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fluffy_543221 karma

What are ULAs plans for the the ACES and IVF projects? Is ULA going to invest into a new upper stage? If so, when is it likely to fly?

Liquid hydrogen propulsion is really really hard and one of the areas where ULA has a significant technological advantage. It would be great to see you build on this. IVF in particular claims to potentially reduce cost by removing entire subsystems.

fluffy_543219 karma

A built-in mod manager would be awesome!

fluffy_54329 karma

In the 90s space cooperation with Russia was seen as a way to prop up a fragile regime and prevent proliferation of nuclear and ICBM technology.

I wonder if the US government actually encouraged Lockheed-Martin to pick a Russian engine. Such an arrangement probably looked like a really good way to build trust between old rivals and a foreign policy win.

Sadly times have changed again.

fluffy_54326 karma

ULA has been launching very few commercial satellites relying mostly on US goverment work. Is one of the NGLS goals to grab a significant chunk of the comsat market?

Until SpaceX this market was dominated by the Proton and Ariane families.

fluffy_54321 karma

Have you considered printing based on materials available in space, like piece of asteroid or regolith? What would it take to process such materials into something that can be used for printing?

Also, what is you opinion on the NASA Asteroid Redirect Mission? Have you considered designing an experiment to print using chunks of that redirected asteroid?