Comments on: NASA suspends non-ISS cooperation with Russia

By: Jim Nobles

Jim Nobles — Fri, 04 Apr 2014 21:27:37 +0000

Windy, this definitely seems like a site for you.

By: Vladislaw

Vladislaw — Fri, 04 Apr 2014 19:59:28 +0000

Jason has not allowed a single post of mine to go up on his spaceflight insider. If you so much as whisper commercial in a positive light or mention anything negative about SLS/orion your post never sees the light of day. The only posts that seem to go up are those that exclaim what a great article it is .. smiles.. rather hilarious actually.

By: Andrew Swallow

Andrew Swallow — Fri, 04 Apr 2014 07:00:03 +0000

A serious question here. Do these new restrictions forbid ULA from buying RD-180 engines for Atlas V?

There is also a related question, will the current troubles result in Russia banning the export of the engines to the USA?

Supplying engines for trips to the ISS, which is a joint Russian-US project, is one thing but for military launches!?!

By: Malmesbury

Malmesbury — Fri, 04 Apr 2014 06:51:32 +0000

Hmmmm

1) 2 years supply of RD-180
2) once the effort starts to build an American production line, there is a fair probability that the supply of Russian engines would be cut off immediately at the Russian end.
3) 2 years to reverse engineer, build a production line and get to a state where the production line is producing good quality engines. Sounds rather tight, if anything….

Hmmmmm

By: Reality Bits

Reality Bits — Fri, 04 Apr 2014 05:52:38 +0000

ULA just has to domestically produce an RD-180 in the US.

As Mike Gass, ULA CEO, said about the efforts to produce a domestic RD-180 in his congressional testimony, â€œWeâ€™ve done that over several years, we invested hundreds of millions of dollars to prove that we have the capability to demonstrate our ability to build that exact engine.â€

So go build them. No mention about any metallurgy or coatings problem, so what is stopping them?

By: Reality Bits

Reality Bits — Fri, 04 Apr 2014 05:46:00 +0000

I haven’t seen Jason post on that site for a while, I believe that he has moved onto another site (SpaceFlight Insider).

By: Hiram

Hiram — Fri, 04 Apr 2014 03:42:07 +0000

“Somehow I donâ€™t think Lockmart, whose Atlas has 155 consecutive mission successes, which include the nationâ€™s largest and most vital national security payloads, will go quietly.”

You can get outbid quietly. Those 155 consecutive successes cost a LOT of money. If success doesn’t cost as much money, it’s hard to succeed if you’re selling the more pricey product.

But of course, if you’re winning bids with a cheap product, there is no reason to keep it cheap if you don’t have real competition.

By: Hiram

Hiram — Fri, 04 Apr 2014 03:33:56 +0000

“Weâ€™ve all seen a lot of articles come out of Russia claiming theyâ€™re working on all sorts of technology that never sees the light of day.”

That’s certainly true. Now, NASA is hardly immune to that kind of thing.

But here’s a piece by Anatoly Zak that comes through with some background on the history of Russian space inflatables in the context of that from other nations. They have some history with space inflatables. RKK Energia evidently say that they are in the process of building a 1/3 scale model of the hab module for ground tests. Again, this isn’t necessarily a technology demonstrator, but possibly just a ball to throw astronauts in.

http://russianspaceweb.com/inflatable.html

By: Mongo

Mongo — Fri, 04 Apr 2014 02:06:38 +0000

I agree Jeff.

“I think it is pathetic when the US is relying on engines by V.P. Glushko.”

I think its pathetic that we are relying on Russian Soyuz’s or on modules and cupolas made by ESA. The US ought to maintaining its own capabilities.

By: Jeff Foust

Jeff Foust — Fri, 04 Apr 2014 01:57:44 +0000

Discussion of Middle Eastern relations is off topic for this post. Thank you for your cooperation in keeping the discussion focused on the topic of the post.