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Russian Aggression Carries High Cost for NASA
U.S.-Russian cooperation in space could become a casualty of war.
The most immediate issue on which it’s interesting to speculate is the social atmosphere aboard the ISS this week. Interestingly, while all three of the current station crew on Expedition 17 have Russian(ish) names, and two of them are employed by the Russian space agency, none of them are necessarily Russian. The station commander, Sergei Volkov, is a Ukrainian, and flight engineer Oleg Kononenko is from Turkmenistan. Greg Chamitoff, NASA’s representative, was born in Canada. Neither of the two former Soviet Republics (and presumably, their citizens) are likely to view the Russian actions with favor, given that they could be next. Thus, given the absence of actual Russians aboard, there’s no obvious current reason for strained orbital relations, at least for now.
Back on earth, though, will be a different story. The likelihood that Congress will again waive the non-proliferation act for new Soyuz flights when the current contract expires in 2011, while never high, has probably just plummeted. And even if we were willing to continue to purchase flights, it’s quite conceivable that Russia will charge extortionate fees as retaliation for whatever other sanctions we impose as a result of the Georgian aggression. In either case, it means that if the Shuttle is really retired on schedule, the U.S. will have no politically affordable means of accessing the station into which we have poured tens of billions of dollars. In this area, the leverage currently lies with the Russians — we need them more than they need us.
So what are the options?
The most tempting one, particularly for Florida politicians, will be to simply continue to fly the Shuttle past 2010. This will have budgetary impacts, because it costs at least three billion per year to maintain the Shuttle work force and infrastructure (regardless of flight rate), and that isn’t currently accounted for in the agency’s out-year budgets. It will not only take resources from the planned development of Ares/Orion, but will also delay the necessary pad modifications needed for the new vehicle, which is planned to use Shuttle launch facilities. There is also concern that the system will have to be “re-certified” for use past that period (though no one really knows what this even means when you consider it was never “certified” in the first place). An argument could be made that this already occurred in the thorough technical scrubbing that took place after the destruction of Columbia.
One other critical and urgent issue is that the production lines for Shuttle hardware are being shut down (including external tank production in Michoud, Louisiana later this month), and restarting them later may prove to be quite expensive, so decisions need to be made now to keep this option open.
A second option is to simply abandon the ISS, or leave it to the current foreign partners — Europe, Japan … and Russia. The European ATV can do resupply on an Ariane launcher, but they would still be reliant on the Russians for crew change out. They might even invite the Chinese to participate, with their new crew launcher. This course would probably be politically unpalatable to the U.S. government, given the many tens of billions in investment by the U.S. taxpayer and the fact that a major reason to have a space station is for national prestige.
A third one is to accelerate development of alternatives, such as the SpaceX Dragon capsule, launched either on that company’s planned Falcon 9 launcher or on a Lockheed-Martin Atlas V. This will require a dramatic increase in funding, particularly if the Atlas RD-180 main engines have to be manufactured in the US by Pratt & Whitney, rather than the current practice of buying them from the Russians. Bob Bigelow is already working these issues for his own private space stations, and further funding could make it happen sooner.
None of the choices are easy or obvious. They will all involve high costs in either taxpayer dollars or lost opportunities, at a time of burgeoning deficits when there are no federal dollars to spare.
Probably most at risk are NASA’s planned Ares launchers and Orion crew module, their proposed implementation of the president’s vision for lunar and solar-system exploration by humans. Already overweight, with many unresolved technical issues, cost increases, and schedule slips, the political pressure will be overwhelming to review and overhaul the current plans. The internal contradictions of our schizophrenic civil space policy have been straining at it for years. It’s almost certain that the most recent international events will take it well past the breaking point.
Almost exactly half a century after the passage of the Space Act that created the space agency, we can only hope that we’ll finally get a rational rethink of how we plan to actually open the frontier, with an emphasis on commercialization and free enterprise, and redundancy, rather than another fragile and expensive centralized government solution. Unfortunately, if history is any guide, it’s hard to be very hopeful.
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Rand Simberg is a recovering aerospace engineer and a consultant in space commercialization, space tourism and Internet security. He offers occasionally biting commentary about infinity and beyond at his weblog, Transterrestrial Musings.
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28 Comments
1. Len Frankel:Now that you bring it up, we end our cooperation with Russia in space yesterday
Aug 18, 2008 - 7:28 am 2. ZEITGEIST:[...] RAND SIMBERG: U.S.-Russian cooperation in space could become a casualty of war. [...]
Aug 18, 2008 - 7:35 am 3. Finbar:We made a lot of mistakes at the “end” of the Cold War. Among them are pumping $25 billion into the Russian economy (what was our ROI there?) and another was making Russia a “strategic partner” in the space program.
Have we seen the error of our ways yet?
Aug 18, 2008 - 8:26 am 4. memomachine:Hmmmm.
Frankly the whole ISS is nothing but a white elephant that needs to be shut down and eliminated.
Along with NASA which has clearly shown itself incapable of getting anything serious done.
Aug 18, 2008 - 8:40 am 5. Russian Bear:What a touchy guy! I mean the author. Russia is just trying to settle some really serious and painfull issues with its neghbour, and the guy alredy thinks that it is a matter of presige for the uSA not to participate in the international scientific program because Russians are there too.
Aug 18, 2008 - 8:57 am 6. Susan:OK. Abandon it.
Just a qestion: what the world was supposed to do when the USA, ignoring UN, ignoring world’s public opinion, and millios of protesters at home and abroad, invaded Iraq under false pretext, breaking the international law? Stop cooperating with the USA in every possible field?
Oh, these “political analysts in pajamas”!
Wow, Gerry at Grand Rants scooped PJM in a post about this last Friday!
http://grandrants.wordpress.com/2008/08/15/the-iss-in-danger-of-becoming-a-casualty-of-the-georgian-invasion/
Mr. Simberg’s post is far more in-depth, but Gerry’s is definitely worth reading, too.
Aug 18, 2008 - 9:00 am 7. swift boater:Oyea, I can just see Big MaC going up to the Soviets, errrrr, Russians and asking, “please Sir, may I have a ride?”
But why do I think the Messiah would have no problem going hat in hand?
Aug 18, 2008 - 9:04 am 8. always right:I don’t see this as a negative.
The mammoth NASA clearly outlived its expiration date (as plenty of other government agencies and programs we just can’t shut down).
Break it up, into the size of Skunkworks, for example, for those smaller, advanced stage projects mentioned in the article. Less the NASA administratives divert the use of its gigantic budget into promoting the Global Warming doctrine and the ‘green’ (ecofriendly) process that killed the Columbia astronauts.
And let’s face it, ISS’s sole purpose is to promote ‘international coorporation’ into space. I want the break down of each participant country’s contribution (monetary budget and man power).
Aug 18, 2008 - 9:11 am 9. LazarOfSerbia:Well, now you have Iranian space program as an alternative…
Aug 18, 2008 - 9:27 am 10. DensityDuck:Russia’s going to stop “helping”? It’s ABOUT DAMN TIME. The thing would have been done fifteen years ago if it hadn’t been for Russian “cooperation”. We’d have had affordable man-rated spaceflight five years ago if we hadn’t had Soyuz as a cheap fallback.
It wasn’t even “cooperation”. The US government ordered NASA to spend part of its budget bribing Russian rocket engineers to stay in Russia, as opposed to going to Iran or Pakistan or North Korea.
Aug 18, 2008 - 9:48 am 11. narciso:One should be reminded that Sputnik which was the real driver to the Space Race, happened not long after the Hungarian intervention, not unlike the Georgian invasion. It should be a spur to development of new systems; than again there is no Von Braun to coordinate and promote the upcoming program; no Bonstell to really illustrate what could be the possibilities. The most well known NASA scientist is the self flaggelating Dr. Hanson, the chief politico is the almost subterrranean navel gazing Obama; and don’t even get me started on Reid and Pelosi.
Aug 18, 2008 - 10:26 am 12. cedarford:Funny, Russia didn’t walk away from ISS when we shoved Kosovo down their throats, walked NATO up to their Borders, enabled a class of crony capitalist corrupt oligarchs that looted Russia then sheltered them in the West when they fled with the loot.
Or when we meddled in the elections in their sphere of interest, or attempted to cut deals for permanent basing rights in Central Asia.
In fact, the Russians offered us lifts after the 2nd shuttle bit the big one.
If the US walks away from the ISS in a hissy fit about Russians having the temerity to meddle in another country when only the Good Ol’ USA should be permitted that behavior – no way will Europe and Japan join us. Japan and the ESA just got their billion-dollar scientific modules installed at the Station and are ready to finally show the ISS can do new science and technology R&D.
Pretending anyone outside the discredited Neocons is outraged to wanting a 2nd Cold War over a long-time corrupt Caucasus enclave of 5 million people that recently became “freedom-lovers” is absurd.
Concerned, yes. Especially the Eastern European countries that knew the pain of decades under the Soviets. But generally, in Asia and the West, Russia is considered way down on the Threat Matrix, or off it. Far more concern strategic concern exists of Iran, Pakistan, and China. And great concern about America becoming a wastrel debtor nation under the Republicans and may have it’s debts and unfunded mandates overwhelm it’s political system and drag the whole global economy down with it if just a few more things go wrong in the financial, housing, gov’t entitlements areas.
Aug 18, 2008 - 10:45 am 13. John:Here’s as good a time as any to pose this question: Why the heck do we allow the Russians to sell tickets to the ISS to space tourists?
They contributed nearly nothing to its construction (we even had to bail out and pay for the components the were supposed to supply) and yet we allow them to make millions selling ISS seats to American tourists.
Why?
And sadly, the ISS could disappear tomorrow amd no one on Earth would notice.
Aug 18, 2008 - 10:53 am 14. RAH:Space stations need to be developed by private companies. We have had a very long monopoly that has restrained the space drive. If aviation had been a government program we never would have developed that fast.
Aug 18, 2008 - 10:59 am 15. Moultrie:What is this ISS but another Democrat welfare program for communist! Shut it down and start on a new program ASAP. Defund NASA and arrest Hansen!
Aug 18, 2008 - 11:19 am 16. always right:cedarford@Aug 18, 2008 – 10:45 am
In fact, the Russians offered us lifts after the 2nd shuttle bit the big one.
Oranges and apples. I am glad we did not let national pride get in the way of doing things right. If any disaster would happen in space, I am sure we are going to offer help also.
Unlike how Putin handled the Kursk incidient.
If the US walks away from the ISS in a hissy fit…Europe and Japan…(what ISS) can do new science and technology R&D
I am betting if we dissolve NASA, we will be able to do more new science and technology R&D, faster too.
Aug 18, 2008 - 11:55 am 17. Pat:China is already building and launching its own variation of the Soyuz design. NASA should simply purchase the spacecraft it needs from China, mount them on Delta boosters, and use those for crew transport to and from the ISS.
Aug 18, 2008 - 12:38 pm 18. Ruri:Instead of building the RD-180 for the Atlas they can replace it with a pair of down rated TR-107s.
Aug 18, 2008 - 12:50 pm 19. Techie:Other options scale up Merlin 1C which has proven to be a good engine but that would require extensive changes to the thrust structure of the Atlas V since it would be running a cluster of 8 or 9 as is or five scaled up Merlin 2 is an F1 class engine which could be used instead if funded.
cedarford,
You know why Russia didn’t “walk away” after all that?
Because, Russia is basically Mexico with nukes at this point. Their “space program” is perhaps their last bit of international pride.
Plus, “we” didn’t “roll” NATO onto their doorstep. Poland et al. asked for it, fearing exactly what Russia is doing to Georgia currently.
Aug 18, 2008 - 2:13 pm 20. Nedarc:Aain we are in a bind, whenever America refuses to use Her own resourses, be it petro natural resourses or our space technology and end up relying on other countries for our needs, we always get screwed !…When will we learn ?
Aug 18, 2008 - 6:57 pm 21. SamP:The Russians will probably cooperate with the launch capability but why take the chance? The decision to shut down the Shuttle before the new launch vehicle is ready is just plain dumb. In light of current events, the decision needs to be reversed asap.
Aug 19, 2008 - 12:27 pm 22. SamP:As far as the ISS is concerned, it is a very valuable structure and not a “white elephant”. Eventually it could be expanded and used as a staging and assembly area for future trans-lunar and trans-martian manned or unmanned spacecraft -ones that will always remain in space.
Aug 19, 2008 - 12:33 pm 23. davod:Keep NASA, gut the administrators and get some engineers who can keep the spaceshuttle going and develop rockets for moving cargo.
Aug 19, 2008 - 2:25 pm 24. colleen:This is the most misinformed paragraph that I’ve read in a while:
Interestingly, while all three of the current station crew on Expedition 17 have Russian(ish) names, and two of them are employed by the Russian space agency, none of them are necessarily Russian. The station commander, Sergei Volkov, is a Ukrainian, and flight engineer Oleg Kononenko is from Turkmenistan. Greg Chamitoff, NASA’s representative, was born in Canada. Neither of the two former Soviet Republics (and presumably, their citizens) are likely to view the Russian actions with favor, given that they could be next.
Simberg and most of the brainwashed people here have no idea what they’re talking about…
Aug 20, 2008 - 6:29 pm 25. The Daily Links - August 20th, Part 2 « The Four Part Land:[...] Pajamas Media » Russian Aggression Carries High Cost for NASA [...]
Aug 20, 2008 - 7:48 pm 26. Gor:I totally agree with colleen – that was pretty funny to read such a nonsense – in Russia, being “Russian” is not about being of ancient Slavic roots and boast blue eyes and blonde hair, it’s about hailing from Russian Federation – whatever hair/skin color you got, people just consider themselves being Russian regardless of their actual (often very vague) roots. So, Volkov and Kononenko do think about themselves as being Russians, regardless of what nationality might be spotted in their passports…
And what do you think about ongoing voting at http://www.StopRussianAggression.com ?
Aug 27, 2008 - 12:47 pm 27. Pissed:Why should the US abandon anything? The russians have contributed almost nothing to the ISS. I do think that NASA needs to be reorganized and demonopolized so private companies can add to what we already have and get what we need alot sooner. Russia has already threatened nuclear weapon use last week. I say take the ISS and tell russia to go to hell, we don’t want or need them in space until they can act like civilized people. They want to threaten nukes? There are alot of nukes in the world. Like the man said earlier, russia is mexico with nukes. I say lets take their toys away and put them back in their place.
Sep 1, 2008 - 2:47 am 28. Not a Lib:This is how Obama’s presidency will look like
Sep 16, 2008 - 8:36 pmhttp://www.ucubd.com/Index.aspx?id=714&cid=3128