How America’s two greatest rocket companies battled from the beginning

[neil_w]

Good article from Ars Technica about the early competition between SpaceX and ULA. Also a bunch of great pictures.
[h=1]How America’s two greatest rocket companies battled from the beginning[/h]

 

[manixFan]

Interesting article. This really caught my eye:

"The total payment to ULA in 2016 was $702 million, rising to $983 million in 2017, and it's projected to increase to $1.22 billion in 2018. It is not clear why the ELC costs are slated to rise significantly, especially at a time when the rocket company has reduced its workforce to become more competitive with SpaceX."

ULA gets the ELC regardless of how many launches they do, it's in addition to the fees they charge for a launch. So they will get over $1 Billion next year just to exist. Hard to compete with that.


Tony

 

[JStarStar]

Oh, I thought you meant this: