Inside the issue that delayed the Vulcan rocket launch

But we want to get back to talking about that delayed rocket launch that happened this morning or the delay occurred this morning. They were supposed to launch the rocket this morning, Excuse me, this evening. Let's get to Ken Kramer to explain all this, because Ken explained it a lot better than me. Ken, welcome back to the show and thank you for being here. Tell us what we need to know about this today. OK, first of all, there's two launches and that's what's probably confusing you, Vulcan. Which was going to be at noontime, 1 o'clock, and then the Starship this evening. So Vulcan got delayed, scrubbed this morning. It was going to launch at 12.54, now it'll launch Sunday. There were ground technical issues with the gaseous nitrogen line, so they couldn't pressurize anything. So they had to delay until tomorrow. Hopefully that'll get up and running. And then this evening at 5.45... Currently, it's projected the Starship will launch from Boca Chica. So, two things happening at once. Plus, you got the NASA administrator talking about stuff, I guess. So, it's a big space day. Yes, absolutely, a big space day. A lot of important things. Both these launches, Vulcan and Starship, are critical to the future. Tell us about these photos that we're showing now that you took of this is the Vulcan rocket, correct? This is the Vulcan, yeah. Yeah, I don't see him yet, but... Hopefully, you got them soon. Well, they're up on the screen right now. I'm not sure if you're seeing what we're feeding back to you, but they are on the screen. Ken, what are you seeing right now? Tell us. I'm seeing you. I'm just seeing you. That's it. Oh. But I can tell you, whatever you're showing, I did take those pictures yesterday out of Pad 41, which is where the Vulcan rocket is going to launch from United Launch Alliance at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. And this will be only the fifth launch of this rocket. It's been grounded. Because some of those pictures show the solid rocket boosters, which I still don't see them. But anyway, there's six of them. So this is the most powerful version of that rocket. But there was an anomaly on two of the flights where the nozzles fractured. And I could see it on the last flight, flight four. So they've been working to fix these nozzles. And they have done partial fixes, but it's not completely done yet. So, um, but they feel confident enough they can go ahead with the launch, um, today until it was delayed, so hopefully tomorrow. Um, so, so that's what's, that's what's going on with the Vulcan. It's got 40 Amazon Leo internet satellites on it. This is a competitor to the SpaceX Starlink, okay? Um, internet constellation, broadband internet. So, you know, you're very familiar with Starlink, but Amazon Leo is the competitor. It has 40 of them on this satellite and they weigh 50,000 pounds in that stretch. nose cone, 70 feet long. So it's, it's the most powerful, uh, launch, the most powerful payload, most powerful rocket, I should say, and the heaviest payload for the Vulcan rocket. And everything depends on this. This must succeed for the future of the company. Yeah, that's a great point. I was going to ask you about the business of space. Are any of us able yet to really assess the difference in these companies? I know that there's a lot of nuance here. How does one make sense of which one is leading, which one is better at certain things? How do you sort of put it in a table and say, here are the pros and cons for each one? Well, that's a great question. What I can tell you is, right now, there's basically like three commercial companies. American commercial companies that are operating, SpaceX, of course, ULA, New Glenn, so that would be fourth, Blue Origin, I should say, and Rocket Lab. They all have different markets. SpaceX is overwhelming right now, launching most of the rockets and the payloads into space. ULA has been in existence for dozens of decades, as ULA, since about 20 years. Launching Atlas now and the new Vulcan rocket. Then you have Blue Origin launching the new Glenn, which, you know, exploded the last time. So that's another big issue. And then you have Rocket Lab, which is a smaller rocket, but they're developing a new rocket called the Neutron, which will carry heavier payloads. So those are the four that are launching. And then you have new companies like Relativity Space and Stoke Space and Firefly. That are trying to on-ramp and develop their rockets for U.S. government, commercial, and national security needs. So it's a complicated picture, and that's why it's not easy. Certainly not easy at all and impressive in so many ways to me that not only humankind has gotten to the point that we are, but just in general, the competitiveness of these companies, the incredible engineering prowess that it has taken, not only the hunt for talent to get it done, but the demand for getting into space. It's incredible how much demand there is now and has been for the past few years, but it is really ramping up in the past. What would you say, six months to a year lately? Well, it's been ramping up probably for the last three years, ever since SpaceX was able to demonstrate rapid reusability of the Falcon 9 rocket. So that's roughly the last three or four years. And so, yeah, there is a big demand, but there's also a big issue with SpaceX because they want to ramp down their Falcon 9 and Crew Dragon. I'm totally against that. And so these other companies are going to have to make up the slack, and it's not clear they'll be able to do it. So, Musk, I'm going to just say this, Musk should do his patriotic duty and continue flying the Falcon 9 and Crew Dragon, because he is endangering U.S. access to space if he doesn't do that, and the commercial, and the International Space Station. So, he's ramping down while the demand is ramping up, and you've got new companies that are unproven, some are proven, but the new ones are not proven yet. So, it's actually a mess right now. To a large extent. Right now, it's okay. But two years from now, we could have a real mess and a real shortage of launch capacity, not just for NASA, not just for commercial, but also U.S. national security, which is absolutely paramount. So there's a lot of complex issues here. And they got to be resolved. And they got to be resolved quickly. And that takes, it takes time and money. And you can't wait. You know, until the future to figure it out. You've got to be working on these issues today. So you've asked a great question. It's a very complicated answer. Very complicated indeed. Too complicated for us to get in the weeds on today, but you make a lot of good points as always, Ken Kramer. I'm going to show, I know you can't see it, but I'm going to show your pictures one more time as we thank you for your time today. Gorgeous photographs as always, and you are so kind to take time with us. And you'll be on Fox Live now again at 4.30 today, so thanks for making time for us here at Fox 35 as always, Ken. We appreciate it. Yeah, I think I'm going to be on with you for the Starship launch, too, around 545. Looking forward to that. So that hasn't changed. We'll see. So I might see you again in two hours or so. All right. I hope you're not sick of me yet. Thank you, Ken. We appreciate your time today. We appreciate it very much.