"The USA can do without our rocket engines." Ivan Moiseev about the negotiations of Russia and the USA for the supply of RD-181M

The United States can do without our engines perfectly. One of them, which has already ended - the most famous RD -180, had only 10% of their total traction power. That is, Russian engines closed the issue of providing the American market by only 10%, and they bought it from us mainly because of its cost.

This engine is very cheap for two reasons: firstly, the cost of its development remained in the USSR, and the engines themselves are already written off. And secondly, we have very low salaries among engineers and workers who are engaged in them. Because of this, the engine is very cheap, and it is bought. But this contract has already ended.

The engine in question is RD-181M-this is half the 180th engine, it is exactly half as powerful. So far, there is only a decree of our government on the beginning of negotiations on the issue of new deliveries, but not even the negotiations themselves. We already supply the RD-181 engine on the existing contract, and the United States is used to deliver goods to the ISS. Now we are talking about replacing the engine that we sell, with another, with the letter M.

Our government allowed these negotiations to hold, the US government could also do this. Some decision was received, but the negotiations themselves did not even begin.