Time for a Rocket Intervention

摘要

Recent disclosures that United Launch Alliance (ULA) is being investigated by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission over allegations that it employed anti-competitive tactics to restrain the trade of RD-180 engines raises more general and timely questions about ULA's behavior in the marketplace and an industrial policy that has proved self-defeating. The trade commission is apparently investigating whether ULA, through the use of exclusivity agreements in contracts with RD-AMROSS, prevented Orbital Sciences Corp. from acquiring the RD-180 rocket engine for use in future versions of the Antares booster.