More from Senator McCain on Russian Rockets

Senator McCain continues to rail against congressional weakness in the face of Russian rocket imports.  In a Wall Street Journal editorial earlier this week, he noted:

Then the 2,000-page, unamendable, trillion-dollar omnibus spending bill was released in December. Congressional allies of ULA, including Republican Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama and Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, sneaked a provision—behind closed doors and with no debate—into the bill that will effectively allow ULA to buy an unlimited number of Russian rocket engines.

So we will be funneling hundreds of millions of dollars to Moscow while Russia occupies Crimea and destabilizes Ukraine; menaces the Baltic States and some of America’s other NATO allies in Europe; violates the 1987 Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty; sends weapons to Iran; and bombs U.S.-backed forces in Syria to prop up the murderous regime of Bashar Assad. All this for the benefit of ULA’s rocket plant in Alabama and one if its parent companies, Boeing, based in Illinois.

After shaming his peers, Senator McCain goes on to state "This must not stand." 

I wish Senator McCain success in moving the rocket business back home.  Sadly, the large space companies are more capitalistic than American-centered, and will be happy to fund any foreign government to help their bottom line.  The Congress should know better and understand the importance of a home-grown rocket industry.  We should look at all of the space and defense needs through this prism to ensure our national security comes first.  

Good News for U.S. Rocket Makers

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.  

Russian Rocket Problems

SpaceX wasn't the only space company with rocket issues last week.  The French company Arianespace's launch from South America was unable place to two Galileo satellites into proper orbit after the failure of a Russian-made Soyuz rocket.  The 30 planned Galileo satellites are part of the Europe Union's effort to duplicate America's GPS satellites and obtain some independence from the US system. The two satellites would have been the fifth and sixth satellites in the new system.  Two more satellites were to be launched in December using the same Russian rocket, though this launch will most likely be on hold until after a full investigation of this incident.  It is also possible that these two errant satellites can still be used in some way to support the system.