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There is no underlying platonic reality here to be discovered around the concept of a subsidy. It's not entirely unreasonable to be careful about allowing forei
by leot 8y ago
There is no underlying platonic reality here to be discovered around the concept of a subsidy. It's not entirely unreasonable to be careful about allowing foreign governments to launch large rockets on domestic soil.
- greglindahl 8y agoThe entire booster stage of the Antares rocket, which is only used for NASA payloads, comes from Ukraine. And Antares and Atlas V's main engines come from Russia. ITAR works in the other direction, when you take US tech into other countries. Liability for the launching company, now that's a separate issue from ITAR.
- avar 8y agoRockets launched from the US are already considered to be malicious from a range safety perspective, since they might accidentally veer off course and turn into a ballistic missile. Range safety officers already strap explosives to SpaceX's and other rockets and will detonate them in the event of an accident. This is how the SRBs on the Challenger space shuttle were detonated after the orbiter broke up. So it's not because of range safety that foreign companies aren't allowed equal access to the US launch market. We could go into why that is. Briefly it's because rocketry is a core strategic military asset from both a proliferation and manufacturing perspective. Once you can launch a satellite into orbit you're really close to having an ICBM. But that doesn't change the fact that this strategic advantage is partly maintained with subsidies to domestic companies, in a way that say doesn't happen when the US military needs to source some more basic technology (like nails, screws or lumber) from some outside provider.