#tory bruno

[therealuniverse]

A (slightly pre-COVID) tour of the United Launch Alliance rocket construction factory.

[talkoftitusville]

United Launch Alliance Vulcan Rocket Receives NSSL Certification

Vulcan Cert 2 liftoff Photo: Charles Boyer / Talk of Titusville The United States Space Force has officially certified United Launch Alliance’s (ULA) Vulcan Centaur rocket for National Security Space Launch (NSSL) missions. This certification follows an extensive evaluation process, including two successful certification flights. With this approval, ULA is now authorized to conduct NSSL…

United Launch Alliance Vulcan Rocket Receives NSSL Certification

[spaceflight-insider]

Report: ULA to layoff Vandenberg staff, potentially change name

Report: ULA to layoff Vandenberg staff, potentially change name

A National Reconnaissance Office payload on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket launches from Space Launch Complex-3, March 1, 2017, Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. Photo & Caption Credit: Senior Airman Ian Dudley / U.S. Air Force

A recent report on Space News 360 noted that, according to an inside source, layoffs are imminent for United Launch Alliance (ULA). While news about a…

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[spaceflight-insider]

ULA debuts custom rocket configurator with focus on total cost benefit

ULA debuts custom rocket configurator with focus on total cost benefit

An Atlas V launches the GOES-R weather satellite. Photo Credit: Michael McCabe / SpaceFlight Insider

In an effort to better educate potential customers on the true cost of launch services and the associated upside inherent in United Launch Alliance’s reputation and record, the company has developed a websitewith the aim to showcase the total cost benefit that comes with selecting ULA as a launch…

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[spaceflight-insider]

ULA to offer 'RapidLaunch' service

ULA to offer ‘RapidLaunch’ service

ULA announced a new “RapidLaunch” service to allow for an order-to-launch campaign of as little as three months. Photo Credit: Michael Howard / SpaceFlight Insider

The United Launch Alliance (ULA) announcedSept. 13, 2016, a new service that allows a customer to place a launch order and fly in as little as three months. According to a news release, the service, called RapidLaunch, will be the…

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[everythingspacex]

Despite a perfect record of successful spaceflights, ULA chief Tory Bruno is under pressure to compete with SpaceX.

[srodgerbock]

Bickering Billionaires: Why Elon Musk Will Have an Easier 2016 than Tory Bruno

2015 closed with lots of people talking about the new space race between billionaires Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos of SpaceX and Blue Origin, respectively.

As entertaining as it is to see these guys snipping, shouldn't the Twitter war be between the two companies actually launching payloads into orbit? Where is Tory Bruno’s United Launch Alliance? I guess I poked the bear when I tweeted:

What's interesting to me about @elonmusk vs @JeffBezos is that it's not vs @torybruno Is @ulalaunch the forgotten giant a 20th century Dino?

Usually one tosses these things out with no expectation of a reply, and certainly I did not expect Tory to spend half a moment responding to little old me. I even left out some punctuation. So, I was quite surprised a few hours later when he personally replied with this:

.@SRodgerBock @elonmusk @JeffBezos @ulalaunch I am transforming our company, and, in the process, will revolutionize the industry

Tory got more retweets and likes off this than many of his other posts. Unlike the excessively popular billionaires, Bruno is not a household name, nor does he have an enormous presence on social media. He is likely focused on his company, and he will need to be, to make the first half of his tweet come true. 

In my estimation, Tory Bruno has a more difficult challenge ahead of him over the next few years than Elon Musk does.

SpaceX must continue to prove themselves and push forward with Musk’s interplanetary dreams. Elon has to show his fledgling Falcon can compete against the venerable Atlas and Delta, which together have had incredible, unprecedented success. More than 100 launches in a row without a failure is an intensely difficult feat to accomplish, and it is the gold standard to which everyone is invariably compared.

Launch with ULA and you are confident that you're not going to be putting together a second payload to replace the one that just exploded in a fireball over Virginia or disintegrated over the Florida coast. So why go anywhere else?

Cost.

That simple issue is going to be the biggest threat to ULA since their inception.

My hat will be off to Tory if he can truly transform ULA over the next few years and keep their reliability high.

Bruno, unlike Musk, has to turn a behemoth of a company into a lean, creative, nimble machine.

All this was hard enough before December 21st at 8:45pm when the first stage of an orbital class rocket touched down essentially at its launch site and changed everything…again.

Prior to that incredible accomplishment, ULA was contending with trying to figure out how to reduce their costs by about 50%, since SpaceX routinely comes in with a lower price tag (and admittedly, higher risk of failure).

Tory has to be losing sleep over this. I would be. How can he get a legacy company with entrenched business practices and processes, designed to eliminate risk heedless of expense, to remain equally dependable and do so for maybe a tenth of the cost?

What happens next with SpaceX will drive ULA to be their best, or completely out of business.

If Musk can return even half of the Falcon first stages and reuse them on a second or third mission, costs for SpaceX could come down by half again—or better. Consider the space shuttle engines were used about 25 times each and are slated for their final use on NASA’s SLS. If they are successful at this, costs could come down tenfold, or if you believe Elon, one hundredfold.

The realities of transforming even a small company like the one where I work (in the medical industry) is a huge challenge. Eliminating waste, applying lean principles, and removing non- critical positions are just the start. Bruno has to design and build a brand new rocket with as much reuse as his team can envision. Can they even get close to a tenfold reduction in costs for Vulcan?

If all that wasn't hard enough, Tory Bruno has got an even bigger problem: Russia.

Bruno has to get it all done before Vladimir Putin reminds everyone that ULA’s current engines come from a megalomaniac bent on gobbling up his neighbors and rebuilding the Soviet Union. Nice.

Best of luck in the new year, Tory. I think you're really going to need it.

_____________________ 

S. Rodger Bock is a science fiction novelist and Air Force veteran who spent twelve years in space operations and acquisition fields.

Photo credit: SpaceX http://www.spacex.com/media-gallery/detail/134241/5901

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