Breitbart, other conservative outlets escalate anti-SpaceX campaign

[Flyaway]

Wasn’t aware there was a concerted campaign on this just thought it was individual sniping.

The articles, several of which are written by former US Rep. Ron Paul or his associates, have the same general theme: Musk has given lavishly to politicians, especially Arizona Senator John McCain (R). In return, McCain added Section 1615 to this year's defense authorization bill, which includes language to restrict the military from investing in new launch systems. With this language, the articles assert, Musk seeks a monopoly on the US national security launch market. In addition to saying this allows Musk to fleece taxpayers, some of the more overdone authors assert that it could kill Americans.

The central canard of these attacks is that John McCain did not, in fact, add "Section 1615" to the Defense Authorization Act, which is now being finalized by a conference between the House and Senate. This clause does not exist at all in the Senate language. Rather, it was inserted into the House legislation by US Rep. Mike Rogers, a Republican from Alabama.

Rogers' language concerns the procurement of new US-made rockets. The US military is required to have assured access to space, and this means two separate launch systems to get its spy and communications satellites into orbit. It currently has three—the Delta and Atlas families of rockets built by United Launch Alliance (ULA) and the Falcon 9 rocket by SpaceX. However, ULA wants to stop building the Delta rockets because they are expensive, and the Atlas fleet uses Russian-made RD-180 rocket engines, which Congress wants to phase out.

This leaves the possibility that, absent Congressional action, the US military could find itself with only SpaceX's rocket to reach space within a few years. Therefore, the US military is spending a few billion dollars over this decade to develop one or more new launch systems to replace the Delta and Atlas fleets with vehicles powered by US-made engines.

As a long-time national defense contractor for the government, ULA is at the front of the line for these funds. The Colorado-based company, which was formed by Boeing and Lockheed Martin in 2005, prefers to build a new rocket, named Vulcan. ULA has said it wants to use Blue Origin's American-made BE-4 rocket engine for Vulcan because this engine is further along in development. However, Vulcan could also use an engine under development by Aerojet Rocketdyne, the AR1. Finally, it's possible the AR1 engine could be a "drop in" replacement for the RD-180 engine in the existing Atlas V rocket, although there is some debate about how simple it would be to use the AR1 in this manner.

Section 1615 restricts how the Secretary of Defense can spend money on these new launch systems, allowing funds to only be spent on engine development, the interface between a new engine (i.e., AR1) and an existing launch vehicle (i.e., Atlas V), or to pay for expenses unique to military launches, such as certification costs and vertical integration of payloads. Critically, for ULA, it does not allow for spending on other parts of the rocket. This restriction is what the conservative editorial writers are railing against.

Two sources familiar with the legislation told Ars that Rogers added Section 1615 specifically to benefit Aerojet and its AR1 rocket engine.

"The purpose of the provision is simple," one Washington DC source said. "Instead of the Department of Defense continuing their open-ended, market-friendly risk reduction investment across several providers to enable Russian-engine-free launch capabilities, Rogers wants DOD to fund Aerojet to build AR1 to be inserted into Atlas V." In other words, the language benefits Aerojet by favoring its "drop in" engine solution over building a completely new Vulcan rocket.

One of the battles here, then, is between Aerojet on one side and ULA and Blue Origin on the other. Ars has previously reported that Rogers appears to favor Aerojet, as he has called into question the ability of Blue Origin to develop the BE-4 rocket engine. With Section 1615, Rogers is preventing the military from giving ULA money to develop the Vulcan launch system, including the core stage, boosters, second stage, and other rocket components.

This leaves ULA in a difficult spot. Its parent companies, Boeing and Lockheed Martin, have indicated that they are unlikely to invest significantly in the Vulcan rocket without substantial money from the US military. For example, during an earnings call in January, 2016, Lockheed's chief financial officer, Bruce Tanner, said of the Vulcan rocket, "Right now, it is not our expectation that that will require contributions from the parents, but that’s something that we got to work out sort of between our partner and the US government to ensure that."

Ars spoke with half a dozen industry officials about these op-eds on background to try to discern who or what was behind them. SpaceX declined comment. A spokeswoman for ULA did not respond to a request for comment about these articles. One source speculated that there are probably several stakeholders behind this Astroturf-like activity.

"This is business as usual," one aerospace industry source said of the litany of anti-SpaceX commentaries. "I don’t think it is that effective. It’s like going to a space conference and it’s a bunch of space people that hear what they expect to hear with no new listeners."

https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/11/breitbart-other-conservative-outlets-escalate-anti-spacex-campaign/

 

[fredymac]

Convoluted and contradictory. BE-4 engine production is taking place in Alabama. Why would a representative of that state try to sabotage that? As far as I know, Vulcan rocket production would also use a lot of existing facilities currently involved in Delta/Atlas production (much of it based in Alabama).

1615 doesn't have any friends in the White House:
"The Administration strongly objects to section 1615, which would restrict development of new space launch systems, including those whose development is significantly funded by industry, in exclusive favor of rocket engines and modifications to existing launch vehicles. The provision limits domestic competition, which will increase taxpayer costs by several billions of dollars through FY 2027 and stifle innovation. It also ignores key recommendations of the Committee’s independent panel of experts, who proposed broad funding at the launch-system level."

All in all, it sounds like 1615 is more of a monkey wrench designed to let the status quo continue. What would really be helpful is the lobbying records of the politicians involved and what their retirement plans include.

 

[Flyaway]

Forget to say I think the headline does the article a disservice, in that the article is more thoughtful than the headline would suggest.

 

[Michel Van]

There is simple explanation

Elon Musk was advisor for Trump Administration
Until he steps down after series of Trump escalations

Now he in focus of Steven Bannon who goes after everyone who criticizes/opposed Donald Trump.
Despite Donald Trump had stab Bannon in back and terminate his career in White House...

 

[fredymac]

So both the Whitehouse and Breitbart are against 1615 which actually makes life harder for Spacex and somehow this means? This is a case of a canned narrative pretzeling itself into a twisted knot of incoherence.

 

[francesco]

Not really sure Musk will lose sleep over this...