This is especially stupid to rely on Russia...THIS WEEK proves that!
They never met their goals and had to have help and money to get this far in a joint deal...what fools we have in CONGRESS.
Congress is not foolish, as they know exactly what their goals are.
A bit of insight: A Russian who was (briefly) on an oil rig I worked on said that the Russian people held Stalin in high regard, that they longed for the "strong boss" to run things--and that many would have him back in an instant.
Putin is the new 'strong boss', a KGB veteran, and being "dead" is the best thing that could have happened to Soviet Communism.
That guy did not last long on a location run by a Company Hand of Ukranian descent...
It has taken 20 years, but, according to him, many there will stand behind anyone who will return Russia to superpower status.
In the meantime, we have pissed around with kumbaya policies and cutting our own throats with the nonsense of Anthropogenic Global Warming and a lock of energy policy, as well as de-funding the hard sciences in favor of decadent studies programs at the university level.
Even our space probes are lost to math errors nthinkable in the days of the slide rule.
If we had followed Von Braun's advice and built a space station before going to the moon, we'd have seen more reason to pursue manned missions and perhaps have something other than a few worn out orbiters and a pile of moon rocks.
We have wasted the dreams of a generation and waited until fantasy is more appealing than doing the real thing.
Sadly, though, while we may have our theoretical problems with using the high ground of space militarily, our adversaries will not, and that will put us at a decided strategic disadvantage.