmm, it really is like a car dealership.
I Just Want to Buy the Launch Experience (Score:2)
Owning my own company, I am not as tied down as many people and frequently make the 4-5 hour drive to Lompoc to see Vandenberg launches. Here's my last one. [perens.com]
At Lompoc, you have the choice of viewing ULA launches from Ocean Avenue (2.8 miles from Pad 3) or from Hawk's Nest, the official viewing spot 8 miles away which might be out of the fog when other spots aren't. I once went to a SpaceX launch where it was so foggy on Ocean Avenue that I only heard it.
At Kennedy Space Center, you have the option of viewin
Everything wrong with ULA (Score:2)
Price out a rocket like buying a car? Seriously? You patterned your buying experience after the worst buying experience known to man? The one everybody in the country loathes? And your competitor also happens to run the only US auto manufacturer that doesn't put you through the horror that is the traditional auto buying experience? I don't even...
Needs some higher-level options (Score:1)
Cool, but I shouldn't have to plug in a variety of different options to see how they affect the price. What if I'm flexible on launch-date, and want to optimize for cost? What's the largest payload I can put on a short rocket in a given orbit?
Get the facts (Score:2)