Panel moves to end NASA’s reliance on Russia to reach space station

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Panel moves to end NASA’s reliance on Russia to reach space station
Posted on May 9, 2014 | By Stewart Powell

Amid mounting tensions over the Ukraine, the House Appropriations Committee has unanimously adopted a spending blueprint to hasten the end of America’s reliance on Russia to ferry NASA astronauts to the orbiting space station.

The powerful panel on Thursday approved and sent to the House a proposed $17.9 billion spending package for the nation’s space agency. The measure included $785 million for commercial spaceflight next year — an $89 million increase over last year.

President Barack Obama had asked Congress for even more — $858 million — to help speed the day, now expected no earlier than 2017, when U.S. commercial spacecraft can take over taxi duties from Russia’s venerable Soyuz.

“To rely solely on Vladimir Putin and the Russian government for astronauts’ safe travel to and from the ISS is simply unacceptable,” said Rep. John Culberson, R-Houston, a member of the House Appropriations Committee and the lawmaker in line to take over the panel with jurisdiction over NASA. “I hope to see American astronauts launching from American soil as soon as possible.”


Read more: http://blog.chron.com/txpotomac/2014/05/panel-moves-to-end-nasas-reliance-on-russia-to-reach-space-station/

[Zipgun]

1. About time.

There are so many side benefits to what NASA does that it is almost criminally stupid NOT to fund the agency. Unfortunately none of those benefits include blowing up brown people, so it's not a priority with the tea baggers.

[DeSwiss]

2. I'm confused.

- Is this The Change ®© or The Hope®© part? Because if its The Change ®©, then we've done this before. And it just don't seem like Hope®© to me......

K&R

[snot]

4. +++

[GeorgeGist]

3. We've sacrificed so much so that we can have billionaires.

NASA Spending as Percent of Total Federal Budget

[dotymed]

5. Great Move!

We can restart the cold war, spend another $90 billion, and of course...punish those WAR CRIMINALS.
If they were American, no such thing as war criminals in the elite.
This will only end up costing "us" (the po' folk) $trillions in the long run. We can't have a Progressive tax system now can we?
GREAT POLICY!

[Swede Atlanta]

8. I'm not sure I would equate this with re-starting the cold war..............

The issue is we have already spent billions in our contributions to the International Space Station (ISS). With the end of the Shuttle program we lost our ability to shuttle American (and other) astronauts to and from the ISS. I believe we have some limited unmanned capability to deliver supplies to the ISS without Russian help but we are totally dependent on Russia to get our men and women to and from the station.

Investment in science, including the ISS and other space programs is important. So many things we use today were advanced by the government investment in the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs not to mention the Shuttle, the ISS, Hubble, etc.

I agree we need to take a balanced approach with our first priority being to take care of our own here at home. That means investments and policies to create good-paying jobs, programs to help the poor and the unemployed, programs to improve nutrition, programs to provide health "care" (not insurance) to people. From there we need to invest in our infrastructure and education.

Following on that we do need to invest in science from the CDC to the NIH to the ISS, etc. Those programs are crucial for us to maintain our edge in addressing diseases and staying out front in science.

My preference would be to take a very different look at our military and law enforcement systems. We spend way too much on our military. I don't disagree we have some dangerous enemies out there from militant Islam to cyber-terrorism to a resurgent Russia to China that is building up its military.

But we have let the Europeans ride on our coattails for too long. We need for them to take the lead in confronting Russia. We need Japan and South Korea in the Far East to help contain an increasingly powerful Chinese military presence, especially on the high seas.

[Uncle Joe]

6. Whether Russia is acting up in Ukraine or not, I believe this is overdue.

The U.S. should never relinquish its leadership role in space.

Thanks for the thread, Judi Lynn.

[JPK]

7. Re: The Shuttles

A friend that is a sound guy worked on a doc at KSC when they were ending the Shuttle program. While talking with their handler the question was asked if the shuttles were nearing their airframe expiration time and the guy said far from it. They still had only reached their airframe half life. So why did we dump it if it had so much more life left in the space crafts? Remember Bush was the one that canceled the program.

[PosterChild]

10. The shuttles had...

...a very poor safety record. As Mike Griffith, the former NASA administrator, pointed out, the geometry of the launch vehicle put the shuttle under and along side the huge external fuel tank and in it's debris field. That was problematic.

In addition, the shuttle is a low-earth-orbit (LEO) vehicle, a region of "space" that is basically fully explored and over-populated. It isn't ever going to go, say, to the moon, let along Mars. Despite the success of the Hubble mission, which relied on the shuttle, unmanned launch and operations are far more cost effective and safe for LEO than the shuttle proved to be.

Government supervised commercial contracting of launch and operations for LEO and GEO are pretty reasonable and pretty standard. Manned LEO, like the International Space Station, I don't know - but it isn't obviously wrong. Manned exploration outside of high earth orbit isn't going to happen outside of a full-up government space exploration program.

Regaining and sustaining a manned capability for LEO / ISS would make sense as a stepping stone for exploration outside of high earth orbit. For instance, an asteroid capture mission and eventually Mars. But the shuttle doesn't fit into that progression very well.

[Igel]

12. Old tech.

A replacement was to come on line. It wasn't properly funded and its mission shifted a time or two. Making funding needs even higher. But 2012 was the target date.

Funding for that was cut, with great weeping and gnashing of teeth. But it was good to be dependent on others and there were other priorities. A replacement project was instituted. The focus was to be on commercial carriers and, until then, we'd have to rely on our trustworthy international partners. Anybody who said otherwise was fear-mongering, had private, vested interests, or lacked the proper perspective--typically meaning right-winger. Some right-wingers just wanted budget cuts, and that didn't help the funding picture. Some liberals also wanted this funding cut--there's always been a contingent on the left that looks at something like a space program and replies, "Think of how many children we could feed tomorrow with that money."

In international relations, "rely on others" often means "be at their mercy."

And invariably, "Think of what we could do tomorrow with this money" is just another way of saying, "Let the future fend for itself."

[yurbud]

9. so we can't have peace AND a world class space program at the same time?

[Ash_F]

11. It took an international pissing contest to get congress interested in science.

When will those old crones push off this mortal coil? The Boomers have ruined this country.

[Hestia]

13. No, the "Greatest Generation" are the one's who's held every dime and not played well with others

You certainly can't say the Kock's are "Boomers"

[Ash_F]

14. The Greatest Generation does not make up our current congress. /nt