The USA has been sending Russia tens of millions of dollars each year for some time to pay for the decommissioning of old Soviet nuclear weapons and reactors. We also paid some millions to build a facility to dispose of liquid fuels from decommissioned Soviet ICBMs – only to have the Russians use that fuel to power space boosters launching commercial satellites.

When the 2K computer disaster came to our attention, we asked the Russians what they were doing to handle the problem and got back and answer that said “Nothing. We don’t have the money. And you know, it would be too bad if some of these old missiles launched because of that problem.” So more millions went over there to fix that.

Then there is the money Russia has made from launching Western satellites; it basically kept much of their space industry afloat.

That kind of crap has to stop. The Russians have been running what amounts to a protection racket for close to 20 years now.

On the other hand, later this year the USAF will launch the X-37B prototype space maneuvering vehicle on an Atlas V. And that booster will use a Russian-made engine. When the USAF decided – finally – to build a new series of boosters, one of the very few choices of propulsion available was the Russian RD-180 engine. Due to the Shuttle program – itself a desperate attempt to save the NASA Apollo empire – the US had not designed any new rocket engines since the 1970’s. One condition of that engine’s use was that the US manufacture its own version. The Russians reneged on that promise early and we have flown nothing but their engines on the Atlas V.

So our kind of crap has to stop, too. We need to stand on our own two feet and not rely on the Russians for vital military hardware.