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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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To: maggief

“The reset worked,” Clinton said. “It was an effort to try to obtain Russian cooperation on key objectives while Medvedev was president, and of course Putin still pulled the strings but he gave Medvedev a certain amount of independence to negotiate, number one, a new arms control treaty which was absolutely necessary.”

21 posted on 09/02/2014 7:19:30 PM PDT by maggief
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To: GeronL

And there’s Blue Origin, which, I believe, has had some trouble, but they are funded by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, so that might help them stay in the game long enough to work the kinks out.


22 posted on 09/02/2014 7:19:41 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

Micheals
has t
em estes d motors


23 posted on 09/02/2014 7:32:26 PM PDT by al baby (Hi MomÂ…)
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To: ClearCase_guy

It needs to be a company owned by lesbian Muslims in order to get the contract.


24 posted on 09/02/2014 7:33:29 PM PDT by reg45 (Barack 0bama: Implementing class warfare by having no class.)
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To: al baby

great... but it’s going to take a lot of those


25 posted on 09/02/2014 7:35:23 PM PDT by GeronL (Vote for Conservatives not for Republicans)
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To: SunkenCiv
A View from Space: Astronaut Reid Wiseman tweeted this photo from the International Space Station today and wrote, "My favorite views from #space - just past #sunrise over the ocean."

I think I am afraid of heights now.

26 posted on 09/02/2014 7:37:16 PM PDT by GeronL (Vote for Conservatives not for Republicans)
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To: GeronL

That is an amazing photo!


27 posted on 09/02/2014 7:43:45 PM PDT by left that other site (You shall know the Truth, and The Truth Shall Set You Free.)
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To: GeronL

A better question might be who’s idea was it to put the concerns of a corrupt bankrupt East European nation ahead of American national security?


28 posted on 09/02/2014 7:49:22 PM PDT by mac_truck ( Aide toi et dieu t aidera)
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To: GeronL

I agree. Wheels would be good.


29 posted on 09/02/2014 7:50:12 PM PDT by 2111USMC (Aim Small Miss Small)
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To: mac_truck

I oppose the stupid sanctions, Ukraine needs weapons send them weapons.


30 posted on 09/02/2014 7:53:43 PM PDT by GeronL (Vote for Conservatives not for Republicans)
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To: maggief

The idiots in Washington will probably have China make them now. At least NASA can tell us what the weather will be in a hundred years, or not.


31 posted on 09/02/2014 10:00:50 PM PDT by Colorado Doug (Now I know how the Indians felt to be sold out for a few beads and trinkets)
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To: GeronL
Isn't the plan for Dream Chaser to launch atop an Atlas 5?

i.e.- on Russian engines.

32 posted on 09/02/2014 10:12:16 PM PDT by Dagnabitt (Amnesty is Treason. Its agents are Traitors.)
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To: GeronL
>>>>>where did the idea of buying rocket engines from Russia come from anyways?<<<<<

Their Germans were more successful than ours in developing reliable cheap kerosene/LOX rocket engines.

33 posted on 09/02/2014 10:26:11 PM PDT by DTA
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To: GeronL

There is a HUGE irony, if that word is appropriate here: The ‘miscreants’ you refer to are all working in cahoots on an agenda that in many, if not almost all, ways is in violation of multiple laws and are somehow keeping on the same page.

The ‘irony’ is that despite the public circus over emails, hard drives & blackberries, the NSA has all the evidence needed to make the case for a multi-agency conspiracy to undermine the Constitution...

One can only come to a single conclusion in the wake of that and suddenly using ‘generation(s)’ vs. ‘decades’ becomes much, much more morose.


34 posted on 09/03/2014 4:22:50 AM PDT by logi_cal869
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To: maggief

Well maybe that’s one good thing to come out of this Ukrainian crisis is that maybe we don’t get reliant on another country for our strategic needs.


35 posted on 09/03/2014 4:29:44 AM PDT by McGruff (You can lead a human to knowledge but you can't make him think)
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To: maggief

Take one of the existing RD-180 rocket engines to Boeing or Lockheed or both.

Attach a Request For Proposal:

Provide a price for building 10 of these, PO to follow in 3 months to the successful bidder


36 posted on 09/03/2014 4:35:40 AM PDT by bert ((K.E.; N.P.; GOPc.;+12 ..... Obama is public enemy #1)
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To: SolidRedState

“... the raw materials have to be imported then what difference does that make I guess.”

The US has no physical lack of those items, rather the domestic sources were shut down during the Clinton admin to satisfy the environmentalists and Chinese donors to his reelection campaign - one rare earth mine was even turned into a national wilderness. Low sulfur coal mines were also shut down to satisfy an Indonesian Clinton donor.

Obama is continuing Clinton’s march of the US into the third world of poverty, ignorance, desperation, dependance, and internal turmoil ...


37 posted on 09/03/2014 4:38:38 AM PDT by PIF (They came for me and mine ... now it is your turn ...)
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To: maggief

Ya think?


38 posted on 09/03/2014 5:04:30 AM PDT by Redleg Duke ("Madison, Wisconsin is 30 square miles surrounded by reality.", L. S. Dryfusbutcher)
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To: logi_cal869
The problem is that the true "rocket scientists" started NASA. They had non-technical "go-fers" that did their bidding. When the rocket scientists retired, the go-fers stepped up to turn that Can-Do Agency into a Can't-Do Bureaucracy.

We are so screwed!

39 posted on 09/03/2014 5:07:34 AM PDT by Redleg Duke ("Madison, Wisconsin is 30 square miles surrounded by reality.", L. S. Dryfusbutcher)
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To: GeronL

I’m not talking about sanctions genius, I’m talking about the brain-dead politics of siding with a corrupt deadbeat east European kleptocracy at the expense of a much more important strategic relationship.


40 posted on 09/03/2014 5:42:56 AM PDT by mac_truck ( Aide toi et dieu t aidera)
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