NASA Seeks "High Level Visit" Services For China Meetings
NASA Solicitation: Intepretation Translation, Visa Processing, and Logistical Support
“Oral interpretation and written translation of official and technical/scientific/engineering documents … Former Soviet States (Russia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan), Russian Federation, and China, Visa processing for … and China … Administrative coordination, advance preparation and support of conducting onsite overseas official meetings and high level visits; 8) Overseas logistics support primarily for the Former Soviet states and China, providing administrative, clerical and in-country ground transportation logistic services …”
Keith’s note:With regard to mention of “China”, I thought NASA was supposed to NOT be working with China on any space matters. As such, why is “China” and “onsite overseas official meetings and high level visits” mentioned in this (or any) NASA procurement?
“Fomer Soviet states”? It has been 20 years since the USSR broke up. Why is that term even relevant anymore? Why not say “Warsaw Pact” for that matter? At least at least half of Germany was a Soviet client state – and Germany is not listed nor are others such as Romania, Poland, Hungary etc. And FWIW Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania always considered themselves to have been occupied countries not Soviet republics or “states”. Why is Cold War terminology needed in a 21st Century NASA procurement?
The German Democratic Republic (East Germany) was never a Soviet state and was never part of the USSR. Although it was a close ally, it was always a separate country. Likewise for Romania, Poland, Hungary, etc.
Soviet states included Russia, Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.
Why is Ukraine listed? The Soviets proclaimed it to be a separate country. It even had its own UN representative, etc. As for the Baltic nations of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, they always considered themselves to be occupied nations. East Germany (DDR) was listed along with all the other Soviet nations/states in official U.S. government regs when I worked for NASA.
Keith — The term is Satellite state. There was a distinction between being being a part of the USSR directly and being a Soviet Satellite country. The Soviet satellite countries in Eastern and Central Europe in practice only had a little bit of lee way. http://en.wikipedia.org/wik…
For Ukraine fine. But East Germany was a Soviet Satellite country. NASA regs at the time may have been listed it as being part of the USSR, but it wasn’t. It was probably in the list because of it’s strategic importance in the cold war among Soviet Satellite countires.
Why is Cold War terminology needed in a 21st Century NASA procurement?
Keith,
“Why is Cold War terminology needed in a 21st Century NASA procurement?”
Because most space technology infrastructure in former communist countries (however you want to make the distinction), even including China is largely based on the USSR space program.
Meetings with China are a good step. Perhaps changes in law or policy are in the offing.
I don’t know about the bogus law about NASA not being able to work with China. But I for one encourage the US space industry and NASA to collaborate with any country on Earth that wishes too. We are all on this tiny sphere, we should work together.
The term FSU (former Soviet Union) is used commonly in academia when speaking about those now-independent countries that were once part of the USSR. While the Baltic nations certainly disliked being part of the USSR, they were no different in that than any of the rest (Ukraine, Georgia, etc.).
Ukraine, in fact, still does have its own UN representative, as do the rest of the FSU states.
The fact that the native populations of the Baltic states considered themselves under occupation in no way changed their de jure and de facto status as part of the USSR. Do you expect NASA policy when working with governments to be based upon local opinion, rather than local law?
The other nations to which you refer, Keith, such as the DDR, Hungary, etc., were members of the Warsaw defense pact and Comecon economic bloc and were largely controlled by the USSR, being whacked when they got out of line (see DDR, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary, in particular). This did not make them Soviet states, but did mean that they were run under similar systems of government that were heavily influenced by Moscow.
The Soviets, in fact, did not declare the various members states to be independent countries. They did that themselves during the waning days of the USSR, led by the Baltic states. The security apparatus responded with a violent crackdown in Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital, in January 1991 in response to its declaration of independence, and act which sealed the fate of the USSR.
(God save us all from research based upon Wikipedia entries. It’s no substitute for study and experience.)
It is rather amusing and confusing to see NASA lumping them all into one pot. Certainly the visa requirements for Russia and other FSU states vary dramatically. Russia’s are still quite at the harassment level, part of a long-standing tit-for-tat approach to the US, which still severely restricts visa access for Russian nationals. However, travel to the Baltics, Ukraine, and Georgia, for example, is now visa-free.
Well then we should refer to the east coast as “former British colonies”. Its just as archaic as using the phrase “former Soviet”.
It IS fair to lump the former soviet countries together for NASA purposes because most of the technology and infrastructure in these countries related to space is directly or derived from the USSR space program.
Analogy: AT&T was broken apart – But no keen modern competent Unix or Linux administrator forgets that UNIX was forged at Bell Labs. Linux which runs on the majority of the web is crafted after Unix.
Todd and Nox,
Have a look at a current calendar. It says 2012, not 19xx. An awful lot has happened in the intervening years. I don’t disparage your apparent knowledge of history, but today is today, and so bloody much of the world’s remaining major problems exist for the simple reason that so many people insist on living in the past and making decisions/having opinions based on things that haven’t been true for decades and are no longer the least bit relevant. Understanding history is important; perpetually reliving it is socially dysfunctional. Today’s nomenclature and attitudes must reflect today’s events and relationships, or else we’ll keep living the cold war, religious wars, and all of the other uncivilized events of our past over and over again.
Steve
Steve,
You see it a little differently then I do.
Winston Churchill: “The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you can see.”