As NASA Seeks Next Mission, Russia Holds the Trump Card 250
Geoffrey.landis (926948) writes "After the space shuttle retired in 2011, Russia has hiked the price of a trip to the International Space Station, to $71 million per seat. Less well recognized is the disparity in station crews. Before the shuttle stopped flying, an equal number of American and Russian crew members lived on board. But afterwards the bear began squeezing. For every two NASA astronauts that have flown to the station, three Russians have gone. Eric Burger asks, how did it come to this?"
Space X, you're up. (Score:5, Insightful)
Russia being Russia is the best thing that can happen to Space X if they have what it takes.
So many mistakes. (Score:5, Insightful)
1. The ISS was a mistake in and of itself. The science its done wasn't worth the money. There were cheaper ways to attain the same knowledge. That money could have been better spent on other NASA projects.
2. Never trust the Russians. By all means do whatever in the name of diplomacy. But NEVER trust them. It goes back to the policy under Reagan... Trust but Verify... which really means we DO NOT trust them but we do business with them in a safe and sustainable way.
3. Allowing the US to lose its ability to go to space while the ISS remained active.
4. Not cultivating alternatives from spaceX etc that offered to fill the gap.
It goes without saying that the US is run badly these days. The politics being what they are about half the population will never admit it but such is the reality. As a people, we need to grow beyond our factionalism, find common ground, and hold our leaders to some reasonable standards. Otherwise, we'll just bounce between one faction's incompetents and the other's. Each side giving the profound incompetence of its own candidates a blind eye until they're out of political capital and then it shifts to the next guy. Back and forth.
What are they doing up there? (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe the reason more Russians are going up than Americans is because it costs $71Million to send an American.
NASA's 2014 budget is ~$17.5B, and they do a lot of really good stuff, the ISS is kinda low on that totem pole, if you ask me. There's a lot more to space exploration than sitting in the ISS, babysitting experiments, chatting with school kids and waiting for your ride
Simple (Score:4, Insightful)
I think this one's pretty friggin' obvious. We discontinued our man-rated means to low earth orbit before we had a working replacement. It's the exact same way we lost Skylab, except we were theoretically cooperating with Russia this time, while last time we weren't. Obviously our degree of cooperation was misunderstood, and they have chosen to exploit our weakness.
Mind you, our man-rated means to low earth orbit was ridiculously inefficient compared to what it was supposed to cost, and the turnaround on our pretty little space planes was orders of magnitude worse than the week-or-two expected between launches. It was so expensive that our politicians wouldn't push for a small, inexpensive (relatively speaking) method to reach space for when we didn't need a crew of ten and a payload of ten tons. Had we spent the money to either refine the Saturn-series to make them less expensive and more efficient or started on a new project after the Shuttle finally got going then we probably wouldn't be in this predicament now.
At least it'll be good for a relative up-and-comer in SpaceX and to a lesser extent to Orbital/ATK.
This hopefully will be a lesson for not discontinuing one's own abilities before being ready with a new program, but you'd think that Skylab falling from orbit and burning up would have taught us that lesson.
Re:Eric Burger asks, how did it come to this? (Score:5, Insightful)
And that little fact is almost entirely due to Congress' inability to think past pork and the next re election cycle. Yes, NASA has some internal issues (as does every human endevour with more than one person involved) but yo-yo funding and put-it-here thinking have really trashed the agency.
You reap what you sow. /grump
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Eric Burger asks, how did it come to this? (Score:2, Insightful)
So much of the budget is off-limits (social security and medicare) that the only areas left vulnerable to cutting are things like NASA.
The USA has locked itself into forced spending in some areas and it's squeezing other areas.
Re:Eric Burger asks, how did it come to this? (Score:4, Insightful)
I dont think the issue is how much money it costs sending US astronauts on Russian rockets, the issue is that the Russian rockets are the only option right now.
Re:Eric Burger asks, how did it come to this? (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's an idea, lets gt rid of the F-35 program, a plane we don't need, is behind schedule, is massively over budget, and still can barely get off the ground. The cost projection for that one useless pork program, if given straight to NASA, would double their budget for the next 80 years.... of course, that's ignoring any MORE cost overruns that the F-35 will have in the future. It's odd, i don't find the phrase "create and maintain a global military hegemony" anywhere in the Constitution.
The answer to the question put forth, though, is pretty simple: congress has been inundated with complete fucking idiots who couldn't think their way out of a wet paper bag even if they had instructions. The complete idiots who are anti-science, anti-education, anti-intelligence... these people who rail against progress, all the while using and abusing their positions for their own political power. That's why we're in this situation. Every time you see someone on these boards who complain NASA isn't needed, or hasn't done anything useful.... those people exemplify is the reason why we're at this point: pure, unadulterated, stupidity.
Re:What are they doing up there? (Score:5, Insightful)
17 bil? is that all? 17 measly billion dollars a year for all of NASA?
Shit guys, get your act together. You spend more money a year on air conditioning for the US Army ( ~$20bil )
Nice set of priorities you have there.
seriously, wtf!?
Re:How did it come to this? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a simple choice. (Score:4, Insightful)
If you think you can do it cheaper USA, go for it. Otherwise don't complain about how much another country charges you.
Re: Eric Burger asks, how did it come to this? (Score:5, Insightful)
[...] send robots out to explore other planets, and let real science move on.
What's sad is that you figure that the robots are doing "real science."
Remember that "real science" is pretty boring to most people. The conclusions are interesting but the actual study, hypotheses, testing--y'know, that whole "scientific method" stuff--is pretty damn dull unless it's something you're specifically interested and knowledgeable about. There is plenty of "real science" happening on ISS but since most of us don't understand it, we poo-poo it. Heck, just look at the information returned on the last Dragon capsule [nasa.gov]. Boring shit, right?
The robots, as you imply, are doing exploration, which is a bit more exciting. "What's over the next hill?" is a far more exciting question than "Why is that hill there?" The first one is exploration. The second one is "real science."