Political turmoil could give Calif. rocket firm edge over Russians

Well this could be a big game changer. I hope the succeed.

Political fallout over the seizure of Crimea has caused the U.S. government to rethink its partnership with Russia on space programs, which has bolstered business prospects for a historic California rocket company.

Engineers at Aerojet Rocketdyne in Canoga Park are designing a new liquid-fuel rocket engine that would directly compete against one built by a Russian company that's currently used on high-profile launches.

www.stripes.com...

Sounds like good news to me. It says they have experience building the Shuttle's main engines, so they sound like the right people for the job overall and with core experience.

We should be building things like our rockets ...ourselves.

This whole silly "global village" fantasy was precluded on a faulty assumption. All nations would get along in perpetuity to the same degree they were when ther idea was thought up. Err.. Ooops.. A quick check of history would have shown national relations only have ONE predictable aspect. They will never remain static for any extended period of time.

a reply to: nighthawk1954

My father worked for Aerojet in northern California up until his death just prior to the moon landing in 1969.

He never got to see the dream he spent his professional career helping to bring to reality.


I grew up hearing, and FEELING!, the roar of the rocket engine tests just a few miles from my home.


Two years ago I bought my first house. It was built in 1959, at the dawning of the Great Space Race, and is located in the very same neighborhood in which I grew up, hearing those rockets roar of a future among the Stars!

I live just a mile or two down the road from one of the sites Tesla Motors' Elon Musk (Who also founded SpaceX) is considering for the construction of his "Giga-factory" battery plant; which could usher in a revolution in electric vehicle production. (it's said to be a long shot site, but we have History on our side, if tat means anything to Elon).

I feel like I am literally destined to live "on the Edge of Tomorrow", and it is a thrilling place to live!


All this is to say I wish Aerojet well, and I can't wait to hear those engines roar again!

the only thing that I see as being worthwhile in the near term is SpaceX.

Mostly because we know how to build a rocket, that's easy. (relatively)
the harder part is making the rocket cheaper to use.


I must say though, soviet rocket technology/launch vehicles is far more robust than most american launch vehicles, Soyuz launches have taken place in the middle of snowstorms

a reply to: nighthawk1954

Yes. This could be helpful because these new engines would work with SpaceX's Falcon 9 and with the Atlas Rockets, thus giving Aerojet/Rocketdyne a few customers who may want to buy their engines.

However, it should also be noted that while the Atlas V uses the Russian-made RD-180 engines, the Delta family of launch vehicles still use U.S. made engines, and some launch companies are switching over to the Delta family because of the supply-chain stability of it being an all-U.S. made rocket.

So the companies who provide launch services (such as United Launch Alliance) foresaw the potential supply issues with the Russian made engines, so they had started making the switch over to the Delta IV launch vehicle -- a launch vehicle that uses rockets already supplied by Aerojet/Rocketdyne.

So the possible drying-up of Russian-made engines should not be a problem for U.S. launch companies.

a reply to: Soylent Green Is People

I don't understand the point of the Russian embargo.

It's "self-sanctions". Did they figure that the RD-180 might be banned from the US side so they decided to ban it first out of hurt pride?

Now that they did this, the obvious reaction is happening---competitive engines under development and move away from Atlas launches in the interim. And now, even if the Russians decide "oh sorry, RD-180 is back for sale again", there will still be suspicion on the buyer's side, and Russia will have to lower the price below the original price significantly to overcome this reluctance.

Emotional reactions don't make for good economics. The Chinese are much better at business, which is why they're winning.