US Senate Allows NASA To Buy Soyuz Vehicles 298
arc.light writes "According to a report at Space.com, the US Senate voted to allow NASA to buy Russian Soyuz vehicles for the purpose of servicing the International Space Station. Because Russia continues to assist Iran with its nuclear energy and ballistic missile programs, NASA would otherwise not be allowed to buy Russian hardware by the Iran Nonproliferation Act of 2000. The US House of Representatives still needs to give its approval before NASA can make such a purchase."
Stop The Politics Stories!!!! (Score:0, Insightful)
If you look at the FAQ, [slashdot.org] you'll even see the politics section is supposed to be about US politics, this story barely fits the description.
Time to get rid of Zonk, and his endless political baiting. He's trolling, no different than GNAA, or the adequacy folks.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
It's a good idea to buy the best technology. (Score:5, Insightful)
Sad state of our Nation (Score:5, Insightful)
IT is outsourced to India
Manufacturing is outsourced to China
High tech going to Russia
U.S. will supply the world's managers?
Actually I'm impressed.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Sad state of our National space program (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, we have the CEV in development, but that won't be ready until 2012. Why not buy from the Russians? They have an interim solution to our needs now, and truthfully, why waste the money to develop a spacecraft that's going to be performing what are now fairly routine missions? Our next generation is on the drawing board. Actually, it's refreshing that NASA is going to be taking the path of least resistance rather than reinventing the wheel because of a case of NIH (Not Invented Here) syndrome.
yay (Score:4, Insightful)
Soyuz is one of the safest and most reliable space vehicles in existence, and considering the shuttles are grounded for god knows how long, we need a system to service and supply the iss.
Yeah I know it has limited cargo capacity, but it costs roughly 1/10 the cost of the shuttle to launch, if that, can be launched far more often, and its cargo capacity can be augmented by elv's like the delta or titan.
Plus side, we are less likely to lose astronauts, and can actually keep the iss supplied enough to do science beyond plugging the leaks with their fingers, and hopefully launch astronauts twice as often if it scales up well.
win/win from my pov.
ps. my "confirm i'm not a script" word is cannabis. Cool.
Re:What? (Score:3, Insightful)
The other difference is that as Americans, we celebrate every shuttle launch and landing with lots of fanfare, The Russians do nothing of the like; to me, this suggests that we are probably not sure the shuttles will perform, right?
Re:Sad state of our National space program (Score:3, Insightful)
What I know... (Score:3, Insightful)
When a shuttle is launched or is to return to earth, there is a lot of fanfare...as if to suggest that there was a sizable chance that things could go all wrong. No wonder we are now looking to Russians for some help.
Yet another example of..... (Score:3, Insightful)
Soyuz has been successfully sending stuff into space for an awful long time and as far as we know has a very impressive safety record.
The space shuttle was a compromise design built by the lowest bidder.
Re:What? (Score:5, Insightful)
If only you were involved in hiring of techies, as I am, you'd know the answer already. United States does not produce [enough of] good engineers. You can't hire anyone competent, or nearly competent. And one out of a hundred who knows his trade wants $200K/yr and benefits and stock, and your firstborn too if he is hungry.
So you can't hire fools because they are useless, and you can't hire that rare skilled guy because he will bankrupt you. So what do you do? Good question. Many businesses just hire a few mediocre performers and hope for the best.
Re:Sad state of our National space program (Score:3, Insightful)
With all those Cold Warriors in power, tirelessly giving the fowl to the world on a daily basis? You must be joking.
Mod Parent Idiot (Score:5, Insightful)
How complicated to build and design do you think these things are? How much money do you think we have?
No we don't have an An-124, it's the largest plane currently flying, built by the russians partly as an expression of national pride, and it cost shitloads. Only flies a few times a year btw, not a lot of people need that much lifting power.
We don't (always at least) blow money on giant phallic symbols of economic domination, it takes money away from real economic domination, and apparently you are too much of an idiot with regards to finance to understand that.
Global free-market economics is based on specialization, ie. everybody doesn't do everything, but everyone finds something to be good at, and if someone else needs to do it too you pay that guy to help you. It's why we make most of the movies in the world and kashmir makes all the nice knit sweaters, and columbia makes all the cocaine, specialization has oppurtunity cost.
Even if we decided today to make a cheaper soyuz-type launch vehicle, expect one ready to fly in about 8-10 years, counting design, validation, testing, certification, etc. That is unless you want a bunch of astronauts to jump into a tin-can, strap a giant rocket to their ass and hold their breath.
The shuttle took nearly 2 decades to become flight ready, and cost
Unlike most things, this is rocket science, and logistics, and economics, and like 900 other things, and is much harder than throwing together a toaster.
Btw, Russia has had about 3 space stations in orbit during the 70's, 80's and 90's, including mir which was a surprising success. They are much MUCH better and more experienced at space than we are, which is why we had them help us with the ISS, just like we ripped off all of germany's experience when we started nasa and wanted icbm's. America is not the holy god of all everything, superior to all other countries in every way, though we do generally run the tables in most things. A lot of the time our experience and success comes from finding other countries that are very skilled at various fields, and ripping off their scientists and techologies, ie stealing britain's machinery expertise in the 19th century to build our own industrial revolution, or getting einstein, niels bohr (they had to call him nick during ww2 because niels was "too german"), werner van braun (warner brown), and everyone else from germany to build our atomic techonology, and space technology, and everything else.
Calling Russia a third-world economy is insulting and arrogant, and shows your ignorance/youth.
Third world??? (Score:5, Insightful)
Honest commies are better than NASA (Score:4, Insightful)
As I said when I was young and more prone to believe the system might work [google.com]:
The Soviet government's effectiveness in space activities can, in general, be attributed to the fact that while our private sector is more effective than the Soviet public sector, our public sector is LESS effective than the Soviet public sector. Why this is so becomes obvious when you consider that the Soviet public sector has no private sector to tax -- any costs are born by itself, directly, whereas in the US (and other relatively free market economies) the governments have the luxury of becoming fat and lazy at the expense of the private sector.
It is a simple matter of accountability, the US private sector is most accountable for its costs, the Soviet system is next most accountable for its costs and the US government is least accountable for its costs.
Re:Honest commies are better than NASA (Score:3, Insightful)
The Soviet public sector has an ENORMOUS economic base. In terms of actual resources, you have to realize that it's budget was roughly equal to the public and private budget of the united states combined, so putting 10% of that into a space program would be similar to putting 2-5x the total american federal budget into the space program. Also, the scientists have more "incentive" to succeed, when a failure means poverty, bread-lines, and possible execution.
In America, the politics of the budget and appropriations tend to screw the space program. It's hard to build a reliable launch vehicle when all parameters of its design and operation are mandated by a political board trying to satisfy their own constituents as a higher priority compared to the damn thing actually flying. For any of those commitee members, the possibility of forcing the shuttle to use launch base X means they can now raise funds from businesses profiting from that decision, making them more likely to stay in office. This is compounded by the fact that the decisions this commitee makes are changed very regularly depending on instantaneous public opinion, changes in the economy, changes in world politics, changes in national politics, changes in technology, changes in the private sector, ad nauseum extremis.
So blaming the public sector is very popular, but not always realistic, a lot of the time, the failure lies not in our stars, but in ourselves.
Re:What about SpaceX? (Score:3, Insightful)
Soyuz has a very long and distinguished one.
SpaceX? Have they launched to leo yet? Will they be around in 10 years? 1?
How many successful launches have they had? What are their launch capabilities? Launch windows? Possible orbit packages?
It's rocket science, you go with what you know works, especially when you've got 2 shuttles out on a full count and the pitcher is a lefty.
1,600 successful launches (read a BOOK.) (Score:3, Insightful)
kulakovich
Re:Sad state of our Nation (Score:2, Insightful)
Bye Bye indigenous American manned space pgm (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Bad idea. (Score:2, Insightful)
And what about a nuclear Israel? Isnt that a nightmare for Iran and pretty much everybody else since Israel are not even a party to any of the treaties or negotiations meant to limit nuclear dangers? And how do you convince Iran to stop nuclear development when they have Israel right next to them with their nuclear weapons?
"Russia and China are doing this because they know that Iran will cause more trouble for the West
Russia and China have absolutely no interest in causing trouble for the west. Russia has been trying to join the EU forever, while China's economy essentially relies on high consumer spending from the west. So does Russias. So neither of these countries is hoping for anything that may weaken consumer demand in the west.
The reason both Russia and China are helping Iran is because of the USs ever increasing aggressiveness in trying to assert control over the whole world. So while it is doubtfull they really want to hurt the US they do want to stop the US from asserting any control in or around their spheres of interst.
The attack on Iraq badicaly meant the US has decided to take over the gulf's oil resources. They already have control of saudi arabia, they attacked iraq which had the next highest ammount of oil
Well Russia and China just do not want another US puppet government in Iran. I am sure they are not crazy about the Ayatollahs but at least they are quite confident that the Ayatollahs are not and will never be US puppets.
As far as nuclear dangers, the Bush government could have done several things that would have prevented a nuclear Iran. The first and most obvious thing was to get the nuclear test ban treaty which Clinton signed approved by the republican congress. Obviously they did not do that, and in fact did everything possible to encourage Congress to kill the treaty. The other thing was to stop all aid for Israel, until they admit that they have a nuclear arsenal and join the treaties which guarantee that countries with nuclear weapons will never sue them against countries that do not have nuclear weapons. Now this would derive Iran from any politically acceptable reason for developing nuclear weapons. Of we know that this will never happen. And finally Bush can just stop with their attempts to take over the world. Russia and China do not like the Ayatollahs and would not be helping them if there wasnt the american incursion in what they consider their spheres of interest.
Re:Sad state of our Nation (Score:4, Insightful)
Others have stated the same observation a little differently, that it was easy for the US to be the world leader after WWII when so many other industrialized countries lay in ruins and others had succumbed to communism.
They didn't just catch up. American companies basically gave it to them for a song. We should indeed be preparing for a world "where the US isnt the king of all things" or the ace, queen or jack. For during the past 20 years, we've been exporting our industry and importing poor people.
Get Real (Score:3, Insightful)
If you posted logined, I would suggest that
Re:Get Real (Score:3, Insightful)
A quickest background would be like this: US Senate found that the ban banned USA from manned access to space. No wonder it got cancelled. Russia is currently the only country with a practically working space program, and it has the upper hand by definition - until the STS is fixed, or until China revs up its own manned spaceflight. My bet would be on China.
Definition of winning the Space Race (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Honest commies are better than NASA (Score:2, Insightful)
Ever try to vote a communist premier out of office?
Try to vote democratic premier (e.g. a corporate whore) out of the office. Just to be replaced with another corporate whore. Same difference.
Also, the scientists have more "incentive" to succeed, when a failure means poverty, bread-lines, and possible execution.
Strangely, I don't remember any lines or poverty until USSR started to fall apart under good old Gorbachev. Some things were hard to buy, yes, but no lines for basic stuff.