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U.S. military dependence on Russian rocket engines raises security concerns
Washington Times ^ | September 2, 2014 | Jeffrey Scott Shapiro

Posted on 09/02/2014 6:48:34 PM PDT by maggief

The rising tensions with Russia over its aggression in Ukraine is creating national security concerns inside the Pentagon, where the military’s largest satellite program is reliant on a rocket engine produced by Moscow.

The Air Force said it has begun looking for alternatives to the RD-180 rocket engines for its Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle program — the fourth largest line item in the U.S. defense budget — now that Russia has threatened to cut off the technology in its tit-for-tat struggle with the U.S.

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Government; News/Current Events; Russia
KEYWORDS:
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1 posted on 09/02/2014 6:48:34 PM PDT by maggief
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To: maggief

ROFLMAO

LOL

OOPS!

OMG!


2 posted on 09/02/2014 6:52:18 PM PDT by SolidRedState (I used to think bizarro world was a fiction.)
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To: maggief

obama thinks itsgreat, we give money to his commie buddies and if we don’t he says we’re against natl security. and also nasa who hitches rides on russian rockets and soyuz capsules. spreadin wealth to commie friends around the world.


3 posted on 09/02/2014 6:52:46 PM PDT by Secret Agent Man ( Gone Galt; Not averse to Going Bronson.)
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To: maggief

Welcome to the real world Mr. Obama.


4 posted on 09/02/2014 6:52:54 PM PDT by encm(ss)
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To: maggief
The Air Force said it has begun looking for alternatives to the RD-180 rocket engines

Probably take about 20 years ...

5 posted on 09/02/2014 6:53:15 PM PDT by ClearCase_guy ("Harvey Dent, can we trust him?" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBsdV--kLoQ)
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To: maggief; blueyon; KitJ; T Minus Four; xzins; CMS; The Sailor; ab01; txradioguy; Jet Jaguar; ...

Active Duty ping.


6 posted on 09/02/2014 6:53:55 PM PDT by Jet Jaguar (Resist in place.)
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To: SolidRedState

where did the idea of buying rocket engines from Russia come from anyways?


7 posted on 09/02/2014 6:54:09 PM PDT by GeronL (Vote for Conservatives not for Republicans)
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To: ClearCase_guy

Where does SpaceX and those other companies get their engines?


8 posted on 09/02/2014 6:55:16 PM PDT by GeronL (Vote for Conservatives not for Republicans)
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To: GeronL

Liberals!


9 posted on 09/02/2014 6:55:45 PM PDT by Empireoftheatom48 (God help the Republic but will he?)
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To: Empireoftheatom48

The Three Stooges couldn’t do any worse!


10 posted on 09/02/2014 6:57:51 PM PDT by refermech
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To: maggief

We are dependent on other countries for tungsten, rare earth metals, tritium, cobalt 60, and increasingly, food.

I think we get lots of our steel from other countries, but I’m not sure of the amounts.

And oil...


11 posted on 09/02/2014 7:00:35 PM PDT by DBrow
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To: GeronL

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/375755/us-and-russia-no-better-together-space-land-taylor-dinerman

President Reagan invited America’s friends and allies to join the program, which was called “Space Station Freedom.” NASA, moving at the speed of government, had accomplished nothing other than a set of design studies by 1993, when Bill Clinton was inaugurated. Under pressure from the New York Times, which was on a jihad against so-called “big science,” Clinton canceled the Superconducting Super Collider, which was then being built in Texas, and he nearly canceled the space station.

But with his usual sharp political instincts, President Clinton realized the space program had more supporters than particle physics, and that, in any case, he didn’t have much to fear from the physicists: They would, on the whole, burn Isaac Newtons’ and Albert Einsteins’ collected works in a bonfire in Harvard Yard before they would vote Republican. So he killed their program and kept NASA’s space station. At the same time, in order to satisfy his liberal base, he recast the space station as “outreach” to Russia.

(snip)

America’s space engagement with Russia has been, like so many other foreign-policy initiatives, beset by wishful thinking and by the desire to ignore the hard facts of power politics. No party or faction in Washington comes out of this looking good: not the George H. W. Bush realists who made Moscow’s space program dependent on U.S. funds; not the policymakers from the Clinton and Bush II eras, who embedded Russia into the ISS and the EELV programs; and certainly not the current administration, which seems to be even more lost in space than its predecessors.


12 posted on 09/02/2014 7:04:14 PM PDT by maggief
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To: maggief

How could they not have seen this coming? Easy. The last time the “Industrial Base” guys were taken seriously was in the last 1980s.


13 posted on 09/02/2014 7:05:27 PM PDT by rbg81
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To: GeronL
I believe SpaceX has developed a low-priced line of Falcon rockets which are quite capable. They certainly do business with the US government, so I bet we can find a non-Russian source without too much trouble.

Of course, the USAF would like to buy rockets from a small company, minority owned, with a 40-year track record, after a lot of competitive bidding, and a few contract protests, and ...

14 posted on 09/02/2014 7:08:34 PM PDT by ClearCase_guy ("Harvey Dent, can we trust him?" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBsdV--kLoQ)
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To: GeronL

When they fired all the real rocket scientists. /s

Seriously, though...is it any wonder after they started producing climate change data/animations ala CIA ‘zoom-climb’ (aka ‘propaganda’)?

It’ll take decades to reverse the damage left in it’s wake (it = puppet/minions/RATS/Libs/progs)...and I’m referring to far more than just NASA...


15 posted on 09/02/2014 7:09:32 PM PDT by logi_cal869
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To: GeronL

I have no idea where the idea came from but I want to know what happened to the idea all US Military items should come from domestic sources. Even if foreign design and companies they should be made in and supplies by US factories.

In case of something like this, we just take over the factories.

But as someone else pointed out, if the raw materials have to be imported then what difference does that make I guess.


16 posted on 09/02/2014 7:11:58 PM PDT by SolidRedState (I used to think bizarro world was a fiction.)
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To: maggief

bump


17 posted on 09/02/2014 7:13:37 PM PDT by GeronL (Vote for Conservatives not for Republicans)
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To: ClearCase_guy
Space X and Scaled Composites are not the only ones working toward getting into space and to the space station.

Sierra Nevada Corporation wants to get this thing spaceworthy by 2017-18 (they might want to add wheels to the front landing gear)

Dream Chaser

18 posted on 09/02/2014 7:16:56 PM PDT by GeronL (Vote for Conservatives not for Republicans)
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To: logi_cal869

Obama has infested the bureaucracy with his miscreants from top to bottom. It might take a generation to fix that


19 posted on 09/02/2014 7:18:04 PM PDT by GeronL (Vote for Conservatives not for Republicans)
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To: SolidRedState

bump

I agree


20 posted on 09/02/2014 7:18:36 PM PDT by GeronL (Vote for Conservatives not for Republicans)
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