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Comment by ceejayoz | Hacker News Reader

In other words: Paying inflated prices for ULA launches is cheaper in the long run than SpaceX having a monopoly.

The DoDs primary concern is access to launch capability. Not price. SpaceX achieving a market monopoly would only be a concern to the DoD in that it would potentially limit the number of companies capable of providing launch services.

SpaceX is a private company (regardless of how many gov $ it receives) and can’t simply be restructured like a government agency could if it got into serious enough trouble. (Legal, financial, managerial, market, etc.)

Since SpaceX can expose itself to potentially fatal risk (by definition), it is in the government’s national security interests to spread that risk among several companies, regardless of the price tag.

> SpaceX is a private company (regardless of how many gov $ it receives) and can’t simply be restructured like a government agency could if it got into serious enough trouble. (Legal, financial, managerial, market, etc.)

Technically it can, its just that the US government doesnt like to.

Its more about the somewhat likely probability that a single launch provider will have a failure that necessitates a lengthy investigation during which they are grounded. Its nice in that situation to have another launch provider who can pick up essential missions.

That's certainly a risk, but "we're the only launch provider in the US, and we just raised prices from $250M to $2.5B, and any potential competition will take 5-10 years to get up to capability" is a big risk too. The DOD isn't gonna launch GPS satellites on a Progress.

ULA claims their Vulcan rocket will be more competitive price wise while their reliably record is impeccable. Considering the payloads cost a billion, the Pentagon likely doesn't mind paying a bit of a premium for reliability.

I think it'd be more apt to say paying inflated prices for a secondary mitigates finical risk than guarantees less spent over time.

It may or may not actually be cheaper to pay both in the long run. On one hand theoretically if they were the only option in the world they could charge absurd amounts. On the other hand it seems they stand to make more in the coming years commoditizing launches to attract more overall customers/launches and charge them each millions than to charge a few customers billions. Also they'll never be the only one in the world but it is a risk they could end up the only commercial venture in the US capable of launching.

One option is medium cost with low risk of astronomical (pun intended) cost and the other a low cost with a medium risk of astronomical cost.

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