Lockheed Martin Acquires Aerojet Rocketdyne For $4.4 Billion (axios.com) 22
Lockheed Martin has agreed to buy Aerojet Rocketdyne for $4.4 billion in cash (including assumed debt). From a report: This reflects how legacy defense companies are racing to keep up with Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos in space, a dynamic that also helped drive Raytheon's merger effort with United Technologies. Plus, this is the exact type of company that will be seeking Space Force bids, maybe getting cool branding logos on the Guardian outfits. Aerojet in 2015 offered to pay $2 billion to buy a rocket launch joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed, but was rebuffed by Boeing.
Continuing vertical integration (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re: Continuing vertical integration (Score:1)
Soon to be turd upon turd. A vertiable fuck-shit-stack [youtube.com]. ;)
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I find the intro statement odd :"This reflects how legacy defense companies are racing to keep up with Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos in space"
They are desperately trying to survive in the same market as SpaceX. But BO? Bezos has been in the space business for 20 years and has still not put one single thing into orbit. He is building the BE4 methane engine but it has never flown. Keeping up with Jeff is hardly a stretch goal.
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Re: Continuing vertical integration (Score:2)
Yes, use other fuel like RP-1 for first stage giving more thrust, less ISP. On the upper stage you need high ISP, low thrust. In general, higher ISP yields lower thrust because the energy is used to have high exhaust velocity, rather than throwing out a lot of mass.
I would have liked to say Yoyodyne should be next (Score:2)
But, it turns out that Seth Godin created a company called "Yoyodyne" and Yahoo purchased it in 2007: https://www.wired.com/1998/10/... [wired.com]
Regardless, any aerospace company worth it's salt won't be going anywhere until it acquires the technology behind the Oscillation Overthruster.
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Wait, why do tuey need them? (Score:2)
Can't I assume Lockheed Martin has *WAY* more experience in building spacecrafts than both "Elon" and "Bezos" and that is completely not the problem here?
Re:Wait, why do tuey need them? (Score:4, Insightful)
The real problem is complacency among the big boys like Lockheed Martin and Boeing. They're so used to being able to suck more and more exorbitant sums of money out of the government coffers while producing little to nothing of value outside of jobs in certain congressional districts that they don't bother attempting to move the needle. While moves like this signal that at least someone at the management level has realized Musk and Bezos are actually starting to make progress, it's going to take a ton of work to turn the money sucking machines into viable, workable companies again.
These companies are used to moving at glacial speeds to produce "updates" of their old designs. Those glacial speeds are costing them every time a contracted launch goes to SpaceX and raises SpaceX's profile. If they aren't able to start producing product, the gravy train may slow for them. Though with the built in inefficiency of our government, it's entirely possible they can continue to suck down money while not producing anything of value for generations to come. It's a system that keeps districts happy while wasting tons of money and resources. Which seems to be our government's main calling cards at this point.
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As opposed to super agile and lean Blue Origin, which takes in billion after billion from Bezos each year and after 20 years is now able to produce a computer-generated animation of a rocket reaching orbit.
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Blue Origin has had several successful non-orbital test flights. Granted, they aren't doing any serious flights yet, but it's a little further along that computer simulations.
calm down there... (Score:2, Interesting)
First, at least with Blue, it's Bezos's own funds being burned - NOT the cash taken from taxpayers at gunpoint (and yes, taxes are forcibly taken at gunpoint, it's just that most of us hand over the cash before the gun is brought out, but just try resisting and eventually it will involve a gun in a government employee's had and aimed at a taxpayer).
Second, Bezos and Blue Origin have done much more than "produce a computer-generated animation of a rocket reaching orbit". They built, flew, landed, and re-flew
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This is very much the case and it's interesting how ULA despite being a 50/50 venture between Lockheed and Boeing seems to plugging along pretty well despite the failings of their parent companies. They are not moving at the speed of say SpaceX but they look like they will be operating the Vulcan rocket before BO launches New Glenn and also have an excellent launch record still with Atlas V and Delta IV Heavy, even if those cannot really compete on price versus Falcon 9.
I wonder if it would have made more
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What they need is for Aerojet to not sell their engines to some upstart with new billions made from on-line business.
We're going down the drain ! (Score:1)
Quick grab something !
Not, not that.
( Actual minutes of the board meeting where this purchase was agreed )
won't matter (Score:4, Interesting)
Look at the history of Lockheed's X-33/Venturestar, or the McDonnell DouglasDC-X Delta Clipper. These project were initiated after the MBA mentality had cemented it's grip on US industry. The engineers and technologists demonstrated their ability to create amazing new capabilities, but their executive leadership is only interested in demonstrated quarterly profits. This has not changed within Lockheed or Boeing, and is only getting worse. SpaceX defines profit as the creation and ownership of unique capability, which they then use to dominate a market. SpaceX has an 'infinite game' view, whereas the MBA quarterly profit view of Lockheed/Boeing is a very short term game, usually at the expense of the company as whole. Look at HP - one of the initial founders of Silicon Valley, now nothing more than ink-jet thugs.
Now the executive leadership of Lockheed is at it again - instead of unleashing their employees to actually create capability, they are playing the MBA merger and acquisition game. This is a very clear message to their existing employees that they aren't valued. The only thing keeping this type of company afloat are government contracts in an artificially closed market run by senators who buy votes and bring jobs to their districts. By the time Lockheed slashes and burns what's left of Aerojet, all that will be left is a list of products and figures in a spreadsheet. There'll be no creation, no capability, just a profit statement, and a bunch of pissed-off engineers.
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You think the engineers will stay ?
Or rather, you think the ones that stay will be worth having ?
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The young and motivated engineers worth having will stay until they have an interesting resume entry, become vested, or find another job.
A few stay long into their careers because life circumstances. Many, perhaps even most engineers at LockMart style contractors truly want to be good engineers and start off quite capable. But years of MBA leadership take their toll.
They just wanted ... (Score:2)