With the ongoing crisis in Ukraine, it was only a matter of time before Congress finally understood that our continued reliance of Russia for many parts of our space program, including Rocket parts, was untenable. According to
Space News, the Hill is close to an agreement on banning Russian rocket engines:
U.S. lawmakers have finalized legislation that will prohibit the
future use of a Russian-built rocket engine that is routinely used to
launch U.S. national security satellites.
The National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2015, recently
finalized by House and Senate negotiators, also requires the Defense
Department to replace the Russian engine, dubbed RD-180, with an
American-made propulsion system by 2019.
This could be great news for SpaceX, or it could mean another large government-funded project to build a new rocket engine. I prefer we use the private-sector talents we have at the moment to keep things moving. The Pentagon appears to agree. In a
letter to Congress, the Department of Defense stated:
The Department firmly believes that it should not allocate resources to
develop yet another engine that would fail to be integrated into a
viable launcher, especially when it can meet the assured access to space
requirement with existing privately funded vehicle families.
I am glad the Congress is moving in this direction. It may be disruptive for a period, but the Department of Defense still has a few years worth of Russian rockets in storage to provide it with some breathing space.
