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Moscow Soon to Be Lone Carrier to Space Station

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Moscow Soon to Be Lone Carrier of Astronauts to Space Station.



In 2 1/2 years, just as the station gets fully assembled, the United States will no longer have any spacecraft of its own capable of carrying astronauts and cargo to the station, in which roughly $100 billion is being invested. The three space shuttles will be retired by then, because of their high cost and questionable safety, and NASA will have nothing ready to replace them until 2015 at the earliest.

For five years or more, the United States will be dependent on the technology of others to reach the station, which American taxpayers largely paid for.

Click for full story from The Washington Post

Those most involved with the issue say that its seriousness will become more glaring this summer, when negotiations with Russia begin and Congress is likely to debate whether to grant a waiver to the law that prohibits certain kinds of commerce with nations that support the Iranian or North Korean nuclear program.

[NASA Administrator Michael]Griffin has testified that while the waiver is essential, it is "unseemly, simply unseemly, for the United States -- the world's leading power and leading space power -- to be reduced to purchasing services like this. It affects, in my view, how we are seen in the world, and not for the better."...

FF

“First feel fear, then get angry. Then go with your life into the fight.” - Bill Mollison

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Personally I don't think it's really a problem. Maybe it's more a matter of pride. But I'd rather have someone else fly people and equipment to the station for a few years if it's safer. The last thing I want to see is a spaceshuttle fall apart during reentry. And maybe it's a good motivator to create the next generation of spacecraft and then the US will be ahead again.
Fez: I am so excited about Star Whores.
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Maybe we can outsource our Space Travel to Bangalore.
I am fluent in over six million forms of procrastination.
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Originally posted by: Arnie.d
But I'd rather have someone else fly people and equipment to the station for a few years if it's safer.

Sovi... err... Russia? Safer? ROTFLMAO! Ever seen dead astronauts being given CPR? Then watch documentaries about Soviet space program.

Cheaper? Yes.
I saw the original theatrical release of the Old Trilogy on the big screen and I'm proud of it...
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Originally posted by: RRS-1980
Originally posted by: Arnie.d
But I'd rather have someone else fly people and equipment to the station for a few years if it's safer.

Sovi... err... Russia? Safer? ROTFLMAO! Ever seen dead astronauts being given CPR? Then watch documentaries about Soviet space program.

Cheaper? Yes.

IF it's safer, yes. I don't know, how many Soyuz spacecraft have the Russians lost in the last years?

I think the last fatal Soyuz accident was in 1971 (but I'm not sure, maybe more occured later on). And even that could have been prevented if the crew had used spacesuits.
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Originally posted by: RRS-1980
Originally posted by: Arnie.d
But I'd rather have someone else fly people and equipment to the station for a few years if it's safer.

Sovi... err... Russia? Safer? ROTFLMAO! Ever seen dead astronauts being given CPR? Then watch documentaries about Soviet space program.

Cheaper? Yes.


Yes because of course the Russian space program hasn't moved in 30 years. Yeah, they're still using the same "safety" mechanisms they used from the 70's. Stop with the sky is falling bs.

I don't like it much either, but it's either that or continue to use unsafe craft to get there. Maybe, just maybe, if NASA had started working on a more advanced space system sooner, they wouldn't be in this predicament. Scientists were telling NASA for years (back in the 90's) that the shuttle needed to be upgraded or replaced. It wasn't until sometime in the past few years that NASA finally got off their butt and decided that yes, it's time for a new type of spacecraft. Having Columbia disintegrate on reentry probably helped them move along with that decision. And, adding to that, when they put the new sensors on the shuttle and realized that they were getting little cracks on every mission, lots and lots of people suddenly realized that the shuttle wasn't as safe as they had long thought.

So if we need to buy rides on the Russian system for 5 years, so be it. By the time it's finished, the new NASA craft will hopefully be far better than the shuttle or anything the Russian's have.
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I personally find this sickening. Funding for our space program should be important.

"Now all Lucas has to do is make a cgi version of himself.  It will be better than the original and fit his original vision." - skyjedi2005

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another one of our esteemed president's promises not kept, all hail the great bush!

read the article is pretty much spells it out that the lack of funding was because of the whitehouse and bush.

we have no money for space travel since we spent trillions of dollars on a war in Iraq where bin ladin was not there and no wmd.

“Always loved Vader’s wordless self sacrifice. Another shitty, clueless, revision like Greedo and young Anakin’s ghost. What a fucking shame.” -Simon Pegg.

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Originally posted by: skyjedi2005
another one of our esteemed president's promises not kept, all hail the great bush!

read the article is pretty much spells it out that the lack of funding was because of the whitehouse and bush.

we have no money for space travel since we spent trillions of dollars on a war in Iraq where bin ladin was not there and no wmd.


BINGO!

NASA did have plans for a new craft years ago, but the funding for the new programs kept getting shot down from republican lawmakers who had held the majority in congress, as well as a war bent White House. The lay off at NASA is hurting people in my area of Florida big time. It's not just about a spacecraft, it's also about peoples jobs.

BTW, I'm going to go view the final night launch of a Space Shuttle ever. That's in about 9 hours from now. Should be one hell of a show.

FF

“First feel fear, then get angry. Then go with your life into the fight.” - Bill Mollison

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I don't think it is that big of a deal in the way a lot of people are making it a big deal. We have been working together with the soviets on many things in the space program since the end of the space race days. Their safety standards these days are on par with ours from what I understand. I think it is ashame that our space program has had a lack of funds for new shuttles to have been in the works over the last several years. If you take a look around, nobody cares anymore. The consesus seems to be, "we have been to space, old news, move on" and that sucks. The general public does not find it as a priority, so it has not been one. The problem with politicians like Bush, it is all about the polls, so I am not surprised that our current big spending government didn't bother to shift enough of their pork in NASAs direction. NASA is extremely expensive, but it is one of those things I think is worth "throwing away" money on.

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape

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Originally posted by: FanFiltration
Originally posted by: skyjedi2005
another one of our esteemed president's promises not kept, all hail the great bush!

read the article is pretty much spells it out that the lack of funding was because of the whitehouse and bush.

we have no money for space travel since we spent trillions of dollars on a war in Iraq where bin ladin was not there and no wmd.


BINGO!

NASA did have plans for a new craft years ago, but the funding for the new programs kept getting shot down from republican lawmakers who had held the majority in congress, as well as a war bent White House. The lay off at NASA is hurting people in my area of Florida big time. It's not just about a spacecraft, it's also about peoples jobs.

BTW, I'm going to go view the final night launch of a Space Shuttle ever. That's in about 9 hours from now. Should be one hell of a show.

FF


Got a source for that? According to what I just read http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/28/AR2006012800967_2.html Bush has been pushing to get a base on the moon and then have trips go to Mars from there. From that article:

"Such bills, which authorize programs but do not appropriate money, are partly wish lists to be shaped later in spending bills, but the legislation left little doubt that lawmakers now regard Bush's vision as crucial to U.S. space policy.

"The bill is an affirmation of support," said John Logsdon, director of George Washington University's Space Policy Institute. "But it's also a challenge to the administration to pony up for the transformational space program it outlined two years ago.""

Also, according to this (I know it's a little old) http://www.space.com/spacenews/archive06/Debate_070306.html Nasa was getting a slight increase in funding. It's not what NASA wanted, but it is an increase. It also notes that the White House (the evil Bush administration) wanted 83 million more than what the Congress gave NASA.

Here's another one http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,333851,00.html. Looks like the jobs are being cut to refocus on the new craft, which apparently won't require the man power that the 30 year old shuttle requires.
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I'm pretty uninterested. After Columbia I sort of got disillusioned with... not the idea of Space Travel, but the reality. I became convinced that our government stopped caring about a serious space program a long time ago.

So if using Russian systems keeps our astronauts safe until NASA finally makes a good new vehicle, so be it.

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Darth Chaltab said:

I'm pretty uninterested. After Columbia I sort of got disillusioned with... not the idea of Space Travel, but the reality. I became convinced that our government stopped caring about a serious space program a long time ago.

So if using Russian systems keeps our astronauts safe until NASA finally makes a good new vehicle, so be it.


I hardly think that the government stopped caring about it. I think it's really the American public that stopped caring about it. Just look at the Apollo program. Once we landed on the moon, nobody cared after that until there was a disaster. Now, most people consider space flight to be "routine" so when there is a disaster they get in an uproar for a few weeks (if even that long) and wonder what happened. People have to be continually reminded that there's nothing "routine" about space flight.
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lordjedi said:

Yes because of course the Russian space program hasn't moved in 30 years. Yeah, they're still using the same "safety" mechanisms they used from the 70's. Stop with the sky is falling bs.

I would say like 15 years and I wouldn't be far from the truth. But this is not what I meant to say.

Let me tell you a story - aviation technology is fairly close to space technology, right?

Back when we had a freedom of choice (by this I mean interwar period) our airlines used aircraft made in USA. There was an incident that could have fatal ending: with the fuel lines cut in the air, the fully loaded plane can only fly downwards, you know...
It turned out that at high altitude (= low temperature) some water that got into the fuel lines froze and blocked the pipes, effectively choking the engines.
What was the Lockheed reaction when we reported this? They immediately issued repair kits to all Electra users worldwide to fix the potential danger.

After the World War 2 we were overrun by Soviets and all choices were limited to "made in USSR" ("sdielano v CCCP"). I'm not going to remind you about Chernobyl, but I'll give a more adequate example, to compare with the above:
One of our airliners goes down. The results of our investigation of the Ilyushin Il-62 crash go to the Soviets. Our technicians reported that the problem lies with the engines (crappy material & assembly quality, bad design). Ilyushin's Design Bureau reaction? "You is wrong, be sure* All engines good, everything chorosho. We don't see any problems." We insisted. They denied - and never admitted that the poorly designed & made engines caused the crashes - even after our second Il-62M went down 7 years later... due to the same problem (yes, even the modified variant suffered from the same errors!)... that's 270 dead people in total in those 2 cases, plus 8 more fatal crashes worldwide.


Plane crashes happen from time to time. No technology is totally fail-safe. But to deny a post-crash technical report in order to cover-up their technological errors (and bad design approach, and neglecting safety precautions, and poor manufacturing culture) because "all Soviet stuff must be fine - and no questions"?


The problem is that Russians still retain a lot of their Soviet mentality. Old habits die hard. They may be working for "Lincolns" instead of Lenin now, but it takes more than one generation to change the spirit of a nation.

*) too bad you don't frequent certain forum I do, you'd get this sarcasm
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How did I accomplish that (considering my age) is my secret...
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RRS-1980 said:

I would say like 15 years and I wouldn't be far from the truth. But this is not what I meant to say.


The shuttle has changed very little since the 70's (when it was developed). So by that logic, Soviet safety is SAFER. NASA hasn't changed much since the 70's.

RRS-1980 said:

Let me tell you a story - aviation technology is fairly close to space technology, right?


Um, no. In space, temperatures can range from -400 degrees in the shade to +400 degrees in the sun. Space tech needs to protect from that and from radiation. Aviation tech doesn't have any of those worries. Space tech also uses extremely explosive fuels in order to get into space. Again, jet fuel, for aviation tech, isn't nearly powerful enough.

RRS-1980 said:

After the World War 2 we were overrun by Soviets and all choices were limited to "made in USSR" ("sdielano v CCCP"). I'm not going to remind you about Chernobyl, but I'll give a more adequate example, to compare with the above:


What about Chernobyl? Are you going to remind us that it melted down because ALL the safety systems were disabled and a short quick electrical spike sent everything into overload in less than a second? Are you going to remind us that if they hadn't disabled ALL their safety systems that NOTHING would have happened? Chernobyl was caused by INTENTIONAL human error, not bad tech.
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lordjedi said:

RRS-1980 said:

Let me tell you a story - aviation technology is fairly close to space technology, right?

Um, no. In space[...]

LOL, thank you, you've proven yourself to be just another forum "troll" with little to none knowledge on the subject - and because of this I'll save time I'd otherwise waste e.g. translating a 10 page article to back up my words.

If you still can't get it: I gave you examples of how Soviets neglected safety rules in the aviation branch. You said that space technology requires even tighter safety policies because of hostile environment. So if those guys failed at the "easy skill level" (aviation), then how more dangerous are their spacecraft? ("the harder skill level")
And do try to understand that you won't be hiring solely Russian technology, which in your eyes is almost flawless. You will get the whole system that comes with it (the remains of their space program: infrastructure, policies, equipment & tech etc.) - and that includes people, too. Re-read your own words about the human error...

Alright, enough time wasted...
I saw the original theatrical release of the Old Trilogy on the big screen and I'm proud of it...
How did I accomplish that (considering my age) is my secret...
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RRS-1980 said:

lordjedi said:

RRS-1980 said:

Let me tell you a story - aviation technology is fairly close to space technology, right?

Um, no. In space[...]

LOL, thank you, you've proven yourself to be just another forum "troll" with little to none knowledge on the subject - and because of this I'll save time I'd otherwise waste e.g. translating a 10 page article to back up my words.

If you still can't get it: I gave you examples of how Soviets neglected safety rules in the aviation branch. You said that space technology requires even tighter safety policies because of hostile environment. So if those guys failed at the "easy skill level" (aviation), then how more dangerous are their spacecraft? ("the harder skill level")
And do try to understand that you won't be hiring solely Russian technology, which in your eyes is almost flawless. You will get the whole system that comes with it (the remains of their space program: infrastructure, policies, equipment & tech etc.) - and that includes people, too. Re-read your own words about the human error...

Alright, enough time wasted...


I see. So by your example, since SouthWest Airlines failed to properly inspect a bunch of their own airplanes (can't remember the number, but they're grounded now), that would mean that our space program is even more prone to error. Do you not see the problem with that logic? It would be like saying the FAA is responsible for space safety. The FAA is responsible for issuing directives to the airlines. NASA is responsible for the safety of the space program.

And you've just proven yourself to be someone that wants to lump all the problems of one agency into the areas of another. There's a difference between malicious intent and clear misunderstanding. Obviously, in your statement, the aviation industry didn't want to fix the problem. I'd agree that during the space race, the Russians were more concerned with beating us to the punch at every turn instead of the safety of their astronauts. I also think the astronauts may have at least understood some of the risks but wanted to do it "for the motherland". That's obvious from the footage that's now available. And since the media was controlled by the state, news of their accidents never got out. But this isn't the 60's anymore. The state doesn't control the media anymore. You can't keep acting like the Russians have a crap space program when they've been sending guys into space as much as we have.

But maybe in Russia everything is handled by one single agency. I'd find that hard to believe though.
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Haha, lj is a troll!!! I hereby declare this Forum Wide Troll Day! From this day forth March 14th will be a holiday! Every March 14 we will remember the day that four regular and mostly useful forum members have been called trolls. And the day isn't even over yet, there could be more toll calling to come.

Our newly discovered trolls thus far are Moth3r, Erikstromtrooper, Adywan, and now Lord Jedi. I personally am hoping more of us will be exposed as trolls before the end of the day, just to make our new holiday even more worthwhile.

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DID YOU KNOW THAT IT WASN'T UNTIL 1987 THAT NASA STARTED MAKING THEIR EMPLOYEES WEAR HAIR NETS AND FILTER MASKS? WHEN THEY FOUND THE GYROSCOPE FROM THE CHALLENGER THEY FOUND HUMAN HAIR AND FOOD CRUMBS THAT GOT IN THERE FROM THE PEOPLE PUTTING IT TOGETHER. HOW DO I KNOW THIS? I HAD A SCHOOL PRINCIPAL THAT HAD WORKED FOR NASA AT THAT TIME.

"I'VE GROWN TIRED OF ASKING, SO THIS WILL BE THE LAST TIME..."
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RRS-1980 said:

Aviation technology is fairly close to space technology, right?

No, it is imcomparable.

RRS-1980 said:


"You is wrong, be sure* All engines good, everything chorosho. We don't see any problems." We insisted. They denied - and never admitted that the poorly designed & made engines caused the crashes - even after our second Il-62M went down 7 years later... due to the same problem (yes, even the modified variant suffered from the same errors!)... that's 270 dead people in total in those 2 cases, plus 8 more fatal crashes worldwide.

Well, if you know the engines are flawed it's majorly stupid to keep flying them.
Fez: I am so excited about Star Whores.
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PSYCHO_DAYV said:

DID YOU KNOW THAT IT WASN'T UNTIL 1987 THAT NASA STARTED MAKING THEIR EMPLOYEES WEAR HAIR NETS AND FILTER MASKS? WHEN THEY FOUND THE GYROSCOPE FROM THE CHALLENGER THEY FOUND HUMAN HAIR AND FOOD CRUMBS THAT GOT IN THERE FROM THE PEOPLE PUTTING IT TOGETHER. HOW DO I KNOW THIS? I HAD A SCHOOL PRINCIPAL THAT HAD WORKED FOR NASA AT THAT TIME.


This doesn't surprise me one bit. After Columbia, when the new sensors were installed, my first thought was "Hmm, I wonder what's going to happen if they find out that that's been happening for a while". Lo and behold, that's exactly what had been going on. So for how many years was NASA essentially flying unsafely, but didn't know it? Again, I don't really blame them. They had no reason to look. I just think it's foolish to believe the Russians have a worse modern record then we do.
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