We are getting rocket engines from Russia?????
We are getting rocket engines from Russia?????
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We had to after 0bama canceled the Shuttle.
“We are getting rocket engines from Russia?????”
After the Cold War we were shocked to discover just how much better Soviet rocket engines were than ours. We were eager to buy them and used them for a lot of launches.
As with most things Russians they have not improved them over the last 30 years. Today SpaceX, Arianespace and other western rockets are much more advanced.
The Atlas 5 rocket uses the Russian RD - 180 engine. They had a whole bunch of them sitting around after the cold war and and somebody, I don’t know if they were Russian or American, got the bright idea to start using them again. It turns out that they were fantastic for the Atlas 5. I believe there is a Discovery Channel show that told the story of how the RD - 180 came to be used by NASA.
The ironic thing is that the Atlas family started off as an ICBM…. Against the Russians.
Yup.
Boeing and Lockheed Martin have been using Russian engines for their ULA rockets for a long time.
Pathetic isn’t it?