Posted on 03/25/2014 2:36:15 PM PDT by KeyLargo
How Russia could strangle the US space program
Jean MacKenzie
If you use a cellphone, have a GPS system in your car, or get cash from ATMs, you should be worried.
BUZZARDS BAY, Mass. — Think Russia has no way to put pressure on the United States? Think again.
The US relies heavily on Russia to furnish the engines that power rockets that deliver both military and civil payloads into space.
This includes GPS systems in cars and cellphones, and even systems that allow ATMs to function. Weather satellites are launched into space via Russian-powered rockets, and military systems such as early missile detection also depend on our friends in Moscow.
In addition, since NASA scrapped the space shuttle program in 2011, the US has to rely on Russian Soyuz capsules to get its astronauts to the space station and to bring them back home.
As the crisis over Crimea deepens and tit-for-tat sanctions go into effect, conventional wisdom has held that the US is holding all the cards. Given the relatively small amount of trade the US conducts with Russia each year, and its pre-eminent position as the world’s largest economy, Washington has projected confidence as it moves to isolate Moscow diplomatically and economically.
But Russia is unlikely to take it lying down. As Stephen Walt, professor of international affairs at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, warned in a talk at Harvard recently, “They have ways of responding [to sanctions] that … we’re not going to like.”
One of the things Americans may dislike very much indeed is a possible ban on the sale of RD-180 engines to the US under a contract with Russian manufacturer
The RD-180 powers the Atlas V rocket, the main launch vehicle used to get US military and civil payloads into space.
(Excerpt) Read more at globalpost.com ...
Soyuz rocket ready to launch joint U.S.-Russian space crew
March 25, 2014
A veteran Russian space station commander, a rookie cosmonaut and a NASA shuttle flier are set for launch aboard a Russian Soyuz ferry craft Tuesday, kicking off a four-orbit rendezvous with the International Space Station to boost the lab's crew back to six. Liftoff is set for 2117 GMT (5:17 p.m. EDT).
Live stream of today’s launch:
Mission Status Center
By Stephen Clark
Welcome to Spaceflight Now’s live coverage of the International Space Station. Text updates will appear automatically; there is no need to reload the page. Follow us on Twitter.
http://spaceflightnow.com/station/exp39/status.html
I’m sure this is prepaid...I’m not going to worry about it.
Too late . . . Ocommie already has.
What US space program?
Easy way to a new ‘crisis’...
Obama’s “Muslim Self-Esteem” NASA in Complete Disarray
April 7, 2013 by Daniel Greenfield
Obama trashed NASA beginning with killing any actual way for astronauts to get to orbit by shutting down the Space Shuttle and then trashing a replacement vehicle. This is kind of a problem because without a space vehicle, NASA is not a space agency. It’s a bunch of rooms full of people with computers.
That left NASA astronauts in the unenviable position of hitching rides with the Russians, alongside millionaire space tourists.
But Obama gave Charles Bolden, his idiot appointee, a prime directive that NASA would now focus primarily on making Muslims feel good about themselves. That worked out about as well as you would expect.
Then Obama gave a speech declaring that the United States would land on an asteroid by 2025. Why an asteroid? No one at NASA seems to know.
The obvious reason is that Obama needed to announce something and an asteroid by 2025 sounded good. It was either that or hop on a pogo stick to the corner market. And NASA is in better shape to do that than anything else, because as the report noted, the agency is in complete disarray without much of a mission except faking Global Warming reports and making Muslims feel good about themselves.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/obamas-muslim-self-esteem-nasa-in-complete-disarray/
Just as the Muslims were starting to feel good about themselves.
Who needs Russia? We have Obama.
Exactly
It’s like saying, Chevrolet could strangle the Edsel program.
Too freakin’ late...
Rocket maker Blue Origin uses Russian tech, but Spacex does not.
Could US-Russia tensions leave astronauts stranded in orbit?
Despite strained relations in recent days between the United States and Russia over the political crisis in Ukraine, space operations between the two nations will remain normal, says NASA.
By Miriam Kramer, SPACE.com Staff Writer / March 5, 2014
$71M: Russia Triples Price to Fly U.S. Astronauts to Space Station
August 2, 2013 - 11:11 AM
By Barbara Hollingsworth
(CNSNews.com) – Russia will charge the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) $71 million to transport just one American astronaut to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard its Soyuz spacecraft in 2016.
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/71m-russia-triples-price-fly-us-astronauts-space-station
We have a massive government bureaucracy called NASA that is strangling the USA space program very well on its own, thank you.
If you think the cost to go to the space station is expemsive, wait to see how much they charge to get back
President Reagan called for Space Station Freedom.
The Demagogic Party insisted on the International Space Station.
Now we have Elon Musk to thank for revitalizing the private launch business in the US — his company has for the most part done all its own engineering and builds its product from scratch. It’s just too bad about his past political connections.
Thanks KeyLargo.
From Wiki,
In November 2007, the Obama presidential campaign released a policy document delaying NASA’s Constellation program by five years to fund education programs.[2] There was concern that any delay would prolong the gap after the Space Shuttle’s retirement, when the US would be dependent on the Russian government for access to the International Space Station.
Yep, we already paid for the next few flights, at 70 million per person per trip.
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