Russia Tells NASA Space Station Pullout Less Imminent Than Indicated Earlier (reuters.com) 48
Russian space officials have informed U.S. counterparts that Moscow would like to keep flying its cosmonauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) until their own orbital outpost is built and operational, a senior NASA official told Reuters on Wednesday. Reuters reports: Taken together with remarks from a senior Russian space official published on Wednesday, the latest indications are that Russia is still at least six years away from ending an orbital collaboration with the United States that dates back more than two decades.
A schism in the ISS program seemed to be closer at hand on Tuesday, when Yuri Borisov, the newly appointed director-general of Russia's space agency Roscosmos, surprised NASA by announcing that Moscow intended to withdraw from the space station partnership "after 2024." Kathy Lueders, NASA's space operations chief, said in an interview that Russian officials later on Tuesday told the U.S. space agency that Roscosmos wished to remain in the partnership as Russia works to get its planned orbital outpost, named ROSS, up and running. "We're not getting any indication at any working level that anything's changed," Lueders told Reuters on Wednesday, adding that NASA's relations with Roscosmos remain "business as usual."
A schism in the ISS program seemed to be closer at hand on Tuesday, when Yuri Borisov, the newly appointed director-general of Russia's space agency Roscosmos, surprised NASA by announcing that Moscow intended to withdraw from the space station partnership "after 2024." Kathy Lueders, NASA's space operations chief, said in an interview that Russian officials later on Tuesday told the U.S. space agency that Roscosmos wished to remain in the partnership as Russia works to get its planned orbital outpost, named ROSS, up and running. "We're not getting any indication at any working level that anything's changed," Lueders told Reuters on Wednesday, adding that NASA's relations with Roscosmos remain "business as usual."
"We're Leaving!" (Score:5, Funny)
"Okay. Bye."
"Wait! We didn't mean it like that!"
"Did you forget your ball?"
They still got work to do. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
China, India, Malaysia, Indonesia, and other assorted odd countries are buying Russian oil. They may be getting it at a discount but Russian is still taking their money.
Stingers are neutering some of Russia's air force. We have no proof that Putin has cancer, although I don't think he should keep Satan waiting.
Russia will be around for a long time, no one else wants it, although China might bite off a piece in the East. It might be a shell of its former self, but then it was always a Potemkin village.
Re: (Score:1)
By showing that Russian propaganda is even worse...
Russia has already lost the war. It just hasn't sunk in to a lot of Russians yet.
Sure they can rape and murder quite a few more Ukranians. But wage a war? Russia? LOL.
Re: Russia is the end (Score:2)
It's better to have natural resource income than be a total shithole, but it doesn't protect a country from being a shithole regardless.
I hope the thought of dragging the EU and Ukraine down with them warms their heart a bit on the way down, but down is pretty much guarantueed. For the tens of thousands of dead Russians because of the aborted Blitz on Kiev, down underground.
GG, losing a couple million Russophones to forced Ukrainian primary education was really worth all this shit.
Re: (Score:1)
Headlines (Score:5, Insightful)
Pulling "it" out at the proper time... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: Pulling "it" out at the proper time... (Score:3)
The moment Kharkiv was shot to utter shit, pulling out became impossible. Unlike what the geriatric Mr. "make China great again" Kissinger said, the status quo ante bellum was never on the table. They caused too much damage, if they let the west build up Ukraine militarily for a decade or so they will get fucked down the line. Not even parking nukes in Donetsk would be secure enough.
They need to utterly break down resistance now and put in a puppet state in Ukraine.
Re: (Score:2)
They need to utterly break down resistance now and put in a puppet state in Ukraine.
So since that's not going to happen, what's the backup plan? Nuclear fire?
Re: (Score:2)
If they are willing to bury enough Russians and Ukrainians it can happen, it will just make life more miserable for everyone but it can happen.
Ideally Russians put some Polonium in Putin's tea, find some scapegoats, let Ukraine have Donbas and pay reparations.
Re: (Score:2)
If they are willing to bury enough Russians and Ukrainians it can happen, it will just make life more miserable for everyone but it can happen.
No, I don't think it can. Russia has been stalled and then actually pushed back, and they are clearly scraping through the bottom of the barrel when it comes to fielding more men and materiel. Pretty soon they're going to run out of equipment that they can even get running.
Politics meets reality (Score:5, Insightful)
So some political figure decided they should quit ISS thinking it would spite the Americans. Then more science-y figures in the Russian space program then informed them of the cost and engineering time necessary to create their own space station. And that with SpaceX, NASA isn't stuck on the ground without Soyuz.
Realizing that this was mostly just going to lock them out orbital manned spaceflight (besides some symbolic one-tin-can orbiter) and leave it to the West and China, it seems kind of unsurprising that reality has them thinking that staying on ISS makes sense.
Re: (Score:2)
Eventually, the fossi fuel America goes away, because there won't be enough. Someone needs a solution other than "drill baby drill". But it's not in the human psyche to change until forced to change by necessity. Europe knew Putin wasn't reliable but they still kept buying their natural gas from him, because to do otherwise would have been inconvenient. So the stage is set to what looks to be a whole lot like a Tom Clancy novel.
Re: (Score:2)
ZERO.
When all American cars are EVs, their charging will require around 15-20% of current grid usage.
At night, grid usage falls by about 20% (TA-DA!).
So EVs will mostly have the effect of balancing the grid and making it more efficient.
Re: (Score:2)
It's like US congress "Freedom Fries" except it's "Borsch Moon" or something.
Not a giant surprise (Score:4, Interesting)
On the other hand, anyone in Russian civilian space activity is probably well aware that the ISS is the only currently operational big multinational space prestige project that was designed(both in terms of choice of orbit, organizational structure, and dependence on various modules and resupply capabilities) under the assumption that the USSR, and now Russia by inheritance, was a credible world power in terms of space/orbital delivery capabilities and an entity where having a project that allowed for cooperative technical engagement was a worthwhile goal. At this point it seems fairly likely to be the last such project, both because 'working with the russians' is now a pretty major liability; and because their institutional rot means that you can't even get fairly cheap and admirably reliable execution on classic Soviet launcher designs that historically made them a popular launch option.
If they throw that away their options are pretty much (a)pretend that civilian space isn't something they care about anyway and true glory is found in bellicose nationalism or (b)try to build Mir 2.0 despite Roscosmos being poor and sufficiently brain-drained that they aren't even viewed as being able to reliably execute on proven legacy launcher designs, which was a bread-and-butter item in terms of attracting launch business for money and something they'd need to be able to lift a space station worth of gear or (c) get some pity-seats from the Chinese on their station that isn't even in an orbit convenient to Russia; much less operated as a project where Russia is viewed as relevant. Is there something Xi wants(whether hard resource exports or some sort of diplomatic clout put behind the principle that it's not really a war if you are just dealing with a renegade province) that would get some cosmonauts a tourist visit where nobody laughs at them to their face? Almost certainly. Do the Russians bring anything to the table that would induce the Chinese to actually treat them as anything other than a somewhat embarrassing hanger-on rather than a serious partner? Unlikely.
Re: (Score:3)
or (b)try to build Mir 2.0 despite Roscosmos being poor and sufficiently brain-drained that they aren't even viewed as being able to reliably execute on proven legacy launcher designs, which was a bread-and-butter item in terms of attracting launch business for money
The whole real reason for this military spasm is that Russia is being outcompeted, or was about to be, in a variety of areas. Their fossil fuel business was threatened by AGW initiatives on one hand, and by Ukraine on the other. Their grain exports were also threatened by AGW (not initiatives this time, just AGW) and by Ukraine. Their launch capability was rapidly becoming irrelevant. And their extremely MBT-heavy military, once feared throughout Europe, was also being rapidly obsoleted by new technology (a
Re: (Score:2)
You guys are loons who think windmills and solar power are going to take over energy generation for Europe.
They're going to have to. The technology is well-developed and understood, and completely viable. If you're selling you want to be first. If you're buying, you want to buy as late as you can. I think it's too late to save the biosphere, but it's not the strategy that's wrong, it's the timing. That technology should have advanced much earlier, but the fossil fuel industry retarded it.
Russia invaded Ukraine because Putin know the west is weak and he was funded by stupid Europe.
Putin got his ass handed to him by western drones and top-down ATGMs, to say nothing of Ukranian mud and oh yeah, Chinese tire
Re: (Score:2)
The technology might be well whatever but each time I receive my electric bill, I see that I pay much more for green energy.
Privatized profits, nationalized expenses. It is the dominant paradigm across the developed world. If the governments of the world simply ended fossil fuel subsidies, nobody would have to give corporations subsidies to build other kinds of power. It's just one more way in which the fossil fuel industry is raping us all to death.
The "ROSS" myth (Score:4, Insightful)
Okay: they've (ahem) named a station... which they claim they will one day put into orbit. That still doesn't convince me that any part of an independent Russian space station will ever leave the ground.
There are some pretty compelling reasons that the ISS was a multinational cooperative project. Politics is certainly one of them; it's always good to play nice with the kids next door while you're at the shared playground. But cost is still another huge issue... and I don't think Russia will ever recover financially from their failed gambit in Ukraine, which will still be hurting their pocketbook for generations to come.
War is exorbitantly expensive, even in the best of circumstances, and all the more so when things go sideways. Russia is an unprovoked aggressor who is losing. That's most definitely not the best of circumstances.
Re: (Score:1)
Russia is an aggressor in Ukraine, by definition, without doubt, even though there are a lot of people in the Donbas that might disagree... but unprovoked? US/NATO military build-up on Russia's border and funneling weapons into the Donbas for nearly a decade that were used to kill thousands of ethnic Russians in the region isn't a provocation? Are you sure they're losing? If markets are any indication, the ruble is doing quite well against the dollar, and the Euro. The sanctions seem to be hurting Europ
Re: (Score:2)
A decade of killins ethnic Russians in Donbass? By who? The conflict started in 2016 after Russia invaded (without provocation) and stole Crimea, and then armed some hitherto ignored rebels in Donbass areas and send in soldiers to assist. There's no genocide happening there, except that Ukraine was fighting to get its land back from the Russians, but it takes a real stretch to claim that the fight to get the land back is genocide against ethnic Russians, especially when there are so many ethnic Russians
Re: (Score:2)
You might want to read up on Ukraine's April 2014 "Anti-Terrorist Operation" and what Minsk and Minsk II were all about and how/why they failed -- things were not as simple as you're making them sound. Russia is no angel, but neither is US/NATO. I could be wrong, but it seems to me that there were diplomatic solutions available all along the way, but they were cast aside (by the west) with "global war on terror" style "we don't negotiate with terrorists" kind of rhetoric. Is the entire Global South in th
Re: (Score:2)
Re: NATO, I think Darinbob has it right:
"Maybe Russia could have kept them as allies if only they had created a history of cooperation instead of iron fisted domination, exploitation, banning of local culture, and Russification."
Re: (Score:2)
There are some pretty compelling reasons that the ISS was a multinational cooperative project. Politics is certainly one of them; it's always good to play nice with the kids next door while you're at the shared playground. But cost is still another huge issue...
...which underscores just how worthless involving Russia in the ISS was, and is; And which is also a reason why Russia isn't going to put another station up, period. We had to pay for the Russian modules, because Russia was too busy sending its money to the oligarchy. The latest Russian module has misfired multiple times. We would have been far better off just not giving them any money for their shitty modules.
Re: The "ROSS" myth (Score:1)
They'll never have a station (Score:2)
The Russia economy is too far gone to produce anything like a space station. They won't even be able to produce parts, they can't source Western silicon chips, ect.
Calculated (Score:2)
Staying until they have their own space station, e (Score:1)
The fact of the matter is (Score:2)
That the current Russian administration lies about everything. It is unfortunate that Putin is destroying the country, so sad for the millions of people who live there.