By Douglas Messier

Managing Editor

I’m going to go way out on a limb here and probably royally piss off SpaceX’s many supporters, but I’m really not a fan of the company’s lawsuit against the U.S. Air Force over its bulk buy of 36 rocket cores from United Launch Alliance.

I understand the reasoning behind it. The Air Force has locked SpaceX out of competing for most defense launches for the next few years. And that will cost the company launch business. And it will cost taxpayers more than if some of these launches were awarded to SpaceX.

My objection primarily comes down to the fact that although SpaceX’s Falcon 9 has proven reliable thus far, the company has failed to launch them on any sort of regular basis. I’m also a bit baffled that the company wants to add more launches to an already crowded manifest that keeps slipping to the right.

National security missions require launch vehicles that are extremely reliable over many flights, and can put payloads into orbit payloads on a regular schedule. Cost is the least important factor. ULA’s boosters fulfill those requirements nicely. The launch vehicles haven’t been perfect on either reliability or schedule, but they are extremely dependable. And that matters a lot when you’re launching payloads that can cost $1 billion or more and are vital to national security.

SpaceX’s launch pace has been unimpressive. It wanted to do five launches last year, and it accomplished three. It’s the end of April and they’ve managed exactly two launches out of a total of 10 on the schedule for 2014. The second mission was their first Dragon resupply flight in 13 months for NASA, the agency that funded half of the development of the spacecraft and its rocket and gave SpaceX a fat contract for cargo delivery.

Ramping up production and then launching on a regular schedule are not trivial. SpaceX runs the risk of introducing flaws in the production process and overtaxing the launch crews to the point where they lose a Falcon 9 or two. That would be a massive setback for the company.

Do I think they can launch more regularly and do it safely? Absolutely. But, they need to go do it.

Musk is clearly frustrated with the Falcon 9 certification process, which he derided on Friday as a “paperwork exercise.” Well, yeah…that’s what the government does. It is the process that was agreed to and SpaceX seemed fine with up until recently. The ULA bulk buy and the reduction in the number of competed launches due to a slowdown in a key satellite program seems to have upset that equilibrium and inspired the appeal.

I can understand the frustration behind the appeal. But again, SpaceX’s case would be stronger had it launched more rockets to date and had completed the certification process by now.

It didn’t help that Musk spent half the press conference yesterday discussing his company’s attempt to recover the first stage of the Falcon 9 booster for reuse. Don’t get me wrong; I think the effort is fantastic, and it shows a willingness to innovate too often lacking in the space field. I wish them all the success in the world in achieving the goal.

But, it’s also the least important thing when it comes to winning military launches. Even Musk admitted it would take years for customers to get comfortable putting a payload on a reused booster. The military will take much, much longer to get comfortable with launching any of its spacecraft this way.

SpaceX has dozens of launches on its manifest. A couple of those involve payloads for NASA and the Defense Department that were awarded outside of normal competitive bidding processes. SpaceX will spend the next few years trying to work through that backlog. It also has the major task of launching the Falcon Heavy booster early next year from Cape Canaveral. Why try to add more military launches to an already crowded schedule that keeps moving to the right?

SpaceX is a commercial launch company that is making the U.S. competitive in the international launch market again. And that’s great that it’s doing that. The key to that success is launching all those satellites it has already booked. If it achieves that goal in the years ahead, then commercial and government customers will be pounding on its door begging the company to launch their satellites.

I know my position on this will be quite unpopular in certain quarters. But, I don’t see this matter in black and white. ULA has done a great job, even if its prices are high. The U.S. Air Force is not wrong in stressing reliability and schedule above price. SpaceX still has some things to prove, which I’m sure they will.

We need competition for government launches, but if it means driving ULA out of business and replacing its monopoly with a SpaceX one, I’m not we’ll gain that much in the long run.