March 4, 2014

An unintended consequence

What with President Stompy Feet and Sec. State Lurch getting played, what happens if we do something that pisses Putin off. One thought from Michael Belfiore writing at Popular Mechanics:
What Happens If Russia Refuses to Fly U.S. Astronauts?
With tensions escalating between Russia and Ukraine, the pressure is on President Obama to do more than issue stern warnings to the Russian government. Economic sanctions are one possible action, but one that could put the squeeze not only on Russia but also the U.S. manned space program.

Since the space shuttle retired in 2011, NASA has had no native human spaceflight capability. With no other options, NASA has relied on the Russian Federal Space Agency and its Soyuz rockets and spacecraft to get astronauts to and from the International Space Station, at a cost of tens of millions of dollars per seat. Any strong move by the U.S. in response to the Crimean crisis could spell the end of Americans flying on Russian spaceships, at least until tensions ease. NASA and its commercial partners have some projects in the works that can fill the gap, should Russia refuse to fly our astronauts. But these are at least two to three years from operational status. Depending on how the Russian-Ukraine crisis develops, those could be two to three years with no Americans in space.
That would suck. I still find it amazing that we have no way to get a person into orbit -- we were the champions and we pissed it away. At its height, the NASA budget was a percent or two of the national budget -- we could find that money in the congressional sofa seats with a little digging but no... Posted by DaveH at March 4, 2014 1:22 PM
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