History
The Delta IV entered the space launch market at a period when global capacity was already much higher than demand. Furthermore, as an unproven design it has had difficulty finding a market in commercial launches, and the cost to launch a Delta IV is somewhat higher than that for competing vehicles. In 2003, Boeing pulled the Delta IV from the commercial market, citing low demand and high costs. In 2005, Boeing stated that it may return the Delta IV to commercial service; however as of 2006 no further announcements have been made regarding this. All but one of the first launches have been paid for by the U.S. Government, with a cost of between $140 million and $170 million.
Comparable rockets: Atlas V - Ariane 5 - Chang Zheng 5 - Angara - H-IIB - Proton - Falcon 9 - Falcon Heavy
Read more about this topic: Delta IV
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under mens reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.”
—John Dos Passos (18961970)
“Yet poetry, though the last and finest result, is a natural fruit. As naturally as the oak bears an acorn, and the vine a gourd, man bears a poem, either spoken or done. It is the chief and most memorable success, for history is but a prose narrative of poetic deeds.”
—Henry David Thoreau (18171862)
“The history of the world is none other than the progress of the consciousness of freedom.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (17701831)