>>12954458ULA has the problem of not being very independent. Lockheed and (especially) Boeing aren't very interested in intensive funding of esoteric or really ambitious innovations (especially when those would threaten their existing business lines). ULA's cost structure seems to be high and rigid, such that their revenue from US government contracts doesn't create the surplus needed to push to completion development of internal projects that others aren't directly contracting them to build. So they have these grand plans that they're really in love with (like ACES), but then they're forced into at best incremental approaches. With Artemis picking up, the opportunity for these high-performance, long-duration, maybe even r*usable projects is greater than its ever been, especially if Artemis produces a decent ISRU infrastructure.
https://spacenews.com/ula-gets-vague-on-vulcan-upgrade-timeline/https://spacenews.com/bruno-the-next-big-thing-for-ula-is-a-long-endurance-upper-stage/>we have a pretty big lead in terms of our technical capabilities to reach complex, high energy orbits over our competitors>I’m going to be pushing up to 450, 500, 600 times the endurance over just the next handful of years. is code for reusability.
>It’s going to be about reusability that occurs in space, it will be about the upper stages.Though Bruno still regards reusability as something for the Heavens, not fallen Earth, hence the qualifier.
