Having worked in the industry, I understand that niggling little problems crop up at every stage of operations from manufacturing through launch and through the mission. ULA is not bad because it is not SpaceX, and in fact ULA is not bad. ULA is expensive, but it also has very few failures. ULA has good ideas for the future, including several services that is outside of SpaceX’s purview.

SpaceX has challenged the launch industry, and ULA is one of the companies that has accepted the challenge. One of the advantages that SpaceX has over ULA is simplicity of vehicle and simplicity of operations. It has made compromises with some performance in order to create cost efficiencies, and these lower costs are winning out over the performance losses. The simplicity helps to avoid the niggling little problems, so I suspect that SpaceX will have fewer of these, especially since they are working hard to design them out of their systems, operations., and missions in order to create a rapid cadence in launches. .

I believe that SpaceX has so many fans because it is doing so much that has not been done before, its Starship manufacturing and test facilities are so easily viewed by the curious public, and the curious spend a lot of time watching what goes on during a development and test program. Its openness makes it popular with those interested in space.

ULA has its fans, too, and has its own form of openness:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0fG_lnVhHw (Smarter Every Day: ULA tour, 1 hour)

Do note that Robert keeps us up to date on other developments, tests, and operations of companies other than SpaceX, and I think that is one of the reasons that this site is popular.

Um..no.

I know several people, including myself, have stated many times, we want to see them all succeed.

Aborted Launch – Gemini 6
12-12-65 CBS News
https://youtu.be/htmd4BrNJ5k
6:22

I agree that I should have given ULA credit for catching all the issues, prior to launch, thus avoiding a total launch failure. However, if you don’t see a qualitative difference between the two companies, you are being intellectually dishonest.

Both have had technical issues for sure. Both have successfully spotted them before launch (witness SpaceX’s own launch abort this morning). However, for ULA number of different problems in different places found on different countdowns is very very worrisome. It implies either a failure at proper maintenance or a failure to fix some fundamental design problems.

We don’t see this kind of pattern with SpaceX. If they abort it is for one reason, and it appears routinely that they not only get it fixed, they fix it so it doesn’t pop up another time.

With this particular ULA Delta launch my impression is that ULA is merely patching each problem, just to get off the ground. I recognize they intend to retire the Delta for these reasons as well as its high cost and complexity, but this pattern must be noted.

The first such halt I recall was a Titan / Gemini that actually started its engines on the pad, and then shut down. This provided a subsequent opportunity to launch two Gemini missions back to back and have the spacecraft fly together, a mission that I do not think was originally part of the program. I still recall the novelty of seeing video of a manned spacecraft in orbit up close, and unexpectedly seeing for the first time the trailing ribbon-like remnants of the stage-separation hardware.

At least they are catching these problems prior to launch, and so avoiding a “big red cloud” where a very expensive rocket and payload used to be.

I miss it a lot but I’m too old now to do what I’m good at there now (at least that is what HR thinks)

A long time ago I suggested that they build a LH2 plant near KSC that uses the natural gas line that runs down the East Coast. Probably not a good idea as the consumption rate is low but I recall the loss rates in trucking are very high.

Hopefully, Vulcan will be less complex and less expensive.

I have no horse in this race… I don’t know the answer (or have an opinion on how it SHOULD work), but hopefully someone does?

But then, *you* don’t depend for your budget on the man whose State holds the Delta IV factory, now do you?

Yes, Rand is right about launch frequency being a prime affective component of launch proficiency, as well.

And yes, the subsidy ended in October 2019, which means the sharp pencils were out ever since then to cut costs.