Mounting Issues Within Russia's Space Efforts
Tensions with Russia are now spilling into space, complicating International Space Station partnership, Washington Post
“But the fragile coalition that has kept the space station going all these years is fraying, as tensions between Russia and the United States, the two main partners on the station, grow to levels not seen in years. And while the countries have kept their alliance on the station going despite geopolitical tensions, the fence that has kept the station and civil space endeavors walled off from other problems is beginning to erode.”
A domestic newspaper warns of the Russian space program’s “rapid collapse”, Ars Technica
“A long and strikingly critical article that reviews the state of the Russian space program was published in the state-aligned newspaper MK this week. None of the findings in the 2,800-word article were particularly surprising. Western observers who track the Russian space industry realize the program is deeply troubled, and to a great extent running on the fumes of its past and very real glory. What is notable, however, is that a major Russian media outlet has published such a revelatory article for a domestic audience.”
I don’t think the Washington Post article makes a very strong case that tensions between Russia and the U.S. are starting to affect the ISS program. They mostly list external situations, which certainly are piling up at the moment and have the potential to interfere with what has been a surprisingly peaceful coexistence in space. But realistically this is nothing new and the program has weathered similar external storms in the past. As direct influences they cite only the satellite destruction test, but that was external to the Russian space program and even affected the cosmonauts onboard ISS. And of course they mentioned the drilling accusations, something which most likely was just some face saving pontification.
As Keith pointed out earlier this month, the worse things get in the diplomatic realm, the better the relationship between the two space programs looks in comparison. How long this will last, that’s anyone’s guess. The potential for a breakdown is always there. ISS will eventually either be deorbited or have major modifications, at which point the U.S. and Russia aren’t going to “need” each other anymore in space. But that’s likely still several years away. Even the Post article admits (near the end), that “there continues to be strong cooperation among the astronauts and cosmonauts engineers and technical leaders, who have long put politics aside.” And they pointed out the recent decision by Russia to allow a cosmonaut to fly on Dragon. I think they should have emphasized both of those points earlier in the article to help put all of this into better perspective.
So far the Russians have held up their side of tne ISS bargain by providing Soyuz and Progress; though the burn pattern from the just returned Soyuz looks like it might have been a near calamity with another nose forward reentry.
Rogozin is an interesting study. One has to wonder how someone like that gets into the top position and why someone like Putin leaves him there.
The Russian’s real issue is not that unlike that of the US; Russia has lost most of its capable top leadership to age and the replacements never seemed to learn the job.
In a sense the Soviet approach of setting up widget factories to build rockets by rote, like sausages, has worked well. The problem was they never learned how to do anything new or different.
Someone like Rogozin is not able to put in place whatever is necessary to turn this around.
The x-cccp has the ability to put things in a box. They can have a good working relationship with us in space and still shot at us on the ground. Nothing will change. US dollars have been keeping the Russian space program going for almost 30 years (starting back when President Clinton invited them to the ISS program). They will work with us,
Whatever is to happen to the Russian/Soviet space program, they have created some interesting artwork. https://uploads.disquscdn.c…