The politics of NASA are weird. It’s hard to justify their budget. Their mission is part national security and part straight-up scientific discovery and exploration. There’s a whole Star Trek element of international cooperation to it that has allowed them to not only work with the Russians but to become reliant on them. And now NASA has suddenly cut off nearly all contact with Russia.
Getting that nakedly political definitely cuts against the spirit of the program, and I don’t expect too many employees there to be very thrilled about the decision. Politicians, however, like to be able to say that we’re “getting tough” with the Russians. I think it’s pretty stupid. I think we’re shooting ourselves in the foot.
Wow, huge mistake. We have no way to get up to the ISS except on Russian vehicles. I participated last week in the review of grant applications for research programs with NASA involving musculature issues. We have hundreds of scientists who work with NASA on this research. Only some of the protocols involved actual persons on the ISS, but this is key data. Without our own vehicles, we cannot get up there. The Russians have a monopoly at this point.
The Space Station work is excluded, at least on our end of it. Who knows how Russia will respond?
How would you respond if you were Putin? Hell, how would any sane leader respond to this crap the USA is dishing out?
I’ve learned that it’s pretty hard to predict how assholes will respond in certain circumstances. They seem to find such inventive ways to be assholes.
FWIW, if they respond rationally, Russia desperately needs the cash we pay them for the US side of ISS service
It sounds like very little of actual substance has been cut off; they only things NASA mentions are touchy-feely visits (in either direction), conferences, stuff like that.
I love that. We cut off all contact with Russia, except for the stuff where we need them.
Let them volunteer to ‘fire’ their space program’s biggest customer.
Can’t we just use Chinese/Indian vehicles in the very near future? Why not get back into running our own vehicles? What happened to those mini-shuttles, anyhow? How’s SpaceX coming?
Sounds like a great way to grab some budget for NASA. If we’re gonna blow $$ on bloated gov’t programs, might as well be cool and relatively harmless.
WTF is going on with Obama’s foreign policy team? Today the Wall Street media are going bonkers over the fact that 35 years ago the guy that Iran is sending a UN ambassador was a translator for the hostage-taking students during the hostage crisis. And Congress is being stampeded into violating UN diplomatic rules by blocking this guys VISA. And what is sick is the number of former Foreign Service employees who were held hostage who are asking the US violate a key part of why the UN in New York can operate.
And now this stupid shit. Can the White House stop being driven by what the neo-cons and Republicans are doing and saying about foreign policy for even a month?
The answer to your question is obviously NO! We should have a name for it, like the Empire Syndrome. Watch our for it. A sure sign it is about to strike is when John McCain steps up to the microphone and says something like ‘no one believes in American power – anymore’.
I think this is the way Obama is exposing the rot within. In my lifetime, we have never had such obvious doofuses (doofi?) at the UN. Like an accomplished judo master, Obama is letting the momentum of the dark energies overextend themselves and show their inner heart. And with the American populace so ignorant and deadened in spirit, that’s about all we can hope for right now, I’m afraid. With the new Supremes ruling, the Adelson show in Vegas, the Pollard ploy to keep the peace sham going, etc., it’s getting dicier by the minute. We are going to see even more radical nonsense being spouted as the hasbara of empire unravels. But if we can dodge open warfare, the needed changes can proceed, despite the verbiage.
The whole policy towards Russia for the last ten years, at least, has been pretty stupid. If they were smarter I’d say it was designed to provoke increased tensions and get rid of those nasty “What is NATO for?” questions.
Ten years? More like twenty when we jumped onto the drunk, kleptocrat Yeltsin bandwagon to introduce “The Shock Doctrine” to Russians with the expected results of killing them.
facepalm First thought: from space, it’s pretty much impossible to tell who controls the Crimean Peninsula.
We shot ourselves in the foot when we became dependent on the enemy.
Do you mean like buying military uniforms from China and using Chinese and Indian H-1Bs in all kinds of critical industries? Do you mean the part where we arrest a Chinese or Indian national who came here on an H-1B visa and who is paying us back by stealing US intellectual property? We do that about once a month.
Yeah, those enemies too.
Interesting intersection, Russia’s Glonass GPS system goes down unexpectedly
NASA manned activities are a joke. The amount of science that gets/got done on the shuttle and the space station is a farce.
Essentially the whole thing serves two purposes:
Plus, I guess it’s an ego boost for the American exceptionalism crowd.
Put more money into unmanned missions and space telescopes. And just skip the rest of the macho bullshit.
What’s the use of looking at where you’ll never go?