MULE and Price Curves

Will MULE development and use lead to cheaper access to space?

Let's consider some launch providers. Russians have signed
agreements with US State Department concerning price parity with US
launch providers.

So the main US providers are Boeing and Lockheed/Martin. Their Delta
and Atlas rockets are used primarily by US Gov't Agencies.

The question for Boeing and LockMart is if they reduce the cost of a
launch by 25%, let's say that that is their profit margin, so now
they're launching without any profit. The remaining 75% of the
rocket cost is comprised of 50% fixed cost amortization and 25%
variable cost.

By lowering the cost can they expand their market by a factor of 2
just to make exactly the same level of profit? For it to be worth
their while the 25% price discount has to generate more than 2 times
the business.

Now with the lower price they have less slack with which to weather
bad times, fund other ventures or R&D, etc.

Will they give up the lucrative government business to take a flyer
on expanding the commerical sector?

I'm sure they'd be asking themselves what businesses are out there
that don't currently launch anything into orbit but will initiate
launch activities if the price is reduced by 25%.

I'm not so sure that a MULE concept is going to lead the aerospace
companies to lower their launch prices.

TangoMan