7 ms·

This is because any mature rocket technology can trivially be adjusted to be a nuclear weapons delivery platform. By assisting India you're paying for their ICB

• phkahler 10y ago
  >> This is because any mature rocket technology can trivially be adjusted to be a nuclear weapons delivery platform. There is also the issue of maintaining the capability domestically. If someone else is too cheap it would destroy the local capability. Imagine the US losing the ability to launch it's own satellites - like it lost the ability to launch people. That said, there needs to be a way to make domestic launches competitive, so helping SpaceX or others while blocking foreign competition seem like a good idea all around. The goal should be to maintain domestic capability while hindering foreign nukes - not to maintain some company monopoly.
  • dharmach 10y ago
    On the other side, Lockheed Martin which already builds C-130J Super Hercules in India, now wants to manufacture F-16 too in India.
    • azernik 10y ago
      It builds the empennages in India, for integration with the full assembly in the US. And in any case both of those are less sensitive technologies - a transport plane that other countries sell equivalents to, and a previous-generation fighter plane for which India is in any case the largest expected purchaser (the production lines in the US are being wound down, and the move to India would be part of a purchase by the IAF), and to etch the US has already approved sales. We wouldn't sell India a Minuteman, so we're sure as hell not going to find their development of an equivalent.
    • afterburner 10y ago
      F-16's are old tech, which the US has been selling to its allies for decades. This helps finance continuing improvement, which keeps the US equipped with the best new military tech.
  • drzaiusapelord 10y ago
    > like it lost the ability to launch people. The US has not remotely lost the ability to launch people in the context you're suggesting (lost knowledge, lost budget, lost political will). Its literally between launch systems. No knowledge or budget has been lost. On top of it, its doing what no other nation seems able to do, spark a space race between corporations with their own goals and cost-cutting measures. That's on top of NASA's incredible record of space science missions and robotic missions in the interim. As far as the RD-180 issue goes, ULA buys those engines and re-packages them into domestic launch vehicles that create domestic jobs and keep the majority of the profits local. There's a big difference both practically and politically between this and having a foreign company launch your satellites. So India is not being treated that differently here. That said, RD-180 purchasing is being phased out. The Delta IV is being retired and that only leaves the Atlas V, which I believe is no longer allowed to buy new engines since an earlier sale this year. That's on top of the Pentagon approving $162m to help fund the AR1 and BE-4 engines which will ultimately replace the RD-180 for the ULA.
    • Animats 10y ago
      The US has not remotely lost the ability to launch people in the context you're suggesting (lost knowledge, lost budget, lost political will). Its literally between launch systems. NASA has failed at how many launch system projects since the Space Shuttle?
      • kerbalspacepro 10y ago
        Two.
      • sithadmin 10y ago
        I'm not sure it counts as 'failing' when programs are under-funded, then de-funded entirely.
        • srean 10y ago
          That's the point. A budget that looks underfunded to NASA is looks fantastically lavish in the context of ISRO (the Indian counterpart to NASA).
  • kevin_thibedeau 10y ago
    > Imagine the US losing the ability to launch it's own satellites - like it lost the ability to launch people. We came pretty close to that brink after not bothering to invest in our own engine development. Makes the quarterly reports look great though.
• rajathagasthya 10y ago
  > By assisting India you're paying for their ICBM development India is now part of MCTR (Missile Control Technology Regime) that limits ICBM development. So that's no longer a valid concern. Also, India has done well without the assistance of the US in space technology and will continue to do so. So if the US doesn't want to assist in technology, it's not going to be a show stopper for India. It will continue to eat at the small satellite launch business.
  • LeifCarrotson 10y ago
    > India is now part of MCTR (Missile Control Technology Regime) that limits ICBM development. So that's no longer a valid concern. That's regime sounds like a great intent, but the simple fact is that taking a satellite launching rocket, replacing the satellite with a nuke, and aiming it back at the ground somewhere is trivial.
    • hyperbovine 10y ago
      It's doable, not trivial. Tying your shoe laces is trivial.
      • wcarron 10y ago
        I think he meant that relative to the difficulty of actually creating a platform for accurate delivery of payloads to space, changing out the payload is, in fact, trivial
        • hyperbovine 10y ago
          Thanks, I'm well aware of what he meant. Rockets have very specific requirements in terms of payload weight and shape. So do nukes. Matching the two would take actual engineering effort. Enough that I may not be possible to do so in total secrecy. Which is what this thread was originally talking about.
      • sqeaky 10y ago
        You are mixing perspectives. Trivial for a nation-state is different than trivial for a person. A nation like India could accidentally lose the amount of money required to hire a team of 20 to do the engineering to mount a working nuke to a working rocket. Intentionally paying and assembling that same team would be trivial for a nation like India, USA, China or Russia. It could be as simple as a single line item on some military spending bill.
• RodericDay 10y ago
  The terms set by the US government all have to do with pricing: http://spacenews.com/customers-of-indias-pslv-rocket-say-india-unlikely-to-accept-u-s-terms/ http://spacenews.com/customers-of-indias-pslv-rocket-say-ind... I think the idea that it's primarily a security concern is very misleading. Protectionism can always, always be framed as a matter of national security.
• ameen 10y ago
  Imagine a world without nuclear weapons. We could progress so much further by combining mankind's efforts rather than limiting our potential because of "security constraints".
• zeusk 10y ago
  It's funny how US is okay with providing India with Uranium, but space launch contracts? Oh no! They could build ICBMs with that tech!
  • xorxornop 10y ago
    AFAIK, they only sold un-enriched uranium. If so, you may not be aware, but enriching uranium is NOT a trivial process. If you can enrich uranium then you can build an ICBM - it takes a lot of good engineering talent and very expensive equipment for either project. Unless you can somehow get another state to sell you the necessary stuff... but I'd consider purchasing uranium enrichment centrifuges vs purchasing ICBMs to be similarly highly-sketchy endeavours (the ICBM more so, but only because it can be used more or less immediately).
    • zeusk 10y ago
      you may not be aware, but India has also been enriching uranium since 1980s.
• webkike 10y ago
  Huh. Reminds me of the plot of metal gear solid 3.
• tn13 10y ago
  American outlook on this issue needs a more pragmatic rethink in my opinion. India will build any technology that it needs given sufficient time and money. Time is not something that USA has anymore. It's global influence is only going go down with time. At least in my opinion it makes lot more sense for USA to see India as a potential borrowed knife/insurance against China and help her have good defense capabilities as well as build strong economic ties across all possible avenues. It appears that trade and economic exchange is a much more important factor to avoid full scale war than anything else.