"Musk: One is the incredible aversion to risk within big aerospace firms. Even if better technology is available, they’re still using legacy components, often ones that were developed in the 1960s.

Anderson: I’ve heard that the attitude is essentially that you can’t fly a component that hasn’t already flown.

Musk: Right, which is obviously a catch-22, right? There should be a Groucho Marx joke about that. So, yeah, there’s a tremendous bias against taking risks. Everyone is trying to optimize their ass-covering.

Anderson: That’s a nice phrase.

Musk: The results are pretty crazy. One of our competitors, Orbital Sciences, has a contract to resupply the International Space Station, and their rocket honestly sounds like the punch line to a joke. It uses Russian rocket engines that were made in the ’60s. I don’t mean their design is from the ’60s—I mean they start with engines that were literally made in the ’60s and, like, packed away in Siberia somewhere." LINK: http://www.wired.com/2012/10/ff-elon-musk-qa/all/

good catch Jacky.

I believe some of the critical components for engines must be purchased from russia now as usa no longer makes them.
it is not just a matter of convenience, rather of need.

i find it very odd that we still use this kinda primitive technology when enormous money is poured into aerospace for decades.

even electric railguns which are ancient technology would seem much superior to rockets.

i do believe that there are probably a lot of military aircraft that use exotic propulsion that we know little of.

there are some interesting interviews with boyd bushman, formerly a lockheed senior engineer with david sereda on you tube, that are quite tantalising.
his boss, ben rich from skunkworks also made some inflammatory statements after he retired.
among others one famous one about us having the technology to take ET home. it is very worthwhile reviewing the words of these very prominent lockheed engineers in depth. they both claim that usa has a space fleet with exotic propulsion.
anti gravity technology if you like.

perhaps they are disinfo agents but to what end?.

boyd bushman died in august, and the video preceding his death is well worth the long boring droning to get at some of the critical statements he makes.
his photos alone are very startling if we take his statements at face value.

the records of these guys are unimpeachable, they really were senior scientists and engineers.

i imagine there was no gain at all for them to say what they said.

musk and others know that we are doomed as a species unless we have the capacity to get off this rock.