Pratt & Whitney (who sell the RD-180’s in the US) has the full plans and production rights to it. So they could simply build RD-180’s.

Not it would take a while to get production up and trsted, so I’d really want to stockpile a couple so you can keep going for a year or two until productions up and running, otherwise the skys not falling.

Up until the provisional passage of PNTR for Russia by Congress last year, trade with Russia was still regulated by the old Cold War Jackson-Vanik provisions, which were pretty restrictive. That new PNTR status is still somewhat dependent on how Russia behaves, for example with regard to human rights. While PNTR is mainly an issue about removing tariffs as per WTO membership, the State Department can, I believe, use the legislation it replaces in other ways. Yes, aerospace companies should be keeping their eye on it, but there are certainly ways that the U.S. government could get involved. I’m not an expert on this, so it would be interesting to hear from others who are.

“The U.S. government is going to have a role in this particular supply issue, one way or another.”

Unless both Boeing and Lockheed Martin say it’s a problem, it would be hard to see how the government would get involved.

In principle, this is correct, but we’re talking about an issue that is very much State Department dependent. The U.S. government is going to have a role in this particular supply issue, one way or another.

“… based on the performance in recent years with other systems such as the Orion or the ISS …”

Huh? You use Orion and ISS to judge U.S. capabilities in aerospace engineering? Gee, what happened to commercial aviation and the DoD? Orion and ISS represent very significant aerospace accomplishment. Their only problem is that, unlike a lot of the other examples you could have considered, we don’t have a really good reason why we’re doing them. As a result, performance is not well matched to long term needs.

Of course, the U.S. aerospace industry is well represented by NASA human space flight, right? Is that what you’re saying? Sheesh. Long ago, when Apollo ruled the skies, that’s what we were trying to convince people of. But those days are long gone.

“Once Space X shows they can go into a production basis then I’ll be a bit more comfortable. They haven’t demonstrated production. All of their machines are one-off.”

Being a manufacturing operations professional, I don’t understand what you are saying. They have already demonstrated that they are in production, and have even changed models that they have in production.

They’ve already launched five Falcon 9 v1.0, one Falcon 9 v1.1, and have three more v1.1 launches lined up for the next two months. Add up the number of engines that they have already built for what they have launched and what they have sitting on the pad ready to go today, and that is 70 engines plus more that are in qual testing or done with qual testing for the next couple of launches.

SpaceX is in production, and has been for a number of years. Maybe you’re using a non-standard definition of what “production” is?

“Likewise the Russians-they might not have the economy but they’ve never given up an inch of their industry and production capability.”

Even they acknowledge that their industry is not what it used to be, and when was the last time they produced a new launch vehicle or spacecraft? Here in the U.S. we have four spacecraft being developed by four different U.S. aerospace companies. And if you ask launch customers, they are not adding Russian launches to their schedules, and if anything they are seeking non-Russian transport due to the many failures that Russian rockets have had recently.

“Airbus seems to be doing just fine and winning on revenue and machines in production as compared with Boeing…”

My point was that Boeing is one U.S. company, and Airbus is a conglomerate of European nations.

Our aerospace industry is certainly not weak, and if anything is dominate when compared to their equivalents around the world.

“Yes, but the Delta IV isn’t being used that much, and is certainly more expensive.”

I only pointed it out because it would be the backup for any problems with Atlas V, and even though it may not be used as much as Atlas V, it’s production could be ramped up. It is already a certified alternative to the Atlas V, though a more expensive one.

“But certainly SpaceX is likely the ultimate answer here, eventually.”

Agreed.

“I really don’t want to see any congressional mandates for U.S. production of such an engine, but it makes some sense to consider whether U.S. industry has the capability or the need to produce such an engine.”

I don’t like it when the government micro-manages supply issues, so I’d rather the government just clearly define the demand projected for all launch providers, and let the industry figure out how they will satisfy that demand. No doubt Lockheed Martin and Boeing will try to get the government to pay for developing a new engine if it came to that, but that’s exactly the wrong approach to take when there is already competition for both engines and launch providers.