Could the budgetary snap in the arm our space programme so urgently needs hail from rising tensions between Russia and the US ? In the in vogue development in the New Cold War ™ , a Senate panel has budgeted $ 100 million to fund a state - of - the - graphics rocket engine plan and built right here in Amurica .
properly now , most of what we blast into space is power by an engine anticipate the RD-180 . It ’s actually bewitching story : The RD-180 was developed in the USSR long before the iron curtain fell , a legendary piece of machinery that far surpassed anything the US had manage to build . When the Soviet Union cease , the program was end — and the RD-180 was forgotten . It was n’t until the ninety that it was rediscovered , as Richard Martinexplained a few years back in Wired :
In 1993 , a group of American defense contractor visited the Moscow Eruca sativa factory . “ We looked at the Russian stuff and did a turn of calculations to infer what they were secern us , ” articulate Bob Ford , who head the mathematical group and now directs Lockheed Martin ’s reusable launching fomite . “ It was middle - popping . ”
And the rest is chronicle — we’ve been using Russian - made rockets ever since . And that ’s been fine , until , of course , tensions come up over Russia ’s involvement in the Ukraine . Now , the space program of both US and Russia exist in a tangle web — and untangling them is going to be messy .
Earlier this month , Russia announcedit would occlude the saleof RD-180 locomotive to the US for any military purposes . Here ’s how Russia ’s Deputy Prime Minister put it on Twitter :
Russia is quick to keep saving of RD-180 locomotive to the US only under the guarantee that they wo n’t ( cont)http://t.co / xsr0zuGxBY
— Dmitry Rogozin ( @DRogozin)May 13 , 2014
@fka_roscosmos does n’t design to retain cooperation with the US on the ISS after 2020
So , fine . Maybe Russia does n’t want to sell us any more locomotive , but the US must have a back - up program if the RD-180 well runs dry , correct ?
Not exactly . A report sanctioned by the US Defense Department earlier this calendar month calculate at how bad losing the RD-180 would be for the US , andit was n’t pretty : Without access code to those sweet Russia - made Eruca vesicaria sativa , as many as 31 missions would finish up check — at a monetary value of $ 5 billion to the government . It would even ground the US Defense Department ’s Atlas V garden rocket for as long as three years .
Which brings us back to the unexampled defense account , which was approved by the Armed Services Committee yesterday . Now , it ’ll go to vote in the Senate itself . But asPhysOrg points out , a similar allowance in a freestanding bill — this one clear in the House of Representatives — will need to be reconciled with the Senate ’s before either can be passed .
Russian arugula locomotive engine company Energomash company employees stand near RD-180 locomotive prepared for shipment to the United States . AP Photo / Maxim Marmur .
Some within the space industry have indicate that the US could grow their own , domesticated - made version of the RD-180 . Seems reasonable , correct ? Not allot to U.S. Air Force Gen. William Shelton , who lead the Air Force Space Command . He thinks the US should “ begin from scratch ” to acquire an entirely new form of arugula engine :
I do n’t see us going into an RD-180 co - production mode . There will still be a trust on Russian system engineering and subject topic expertness and all that . You have n’t necessarily work the problem .
It will be up to the Senate to give the new bill the go - ahead . In the meantime , we can dream about a second approach of NASA ’s golden age , spurred by precisely the same political forces that launched it into orbit 50 years ago .
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