-
#600
by
newpylong
on 06 Aug, 2014 12:52
-
More RD-180s coming...
Check out @Leone_SN's Tweet: https://twitter.com/Leone_SN/status/496718796586221568
Do you people feel silly now?
By golly, two more engines delivered!?! That must mean that the RD-180 supply is guaranteed for ALL TIME. 
Was just posting some news regarding engines still being delivered because some people bet their house that it wouldn't happen. Take it or leave it.
-
#601
by
A_M_Swallow
on 07 Aug, 2014 03:05
-
Too soon to know if engine deliver is being stopped. It takes time for a change in policy to percolate down to the bottom. It is when the firms have to apply to the ministry for permission to order a vehicle to bring new engines that we will find out. Export of the delivered engines had already been approved.
-
#602
by
AdAstraInc
on 20 Aug, 2014 17:48
-
Either of those factors would have been nails in the coffin. Combined, only the most desperate could still believe the engines will ship.
Yesterday's massive sanctions clearly angered Putin. The downing of the jet will drive an even larger nail. It means substantial western military aid will be sent to Ukraine. Putin is likely to see that aid as an even bigger snub than the sanctions.
This will play out soon enough. ULA has said they've accelerated deliveries to receive the engines next month. When August passes and ULA stays quite as a church mouse, everyone will know what hasn't shipped. The denial brigade will still refuse to accept it, they'll move the goal posts again and again. The truth is that a hot cold war kills Atlas.
And that does not exist. Your opinion does not make true. Just more nonsense again.
Only the desperate are flailing at making the sky is falling predictions.
I stand by my belief that the engines won't ship. I'd bet the house on it.
I've backed my opinion with copious evidence. You've backed yours with derision and what can only be described as a religious like belief that the world events causing the engine embargo aren't really happening.
If you have some logical backing for your opinion, it would be nice to hear it for a change. Quite frankly, you've brought nothing to this discussion but arrogant contempt.
Short of outright war between the US and Russia, there could hardly be a more perfect storm for an engine embargo.
Since an Antonov AN-124 from Russia landed in Huntsville Alabama this morning, I hope for your wallet's sake you refrain from "betting the house" based on silly rumors.
flightaware.com/live/flight/VDA4234Maybe this would also be a good time to reevaluate your foreign policy expertise, given that you were 100% wrong in every prediction and conclusion you drew.
-
#603
by
strangequark
on 20 Aug, 2014 19:09
-
So, where is Jim's new vacation house?
-
#604
by
Scylla
on 20 Aug, 2014 22:23
-
-
#605
by
robertross
on 21 Aug, 2014 00:50
-
-
#606
by
JohnFornaro
on 21 Aug, 2014 20:49
-
-
#607
by
PahTo
on 21 Aug, 2014 21:12
-
Good words, though very troubling. So much pain, suffering, misery and death, yet we find a way to get along when it comes to MONEY. I still hold spaceflight in general, and ISS in particular, to be a sign of hope for all human-kind. Though that's more than a bit ironic, since spaceflight evolved as a result of trying to get the high ground for military purposes.
-
#608
by
Space Ghost 1962
on 21 Aug, 2014 23:07
-
This is far from over.
But RD-180 was/is not in danger itself for ULA.
ULA is its own worst danger and salvation. No surprise. Just got noticed more.
-
#609
by
Proponent
on 22 Aug, 2014 06:27
-
[Not in response to any particular post]
Note that the Russians' economic actions lately have been blockages of
imports, not exports: there are restrictions on imports of food and some McDonald's restaurants (I use the term loosely) in Moscow have been shut down on "health" grounds (a bit of an oxymoron in connection with McDonald's
). They don't seem to be screwing around with exports, like the RD-180.
-
#610
by
woods170
on 22 Aug, 2014 07:38
-
[Not in response to any particular post]
Note that the Russians' economic actions lately have been blockages of imports, not exports: there are restrictions on imports of food and some McDonald's restaurants (I use the term loosely) in Moscow have been shut down on "health" grounds (a bit of an oxymoron in connection with McDonald's ). They don't seem to be screwing around with exports, like the RD-180.
Russia needs the money. Not just from RD-180 exports, but from nearly all exports. That's why Putin won't shut down the supply of gas to Europe for too long if he chose that as an economic sanction. The resulting screeching halt of Euros flowing to Russia would start seriously hurting the Russian economy within just a few weeks.
-
#611
by
DGH
on 19 Nov, 2014 10:35
-
Has anyone heard anything about the 3 RD-180 engines that were supposed to be delivered I thought in October?
I can find nothing.
I used this thread to keep any nastiness from damaging another thread.
-
#612
by
Kabloona
on 19 Nov, 2014 12:30
-
Reuters has done some digging and comes up with cost and profit numbers from AMROSS on the RD-180:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/19/us-russia-capitalism-rockets-special-rep-idUSKCN0J22BQ20141119RD Amross buys the engines from Energomash for $20.2 million each on average, according to Amross’s current contract with Energomash, dated June 5, 2014.
Amross adds $3.2 million to each engine, a 15 percent markup. It then sells them to ULA for $23.4 million, according to an amendment to Amross’s contract with ULA, dated Oct. 2, 2014.
In all, Amross will reap $93 million in mark-ups over the course of the deal. The $680 million contract calls for 29 engines to be delivered from this year through 2017.
The current arrangement follows an earlier, $303 million contract proposal that called for Amross to deliver 12 engines to ULA from 2011 to 2013.
In an August 2011 report, the Pentagon’s Defense Contract Audit Agency detailed the deal. It said that middleman Amross would pay $17.9 million per engine on average. Amross then planned to add on average $5.5 million in “profit” to the price of each engine – an extra 31 percent - before reselling them to ULA. The profit mark-ups totalled more than $66 million.
In a 67-page report, Pentagon auditors called the proposal “not acceptable for the negotiation of a fair and reasonable price.” They contested the $66 million profit “in its entirety, as unallowable excessive pass-through charges” under federal contracting law. The services Amross cited to justify the profit “constituted ‘no or negligible value,’” they concluded. The auditors also contested $14.4 million in overhead expenses.
The findings were extraordinarily blunt, said Charles Tiefer, a military contracting specialist and professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law, who reviewed the document for Reuters.
“The bottom line is that the joint venture between the Russians and Americans is taking us to the cleaners,” Tiefer said. He said he had reviewed Pentagon audits critical of Iraq War contracts, but those “didn't come anywhere near to how strongly negative” the Amross audit was.
In June, Energomash and Amross finished up a new agreement to supply RD-180 engines to the Air Force program.ULA is paying $23.4 million per engine – the same price originally called for in the prior contract that caused all the wrangling.
-
#613
by
MP99
on 19 Nov, 2014 13:32
-
That piece says RD AMROSS is a five person company.
Wow.
Cheers, Martin
-
#614
by
Prober
on 19 Nov, 2014 13:38
-
Still the political winds blowing in this article.
The price of the RD-180 is reasonable, even with the games.
Check out the prices of the RL-10 & RS-68 and compare.
-
#615
by
Kabloona
on 19 Nov, 2014 13:59
-
Still the political winds blowing in this article.
The price of the RD-180 is reasonable, even with the games.
The price would be even more reasonable if AMROSS was not making 15-30% profit plus an apparently inflated overhead rate.
So the real issue isn't the price, it's whether AMROSS's profit and overhead structure are legal. The Pentagon's own 2011 audit found they weren't.
-
#616
by
woods170
on 19 Nov, 2014 14:01
-
Still the political winds blowing in this article.
The price of the RD-180 is reasonable, even with the games.
Seems like the Pentagon auditors do not agree with you. And that holds considerable more weight than your opinion.
-
#617
by
gospacex
on 19 Nov, 2014 14:33
-
That piece says RD AMROSS is a five person company.
Wow.
Cheers, Martin
This is actually a typical practice in Russia.
When you hear "Putin's cronies stole billions from Russian budget", this doesn't mean they drove away with several truckloads of bills from the Treasury.
It means that, for example, Gazprom buys drilling and pumping equipment through several layers of such empty intermediaries owned by "Putin's cronies". The resulting price is not 15% higher as in AMROSS case - in Russia, it can easily become 3-5 times higher.
-
#618
by
notsorandom
on 19 Nov, 2014 16:38
-
No wonder ULA thinks the BE-4 might be cheaper. It only has to be under $11.7 million per engine. With the more modern manufacturing techniques that the industry has developed in the past decade like hydro-forming, 3d printing and channel wall construction that seems like a real possibility. Its too bad from a business perspective that the Atlas will have to be redesigned but the ULA Blue Origin partnership sounds like a real sweetheart deal for both companies.
-
#619
by
Prober
on 19 Nov, 2014 17:05
-
Still the political winds blowing in this article.
The price of the RD-180 is reasonable, even with the games.
Seems like the Pentagon auditors do not agree with you. And that holds considerable more weight than your opinion.
Better reread the article
2011 is what they are talking about; had the info at hand in 2007-08 been addressed, this deal would have been altered. Everyone signed off on the deal, and its unfortunate that someone started second guessing "policy".
). They don't seem to be screwing around with exports, like the RD-180.