NASA Says Russians Will Fly on U.S. Commercial Vehicles
Hartman: U.S. and Russian Crews to Fly Both Soyuz and U.S. Commercial Vehicles, Space Policy Online
“Hartman’s point was that in an emergency, it might not make sense to have all the Russians leave on one spacecraft and the Americans and others on a separate spacecraft because a mixture of experience may be needed to conduct operations. “When you have these rescue vehicles on orbit and you have to leave the station…it doesn’t make much sense for three Russians to leave and expect the four Americans onboard to operate the Russian segment [of the ISS] and vice versa, right?” Hartman said.”
I hope the good ol Russians are charged appropriately (if you get my drift)!
As far as I’m concerned NASA’s finest should have been optioned rides on China’s Shenzhou as a backup to Soyuz. But craven American politicians think one dimensionally. So if Russian cosmonauts fly on U.S. commercial spaceships they will, I presume, be charged the going rate by those companies.
As far as I’m concerned NASA’s finest should have been optioned rides on China’s Shenzhou as a backup to Soyuz.
Gee, don’t you think it might be a good idea to run that idea by the Chinese first and see what they think about it? Or is it a foregone conclusion of your keen, multi-dimensional mind that they would simply fall all over themselves to take part? How much do you think they would charge for rides? What other conditions might they insist upon? Have you considered these matters at all? Do you care at all what the answers might be?
But craven American politicians think one dimensionally.
Those would be the ones who note that China is on record many times as regarding the U.S. as its principal opponent in the world. That has been true for a long time. Now that a newly aggressive Russia seems to be adopting the same viewpoint, it just makes so much sense to be begging rides to orbit from a second enemy when we haven’t yet dug our way out of dependence on a first. What extra “dimensions” to your thinking cause you to come to such a daft conclusion?
Actually, the Chinese would very much like to join the Station and partner with NASA on other projects. JAXA, ESA and Roscosmos are interested in Chinese participation on the Station as well but it’s being blocked by the US (and Frank Wolf).
So, yeah, it’s a foregone conclusion.
No doubt the Chinese would like to participate in ISS. But with the Chinese government as currently constituted, that would be a bad idea, as noted in previous comments above.
Given the current tensions between China and Japan, not to mention their long-standing enmity toward one another based on conflicts dating back centuries, I’m not so sure I’d include JAXA on the list of those entities eager to welcome the Chinese aboard ISS. Roscosmos would certainly welcome Chinese participation – it must get a bit lonely being the only enemy of the U.S. involved in a U.S.-dominated project. As for the ESA, the Europeans, unfortunately, have a long history of foolishly short-term-oriented wishful thinking when it comes to accommodating aggressive states.
I assume you do not work with actual Chinese citizens. I do, and have for many years. China is a proud country with a history far longer than ours. Yet in the past century and a half it was humiliated by invasions, first from the Western powers, including the US, and then by Japan. China is in space to show that it has “joined the club”, that it is again one of the world’s leading nations. America and China will be the world’s superpowers for the next generation. We must decide if we will be bitter foes on the verge of annihilation, or partners in leading the world, capable of settling our inevitable differences by respectful discussion instead of nuclear intimidation. Working together on the ISS program, one of the leading peaceful and cooperative ventures in the world, would help to build that understanding.
China has, to a remarkable degree, recovered from its former humiliations. One would think that the huge economic growth China has accomplished would be sufficient demonstration of China’s considerable powers of renewal. But China’s government seems also to insist that territorial annexations against its neighbors and domination of international sea lanes must also be part of the deal. That there those, including many in the Chinese government, who still have chips on their shoulders and openly pursue further territorial aggrandizement is hardly an argument for greater cooperation.
As to average Chinese citizens, they have no say in what their aggressive and confrontational government does so their opinions are not really relevant now. They will be relevant when the current Chinese regime is finally overthrown by its long-suffering citizens, but not before. Until that time, I don’t favor any Chinese participation in U.S.-based space endeavors. Also, from a purely pragmatic viewpoint, the Chinese bring nothing of consequence to the table. We already subsidize the Russians hugely. I see no point in doing likewise with the Chinese.
As to the potential for understanding and the peaceful working out of differences, post-Soviet Russia has been our ISS partner since inception. Russia is now far more hostile to us 20 years later than it was at the start. This is simply traditional Russianism returning to the fore after a brief interregnum made mandatory by their former desperate economic circumstances. The hardest times now being over the Russians are simply reverting to type. ISS is no magic cave inducing pacifism in its occupants. Notional participation on it will have no more tonic an effect on the basically malignant Chinese government than it has had on the increasingly malignant Russian one. To believe otherwise is to be so “open-minded” that one’s brains fall out.
Certainly no one that the US supports and considers a friend does such things.
It is guaranteed that if we treat a country like an enemy, it will remain an enemy.
Certainly no one that the US supports and considers a friend does such things.
I presume this is intended to be both snarky and ironic. If so, I presume you also have some particular friend of the U.S. in mind as a counterexample. Perhaps you would be good enough to make the object of your little jape explicit – just for the record.
It is guaranteed that if we treat a country like an enemy, it will remain an enemy.
Nonsense. We treat countries like enemies that are hostile to us. Germany and Japan used to fall into that category, now they don’t. Currently, both Russia and China consider the U.S. an enemy. I do not think this will always be so, but we have no business pretending that they are our friends when they clearly are not.
Participation in space projects is not some magical exception to this general rule. To suppose it is is to indulge in magical thinking.
Perhaps the reason such counter-factual attitudes about China are as common as they seem to be in the space advocacy community is because magical thinking of other kinds is also common among at least some of us.
I do recall reading here (NASA watch) that the Chinese were interested in joining us on ISS, and the USA told them no. And then quite naturally they seemed to say f%&k you, we will do it ourselves. I recall commenting at the time how stupid it was not to use ISS as a means to work more with the Chinese. There was silly talk coming from congress like if Chinese are aloud to go to ISS that they will learn all our secrets. Mean while some in the Chinese military were doing stupid things like testing a hunter satellite system by blowing some satellite to bits scattering dangerous shrapnel all over a Leo orbit. Is that shrapnel still up there? Wouldn’t it have been better for us to have gotten the Chinese to work with us? Wouldn’t the solar system be a better place if we all just got along in outer space as well as on earth!
It doesn’t take a rocket sceintistt
There was silly talk coming from congress like if Chinese are aloud to go to ISS that they will learn all our secrets.
Considering all the vigorous and pervasive Chinese espionage efforts aimed at both U.S. governmental entities and private U.S. corporations over the past several decades, such “talk” is far from “silly.” What is silly is people such as yourself who prefer to deny obvious reality in favor of some Kumbiyah Cloud Cuckoo Land where the mere fact of being away from Earth magically transforms the hearts of men.
Mean while some in the Chinese military were doing stupid things like
testing a hunter satellite system by blowing some satellite to bits
scattering dangerous shrapnel all over a Leo orbit.
Yeah, why do you suppose China would do something like that? I bet you’ve been scratching your head about that for simply years.
Is that shrapnel still up there?
Yup, still there. That one Chinese ASAT test created roughly a third of all detectable space debris objects currently in orbit.
Wouldn’t it have been better for us to have gotten the Chinese to work with us?
It would have better if the Chinese weren’t such assholes. Working with us wasn’t the relevant alternative. The Chinese are now, as they were then, hostile to us. The origins of this hostility have nothing to do with pique at not being invited to the ISS party. Why do you imagine that an invitation to participate in ISS would have magically erased all Chinese government animus against the U.S.? Why do you think it would have even stopped them from conducting that ill-advised ASAT test? Not everything in the world is either the fault of the U.S. or within the capabilities of the U.S. to unilaterally change.
Wouldn’t the solar system be a better place if we all just got along in outer space as well as on earth!
Of course. Why do you imagine, as you seem to, that it is the fault of the U.S. that all is not already sweetness and light? Why do you give a pass to nations pursuing courses of aggressive imperialism? Do they deserve no blame at all for the fact that sunshine, smiles and cute puppies are not the norm everywhere?
It doesn’t take a rocket sceintistt
No. It will take currently aggressive, expansionist nations abandoning age-old dreams of imperial glory. That is something well beyond the capability of the U.S., acting unilaterally, to cause to happen.
Certainly we do no spying. None at all.
We do plenty. And we direct our efforts at nations we regard as enemies – such as China. The Chinese do likewise; they see us as their enemy. It makes no sense to invite enemy nationals into facilities that would be, in effect, espionage smorgasbords. The fact that China sees us as an enemy and spies on us is not necessarily morally objectionable. Giving them an assist in such endeavors, however, is simply stupid. Especially if, as with China, they have nothing of consequence we would profit by spying back at. As I see no likely benefit of Chinese participation in U.S. space endeavors and considerable uncompensated espionage downside, I favor keeping them out of our affairs as a default position.
It’s interesting how you carefully select your facts. Do you care to ask the German government how they’re viewed by our government? According to you standard, they must be enemies.
The only facts that are relevant are that China considers the United States an enemy and the United States reciprocates. You’re the one who keeps dragging in irrelevancies as though if you yell “Squirrel!” often enough you can somehow win the argument.
To address your latest irrelevancies, no Germany is not an enemy. The U.S. spied on Germany during both the Bush and Obama administrations – and probably during others, for that matter. Both administrations also spied on a lot of Americans – something that concerns me even more than whatever snooping they did on Germans.
As our national intelligence apparat seems increasingly indiscriminate in its targets, that may account for why it can’t pay sufficient attention to actual enemies, like China and Russia, that we don’t constantly get blindsided by things our spooks should have been able to see coming. But the myriad failings and institutional dysfunctions of the U.S. intelligence establishment is a completely separate issue from that of whether or not inviting China into partnership on U.S. space initiatives is or isn’t a good idea.
I still maintain it isn’t because:
1) The Chinese bring nothing to the table that could justify the sizable espionage vulnerability their presence would create.
2) The Chinese will no more be magically transformed from enemies to friends by being included in American-led and financed space projects than have the Russians.
QED
Ergo our spying is not restricted to our “enemies” as you claimed.
Continuing as we are with China will guarantee that China remains an “enemy”, so congratulations to you for that. Well, done. Doing as much certainly gives China no reason to change.
I did not so claim. In fact I acknowledged that, especially of late, the U.S. seems to spy on pretty much everybody. A lot of people oppose this because they think spying, even on enemies, is icky. I oppose it because spying on everybody is mostly useless and diminishes the amount of attention that can be given to genuine threats.
As to China, its status as an enemy of the U.S. is a matter of internal choice. Its current ruling regime is hostile to us because they wish to be aggressively expansionist and we stand in their way. A future China, in which this regime has been toppled, may well feel otherwise.
In the meantime, we need to do what is in our nation’s interest. Giving a currently hostile China cheap opportunities for espionage does not qualify.
As there is also nothing the Chinese have by way of space technology that would profit us, I favor keeping them out of our space endeavors.
As to the possibility of a change in China’s attitude, that will not be crucially determined by the attitudes of outsiders, the U.S. included. Contrary to the opinions of many foreigners, and many U.S. leftists, the U.S. does not unilaterally run the world.
You’re funny. Had China been invited instead of told “You’re not wanted” by those narrow-minded folk you seem to admire then in one instant swoop China would now be a partner in the INTERNATIONAL Space Station. Furthermore, there would be redundancy – you know what NASA liked to talk about incessantly during the shuttle era. Leroy Chiao and a few others know the positives more than you or I.
Not sure we want Russia as an “enemy” (though you might) but I think a number of American astronauts will forever be grateful for Soyuz enabling them to reach the space station, especially after Columbia burned up.
Not sure we want Russia as an “enemy”
I know I don’t, but, then, I’m not the one who gets to decide. Neither does any other American. The Russians get to decide whether or not they want to be our enemy. The Putin regime has decided. Their answer is “Yes.” Two decades of “partnership” in ISS failed to forestall this reversion of Russia to traditional aggressive, expansionist form.
What luck do you imagine we would have with the Chinese government, which is already far more hostile to the United States than was Russia in the immediate aftermath of the Soviet collapse? People, of whom I am one, who oppose Chinese participation in U.S. space endeavors are not “narrow-minded,” we are simply realistic. When China has a goverment not bent on confrontation and expansion by force, I’ll be happy to include the Chinese in most any American initiative, or to support American participation in Chinese initiatives for that matter. But not until.
Once again I will warn against being so “open-minded” one’s brains fall out. Be careful not to accidentally step on yours.
Why would we ever want any one as an “enemy”?
What is wrong with the world?
My tribe is better than your tribe. My tribe wants to control your tribe. My tribe wants your stuff. My tribe has its own rocketship.
Tribalism The natural tendency to to protect yourself, family or group at the expense of others. The cause of most “evil”
Why would we ever want any one as an “enemy”?
We don’t, really. But the world includes a lot of people and nations that want, for a variety of reasons, to be our enemies. To ignore or deny this is idiocy.
What is wrong with the world?
You do a decent, if partial, job of answering your own question. Actual tribalism, as opposed to metaphorical tribalism, is a major factor in our current difficulties with much of the Islamic world, for example.
Tribalism we have had with us for so long it is part of our genetic heritage. That means it has to be affirmatively suppressed on a continuing basis or it tends to reappear spontaneously. The phenomenon of urban street gangs, for instance, is essentially one of people who, in the absence of affirmative acculturation to modern society, revert to living on their hard-wired default social programming.
But in addition to tribalism, there is also malignant and aggressive nationalism. One can regard this, in some sense, as a form of tribalism on a much grander scale. Since the invention of nation states and empires a few thousand years ago, it has been a widely held belief that the true greatness of a nation lies in how many foreign people it can bend, involuntarily, to its national will.
The Russians have always operated on this assumption. Their current aggressions are simply a reversion to classic form after a couple decades of resting up and recuperating after the loss of much of their previously-accumulated empire. Reckoning themselves now sufficiently recovered to take back at least a bit of their former imperium, the Russians are now proceeding to try doing exactly that.
The largest of the English-speaking former colonies of Britain – the U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand – have developed a much less belligerent notion of national greatness. Britain, itself, after being bankrupted attempting to keep its erstwhile empire, has since largely come around to the view of its Anglophone former holdings.
Russia and China, so long as they continue to pursue, as they currently are, the ancient iron dream of imperial glory, are not suitable collaborators in current or future U.S. space-related efforts. The Russians, it increasingly seems, will be taking themselves out of partnership on the ISS in six more years – if not sooner. The Chinese are completely inappropriate as replacements so long as the current regime prevails.
Well. That’s a bit of pissy attitude we don’t see often here.
I assume, based on indentation level, that this is a response to a comment of mine.
I think the people with the genuinely pissy attitudes are the ones who can’t seem to divine any reason why the mean old United States would keep the poor innocent Chinese out of the ISS except that the we’re just so – you know – mean!
I wonder if they will change the Soyuz prices once American firms are selling seat prices for half the Russian price.
It’s more likely that they’ll take a leaf out of ULA’s play-book and say the extra cost is to get ‘assurance’ and ‘reliability’.
I remember that the Russians were at one point bound and determined that they wouldn’t let Cargo Dragon and Cygnus berth with the ISS. I’m pretty sure that their insistence on a Soyuz being available for Russian Segment evacuation will fade in time and ultimately be expunged from the record too.
Time to put up or shut up Blue Origin.
Quite frankly, they are pretty good at shutting up.
Shut up? Blue Origin ain’t talkin’ much, unlike so many other space ventures. Perhaps when they put up they will talk? Inquiring minds would like to know.
Why not have the Russians use a trampoline?
Sigh… I guess Rogozin will be remembered for the trampoline long after his death. A spectacular failure.
I would encourage you all to read the article. The official quoted there indicates that the expectation would be that rides would be traded on a one-for-one basis.
The idea that Russia would stop wanting a Soyuz parked on their segment evinces a certain lack of understanding of Russian politics and the Russian psyche.
Not if things keep go’n the way they are.
I think its a great idea that we send russians up on the newest U.S. commercial vehicle. Somebody has to check them out, and lab monkeys are too expensive.
That’s not funny
That’s just a stupid comment, even if it is in jest.
Been a fair amount of those in this thread.
Keith
About a week ago Discus sent me an email request to confirm my id. Not sure of the reason? I think it was to include my id in the hold on system? it erased my profile history complety? Anyway to recover my history?