Russian RD-180 Embargo Could Boost American Rocket Industry

MarkWhittington (1084047) writes According to a Saturday story in the Los Angeles Times, the recent revival of tensions between the United States and Russia, not seen since the end of the Cold War, may provide a shot in the arm for the American rocket engine industry. Due in part in retaliation for economic sanctions that were enacted in response to Russian aggression in the Ukraine, Russia announced that it would no longer sell its own RD-180 rocket engines for American military launches. This has had American aerospace experts scrambling to find a replacement. The stakes for weaning American rockets off of dependency on Russian engines could not be starker, according to Space News. If the United States actually loses the RD-180, the Atlas V would be temporarily grounded, as many as 31 missions could be delayed, costing the United States as much as $5 billion. However SpaceX, whose Falcon family of launch vehicles has a made in the USA rocket engine, could benefit tremendously if the U.S. military switches its business from ULA while it refurbishes its own launch vehicles with new American made engines.

Comments

thankX

[harvey the nerd]

SpaceX and the American people thank you, Mr Putin.

Re:Hooray for the private sector, I guess

[mmell]

Hey - I'll have you know we have the best government money can buy!

Yes, I know - hackneyed and trite. Still true.

Yawn

[Anonymous Coward]

I love how the writer of the article tries to bend the story as if the russians were somehow bad for not selling military equipment to a country that turned on them.

I know it's standard american hipocrisy, but I still find it disgusting how always americans always pretend to be blind to the reasons for which they are hated, and only see the hate and point at it.

Come to think of it... I seem to remember there is a group of people who always did that... who were they?

Re:Yawn

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh yeah...

Due in part in retaliation for economic sanctions that were enacted in parallel to the NATO expansion to the Ukraine, Russia announced that it would no longer sell its own RD-180 rocket engines for American military launches.

FTFY, just so you kids get some context.

That is a quite contorted spin on events. You seem to hold an underlying premise that the Ukraine is a client state of Moscow and does not have the right to voluntarily establish economic relations with the EU nor military relations with NATO. And that Moscow is justified for invading and meddling in Ukrainian internal affairs when the Ukrainians decide Moscow is perhaps not their best option as a partner or friend.

And you take things further with an outright lie. Sanctions followed the Russian invasion of the Ukraine, no sanctions existed as the Ukraine was seeking to improve its relationship with the west, there was no "parallel to".

Are you actually telling me?

[wisnoskij]

That the official operating procedure for the biggest military on Earth, many times over, is to buy mission critical equipment from anywhere that will sell it the cheapest and to not have any redundancy in place to ensure continued supply or alternatives?

What is the point of even having a military if that military requires good relationships with all other powerful nations on Earth to continue to function.
I can only imagine the level of damage a Chinese embargo would do.

Re:Are you actually telling me?

[Luckyo]

US military does not exist to defend US. It exists to attack foreign entities for US agenda. As a result, it needs a good number of spy and other military satellites in orbit to ensure it's intelligence gathering and other military purposes across the globe are as efficient as possible.

Congress

[jeff13]

Wait... does anyone seriously think that Congress will pass funding for anything related to NASA and the space programs? The current, Tea Party locked, science committee that recently called Climate Science "not science at all", Congress???

Good luck with that.

Unless it's a back-scratch back-room subsidy for their ilk and/or a state they wanna buy votes outta, forget it. Not ... going... to... happen.

Re:Congress

[the gnat]

does anyone seriously think that Congress will pass funding for anything related to NASA and the space programs

If it's sold as a matter of national security and economic competitiveness, and especially if it's sold as an uplifted middle finger to the Russians, I can imagine this happening. Rocket launches are used for lots of other things besides climate science, most of which aren't terribly controversial. And right now the US rocket industry couldn't possibly hire a better lobbyist for its cause than Vladimir Putin.