yeah, agreed. I just don't see a market for Vulcan in a world with Falcons, Falcon Heavies, New Glenns and New Armstrongs, let alone Starships. ESA knew even before the market shakeup that they couldn't be competitive with the larger booster and they've probably saved their subsidized neck for awhile downgrading with Ariane VI.
I'd say stick a fork in ULA, they're done, but somehow they keep surviving. Still, I don't see any long future in the Vulcan. For me, the advantage of Omega is that reliable first stage. That thing can loiter on the pad for ages, if need be. Again not cheap but considering it's not going to have a commercial role, it can be kept for those specific chores. And it it shares some commonality with SLS, all the better. Maybe the time for big solids is almost over (apart from a few SLS rockets before they fade off into obscurity) but we'll see.
My impression of ULA and it's Vulcan rocket was of something that had a reasonably solid future doing national security missions. Since you have/are working in the industry, I am interested in the reasons why you think ULA is in trouble. The following is my current points of view, as a layman, regarding ULA's competitors:
There is a lot of hype surrounding Spacex, but over the last couple of years, my skepticism of them has grown immensely. Falcon Heavy has payload fairing size limitations, and can't vertically integrate payloads. These may not be showstoppers, but there is no sign that Spacex is working on rectifying these problems for Falcon Heavy.
Starship hardware is being built out in the open, in dirty yards and in maritime climates. The hardware also looks astonishingly almost Victorian in its appearance: It reminds me very much of the rocket from Wallace and Grommit, with its imprecisely joined and rumpled panels and ugly welds. I just don't know what to make of such a weird looking thing, or of Elon Musk's rather incredible claims that the prototypes will be doing ambitious testflights within months. I also wonder about their financial state, but since Spacex is a black box, there's no telling what condition thry are in. The layoffs coupled with funding rounds fon't sound great though.
Blue Origin is an interesting company, and I don't doubt the seriousness of their intentions to build New Glenn. Indeed, they have a lot of experienced engineers in their ranks. To date, however, they have not demonstrated the ability to fly very heavy lift rockets. There will be problems that only can be encountered once they actually start trying to build and fly these things regularly. Why would national security launches be entrusted with such an untested company? I realize that ULA will also be flying BE-4's, which makes things a little less clearcut, but ULA will at least have a legacy of experience for the overall process of developing and operating launchers.
I also like Omega as a national security launcher, for all the reasons you and others have described. It will be built by a company with a long history in rocketry - something that typically conservative customers like the armed forces and intelligence services will presumably value.
ULA also has a proven record for national security payloads, and I don't see why the armed forces, intelligence services, NASA, and even the odd commercial customer would snub Vulcan for missions involving payloads that absolutely have to be launched reliably, with cost being a secondary factor. Like Omega, Vulcan will have hardware commonality with other launchers: Vulcan will be using a Centaur used previously on Atlas. It will also be using solids that will have been previously proven on the final batch of Atlas Vs. Vulcan is being built by a proven company, it will have a lot of capability, and there will be significant hardware commonality with already flying launchers. Why wouldn't the US government go for it for any number of missions, civilian or military?
So, if two vehicle's get downselected (which would make sense for redundancy's sake) why not go with Omega and Vulcan, and let the others duke it out in the commercial arena until they are a safer, more capable bet?
Whew, that was a bit more rambling than I intended, but I would appreciate your, or anyone elses, thoughts in this point of view, as the subject is of some interest to me.
