7 ms·

SpaceX cleared for US military launches

197 points by jamesmoss 11y ago

Fuxy 11y ago
So really this is a more of necessity not to encourage competition. They need a replacement for the Russian rocket engines and SpaceX is the only good alternative.
- dimitar 11y ago
  Competition is about alternatives - the Air Force could have just trusted the Lockheed-Boeing venture to do it. F-35 comes to mind and not in a good way.
  - engi_nerd 11y ago
    I'm not seeing the connection to the F-35. I guess you know there was a competition for the right to build the JSF. Both aircraft met all the requirements for the competition. So can you please clarify?
    - pyre 11y ago
      The F-35 continuously overruns budgets and gets more and more money poured into it. I think this is the what is being referred to.
      - engi_nerd 11y ago
        It has a history of overrunning budgets, yes, but the per-aircraft cost is declining and should continue to decline. I thought parent might have been referring to budget issues but I'm not really grasping how that's relevant.
        ceejayoz 11y ago
        The per-aircraft cost is still 3x or more that of the F/A-18, and the costs of operating it are also dramatically higher. http://breakingdefense.com/2014/09/gao-draft-slams-f-35-on-unaffordable-costs-8-8b-over-legacy-fighters/ http://breakingdefense.com/2014/09/gao-draft-slams-f-35-on-u...
        engi_nerd 11y ago
        http://www.bga-aeroweb.com/Defense/F-18-Super-Hornet.html http://www.bga-aeroweb.com/Defense/F-18-Super-Hornet.html F-18E/F: $65.3 million (flyaway cost) or $80.7 million incl. support costs. You'll see a number of places quoting slightly different per unit costs for an F-18E/F, but they cluster around that figure. The cost of an F-35 in the latest LRIP lot (8) was as follows: http://www.janes.com/article/46129/pentagon-finalises-f-35-lrip-8-contract http://www.janes.com/article/46129/pentagon-finalises-f-35-l... "The US buy is for 19 F-35A conventional take-off and landing aircraft at USD94.8 million apiece; 6 F-35B short take-off and landing aircraft for USD102 million each." That does not include an F-135 engine for each jet, which is anywhere from $10 to $15 million depending on the variant. So while the F-35 is more expensive than the F-18, I do not believe the figures bear your "3x or more" assertion. Also it's difficult to compare the operating costs of a fully mature aircraft like the F-18 with the F-35, which is still being tested and developed. I don't think that is an apples/apples comparison. Disclaimer: all opinions my own, not those of my employer, etc.
        ceejayoz 11y ago
        Sorry, I was going off F/A-18D unit costs from Wikipedia rather than the Super Hornet. Still, ~2x the unit cost plus a 79% increase in support costs is nothing to sneeze at.
        engi_nerd 11y ago
        Well keep in mind that we are still in a low production rate situation. Production will ramp up greatly in the next few years, driving costs down further.
- gexla 11y ago
  I believe at first, SpaceX was squeezed out. SpaceX sued the government as choosing a monopoly. The government then went back on that to allow SpaceX to play. There has been a lot of commentary in the news as to why SpaceX may not have been chosen. They don't have the track record that the current "monopoly" has. Even though SpaceX can deliver cheaper, these loads aren't nearly as price sensitive as commercial loads. SpaceX hasn't yet shown they can deal with increased load of launches.
nraynaud 11y ago
I like the old school dogma underlying the whole thing. Russia is bad, private enterprise is good, the US wants to put weapons in space, and Michael Jackson is rocking the world with Thriller.
- smanuel 11y ago
  > Russia is bad Putin's Russia is bad.
  - nraynaud 11y ago
    Yeah, Putin, Andropov, Chernenko, same stuff.
    - yc1010 11y ago
      Not really. I was born and lived during the dying days of the USSR in 80s (left in mid 90s) Under communism everyone knew the system was a failure and everything was a sham, hell the jokes being made were hilarious. Now on the other hand in last few years everything in Russia under Tsar Putin went full retard mode with people actually believing the unashamed propaganda that the state controlled media puts out. Many Russians do not speak anything but Russian and can not afford to leave the country to get a look from outside the box in, this means they buy into the nationalistic bullshit being doled out on tv. People there now actually believe the evil Western boogeyman is out to get them. Which in itself is incredibly scary. Talking to some of my relatives I know understand how some Germans must have felt in the 30s in run up to WW2. In the 80s the KGB was kept out of politics for most part and the Russian military was there to keep in check any ambitions they had. Now the State was taken over by a mix of KGB / criminal mafia elements and the military had its balls cut off. Nationalism and borderline fascism is the order of the day 70 years after the war. My grandfather must be spinning in his grave.
      - varjag 11y ago
        Indeed, in late USSR, the power rested on subtle balance between Party, KGB and Army elites. Now the Party has been eliminated, and KGB subjugated the Army. If you follow the developments of Russian WW2 themed motion pictures you'll notice the corresponding shift. Nearly every movie now features an NKVD or covert ops protagonist. Action TV series are also largely about cloak and dagger types.
higherpurpose 11y ago
I would've preferred if SpaceX didn't become a Defense contract. Now I'm worried about military/NSA influence (in order to get these contracts) spilling over into Elon Musk's satellite Internet business.
- ourmandave 11y ago
  Or battery powered tanks and troop carriers.
- alexcroox 11y ago
  I see it more as using some of that outrageous budget on space tech advances, relevant (old) image: http://f.cl.ly/items/1x2y2m1Q421H0B0g0Y1P/Screen%20Shot%202015-05-27%20at%2012.59.44.png http://f.cl.ly/items/1x2y2m1Q421H0B0g0Y1P/Screen%20Shot%2020...
neolefty 11y ago
I assume this is for the Falcon 9 especially; will they need to certify the Falcon Heavy as well, and will it take as long as the F9 certification?
- ohitsdom 11y ago
  Could be wrong, but I thought it was approving SpaceX as a company- evaluating their methods and processes.
throwaway12357 11y ago
Somewhat ironic that Elon Musk's SpaceX whose ultimate goal is to make life multi-planetary, is now collaborating with agents that may as well be responsible for triggering a Kessler syndrome. Not to mention the fact their business very much implies the termination of human life -- if for the greater good that is left for discussion on a case by case basis.
- datamingle 11y ago
  "their business very much implies the termination of human life" .. you are assuming a perfect world where no other entity wants to harm human life. Also, GPS satellites were created for the military. They are fundamental for our daily lives around the world now.
  - stefantalpalaru 11y ago
    Don't forget how much better the GPS could have been without the military putting the breaks on civilian uses and competitors: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_%28satellite_navigation%29#Tension_with_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_%28satellite_navigation...
    - datamingle 11y ago
      A free service to the world, paid for by American tax payers out of the military budget. Kind of hard to complain.
      - stefantalpalaru 11y ago
        I can complain because it prevented (or significantly delayed) much better services through some arm twisting and corruption paid for by American tax payers out of the military budget.
        datamingle 11y ago
        Where is the corruption? Galileo (Euro planned system) was going to use the same frequency as GPS. So, during conflict areas the US could not jam Galileo without also affecting GPS. So the US military probably made plans on destroying satellites if it was determined that the enemy was using Galileo. The Euro group decided instead to use another frequency than the GPS frequency. Now.... "Galileo will start offering first services from 2015.[11] Full completion of the 30-satellite Galileo system (24 operational and 6 active spares) is expected by 2020." I fail to see any corruption.
kaolinite 11y ago
Is anyone else becoming a touch bothered by the large number of BBC news articles that are being submitted to Hacker News? I love the BBC and BBC News is - for the most part - very good. However, the articles on their website are often lacking in detail and when talking about technology, they are often wrong or show a misunderstanding on the behalf of the reporter. The BBC News definitely has a place - I'm just not sure that it's on Hacker News. I don't mind one or two articles - and I don't mind articles from mainstream news publications - but there are a lot of articles being published from the BBC. Here's the past 24 hours: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=bbc&sort=byPopularity&prefix=false&page=0&dateRange=last24h&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?query=bbc&sort=byPopularity&prefix=f... All of that said, they keep getting upvotes - so enough people clearly want them on Hacker News.
- butwhy 11y ago
  Well go and submit something better.
- icebraining 11y ago
  Well, in this case, I think the news are relevant, and you're unlikely to get anything much better (unlike, say, in the announcement of a new scientific discovery). That said, here's the original report from the Air Force: http://www.af.mil/News/ArticleDisplay/tabid/223/Article/589724/air-forces-space-and-missile-systems-center-certifies-spacex-for-national-secur.aspx http://www.af.mil/News/ArticleDisplay/tabid/223/Article/5897...
- gexla 11y ago
  Right, submitting them isn't so much an issue because they can get flagged or just not up-voted. I don't often view the "new" articles list anymore. Most often, I feel like I'm wasting my time unless I want to help by up-voting the relatively good articles.
- ColinWright 11y ago
  Not necessarily statistically significant, but of the past 1000 articles submitted: 8 (bbc.co.uk) 9 (techcrunch.com) 10 (arstechnica.com) 14 (nytimes.com) 14 (theguardian.com) 16 (washingtonpost.com) 16 (youtube.com) 18 (wsj.com) 32 (medium.com) 46 (github.com) Of the past 10,000: 40 (kickstarter.com) 40 (reddit.com) 40 (theatlantic.com) 44 (forbes.com) 46 (bloomberg.com) 46 (securityaffairs.co) 47 (theverge.com) 56 (bbc.co.uk) 62 (washingtonpost.com) 68 (arstechnica.com) 69 (bbc.com) 70 (businessinsider.com) 74 (wired.com) 82 (wikipedia.org) 102 (wsj.com) 105 (theguardian.com) 157 (nytimes.com) 159 (techcrunch.com) 163 (youtube.com) 339 (medium.com) 485 (github.com) In case you're wondering, I have a file of all submissions listing ID, userid, URL, and title. Then I did this: $ tail -n 10000 records \ | gawk '{print $NF}' \ | sort \ | uniq -c \ | sort -n \ | grep -n . \ | tac \ | head -21
chinathrow 11y ago
Welcome to the military/industrial complex. Something you can be really proud of!
wahsd 11y ago
This seriously compromises the integrity of SpaceX. Even if they were to only support "national security" there is absolutely zero chance they can know whether they are actually supporting national security or global surveillance and oppression of human rights. What people don't realize is that we, SpaceX and Musk, are really no different whatsoever than any of the companies that have been chided for "working with the Nazis" or "supplying the Nazis". The US Government and military are nothing remotely even close to "a force for good". A force for good does not support totalitarian dictators, overthrow governments, spy and surveil their "friends", assassinate scientists, support racist regimes, invade and collapse societies leading to the formation of ISIS, use government powers to support corporate private interests, shield, hide, and protect tax evaders, etc. The dirty laundry list is looooong.
- mac01021 11y ago
  assassinate scientists?
  - wahsd 11y ago
    Iranian scientists at the very least, quite possibly others for which there is less evidence. Whether you agree with what those scientists may of may not be doing, they were assassinated, at the very least with our government's approval.
- mikeash 11y ago
  There's no comparison. The US is not trying to conquer the world and the US is not committing genocide. Yes, the US government does lots of bad things. It also does lots of good things. It's a vast collection of sometimes loosely affiliated organizations with lots of competing interests and there's no reason to expect consistency. But there's no sensible comparison to the Nazis.
  - shit_parade2 11y ago
    How many deaths constitute a genocide because hundreds of thousands of middle eastern civilians have been killed during our 14 year war on Islam. EDIT: down votes? Can't argue the truth so better to bury it.
shiggerino 11y ago
What exactly are the national security implications of using Russian engines? That it will combine and burn fuel and oxidizer like a stinking, dirty commie?
- sparky_z 11y ago
  http://www.nytimes.com/1988/11/15/world/the-bugged-embassy-case-what-went-wrong.html http://www.nytimes.com/1988/11/15/world/the-bugged-embassy-c... It's not wise to trust Russian-built anything, especially with diplomatic relations in their current state. Just like how foreign intelligence services shouldn't trust American-built computers. What could go wrong? I'm not sure. But why make your attack surface larger than it has to be?
- seanflyon 11y ago
  Or Russia could abruptly decide not to sell us any more. Relying on a foreign government to keep our military functioning is not ideal and our relations with Russia, while generally friendly, are somewhat strained the last few years.
- ianstallings 11y ago
  The ban is for a specific engine, the RD-180. It's a response to the action Russia took in Crimea, so it's political and they're not hiding that fact. It's related to the national security the same way that waving the flag is. Not at all. Or completely. Depending on your viewpoint.
- tsotha 11y ago
  It's a question of supply reliability. You don't want to depend on a system which may or may not be available depending on things beyond your control. That's true of any supplier, foreign or domestic.

197 points by jamesmoss 11y ago

Fuxy 11y ago

So really this is a more of necessity not to encourage competition. They need a replacement for the Russian rocket engines and SpaceX is the only good alternative.

dimitar 11y ago
Competition is about alternatives - the Air Force could have just trusted the Lockheed-Boeing venture to do it. F-35 comes to mind and not in a good way.
- engi_nerd 11y ago
  I'm not seeing the connection to the F-35. I guess you know there was a competition for the right to build the JSF. Both aircraft met all the requirements for the competition. So can you please clarify?
  - pyre 11y ago
    The F-35 continuously overruns budgets and gets more and more money poured into it. I think this is the what is being referred to.
    - engi_nerd 11y ago
      It has a history of overrunning budgets, yes, but the per-aircraft cost is declining and should continue to decline. I thought parent might have been referring to budget issues but I'm not really grasping how that's relevant.
      - ceejayoz 11y ago
        The per-aircraft cost is still 3x or more that of the F/A-18, and the costs of operating it are also dramatically higher. http://breakingdefense.com/2014/09/gao-draft-slams-f-35-on-unaffordable-costs-8-8b-over-legacy-fighters/ http://breakingdefense.com/2014/09/gao-draft-slams-f-35-on-u...
        engi_nerd 11y ago
        http://www.bga-aeroweb.com/Defense/F-18-Super-Hornet.html http://www.bga-aeroweb.com/Defense/F-18-Super-Hornet.html F-18E/F: $65.3 million (flyaway cost) or $80.7 million incl. support costs. You'll see a number of places quoting slightly different per unit costs for an F-18E/F, but they cluster around that figure. The cost of an F-35 in the latest LRIP lot (8) was as follows: http://www.janes.com/article/46129/pentagon-finalises-f-35-lrip-8-contract http://www.janes.com/article/46129/pentagon-finalises-f-35-l... "The US buy is for 19 F-35A conventional take-off and landing aircraft at USD94.8 million apiece; 6 F-35B short take-off and landing aircraft for USD102 million each." That does not include an F-135 engine for each jet, which is anywhere from $10 to $15 million depending on the variant. So while the F-35 is more expensive than the F-18, I do not believe the figures bear your "3x or more" assertion. Also it's difficult to compare the operating costs of a fully mature aircraft like the F-18 with the F-35, which is still being tested and developed. I don't think that is an apples/apples comparison. Disclaimer: all opinions my own, not those of my employer, etc.
        ceejayoz 11y ago
        Sorry, I was going off F/A-18D unit costs from Wikipedia rather than the Super Hornet. Still, ~2x the unit cost plus a 79% increase in support costs is nothing to sneeze at.
        engi_nerd 11y ago
        Well keep in mind that we are still in a low production rate situation. Production will ramp up greatly in the next few years, driving costs down further.
gexla 11y ago
I believe at first, SpaceX was squeezed out. SpaceX sued the government as choosing a monopoly. The government then went back on that to allow SpaceX to play. There has been a lot of commentary in the news as to why SpaceX may not have been chosen. They don't have the track record that the current "monopoly" has. Even though SpaceX can deliver cheaper, these loads aren't nearly as price sensitive as commercial loads. SpaceX hasn't yet shown they can deal with increased load of launches.

nraynaud 11y ago

I like the old school dogma underlying the whole thing. Russia is bad, private enterprise is good, the US wants to put weapons in space, and Michael Jackson is rocking the world with Thriller.

smanuel 11y ago
> Russia is bad Putin's Russia is bad.
- nraynaud 11y ago
  Yeah, Putin, Andropov, Chernenko, same stuff.
  - yc1010 11y ago
    Not really. I was born and lived during the dying days of the USSR in 80s (left in mid 90s) Under communism everyone knew the system was a failure and everything was a sham, hell the jokes being made were hilarious. Now on the other hand in last few years everything in Russia under Tsar Putin went full retard mode with people actually believing the unashamed propaganda that the state controlled media puts out. Many Russians do not speak anything but Russian and can not afford to leave the country to get a look from outside the box in, this means they buy into the nationalistic bullshit being doled out on tv. People there now actually believe the evil Western boogeyman is out to get them. Which in itself is incredibly scary. Talking to some of my relatives I know understand how some Germans must have felt in the 30s in run up to WW2. In the 80s the KGB was kept out of politics for most part and the Russian military was there to keep in check any ambitions they had. Now the State was taken over by a mix of KGB / criminal mafia elements and the military had its balls cut off. Nationalism and borderline fascism is the order of the day 70 years after the war. My grandfather must be spinning in his grave.
    - varjag 11y ago
      Indeed, in late USSR, the power rested on subtle balance between Party, KGB and Army elites. Now the Party has been eliminated, and KGB subjugated the Army. If you follow the developments of Russian WW2 themed motion pictures you'll notice the corresponding shift. Nearly every movie now features an NKVD or covert ops protagonist. Action TV series are also largely about cloak and dagger types.

higherpurpose 11y ago

I would've preferred if SpaceX didn't become a Defense contract. Now I'm worried about military/NSA influence (in order to get these contracts) spilling over into Elon Musk's satellite Internet business.

ourmandave 11y ago
Or battery powered tanks and troop carriers.
alexcroox 11y ago
I see it more as using some of that outrageous budget on space tech advances, relevant (old) image: http://f.cl.ly/items/1x2y2m1Q421H0B0g0Y1P/Screen%20Shot%202015-05-27%20at%2012.59.44.png http://f.cl.ly/items/1x2y2m1Q421H0B0g0Y1P/Screen%20Shot%2020...

neolefty 11y ago

I assume this is for the Falcon 9 especially; will they need to certify the Falcon Heavy as well, and will it take as long as the F9 certification?

ohitsdom 11y ago
Could be wrong, but I thought it was approving SpaceX as a company- evaluating their methods and processes.

throwaway12357 11y ago

Somewhat ironic that Elon Musk's SpaceX whose ultimate goal is to make life multi-planetary, is now collaborating with agents that may as well be responsible for triggering a Kessler syndrome. Not to mention the fact their business very much implies the termination of human life -- if for the greater good that is left for discussion on a case by case basis.

datamingle 11y ago
"their business very much implies the termination of human life" .. you are assuming a perfect world where no other entity wants to harm human life. Also, GPS satellites were created for the military. They are fundamental for our daily lives around the world now.
- stefantalpalaru 11y ago
  Don't forget how much better the GPS could have been without the military putting the breaks on civilian uses and competitors: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_%28satellite_navigation%29#Tension_with_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_%28satellite_navigation...
  - datamingle 11y ago
    A free service to the world, paid for by American tax payers out of the military budget. Kind of hard to complain.
    - stefantalpalaru 11y ago
      I can complain because it prevented (or significantly delayed) much better services through some arm twisting and corruption paid for by American tax payers out of the military budget.
      - datamingle 11y ago
        Where is the corruption? Galileo (Euro planned system) was going to use the same frequency as GPS. So, during conflict areas the US could not jam Galileo without also affecting GPS. So the US military probably made plans on destroying satellites if it was determined that the enemy was using Galileo. The Euro group decided instead to use another frequency than the GPS frequency. Now.... "Galileo will start offering first services from 2015.[11] Full completion of the 30-satellite Galileo system (24 operational and 6 active spares) is expected by 2020." I fail to see any corruption.

kaolinite 11y ago

Is anyone else becoming a touch bothered by the large number of BBC news articles that are being submitted to Hacker News? I love the BBC and BBC News is - for the most part - very good. However, the articles on their website are often lacking in detail and when talking about technology, they are often wrong or show a misunderstanding on the behalf of the reporter. The BBC News definitely has a place - I'm just not sure that it's on Hacker News. I don't mind one or two articles - and I don't mind articles from mainstream news publications - but there are a lot of articles being published from the BBC. Here's the past 24 hours: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=bbc&sort=byPopularity&prefix=false&page=0&dateRange=last24h&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?query=bbc&sort=byPopularity&prefix=f... All of that said, they keep getting upvotes - so enough people clearly want them on Hacker News.

butwhy 11y ago
Well go and submit something better.
icebraining 11y ago
Well, in this case, I think the news are relevant, and you're unlikely to get anything much better (unlike, say, in the announcement of a new scientific discovery). That said, here's the original report from the Air Force: http://www.af.mil/News/ArticleDisplay/tabid/223/Article/589724/air-forces-space-and-missile-systems-center-certifies-spacex-for-national-secur.aspx http://www.af.mil/News/ArticleDisplay/tabid/223/Article/5897...
gexla 11y ago
Right, submitting them isn't so much an issue because they can get flagged or just not up-voted. I don't often view the "new" articles list anymore. Most often, I feel like I'm wasting my time unless I want to help by up-voting the relatively good articles.
ColinWright 11y ago
Not necessarily statistically significant, but of the past 1000 articles submitted: 8 (bbc.co.uk) 9 (techcrunch.com) 10 (arstechnica.com) 14 (nytimes.com) 14 (theguardian.com) 16 (washingtonpost.com) 16 (youtube.com) 18 (wsj.com) 32 (medium.com) 46 (github.com) Of the past 10,000: 40 (kickstarter.com) 40 (reddit.com) 40 (theatlantic.com) 44 (forbes.com) 46 (bloomberg.com) 46 (securityaffairs.co) 47 (theverge.com) 56 (bbc.co.uk) 62 (washingtonpost.com) 68 (arstechnica.com) 69 (bbc.com) 70 (businessinsider.com) 74 (wired.com) 82 (wikipedia.org) 102 (wsj.com) 105 (theguardian.com) 157 (nytimes.com) 159 (techcrunch.com) 163 (youtube.com) 339 (medium.com) 485 (github.com) In case you're wondering, I have a file of all submissions listing ID, userid, URL, and title. Then I did this: $ tail -n 10000 records \ | gawk '{print $NF}' \ | sort \ | uniq -c \ | sort -n \ | grep -n . \ | tac \ | head -21

chinathrow 11y ago

Welcome to the military/industrial complex. Something you can be really proud of!

wahsd 11y ago

This seriously compromises the integrity of SpaceX. Even if they were to only support "national security" there is absolutely zero chance they can know whether they are actually supporting national security or global surveillance and oppression of human rights. What people don't realize is that we, SpaceX and Musk, are really no different whatsoever than any of the companies that have been chided for "working with the Nazis" or "supplying the Nazis". The US Government and military are nothing remotely even close to "a force for good". A force for good does not support totalitarian dictators, overthrow governments, spy and surveil their "friends", assassinate scientists, support racist regimes, invade and collapse societies leading to the formation of ISIS, use government powers to support corporate private interests, shield, hide, and protect tax evaders, etc. The dirty laundry list is looooong.

mac01021 11y ago
assassinate scientists?
- wahsd 11y ago
  Iranian scientists at the very least, quite possibly others for which there is less evidence. Whether you agree with what those scientists may of may not be doing, they were assassinated, at the very least with our government's approval.
mikeash 11y ago
There's no comparison. The US is not trying to conquer the world and the US is not committing genocide. Yes, the US government does lots of bad things. It also does lots of good things. It's a vast collection of sometimes loosely affiliated organizations with lots of competing interests and there's no reason to expect consistency. But there's no sensible comparison to the Nazis.
- shit_parade2 11y ago
  How many deaths constitute a genocide because hundreds of thousands of middle eastern civilians have been killed during our 14 year war on Islam. EDIT: down votes? Can't argue the truth so better to bury it.

shiggerino 11y ago

What exactly are the national security implications of using Russian engines? That it will combine and burn fuel and oxidizer like a stinking, dirty commie?

sparky_z 11y ago
http://www.nytimes.com/1988/11/15/world/the-bugged-embassy-case-what-went-wrong.html http://www.nytimes.com/1988/11/15/world/the-bugged-embassy-c... It's not wise to trust Russian-built anything, especially with diplomatic relations in their current state. Just like how foreign intelligence services shouldn't trust American-built computers. What could go wrong? I'm not sure. But why make your attack surface larger than it has to be?
seanflyon 11y ago
Or Russia could abruptly decide not to sell us any more. Relying on a foreign government to keep our military functioning is not ideal and our relations with Russia, while generally friendly, are somewhat strained the last few years.
ianstallings 11y ago
The ban is for a specific engine, the RD-180. It's a response to the action Russia took in Crimea, so it's political and they're not hiding that fact. It's related to the national security the same way that waving the flag is. Not at all. Or completely. Depending on your viewpoint.
tsotha 11y ago
It's a question of supply reliability. You don't want to depend on a system which may or may not be available depending on things beyond your control. That's true of any supplier, foreign or domestic.