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Russia Bans US Use of Its Rocket Engines For Military Launches
schwit1 sends word that Russia will now ban U.S. military satellite launches using Russian-made rockets. According to Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, this is retaliation for U.S. sanctions on high-tech items, put in place because of the dispute in the Ukraine. Rogozin also threatened to block U.S. plans to keep using the International Space Station beyond its 2020 mission end date. That's not all: 'Rogozin also said Russia will suspend the operation of GPS satellite navigation system sites in Russia from June and seek talks with Washington on opening similar sites in the United States for Russia's own system, Glonass. He threatened the permanent closure of the GPS sites in Russia if that is not agreed by September.'
Ok kids, everyone under your desk.
Solving Unix problems since 1989...
This might be one of the best things to happen for SpaceX.
Wasn't it nice when at least space programs still worked together and were kind of outside the scope of international quarrels. Astronauts working together, at least to me, were a symbol of how we were still all civilized people who had a lot of common interests and could work together peacefully.
How does one suspend GPS? Russia doesn't control outer space above their country.
ps - Elon Musk must be chuckling.
I was hoping that despite our political issues, Russia would still partner with us in exploration/science endeavors. I guess I was a little too optimistic.
And I should have bought SpaceX stock last week.
is to stand up to the bully.
We dont need fighting. Lets take this "club and balls" contest to the American and Russian Women! Let them decide which set of leadership tackle should rule the day.
I'm thinking the Americans will lead.. Our guys drink less Vodka and we got those BGH drugs in all our food. Russian nights are a lot colder, they might be better at fishing with their tackle.
Keeping the US-Russia diplomatic ties strong was a founding reason for the joint civilian space missions, amongst its many scientific missions. What, if anything is insulating the ISS from becoming a $100 billion dollar political football?
All HTTP connections to US websites will be redirected to a youtube video of Putin striking manly poses while riding on top of a grizzly bear.
The man looks good with his shirt off, that's for sure.
Am I the only one who, upon hearing such things, immediately considers the possibility that these two governments are cooperating to manufacture a "threat" which will justify the next expansion of government (in terms of both power and revenue)? Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I'd certainly leave open the possibility.
Do a quick bunch of mealy mouthed video bites proclaiming solidarity and further cooperation to, well, study the situation.
I have no faith in our leaders here in the US or in the EU to stop Putin.
We need to bring back the NASA programs and other things that are vital to national security in house rather then outsourcing to the lowest bidders...
Visit the Arcade Restoration Workshop @ http://www.arcaderestoration.com
to stop sniffing rocket fuel. We're back in business baby!!!" -NASA
This is exactly why comparative advantage is complete BS. When you let another foreign entity control your means of whatever it may be (rocketd, iPhones, car parts, tools, etc etc) you lose that ability to utilize it when the political poo hits the fan.
Watch the space shuttle program make a dramatic re-appearance. This is a massive national security issue that I bet no one brought up when they decided, "Gee, lets go and outsource our rockets and launches to a foreign power we've had cold relations with since the early 20th century."
This is what happens when people look solely at the bottom line. It gets a little hard to project your power into a region when that same region makes most of your equipment (I'm looking at you China!).
The sanctions and bans clearly will not work to defuse the Ukraine crisis. The Russian public has bought into Putin's nationalist rhetoric. Putin completely controls the political discourse in the mass media within Russia. This year, Kremlin increased pressure even on web based news, social networks, and blogs. Every Western sanction is met with a counter-sanction from the Russian side. The Russian economy and standards of living may suffer (some have serious doubts about the effectiveness of these sanctions), but I don't think they will make Russia back away.
Moreover, it's not clear what is the goal of the western sanctions as their goal is often amorphously described as "deescalate the situation in Ukraine". What does this mean? Russians think that annexation of Crimea is a done deal. Not just Putin, average Russians too. They certainly won't back away from that. As for the instability in east Ukraine, it's not clear how you prove who is escalating what right now? The locals in East Ukraine are certainly as pissed off at Kiev as it gets, specially after deadly Odesa clashes and the coup in Kiev. I don't think they need a lot of encouragement from Putin at this point.
The best way to defuse the crisis in Ukraine, is to help this country rebuild its democratic institutions and economy. While Ukraine is viewed as the victim in this dispute, its government must do more to accommodate the concerns of its Russian-speaking citizens in the East regions. For one, they should be allowed to elect their local government officials.
This might really hurt Russia. The Soviet Union struggled to stay apace with technology, and Russia has too since the collapse of the USSR. Space technology was one area where Russia could make money and truly claim to be among the best. If they're not careful this might kill off one of their few chances for profitable exports in the world economy.
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it dissolve.
...to really kick it in to high gear.
Kill shuttles, kill the DC-X, kill spaceplanes, kill research, find the cheapest possible source of launchers. Make a business out of manned spaceflight. So now we're hostage to Russia, because they were cheaper than building a reusable launch system. SpaceX ain't ready yet. So, we're screwed. May Elon Musk get what he wishes for, and may he be able to deliver. Next month.
Gee, maybe we should have kept our space program going. Then instead of placing it in the hands of moronic dictatorships like Russia (true if you live in reality) or private industries trying to make a profit, they would be the one collecting money for licensing, part sales, and commercial launches. It was one of the few things at NASA that made money!
In Soviet Russia, GPS operates you!
This is what we get electing and re-electing a President so wimpy, he throws a baseball like a five-year-old girl. We've become like a 98-pound weakling at the beach. Every little bully in the world is now kicking sand in our face.
I can remember presidents back to Eisenhower, and I never remember this happening before.
Did you miss those decades where we all had nukes pointing at one another?
Did you miss all those years where tensions kept ratcheting up and there was a fear people shoot the damned things?
This kind of stuff has far broader implications than you seem to realize.
Outsource everything, cut investments in high tech, cut investments in infrastructure and science.Spend more on giant military. That's what it gets us.
Space X lost in court but won anyways?
wtf not because THE United States starts with a THE you got to add it on front of every country name.
Ever since the Cold War ended, the US has really gone to shit. It's like an old boxer who goes out of shape because there's no one left to fight.
what utter, fucking, historically ignorant bullshit.
if your theory were in any way true, it would not have required the forced de-ukrainization of eastern ukraine in the 1930s, which stalin did.
your simplistic rewriting of history for the now twice invader of ukraine, is deplorable.
fuck you you fucking fascist.
Now can we build up our space launch infrastructure?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
With the secret space plane that has no name
The Russian already delivered several and we have tested them on our rack. We should be able to reverse engineer them, without help from the Russians. Pound sand, Ruskies.
man, Americans are learning a lot of geography lately...
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
the news should be read with few facts in mind. first of all, it was Musk who sought the ban of russian engines ( earlier slashdot story http://science.slashdot.org/st... ), so it hurts some companies, but not US, SpaceX will benefit from this 'ban', Musk is happy. then look at gps facilities http://www.gps.gov/multimedia/... - there is no one GPS facility in Russia. So this are not about GPS, but about those businesses, which provided more correct positioning information for Russian customers. If Rogozin wants to harm russian customers, let it be, but it hardly will have any effect anywhere else. And take Japan with a project http://www.qzs.jp/en/ - currently much of what provide ground stations could be transferred to satellites. So, it is quite possible, that even won't harm russian customers, they will be offered to use more satellites. as for threats to block International Space station beyond 2020, this might bite, but still not much. Though there are reports, that currently there are a lot of customers for international space station services, still unmanned satellites could perform almost all of these services, and more cheap and that was true for almost all time when astronautics existed - piloted stations added quite few actual results except for public attention to space research. So combined: if russian go the way of sanctions the biggest harm will be for russian space program and russian customers of space services. For US any announced threats are of very minor importance. So let this Rogozin hit russian interests with his own hands.
This is exactly why the Federation won't have Earth as a member,
In terms of economic impact on US it is pretty toothless. ULA has already stated that they have two year supply of RD-180 engines and that they are perfectly capable of manufacturing the engines themselves. The reasons for buying these engines from Russia are mostly political - US supports Russian engineers so they don't go and build rockets in Iran. On the other hand Elon Musk must be laughing out loud. The Russians just created the perfect political environment for the congress to act and allow SpaceX to compete with ULA for military satellite launches, something that only few days back was made impossible by a court decision. Good job Ruskies, you just open the door for your most aggressive competitor.
As far as the shutting down GPS ground stations in Russia goes, this will only impact the accuracy of the system on Russian territory. So the only way somebody in US may feel pain is if they fall off their chairs laughing.
...Jimmy Carter may not prove to be the most gullible US president after ll.
Russia will probably be willing to lift the ban if the US lifts its own ITAR restrictions. They disallow the export defense-related technology, including rocketry, to Russia.
SpaceX tries to prevent the US from buying rockets from Russia and unfortunately looses. After that the US goes to Russia to buy rockets and gets refused. It looks to me like SpaceX has all the cards now, I wonder how much the price just went up to buy one of their rockets?
Fail copypasta. Musk is not even involved with paypal any longer. You should check your spelling before you submit, you're embarrassing yourself.
The United States needs to learn that its bullying tactics will not be tolerated.
What a mess the Americans have made in Ukraine. Eastward expansion of NATO, and the European Union obviously will make the Russians very uneasy, particularly given the American history of economic terrorism that has always been used to achieve its foreign policy aims. Remember how many people Russia lost during WW2. The wish never to repeat such a tragedy is deeply ingrained on the Russian psyche. The west has boxed Russia into a corner. The reaction is hardly surprising. Obama lacks a proper grasp of international politics, and is completely ignorant of the history of the region. Like every previous instance of American interference, it will only result in disaster.
Personally, I think Russia should ban the sale of Boeing aircraft within Russia, and pass laws, stripping diplomatic immunity from those convicted of economic terrorism. This would make it risky for those in the United States, who are guilty of imposing unilateral sanctions to aid US foreign policy, since the Russians could hopefully capture and imprison such individuals. I doubt the Russians would resort to CIA like kidnapping tactics, or indefinitely imprisonment without trial, US style, but I'd actually welcome it if America got a taste of its own medicine.
A stable world is based on consensus, not unilateral actions. The United States has a dismal history of foreign policy failures, many with a monumental human cost.
Support for the violent coup in Ukraine, with its significant neo-nazi contingent, is dangerous, and has destroyed the already fragile democracy in Ukraine.
Ukraine is endemically corrupt. Replacing one corrupt regime, with an unelected neo-fascist variety, is hardly a smart move. It will undoubtedly divide and destabilise Ukraine, probably resulting in total economic collapse, and perhaps even division into two countries. I think the best we can now hope for, is the secession of the eastern Ukraine, since that is clearly the will of the people there, irrespective of any western propaganda on the issue.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
The Spanish burned at most 25 people in any given year? The Mayan written language was eradicated, the non-Trinitarian Christian branches, were all exterminated - just because they did not have individual records doesn't mean it didn't happen. You are confusing the Spanish with the Nazis. The Romans were not unstoppable murdering machines? Ask the defenders at Masada or any other nations that were lined up on crossed to die in the sun after daring to resist.
perhaps this may return US financing of space programme to decent (cold-war) level?
Same old story between two super powers...
http://www.newspapirus.com
So, turns out that funneling cash to huge defense contractors only works for national security as long as those involved care more about defense than cash.
Lockheed and Boeing got a bunch of money (and get a bunch of money every year, assured access) to deal with this and develop capability for building this engine domestically, but turns out they just pocketed the money, never built the rocket engine factory, and nobody blinked an eye. Thankfully they have the Delta IV, but who knows if they can scale up production like they need to, and you can guarantee it's going to be a hell of a lot more expensive.
It is not like they have issues hauling things into space (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_%28rocket_family%29). Or am I missing something?
nosig today
Should help Space X out quite nicely
We should be launching our military stuff with US rockets.
bet you wish you didn't gut NASA now huh?
Case studies show otherwise, majority of easter Ukrainian population does not want to be part of Russia (take pretty much any non-Russian case study), don't buy this anonymous shit please.
Eastern Ukrain is predominantly Russian speaking, but so is the capital.
Parent post is clearly underrated.
ULA has a 2 year supply of Russian rockets I believe. This move by Russian should hasten the US military to use the cheaper space rockets.
The US Military was using Russian Rockets to get their junk into space? I find that very very odd. The US Military is sooo anal retentive about making absolute certain that all parts to any weapon system used by the US Military is manufactured in the US. They never ever have to rely on other countries for military hardware, regardless of whether its cheaper or not (in hindsight, its not a bad strategy: expensive, but allows complete independence). As for the satellite systems: alternative sites could be established although with less accuracy. Instead of hitting the ball bearing factory, you hit the school beside the ball bearing factory. Why oh why would the US want to do precision bombing in that part of the world anyway?
I have a gun. I bake my own cake. Brownies too. Today I baked cinnamon rolls. You're welcome to come have one.
Or you can sit there and complain that you're hungry.
What's that sound?
Why that's the sound of thousands of MBA and economists heads exploding! Not to mention stock traders and investment analysts.
"Everyone knows" that you cannot run a company in any other way than quarter to quarter. Or so you'd think after looking after the typical state of the modern public company.
wtf not because
I assume that made sense in your head.
Putin apologists remind me of battered wives. If only you could stop making him mad, everything would be okay.
There's a reason why Eastern Europe was rushing to try to join NATO. And they were right. They're going to be rushing even harder now.
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
Your GNSS primer has quite a few errors--except for calling them GNSS instead of using GPS like Kleenex, like most reporters do. :)
1a. GPS long in the tooth: not at all. From the Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gps#Timeline_and_modernizationGPS article, the next phase (III-A) is already approved and just needs to be built; 7 more from the previous phase still need to be completed and launched as the older birds die. And the math doesn't change over 30 years, only the corrections.
1b. Didn't notice this until after I wrote the above: Wikipedia has an entire article on the next GPS generation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G...
2. GPS, GLONASS, GALILEO, and the newer Chinese Beidou expansion that's apparently been renamed Compass are all worldwide systems. The former three use medium earth orbit (MEO), but not polar so there's reduced or eliminated polar coverage (mainly above the (ant)arctic circles; Compass/Beidou uses both GEO and MEO. Also, I know first-hand that GLONASS works just fine here in Arizona as my Samsung Galaxy Note II with its SIRF dual-system chip receives it with no flags for inaccuracy compared to GPS.
3. "Planned Errors": This is Selective Availability and hasn't been used since the 90's.
4. Beidou/Compass' build-out vs GALILEO's: China's is happening, according to Wikipedia, unlike GALILEO, where the latest announcement is a pair of birds delivered to the Guyana spaceport and STILL no ETA to full deployment...
everyone works together peacefully when everyone is getting what they want.
the crux of conflict is want.
Nice idea - a license agreement which bans military applications. More products should do this.
Bring down the banhammer on Russia with a total embargo on Russia and any country who breaks the embargo.. Russia would last a week. When you have an annoying toothless bully in your face, best response is to give them a beating they will never forget.
... russian speaking ukranians were imported to Ukraine, and the originally ethnic groups were cleared out.
... I propose they just move back to Russia, and leave Ukraine to the ethnic groups that were cleared out.
Then what about people in US move back wherever they came from and leave the continent to the ethnic groups that were cleared out ?
I guess there's a duration threshold somewhere, after that people living somewhere can claim the land.
Maybe 50 years is a bit short, a few hundreds start to be interesting, and thousands year long occupation seems fair.
Anyway, there might have been some other original ethnic group there before any of both today, they should focus on something else than their ancestors' culture and learn to live together.
there are people in power both sides that are bold, raised and educated in the times of cold war. they somehow will never manage to think differently. it is a matter of time until generations born after that time will be in power - lets hope people of new generations will not care about this crap, and will see only one one big interconnected world to work, and to sell and buy goods
Also, why not ban Russia use of US chips for military hardware? Not that many country can build DSPs and FPGAs are there?
Could we do that in Israel? Wouldn't that solve about 3/4th the world's problems?
Kuwait is only an ally because of its oil reserves...
Wrap it up however you like, it was a war over the availability of resources, and in this case, oil.
Let's let TOM speak shall we:
"I'm having great conversations on this site with one of my alias accounts" - by Tom (822) on Monday April 07, 2014 @02:29PM (#46686259) Homepage FROM -> http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
APK
P.S.=> Tom *tried* to libel me & failed after I destroyed him in a technical debate on hosts files... result?
Tom ended up "eating his words" here http://slashdot.org/comments.p... spiced with "the bitter taste of SELF-defeat" + HIS FOOT IN HIS MOUTH
... apk
There are no Eastern European countries left that are in a hurry to join. The former Yugoslavia was bombed by NATO and even though maybe slightly more than half the population in Bosnia-Herzegovina might really support it (since they benefit from the NATO involvement), the other half would be so much against it that it's just a pipe dream for those who want it. Moldova on the other hand has a problem, which is in some ways similar to the Ukrainian crisis but has been going on for much longer. A civil war similar to what might soon happen in Ukraine ended in a cease fire with the Eastern half of the country declaring itself independent (with some leaning towards joining Russia) but are not recognized as a state by anyone (not even Russia - for now - IIRC). The Western half (whose government de jure of course is the government of the entire country) would probably want to join NATO but with the population almost as divided on the issue as in Bosnia-Herzegovina, it's just not possible for them to even consider it. Unless they agree to let the Eastern half be independent or part of Russia.
Looks like Putin is preparing to clean our clock. After he's through, it will be 1960 all over again.
Dear me, you seem to be rather fascist in your denunciation of fascism........
News Flash, we can get survey grade GPS from modern day equipment, subinch vertical and horizontal using proprietary technology. New GPS networks are coming online and as of last month if you use dual frequency GPS can get submeter horizontal (decrypted signal; used to be encrypted). So what's the fuss? In my opinion, we need to stop being the global police and worry about our own issues. Doesn't anyone read and understand lessens from history anymore? Maybe, it's the corrupt politicians with hidden agendas. I say let the change in cultures happen organically rather than synthetically. We certainly don't have our stuff together so why do we impose our moral rights on others outside of our boundaries. Unless it infringes on our rights, who cares what they do! Evil will always exist and going to search for it depletes resources and security.
We currently can't get men into low Earth orbit. Space X says they'll be able to do it by 2017. If we can't do it, by 2020, then we are truly screwed as far as space travel is concerned.
This Slashdot article doesn't talk about Putin putting a ban on ferrying our asses up to the space station by the year 2020. He will do it if our sanctions (a joke) aren't lifted.
We just had 2 astronauts return back to Earth from the station last night, after being up there for 6 months. Could this situation get any more pathetic ?
Yes, I assume that they would be Russian as quickly as possible.
Only thing worse than Putin apologists are oligarch bootlickers. Like you.
an elderly relative they took in did not: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D... ... After the national railways complied with the exiled Dutch government's appeal for a railway strike starting September 1944 to further the Allied liberation efforts, the German administration retaliated by placing an embargo on all food transports to the western Netherlands. By the time the embargo was partially lifted in early November 1944, allowing restricted food transports over water, the unusually early and harsh winter had already set in. The canals froze over and became impassable for barges. ..."
"The Dutch famine of 1944, known as the Hongerwinter ("Hunger winter") in Dutch, was a famine that took place in the German-occupied part of the Netherlands, especially in the densely populated western provinces above the great rivers, during the winter of 1944-1945, near the end of World War II. A German blockade cut off food and fuel shipments from farm areas. Some 4.5 million were affected and survived because of soup kitchens. About 22,000 died because of the famine. Most vulnerable according to the death reports were elderly men.
So yes, it is the height of foolishness that the USA has reduced its food stocks to bare minimums for "just in time" delivery. I read somewhere a few years ago that the USA was divesting itself of its government reserve grain supplies too. It is even more insanity to convert grain to fuel. A trillion dollars a year or more for security spending in the USA, and the government can't even get the basics right...
See also: ... In the inflationary 1970s, the USDA revamped FDR's program into the Farmer-Owned Grain Reserve, which encouraged farmers to store grain in government facilities by offering low-cost and even no-interest loans and reimbursement to cover the storage costs. But over the next quarter of a century the dogma of deregulated global markets came to dominate American politics, and the 1996 Freedom to Farm Act abolished our national system of holding grain in reserve. As for all that wheat held in storage, it became part of the Bill Emerson Humanitarian Trust, a food bank and global charity under the authority of the secretary of Agriculture. The stores were gradually depleted until 2008, when the USDA decided to convert all of what was left into its dollar equivalent. And so the grain that once stabilized prices for farmers, bakers and American consumers ended up as a number on a spreadsheet in the Department of Agriculture. Now, as the United States must confront climate change, commodity markets riddled by speculation, increased import costs, hosts of regional conflicts and the return of international grain tariffs and export bans, we have put our faith entirely in transnational agribusiness and the global grain market. ..."
http://articles.latimes.com/20...
"But when it comes to food prices, our country cannot even threaten to bolster the national supply because the United States does not possess a national grain reserve. Such was not always the case. The modern concept of a strategic grain reserve was first proposed in the 1930s by Wall Street legend Benjamin Graham.
More neoliberal neocon madness... But most people in the USA did not have a parent who saw a relative starve to death during wartime... You always think the basic services will be there -- until you test them in a crisis and they are not...
"Neoliberalism as a Water Balloon"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Or also:
http://www.taobackup.com/testi...
"No matter how sophisticated or comprehensive your backup system is, you will never know if it works unless you actually test it. Without testing, you can have no confidence at all. Here are
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
If you're far enough away from the nuclear blast to survive it, drop to the ground, face down, with your hands over your eyes. When the bright flash from the detonation occurs, you will be blinded. However by doing as I just instructed, your vision will return...rather than being 'burnt out'
The sanctions and bans clearly will not work to defuse the Ukraine crisis.
Without something concrete, consequences such as those sanctions and bans and threat of them becoming more and more severe, Russian tanks would most likely have already rolled to Eastern Ukraine. Whether that's helping to eventually defuse the crisis, or just helping to prolong it by preventing Russia from ending it in SU style, that's matter of opinion.