Posted on 03/03/2022 9:34:07 AM PST by BenLurkin
MOSCOW, March 3 (Reuters) - Russia has decided to stop supplying rocket engines to the United States in retaliation for its sanctions against Russia over Ukraine, Dmitry Rogozin, head of the state space agency Roscosmos, said on Thursday.
"In a situation like this we can't supply the United States with our world's best rocket engines. Let them fly on something else, their broomsticks, I don't know what," Rogozin said on state Russian television.
According to Rogozin, Russia has delivered a total of 122 RD-180 engines to the U.S. since 1990s, of which 98 have been used to power Atlas launch vehicles.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
Looks like the price of going to LEO just increaseed dramatically.
5.56mm
Please don’t blame MBAs for the perfidy of military contractors. One doesn’t need an MBA to deduce which number is lower.
Not too worrisome if the engines are for space exploration, but worrisome if for our weapons.
There's no such animal. The successor to Atlas V is the Vulcan, flying on Bezos' BE-4 engines, which are most definitely not obsolete. The article you linked is correct that the Atlas V is scheduled for retirement and ULA is taking no new orders for it.
A higher-priced contractor that the US keeps in business for redundancy's sake lost a sole-source subcontracted component that is already obsolete (and for which it, publicly at least, says it has no further orders).
That isn't going to cause the minimum price of going to LEO -- which, at least on the side of the Atlantic, is controlled by Elon Musk, not by ULA -- to increase at all.
“that we boot the Russians off our space station”
It’s not “our” space station anymore. The Clinton administration made it international and now it has many sections and components that are foreign built.
He didn’t say after WWII or during the Stalin era. He said after the USSR broke up.
Both India and China are refusing to join in sanctions.
Both are space-faring nations. As is Russia.
Russia has replacement markets. The US, not so much.
[Love Space-X, but they’re still largely in experimental stage.]
This hurts the US more than it harms Russia.
As an example, I am well acquainted with an extremely large US multinational company that in the 1990s eliminated 90+% of their R&D and the construction engineering and project management functions. The idea was they could eliminate these expenses and instead buy technology and hire outside engineering as needed. About 2000 persons were laid off corporate wide.
By eliminating R&D, in-house innovation largely disappeared along with extensive production support by R&D. Stagnation. In out sourcing engineering, they substituted the well experienced staff with insider knowledge of the processes with generic hirelings. Capital projects took longer, costs went up and quality went down. But…. Quarterly dividends went up and upper management got their multi-million $$$ bonuses and stock deals.
I was referring to the time period after the break up of the USSR but I get your drift and always value your opinion.
https://history.state.gov/milestones/1989-1992/collapse-soviet-union
from link:
“On December 25, 1991, the Soviet hammer and sickle flag lowered for the last time over the Kremlin, thereafter replaced by the Russian tricolor. Earlier in the day, Mikhail Gorbachev resigned his post as president of the Soviet Union, leaving Boris Yeltsin as president of the newly independent Russian state. People all over the world watched in amazement at this relatively peaceful transition from former Communist monolith into multiple separate nations.”
So we get our allies to join us in asking the Russians to leave. And if our allies don’t agree, maybe they go as well. I know Biden will be same as Obama and allow anything, draw lines in the sand, and then ignore them, but it would be nice to have a reckoning where are friends are with us or they are no longer our friends.
Elon Musk Hails Russian-Made Rocket Engine Design as … https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2019/03/08/elon... Mar 08, 2019 · Elon Musk Hails Russian-Made Rocket Engine Design as ‘The Best’.
In September 2014, ULA announced that it has entered into a partnership with Blue Origin to develop the BE-4 LOX/methane engine to replace the RD-180 on a new first-stage booster that would succeed the Atlas V. At the time, the engine was already in its third year of development by Blue Origin, and ULA expected the new stage and engine to start flying no earlier than 2019. Two of the 2,400-kilonewton (550,000 lbf)-thrust BE-4 engines will be used on the new launch vehicle booster.[16] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RD-180#US_production_of_the_RD-180
ULA, a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin, uses Russia’s RD-180 engine to power its workhorse Atlas V rocket, which the company has flown for nearly two decades. However, the RD-180 has been a controversial piece of hardware. Back in 2014, after Russia invaded Crimea, Congress banned the use of Russian rocket engines to launch national security satellites, which would have prevented ULA from using the Atlas V for missions for the Defense Department. That ban was ultimately lifted, but it spurred ULA to begin developing a new rocket, called Vulcan, which would use American-made engines. ULA ultimately selected Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin to develop the engine for the new Vulcan. Called the BE-4, the engine is taking years longer to deliver than originally planned. However, ULA CEO Tory Bruno hints that the first flight BE-4 engines are almost ready... This new policy will probably have the biggest impact on Northrop Grumman’s Antares rocket, which uses NPO Energomash’s RD-181 engine. - https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/3/22959691/russia-roscosmos-rocket-engines-ula-northrop-grumman-rd-180-181
May 13 2014: Russia is to deny the US use of the International Space Station beyond 2020 and will bar export of critical rocket engines to the US, in a move that has highlighted American dependence on Russian space technology.
The move over the rocket motors comes after SpaceX, the space venture of Elon Musk, founder of Tesla Motors, asked a federal court to bar the ULA from buying RD-180 motors. SpaceX said the purchases breached US sanctions against Mr Rogozin, who is also head of Russia’s space programme. SpaceX, which already carries out some launches of less sensitive satellites for the US government, does not use Russian engines and would like to break into launching the most sensitive satellites.
ULA added that it could switch to a second vehicle – Boeing’s Delta rocket – which used US-built motors and could meet all its customers’ needs. It also had a two-year supply of RD-180 motors “to enable a smooth transition to our other rocket”. - https://www.ft.com/content/9338626e-dab7-11e3-8273-00144feabdc0
Since the founding of SpaceX in 2002, the company has developed four families of rocket engines — Merlin, Kestrel, Draco and SuperDraco — and is currently (since 2016) developing another rocket engine: Raptor, and after 2020, a new line of methox thrusters. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_rocket_engines
Does Spacex Need Russian Rocket Engines? Both SpaceX’s Athena Merlin rocket and Blue Origin’s BE-4 rocket would be used, with Omega being used by United Launch Alliance, which has Vulcan missiles under its belt. The Atlas 5 rocket used a Russian …
Every single “American” large business did this and no longer call themselves American. They now call themselves multi-national and that is where we are today.
If we can’t make our own rocket engines, then we are well and truly effed.
I stand completely and utterly corrected. Thank you for pointing out my error.
THAT is a reading comprehension issue on my part.
Same thing happened after World War I with Germany... the world decided to rub Germany’s noses in the loss - and set the ground work for World War II.
Wilson came out of a cut throat academic environment...
Maybe what happened with the mess after the breakdown of the USSR was American ‘intelligence’ had too much say...
The ‘gotta win at all costs’ people saved our bacon in World War II but by the time Bush ‘the father’ came along their power had grown and grown and grown until you have the mess we have today.
By the way there are no ‘nice’ places to live run by either ‘military or ‘intelligence’ types. Both groups are needed, both critical to the survival of a nation and both groups are totally wrong in leadership positions.
“American technology and know-how to get us into space, keep us there, and expand our presence. Short of China stealing this, no way they or the Russians can match us.”
You are living in the past—you may want to research this a little more....
How is our “return to the moon” going?
Oh, yeah....
NASA is now the “diverse” “climate change fighting” dog ate my homework agency.
Unfortunately, Musk and others have not totally decoupled from NASA, and NASA is slowing them down...
Musk doesn't seem to have issues turning out good engines at scale, but his use methane, not LOX or oxygen and jet fuel, which would probably require a redesign of the whole rocket.
NASA's primary role is funnelling billions to contractors who aren't actually required to deliver working equipment on time and on budget as long as certain facilities in certain states and districts get funding.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.