6, 5 ..., DO A BURNOUT!, 4, 3, 2, 1. Liftoff!

There is no longer A sensible reason to use any ULA rocket which costs 3 times more than it's competitor and moves less payload.

@@AKlover The only reason it can still have high prices is that the US military has a lot more funding than NASA, so it can use huge piles of cash on vehicles made by ULA.

@@Rauruatreides The excuse that is pedaled in the case of Delta Heavy is "Fairing Size" ....... The reality is 85% of Cong/Sen own Boeing/LM stock and the stock jumps with every contract.

@@AKlover Fair size I guess is also a factor.

AKlover how about the second stage performance? Nasa always choose that ULA for interplanetary mission

Ohh they all see it, especially the scientists and engineers. You can't cheat physics and the costs that comes with it. Reusable rockets have been on the back burner of many space launch organisation. Literally the Space Shuttle and the Buran were to take advantage of that. It is just no investors or the business side of this industry are willing to take the risk and go for a SpaceX-like rocket because they all thought it will simply be too risky and cost too much.

@@gelinrefira The other parts was demand; ULA didn't see the demand necessary to re-coupt he costs of R&D for a reusable rocket. There's only a certain number of Gov/military launches per year, and that drove their view of what to expect in terms of revenue. SpaceX drove revenue up both by providing a cheaper option, but also generating its own demand with Starlink.

That made me pause too comment too! I really like Sky’s humor.

What was his name? I work for ULA and started on the Delta IV, I might have worked with him?

@@BeKindToBirds I'll ask if anyone knew him, any idea when he retired?

Falcon heavy can do this if you throw away the center booster. Its not impressive nor justified. And its still cheaper to throw away a Falcon Heavy than a Delta IV.

@@haydentravis3348 falcon heavy doesn’t have the payload space to have a good market for its capability’s

@@coffeespy1133 If I recall, it wasn't a matter of space, but vertical integration. Falcon 9 loads their payloads horizontally, prior to being transported to the launch site and integrated there, where as Delta IV loads the payload during rocket construction in a vertical integration building next to the launch site.

@@haydentravis3348 it’s also payload space, falcon heavy misses out on stuff DIVH doesn’t because of payload space

@@coffeespy1133 www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=falcon+9+vs+delta+iv+heavy+payload+capacity I think you're full of shit, Falcon Heavy carries almost three times the payload. Delta IV Heavy only has 9 cubic feet more space in the fairing.

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Only 4 more Delta 4 units are in the assembly pipeline, so all launched by 1st Quarter 2022? Any reliable signs of a test launch of either Vulcan or New Glenn before that? Pretty sure no one is putting a XX $billion NRO satellite on anything with less than 2 successful consecutive outcomes! I see a gap year as very likely!

​@@KevinSmith-ys3mh I think the last 4 Delta Heavy's are all NRO launches. Vulcan Centaur is _supposed_ to launch a lunar lander in Q4 but we'll see how that goes. From what I've seen both Vulcan and New Glenn have been waiting for the BE-4 engines to finalize.

@@CausticLemons7 Yea, definitely NRO has dibs on Delta unless there is a sudden hurtling asteroid impact event! 😆 No one else will pay it's bills, because each launch is essentially 3 Atlas V's going away. A reusable Falcon Heavy totally makes more sense, except for a deep space mission where every gram counts. That's where disposable rockets still shine, until they work out a system for orbital refueling and interplanetary launch missions. Long term I'm quite optimistic about the potential of spaceflight, which is overdue for actual business ventures with payback potential, not just plant the flag vanity shows! There's gold, platinum, iron-nickel, silica, water, and solar energy out in them thar hills/ craters/ asteroids and getting it back here may keep us from trashing the planet we're need to live on! Short term.........not so much. None of these programs ever meet schedule or budget, always add 2 to 10 years at best. What's going on with Covid-19 and the economic effects, NASA & DC administration changes , worldwide budgets blown to hell! Best case of 4 to 10 year delays likely , assuming no major screw ups like SLS blowing up on the pad and taking 1/3 of the Cape Canaveral facility with it (thinking Soviet era N-1 moon rocket here!) Fingers crossed for the BE-4 engine project going well, or Vulcan & New Glenn have to crawl to Elon & SpaceX for Raptors, those are at least flying now. Or maybe Aerojet could restart their last effort vs BE-4, but a longshot. Methane gas fueled engines do seem to hit a sweet spot between kerosene and hydrogen, with most of the best features of each.

Thanks for watching)

I suppose any remaing ones will now be painted grey then.

I think you have to step back and get a wider view of this issue. SpaceX is certainly the current front runner & game changer, but the challengers are not far behind. Blue Origin is right behind them in deploying self landing boosters (probably), Electron has just tested a parachute recovering 1st stage, and most organizations that want to survive in the commercial launch market must follow or get priced out. Consider this- if Delta4 had initially come out as reusable x20, even at its current insane price$$$ to build it would have ruled the heavyweight launch market (not that a RS-68 engine would survive this, but RS-25 evolved maybe?) Every one knows it's their path forward, but hardly easy to achieve. Result : a step change in technologies that has obsoleted all previous designs.......and a pause for development time with the mad scramble for cash$$$ to make it thru to the other side. Look at the Wikipedia "list of orbital launchers ", and you will see most are retired, retiring, or in development. The future of spaceflight is likely bright, but not clear by any means. 🤔🙂

@@KevinSmith-ys3mh Unfortunately companies like Blue Origin and Electron have no skin in the game. Blue Origin has yet to launch a damn thing and Electron doe not have a facility nor the rocket to lift payloads more than a few tons, let alone providing JOBS which is the whole reasons for space. Stop using reusability as the excuse here. If this is going to be only about money, then no country should ever have a space program. Space is about results, nothing less and nothing more.

Is that even a debate lol

But how much Delta V will the Delta V have?

@@captainstroon1555 I'm sure at least +1 more, but knowing ULA'S history, nothing revolutionary! 🙄

I was wondering about that myself; why would they choose the RS-25 over the RS-68 for the SLS? So I researched it. It turns out that the 2 main issues are man-rating and clustering. The RS-68 would've needed extensive redesign to be sufficiently safe for manned spaceflight and the design of the nozzle (specifically cooling) made it subject to failure in close clustering. In fact, NASA had originally intended to use the RS-68 but decided to move to the RS-25 instead because of this. They figured that while they were more expensive, they had already paid for them and might as well use them for something instead of leaving them sitting around. HTHs, -Slashy

@@GoSlash27 Good to know Slashy

@@GoSlash27 yeah thats mostly the thing, the RS-25 being man rated, the RS-68 not they will modify the RS-25 to get rid of some of the expensive parts though

@@Markus-zb5zd Yeah... In *theory*. In practice, though? My guess is they won't. Official reason being that the redesign to lower unit cost would be prohibitively expensive for such a small batch. Unofficially, it's all about the pork and keeping constituents happy in those key congressional districts, so they'll just buy the expensive engines and use them once. I say this because if they weren't motivated to shower these districts with cash, the SLS wouldn't exist in the first place.

@@GoSlash27 the RS-25A are already in production I think

Isso seria muito trabalho. Uma boa quantidade de canais por aí aceita traduções por email, o que é bem mais simples do que gerir dois canais e duas comunidades. Obviamente era melhor quando qualquer um podia fazer os captions em qualquer vídeo mas a opção foi removida em 2020.

Also very Super expensive, they're not free and will require redesigning each stage for higher launch forces (and additional weight). The RS-68 engines didn't play well with SRBs when tested on the SLS, so they went with more expensive RS-25s. Probably easier to supercool the oxygen and extend the tanks for more propellant. Maybe possible to fit 4 GEM-60s between the boosters, but is it worth it? ULA seems to think the next generation Vulcan is a better idea. 🤔

He is doing rockets for a long time

Honestly current rocket propellants are as good as they get there is only so much chemical energy you can extract. As for engines there are some promising developments like SABRE for fuel savings and VASIMR for space propulsion.

@@tsaranen I think they have much better hidden for real WAR...

Not really. I mean... propellants haven't changed much (other than xenon ion propulsion and the switch to metholox) but the technology and capabilities of the engines have been advancing so rapidly that there are new breakthroughs being announced every couple months.

@Wayne Flanigan RS-68 is the most powerful HYDROGEN engine, there are many kerosene engines that are cheaper, more powerful or both! Saturn F-1 was several times more powerful, and RD-180 currently used on Atlas V has bit more power and is significantly cheaper.

@Wayne Flanigan But engines play minor role anyway. Main problem is very low DENSITY. Hydrogen has 50% more impulse per weight, but has 11x times more volume than RP-1 kerosene!! It requires 10x bigger tanks, which adds weight and drag, and it needs cryogenic insulation which adds up more weight. On lower stages all the negatives far outweigh the positives. On upper stages hydrogen is unbeatable, but notice that SpaceX has no hydrogen motors at all. They plan for them, but they know they add a lot of complexity and cost, and they're doing pretty well even without them.

@@Bizzon666 They're trying the next best thing for their Starship - the methane/oxygen engines.

Why?

@@EstorilEm maybe because of its price? ULA rockets so far are stupidly expensive and don't win any medals of the department of reusability or innovation. Its time for launch prices to go lower and the Delta IV is not helping it.

It never was obsolete

By funnelling money into SLS i guess

Blue Origin is making one of the Engines for the Vulcan.

They can't

@@portoalex1062 SpaceX is in the better position that’s for sure. ULA hopes to try and pull some of the rug back with Vulcan. Blue Origin though hasn’t launched much more than a sub orbital tourist platform. They have concepts for more but no hardware yet.

@@terranempire2 Exactly, they are way far behind Space-X. It will take too much money and too much time to cover all this "distance" and I'm not sure if they will able to make it. This new decade belongs to Space-X

Yeah

Falcon Heavy is the heaviest now. He said about it in the video

@@ervandrush3116 thanks, I didn't get it, must watch more carefully.

Believe it or not. It’s accurate. The shuttle flew its liftoff at 110% thrust before throttle down

@@weekiely1233 well if hey sayin the thrust is 110% of the gravity force on the mass okay i can believe that. Just a funny way to quantify it I guess.

@@HerbstaMagus not it’s 110% the thrust the engine is rated to provide. It’s because 100% means fully open values so if the engine puts out more thrust than it normally does at this point it’s technically putting out over 100%

@@weekiely1233 reminds me of the stupid 150% recovery rates at lab i work at...

You're right that it is mostly political, but still it isn't cheap. Hydrogen lower stages are not a good idea, kerolox Atlas V is cheaper.

@@Bizzon666 Instead of the STS, Titan III/IV, Atlas III/V and the DeltaII/III/IV, the USA should have stuck with the a simple 2-stage rocket with a single F1 and a single J2. This is easily a 25 ton to LEO launch vehicle that will carry all the payloads that we flew in the last 40 years. I'll be roughly like an expendable Falcon 9 in capability. I'll be reliable. And, we could have spent all the money on missions instead of rockets. No, we couldn't have repaired the Hubble, but there will be so much money that a half dozen "spare" Hubbles could be sitting on the ground ready to replace it. It would have been politically OK too... there wasn't yet a shuttle workforce, industrial base and their Senatorial advocates at the time. -- Specific impulse DOESN'T equate to performance -- if by performance you mean taking stuff into orbit or beyond. Hydrogen is the LEAST DENSE gas or liquid in the universe. Hydrogen engines are the lowest thrust chemical engines in rocketry. Using hydrogen means very big (hence heavy) tanks and very big engines. This offsets the advantages of higher specific impulse. It makes no sense for a 1st stage and one can argue that it still does makes sense for 1.5 stage designs like the shuttle and Ariane V. Why have an anemic engine and a huge tank then strap LOW IpSec solids to it such that (1) the combined liftoff specific impulse is lower than a hydrocarbon 1st stage and (2) the weights of the ground lit engine & its big tank is way worse than a cryogenic upper stage.

@@dwightlooi Man, I couldn't agree more! Shuttle is iconic to this day, but it was SUPER expensive and also dangerous. As you say, some Saturn derivative could have launched many Hubbles and everything else, and be much cheaper. I dislike Ariane (I'm European) as well. Low hydrogen density just totally kills it on lower stages. And the SLS is the next political boondoggle job program money sinkhole...

@@Bizzon666 The STUPIDITY of the Shuttle can be summed up as follows:- (1) It is a 104 ton launch vehicle carrying a 78 ton Orbiter leaving room for 26 tons of payload. (2) The said 78 ton orbiter takes longer and costs much more to refurbish and refuse than any 26 ton launch vehicle by any country at any time. (3) The said Orbiter cannot go anywhere but LEO. (4) The said Orbiter puts 7 humans next to two megatons of liquid fuel and solid boosters with no launch escape system implemented or possible, ensuring that ANY loss of tank or booster containment guarantees a loss of crew -- something which is not true of ANY OTHER launch vehicle. (5) The Shuttle cost NASA $206 billion -- 55.4% of its entire $377 billion budget over the same 30 period of its existence (1981 thru 2011) -- leaving little money to actually do missions after you pay the researches and the other fixed costs.

@@dwightlooi Nothing but the truth. Just the empty weight is absolutely crazy, it barely reached ISS, and no polar orbits. Safety was total joke. And they knew it from the beginning, when they proposed the Shuttle they knew it would never reach promised parameters. They simply lied, whole thing is political from the very beginning, and remains political to this day with all the Shuttle derivatives.

You really don’t know anything about ULA do you?

2,950kN = 663,186lbs force.

Your comment reveals a massive ignorance of the history of rocket development and spaceflight, and is coated in your obvious hero-worship of Elon Musk. You can make authorative-sounding statements like "It has _of course_ always been ridiculous", but that won't prevent people who actually know a thing or two from calling you on the fact that you obviously know nothing about the science involved. Have a nice day.

@@sixstringedthing It is quite the contrary. I used to believe the 'standard' view that reusability is impractical until not too long ago and was initially convinced Spacex was following a dead end path, as were some other small companies. It is precisely because I closer into the detail of rocket history that I changed my mind and discovered that the idea of expendable hardware was adapted for some very specific reasons applicable to the time but held on to later for all the wrong reasons.

@@listerdave1240 Alright, I should probably apologise for ripping in right away, and I see you are a fellow dwarfer, so let's consider this. You know that SpaceX doesn't recover every booster right? They still chuck them into the sea on high-inclination launches. I presume you understand the physics behind why that's the case? And you're aware of the fact that they can't recover second stages. So.......

Why? Reusable rocketry is its own thing. With out the Delta IV heavy you would be out of a job. Electric cars make a 57 Chevy so discusting right?

Exactly, high deltaV missions will always expend the booster. SpaceX also doesn't re-use boosters launched at high inclinations.