DocM Posted May 13, 2014 Share Posted May 13, 2014 Commercial Crew, Bigelow Aerospace and the RD-180 replacement program, please report to the on-deck circle. US managers are already creating contingencies, and don't be surprised if CC gets a larger acceletation. SpaceX's Dragon 2 taking a bow May 29 couldn't be better timed. http://m.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/9338626e-dab7-11e3-8273-00144feabdc0.html Russia to deny US space station access Russia is to deny the US use of the International Space Station beyond 2020 and will also bar its rocket engines from launching US military satellites as it hits back at American sanctions imposed over the Ukraine crisis. The twin moves against the space and satellite programmes represent one high-tech niche in which Moscow believes it has leverage over the US. ?The Russian segment of the ISS can exist independently from the US one, but the US segment cannot exist independently from the Russian one,? said Dmitry Rogozin, deputy prime minister, pointing to the fact that the US can no longer send astronauts to the station on its own. The US space shuttle fleet retired in 2011 as a result of Nasa funding cuts. The announcement could curb Russian-American co-operation in areas so far unimpeded by the increasingly poisonous political climate between the two countries. As Moscow?s stand-off with Ukraine escalated in recent months into the worst falling-out with the west since the Cold War, both US and Russian diplomats had noted that the two powers continued to ?do business? pragmatically in areas of global significance. ?Space is obviously no longer part of that,? said one western diplomat. Washington last month decided to revoke export licences for technology goods that can be used militarily by Russia and to refuse to extend new ones. Washington is also considering new restrictions on the export of high-tech equipment to develop Russia?s energy resources. Moscow?s move against the ISS came in the form of a rejection of a US request to use the station beyond 2020. The ISS, jointly maintained by several countries, has been continuously manned by rotating missions for more than 13 years and is used for research, some of which is considered vital for further space exploration. Assuming Russia does not reconsider, its decision could strengthen China, which aims to have its own space station by 2020 and is currently excluded from the ISS ? chiefly because of opposition from the US. Mr Rogozin said Moscow would not impose sanctions of its own, and would not obstruct the work of US astronauts. However, he called the US an ?unreliable? technology partner and said the government was therefore seeking to intensify work with other countries. Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, is due to present new plans for space exploration to parliament. Mr Rogozin said it was looking to redirect funds from manned space flight to other, more promising areas and had been advised to seek co-operation with Asian countries. Mr Rogozin said Russia would continue to supply MK-33 and RD-180 rocket engines to the US, but would require a guarantee that they would not be used to launch military satellites. Russia also threatened to switch off 11 GPS ground stations on its territory unless the US agrees to its request to establish a similar station for its own satellite position system Glonass in the US. The GPS ground stations would be suspended from June 1 and switched off on September 1 if a bilateral working group failed to reach consensus on the Glonass issue, Mr Rogozin said. GPS, on which services such as navigation and mapping apps rely, would still work as its satellites continue to operate. But it would lose accuracy because the ground stations help correct the satellite data. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flyingskippy Posted May 13, 2014 Share Posted May 13, 2014 Sounds like both countries lose when it comes to the gps. As for the 2020 deadline, SpaceX will be running in full gear by then. SALSN 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cacoe Posted May 13, 2014 Share Posted May 13, 2014 Not exactly the kind of 'sanctions' I expected Russia to hit back with :S Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+E.Worm Jimmy Subscriber¹ Posted May 13, 2014 Subscriber¹ Share Posted May 13, 2014 Not exactly the kind of 'sanctions' I expected Russia to hit back with :s What did you expect. US started it. NASA banned from dealing with Russia (then reserved) Visa refusing to work with certain Russan Banks (reversed, then banned again). The response will be proportional, or much higher, if they continue. Russia will further cooperate with China. Pretty much expected. It sucks, but they need to learn that bullying and sanctions don't work to support their messing about in international affairs for their financial gain. Silly of them to continue to expect others just eating this crap up. Ukraine is a perfect example of US meddling that started "civil war" there. Yet they blame and punish Russia. Hypocrites. Latests news: http://www.businessinsider.com/hunter-biden-joes-son-ukraine-gas-company-burisma-holdings-2014-5 Its a shame really. USA should be cooperating with space research, not entering the space race again! Considering the financial position too, cooperation would have brought results much faster then the direct competition! brotherfromanothermother and +Mirumir 2 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shockz Posted May 13, 2014 Share Posted May 13, 2014 Its a shame really. USA should be cooperating with space research, not entering the space race again! Considering the financial position too, cooperation would have brought results much faster then the direct competition! Completely disagree, the fast the US doesn't have to rely on Russia for space anything, the better. Money spent here in the US, such as spaceX is a by far better investment. Shane Ekanayake 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DocM Posted May 13, 2014 Author Share Posted May 13, 2014 Posturing. The Russians can say "don't use our engines to launch military satellites," but if the US says "shove it," what does Russia do? Their only real option is to cut the US off with two results, Russia makes less money selling fewer engines, or Russia makes no money selling no engines. Either way the die is cast, The US is going to fund a domestic engine. $220M this year. The US Commercial Crew program has been accelerated, and the first flight hardware makes its debut May 29 NASA has announced that after ISS they will use commercial space stations, probably based on Bigelow's tech, and the first ISS testbed flies in 2015. 2 earlier testbeds have been in orbit since 2006 & 2007. One of the designs is 2x the internal volume of ISS per module. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noir Angel Posted May 13, 2014 Share Posted May 13, 2014 The phrase "peeing in the wind" comes to mind... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bguy_1986 Posted May 14, 2014 Share Posted May 14, 2014 What's with ending this in 2020? Do they want to overcharge us for 6 years, make a bunch of money, and then cut us off? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DocM Posted May 14, 2014 Author Share Posted May 14, 2014 Retaliation over the Ukraine sanctions, which are startimg to hurt. This has been brewing for some time anyhow. They'be threatened to discontinue RD-180 sales to the US before, and they have endlessly delayed launching several new modules to ISS so they can use them in a new Russia-only military space station. They may try to disconnect part of the Russian section of ISS for their new station, leaving ISS with no propulsion system with which to reboost when needed. To continue using ISS the other partners would have to replace the missing capabilities, or let it burn up over the Pacific on reentry. An alternative would be to let that happen, then transfer ISS National Laboratory activities to a commercial station, most likely built by Bigelow Aerospace and SpaceX who have a partnership. 2 Bigelow BA-330 modules would be slightly smaller than ISS and able to handle a crew of 6. ONE BA-2100 Olympus module would be almost 2x the volume of ISS and able to handle a crew of 12. Add modules as needed, tinker toy style. Alpha Station BA-2100 Olympus Genesis testbed still on-orbit since 2006 Crisp 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Torolol Posted May 15, 2014 Share Posted May 15, 2014 i believe the earth orbit are still large enough to fit another space stations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hum Posted May 15, 2014 Share Posted May 15, 2014 USA has secret craft now that could kick ISS into deep Space. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beittil Posted May 15, 2014 Share Posted May 15, 2014 Huh? Care to elaborate? Also, it was my understanding that the ISS cannot withstand the stresses of boosting it out of LEO anyway? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raa Posted May 15, 2014 Share Posted May 15, 2014 How can one country ban another access from an international space station? :S Hum 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seta-san Posted May 15, 2014 Share Posted May 15, 2014 russia is still conducting zero grav experiments. we're conducting miniture warp core experiments. Russia is always so far behind. How can one country ban another access from an international space station? :s they can't. they are threatening to take their part of the station which contains the propulsion system. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nashy Posted May 15, 2014 Share Posted May 15, 2014 Completely disagree, the fast the US doesn't have to rely on Russia for space anything, the better. Money spent here in the US, such as spaceX is a by far better investment. Do you think the yanks could have done the ISS themselves? The ISS should be like Antarctica. Don't touch it, don't get politics into it, just ######ing work together. Charisma 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shiranui Posted May 15, 2014 Share Posted May 15, 2014 Hurry up and build a moon base. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HawkMan Posted May 15, 2014 Share Posted May 15, 2014 russia is still conducting zero grav experiments. we're conducting miniture warp core experiments. Russia is always so far behind. Miniature warp core experiments :rolleyes: FYI the US is also doing Zero grav experiments, omg you guys are so far behind... :rolleyes: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soldiers33 Posted May 15, 2014 Share Posted May 15, 2014 What's with ending this in 2020? Do they want to overcharge us for 6 years, make a bunch of money, and then cut us off?th thats when the contract ends. And after 2020 they wont be renewing it. Also whats with all the people saying that US have better this better that. When we see it fully operational and manned then we can say anything. Because from this point, they are currently using Russians to get to space and back. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FloatingFatMan Posted May 15, 2014 Share Posted May 15, 2014 How can one country ban another access from an international space station? :s Oh, they can't ban them from going to it, they can ban them from their own flights to it, though; which effectively cuts them off unless they have another way up there. Stupid Americans cancelling the shuttle program before they had a replacement.. Stupid, stupid, stupid! Shane Ekanayake 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DocM Posted May 15, 2014 Author Share Posted May 15, 2014 Shuttle had to end, it was too dangerous to fly (14 deaths), and they required too much refurbishment between flights. Using real math vs. govt bean counter math it cost about $1.4 billion/launch. Do you think the yanks could have done the ISS themselves?Remember it was going to be a US only station named Freedom. We launched and paid for the vast majority of it, had US made backups for most of the Russian modules etc. A lot of Russia's work was subsidized to keep their aerospace industry going so its engineers would stay put and not become free agents selling their skills to Iran, Saddam's Iraq, North Korea etc. It was largely a diplomatic move. The ISS should be like Antarctica. Don't touch it, don't get politics into it, just ####ing work together.Largely, yes, but it still is classified a US National Laboratory, like Livermore, Brookhaven etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HawkMan Posted May 15, 2014 Share Posted May 15, 2014 Shuttle had to end, too dangerous to fly, and they required too much refurbishment between flights. Using real math vs. govt bean counter math it cost about $1.4 billion/launch. But you still didn't have a replacement :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
123456789A Posted May 15, 2014 Share Posted May 15, 2014 Oh, they can't ban them from going to it, they can ban them from their own flights to it, though; which effectively cuts them off unless they have another way up there. Stupid Americans cancelling the shuttle program before they had a replacement.. Stupid, stupid, stupid! Shuttle was probably running Windows XP and they didn't want to upgrade. watkinsx2 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DocM Posted May 15, 2014 Author Share Posted May 15, 2014 But you still didn't have a replacement :)The delay in getting a shuttle. replacement was the fault of Congress and several presidents, of both parties. Back in 1993 the HL-20 spaceplane was being developed to replace Shuttle after the ISS construction was done. It was stupidly cancelled, along with its 40% bigger brother the HL-42. Its design was sold to SpaceDev and is now part of the Commercial Crew program: SNC's Dream Chaser spaceplane. (SpaceDev merged with SNC) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steven P. Administrators Posted May 15, 2014 Administrators Share Posted May 15, 2014 I think it's shameful that the US didn't replace the Shuttle program before it was discontinued. seta-san 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xrobwx71 Posted May 15, 2014 Share Posted May 15, 2014 they can't. they are threatening to take their part of the station which contains the propulsion system. Take it where? What are they going to do, post guards that hover around in George Jetson cars? :D Anyway, I thought the ISS blew up, didn't anybody see the movie Gravity? :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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