Senate Armed Services Committee Says No to More RD-180s
McCain rejects Pentagon push for more Russian rocket engines, Reuters
“U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain on Wednesday rejected a request by U.S. officials for changes in federal law to let the two largest U.S. arms makers use more Russian rocket engines to compete for military satellite launches against privately held SpaceX. McCain’s comments reflect frustration among some lawmakers about the Pentagon’s failure to halt purchases of the RD-180 Russian engines after Russia’s annexation of Crimea. As SpaceX becomes a potential competitor to current monopoly launch provider, United Launch Alliance (ULA), a joint venture of Lockheed Martin Corp and Boeing Co, billions of dollars of orders are at stake and both sides are lobbying lawmakers hard.”
I foresee plenty of posturing until Lockmart start to run out of engines, at which point congress will quietly approve more RD-180s. The development of alternatives is uncertain but the power of money in politics is not.
“Lockmart runs out of engines”? Really? Ever heard of the ULA joint venture between LM & Boeing? It took over the Atlas and Delta launch vehicles almost a DECADE ago.
Uncle Sam buys launches from ULA which buys Atlas rockets from Lockmart. Lockmart/ULA buys engines from a shell company RDAMROSS, who gets them from Russia. Alternatives include Dynetics which has no experience, or a methane engine which requires new tanks and a redesign. I would guess that Lockmart and ULA will pay lobbyists so they can keep buying cheap Russian engines and selling expensive American rockets and launch services.
Nonsense – while you’re right about the RDAMROSS aspect, LM stopped producing Atlas years ago; they are made in the same ULA factory in Decatur, AL as the ULA Deltas
This hardly represents a veto but I would argue that it indicates where the political wind is flowing, at least for the duration of this Congress and possibly longer, if GOP wins the next Presidential election.
We’ll see, especially if the USAF and NRO tells Congress that there are no other options to avoid a hiatus in USG large space launches. However, ULA’s timeline for Vulcan may start contracting radically if Atlas becomes a political liability to them.
I find this statement bizarre, “McCain said the letter ignored NASA’s role in providing
assured access to space, and the law did not prevent NASA from
continuing to use the Russian rocket engines. That meant NASA
could always step in to help in the event of a crisis, he said.”
Sounds like NASA can buy the office space at a hotel and be the middle man for Putin.
You’re confused about the difference between ULA and NASA, just like McCain.
I don’t see Russia being a secure source until the RD-180’s arrive in the US, contracts or payments notwithstanding. Mr Putin will balance his need for hard currency against the possibility of squeezing the US military space program, but he has shown he regards the US as “the enemy” in the global power chess game. We probably can’t change that as long as he remains in power. Better make sure we have a safe reliable supply of acceptable engines elsewhere.
Russia’s Proton-m, it’s workhorse launcher, failed again. It just dropped mexsat1 into Siberia after its 3rd stage failed. I cannot believe it will continue as a commercial launcher.
Energetic Disassembly of ULA continues:
Lockheed-Boeing venture lays off 12 executives in major reorganisation
May 15, 2015
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Lockheed Martin Corp (LMT.N) and Boeing Co (BA.N), on Friday said it was cutting its executive ranks by 30 percent in December through what it called voluntary departures by 12 executives.
Tory Bruno, chief executive of the venture, told Reuters in an emailed statement the layoffs were part of ULA’s ongoing efforts to adapt to what he called “an increasingly competitive business environment” and redesign its leadership team.
You have to wonder what stockholders think watching this train wreck: if ULA can take this action now, why didn’t it do it years ago? And how does this affect profitability?
It’s like asking a guy for a price to fix something in the house. You tell him the price is too high. He comes back with a dramatically lower price that presumably is high enough for him to stay in business. You wonder in this case why you would ever hire someone who wouldn’t give the best price to start with.
We call it ‘zip code shock’ down here where I live amongst some very ritzy zip codes. In the case of ULA where Uncle Sam is involved it’s called something else.
It didn’t take action years ago, because it had a monopoly on DoD launches. Why change when you have a predictable source of revenue and profit? Where is the incentive to innovate?
As the FTC wrote back in 2006 about the creation of ULA:
“Monopolies almost always lead to higher prices, lower quality and inferior services,” Michael R. Moiseyev, assistant director of the FTC’s bureau of competition, said in a July letter that was made public yesterday. “Here, the competition that would be lost is significant, and the economic benefits that may materialize are unlikely to trump the transaction’s harm to competition.”