Russia's Ukrainian Invasion – And the ISS
Russia Crisis Raises Space Station, NBC
“The United States and Russia are not just “joined at the hip” on the space station. Numerous other rocket projects rely on either Russian or Ukrainian space hardware and services. Even U.S. national security satellites are powered into orbit on an American rocket with a Russian-built rocket engine. What if the Soyuz spacecraft suddenly became unavailable for use by American astronauts, contract or no contract? Would it be the end of U.S. human spaceflight? Would it kick off a new round of extortionary price-gouging, both fiscal and diplomatic?”
US says it is suspending trade talks and all military-to-military engagements with Russia over Ukraine, Fox
“The U.S. announced late Monday it was suspending trade and investment talks with Russia as well as all “military-to-military engagements” as penalties for its actions in Ukraine.”
Oleg Kotov (ISS Expedition 28 Commander) WIkipedia
Oleg Valeriyevich Kotov was born on October 27, 1965, in Simferopol, Crimean oblast in the Ukrainian SSR.
The What-if scenario has been raised before and now we have a crisis. American human spaceflight is totally dependent on Russian launches. As this blog note mentions, we are also dependent on Russian rocket engines for launching DOD payloads. ULA’s (Lockheed Martins’s) Atlas V uses the Russian made and delivered RD-180. Aerojet licensed but manufactures themselves a variant of the NK-33 but Orbital Sciences has plans to buy Russian NK-33s for the Antares line. The DOD just signed a sweetheart deal with ULA for 30+ launches through this decade.
Nothing has hit the fan, that is, not enough has to set off a call for immediate funding increase for NASA. Crimea is effectively lost to Russia now. Maybe some negotiations could return Crimea but if it stops there, Russian and Western relations will be strained and there will be sanctions, and the west will do plenty to carry Ukraine to their May elections and NASA can manage the situation of using Soyuz until 2017 and ULA can use Delta IVs (American engines) and/or SpaceX Falcon.
However, has suddenly an extra zero been added or a “5” been changed to a “9” in the NASA budget to be released tomorrow? Have they raised the funding request for Commercial Crew in the 2015 budget? Even if the numbers have not been revised up as reaction to the last 3 days, NASA has a strong argument for getting every penny they ask for for Commercial Crew. But even if they tripled the funds to those involved in Commercial Crew, the quickest way to rid us of Russian dependency, there are physical limitations – manufacturing, testing, analysis and review, that probably means shortening the commencement of Commercial Crew to ISS by at best 12 months.
Increasing CC funding was my reaction as well. On the other hand they could decide to increase SLS on the same argument.
Actually, if US-Russian cooperation on ISS is ended, the station cannot continue. It’s not just a matter of losing access to the Soyuz, the whole program is over. (Although perhaps Putin will try to annex the station, after all it’s has a 50% Russian population.)
And if ISS is splashed, Commercial Crew has no destination, no purpose. May as well defund it entirely.
NASA would just have to use some of the ISS money to buy a new spacestation.
You could buy a heck of a lot of Bigelow’s for that $3 billion per year.
NASA should. But why would they?
They’ve been tasked with building SLS/Orion and to do… [waves hand vaguely] something. Freeing up $3b/yr would help that, speed up development and pay for some that “something”.
A new station would merely be a rival for that suddenly freed up ISS funding. Importantly, a new station has no support base. Many existing ISS supporters/lobbyists will move over, but they’ll be divided between different factions/plans/ideas (such as Boeing vs Bigelow, LEO vs L1, centripetal vs micro-g.) That means you have the existing strong SLS lobby, vs the suddenly weakened scattered ISS lobby. No contest.
Congress has kept funding the ISS, but there seems to be no interest in the station’s actual merits as a station, only in its merits as… the thing we already do. I’m sure many already want to kill the ISS, but they don’t want to be seen to kill the ISS, it’s not personally worth taking on the pro-ISS lobby.
But if it gets splashed (or “annexed”), then Russia, in effect, would have “solved” their problem of when to kill the station; without Congress having to make the hard decision. (And being able to blame it all on Obama. Bonus.)
Given the number of years it would take to develop a new station, and how many vultures will circle that “freed up” funding, I can’t see how a new station could possibly get funded in the current environment.
It would be a bad idea for the SLS/Orion people to take the money. The unemployed ex-ISS people will spend their time telling everyone that the pair are a rocket to nowhere. Without regular launches to watch a working manned lander is too far in the future for SLS to survive.
From the OMB:
“Partners with American Commercial Space Enterprises.
In order to reduce U.S. reliance on foreign providers for transporting U.S. astronauts to and from the International Space Station, the Budget invests in private industry-based solutions that will create competitive transport capabilities at a lower cost than previous systems. After the successful completion of the commercial cargo development program, NASA is now purchasing services from two U.S. providers who have successfully conducted cargo resupply missions to the Space Station. Building on the success of these efforts, the Commercial Crew Program is a uniquely American partnership aimed at introducing new efficiencies in space exploration that will strengthen U.S. leadership in space, help produce a more globally competitive U.S. space industry, and enable the Nation to more fully benefit from the International Space Station’s research capabilities. The Opportunity, Growth, and Security Initiative provides an additional $250 million to speed development and certification of these systems.”
Great an extra 250 million .. how did the SLS do? From the same report:
“Continues Human Exploration of the Solar System.
The Budget funds the continued development of new systems that will support crewed missions to deep space. The Space Launch System heavy lift rocket will eventually be the world’s largest rocket since the Apollo era Saturn V, and its capsule counterpart, the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, is designed to carry crews past the Moon. Both programs leverage NASA’s skilled workforce and contractor teams and build upon existing capabilities to push the reach of humans farther into the solar system, with an initial goal of visiting an asteroid in the next decade, followed eventually by a human mission to Mars. The Opportunity, Growth, and Security Initiative provides an additional $100 million to aid the development of the heavy lift rocket and the Orion capsule.”
Hopefully that is a sign of the times and funding will start running out on this boondoggle.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/s…
Spencer, Vladislaw – I provided a pie chart breakdown. I am not sure if these “Partners with American Commercial Space Enterprises” are included. I think they are. Can you confirm? CCP funding was increased while SLS/Orion was reduced. [note: having to correct a % number and re-upload that pie chart]
The Whitehouse 2015 budget proposal will not be introduced into Congress. Not even in the Senate. It’s really just an election pamphlet. A “what if” for voters to consider in November.
By neither party making Space X and their human space program a priority, the Uniparty left this vulnerability.
‘Uniparty’? cute. I see you are a member of the Church of False Equivalency.
NASA started down the path of putting everybody and their brother in the critical path a long time ago. All the “US” modules built by the internationals. All of the critical systems and capabilities in the Russian elements. Dependence on international and Russian vehicles for logistics.
Most interesting thing to me has been why it cost the US taxpayers $100 billion when essentially nothing has been built in the US in about 20 years. Mainly NASA does the ‘ops’, but even that is done just as much or more in other places.
Dollars and Time matter now. If the breakdown in US-Russia relations is long-term and enduring, then the US space program faces a huge challenge. Clearly it must accelerate the timetable for introducing both Orion into operational service, and also assisting commerical space operators in bringing forward their capabilities, but throwing money at the issue can only do so much. Spacecraft can be only developed so fast. Its quite conceivable that the US manned space program grinds to a complete halt without access to Russian launch vehicles and spacecraft. How long that would last is unknown, but I think its quite possible that the US could lose access to the ISS completely.
Time for the USA to build (or buy) its own spacestation.
Keep the money flowing to CCDev so that at least 2 manned vehicles to the spacestation exist.
I would prefer they become an anchor tenant and lease space from a Bigelow Facility.
Just remind the procurement department to ask for a large discount when leasing for 10 years. Some one renting out by the month will be charging hotel rates to cover the empty room periods.
Or send troops into Zarya.
Isn’t this the plot of 2010: Odyssey Two?
I wonder how easily it would be to separate the Russian side from the US side if things go south.
possible, but not easy. Russia was already planning to separate its section for continued use after the end of the ISS, however, the US and Russian systems are currently interlinked for redundancy. there would be a lot of cable-cutting involved, and to do this quickly would probably cause damage to some systems.
All these modules are yours, except Destiny and Unity. Attempt no entry there.
And stay out of the Cupola.
If the next CRS flight uses the crew capsule, then the abort rockets will be visible. This 7 month change to July for the pad abort test does not help. The inflight low altitude abort comes soon after though. If SpaceX keeps to their schedule of non NASA crew flights next year, if they had to, NASA could use it. I think the docking adapter from NASA may not be ready though. NASA has drawings of it next year, but it may take SpaceX sometime to build one.
This is not something at which you can just throw money. First to realize is that human spaceflight is not important to the American people. Next is that the Obama administration has wanted to stop human spaceflight since canceling Constellation and being forced to back down.
We need a systematic approach to the entire dependency issue but that has to start with wanting to not be dependent. The Russians do not believe they are too poor to have a national human spaceflight program. The Chinese do not believe they are too poor to have a human spaceflight program. But, the US is too poor to have its own indigenous program.
If we want a emergency program, stop pretending that commercial crew is commercial. We are experiencing slow schedules and high overall program costs because we pretend that there are non-government customers. We pretend that the commercial companies are absorbing significant portions of the cost (because the nation cannot afford to pay for the program).
While I do NOT want a crash program, I agree that we need to get real. A crash/emergency program is a GOVERNMENT program. If SpaceX sees a market opportunity here, then they should dig into their bank account and develop a product that meets the projected market need.
So the first thing you do to stop human spaceflight is get funding for extra shuttle flights.
The second thing you do is propose to congress an increase to NASA’s funding by 6 billion over 5 years to FULLY FUND multiple teams in a commercial crew program…. which republicans in the house immediately chopped out of the president’s NASA budget proposal and instead give a one time payment of 270 million.
SHEESH .. take your meds.
Shame the Russian is not Helen Mirren…
The space jockeys in Congress will be waving their arms and saying the sky is falling. This is the problem with the US depending on Russia for anything.
So here we have, on one hand, one rival pushing to overtake and shove us aside as they move to control access to space resources, and, on the other hand, our partner / rival who has become unreliable.
We may not be able to get off Earth at all soon. To those who advocate a more co-operative approach – how well is that working now ?
NASA needs an ADDITION to its top line to be applied to commercial access to space, pronto. And we need a definitive course of action to effectively leverage that access.
Our national interest will be served by no one but ourselves.
Elon Musk’s prescient comment on Putin:
Elon Musk on state of U.S. space exploration: Being at Putin’s mercy “not a good thing.”
http://www.youtube.com/watc…
Bob Clark
Just a thought – I know the shuttles are in museums, but could they be restored to operational condition? Have they been stripped of key systems and you might as well build new space shuttles (there is a thought) or could you move them from the museums back to the OPF and get them operational? How quickly could you restart production of the SRBs and the ET? How long would it take to get KSC ready to support shuttle launches again? Would welcome any thoughts on this.
At the very least, they lost their engines to SLS. The ones on display are props.
Production was stopped when Bush cancelled the program, contractors who’d been supplying the same components for 30 years packed up and retired. The last missions were flown with the last spares (and Obama pushed these as far as possible, apparently.)
To restart, you would have to re-tool for thousands of sub-components, each of which would have to be recertified. Then integrated, then the integrated parts recertified… All for a ship that is 25+ years old, with no-one still working who was part of the original design and development (meaning that you are going off of 30 year old engineering plans, rather than the first hand expertise of flight-certifying the shuttles the first time.)
The time and cost to do that vs the time and cost to merely accelerate Commercial Crew…
Agree completely. If you wish to see “shuttles” flying again, keep an eye out for Dream Chaser on top of an Atlas V. Also, although now a military ship, X37B will be flying regularly from Florida, on top of Atlas V. DoD is moving the X37B program to KSC to use the shuttle runway and processing facilities.
No point in this. It would cost so much money that you are better off using systems that are already in development.
Google “The Truth Contest” and read what is said in “The Present” to fix all the world’s problems and to make Earth a paradise for all.