US to Pay to go to ISS

forgotten_my_nick writes "According to BBC News, Russia has announced that it will no longer ferry US astronauts to space for free (It has been doing so for two years). From 2006 the US will be expected to pay."

Comments

Repaid already?

[irving47]

Did they already repay us for the huge amount of money we spent to pay for their parts of the station? IIRC, they claimed a few times they couldn't finish their pieces because of lack of funding, so we footed the bill...

Re:Repaid already?

[bckrispi]

From TFA, the Russians will be paying off this debt by putting in free man-hours in the next couple of years. Prior to the Columbia tragedy, the Russians & Americans shared the burden of transport. The Americans moved passengers, the Russians moved supplies. So yes, for the past two years, Russia has had to shoulder 100% of the transportation costs. It sounds to me like they are open to negotiation on these terms.

Re:Repaid already?

[king-manic]

Re:Repaid already? (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 30, @01:45AM (#11216800)
Spit on you? SPIT ON YOU? You thin skinned little bitch. How is it that Americans get skewered (rightly so) when they reflexively interpret disagreement with US policy as anti-americanism, but Canadians and Europeans cry "The United States SPIT on us!" everytime Washington doesn't do things exactly the way you want? The Administration asked for help. They went to the UN to explain their reasons. You may disagree. That's certainly your right as a sovereign nation. But don't starting crying that you were spit on.


responding to AC is ussually a bad idea but:

I'd say a populace smear campaign against france would constitute spitting on them. You did try to rename french fries. I'm sure that was a mature and adult way of acknolowging opposing opinions. I was also in california shortly after canada declined to support you war. And I was literally spit upon. So yes a portion of your population are a little less emotionally mature then children and you are one of them AC.

Re:Repaid already?

[zeux]

I'm tired of this anti-french crap.

My country was fighting, winning and losing wars long before yourcontinent waseven discovered. For once in your life, please open a fucking historybook.

I spent a year and a half in your country, have you ever been in mine?

What happened to the USA? Please someone explain to me, what the fuckhappenedto your country?

Man, like hundreds of thousand of French citizens I was in the fuckingstreetswith a large panel saying "WE LOVE YOU AMERICANS" on September, 11th2001. Mycountry sent its best firemens to help yours trying to save lives out of the WTC ruins.

Your country saved mine during the second world war and many of us went in Normandie to put some flowers on your soldiers' tombs thinking of the great sacrifice that it was for you and your country. If you think that we canforget that then you don't know anything about us.

But then, everything changed, just like that. What went wrong?

In 2001, Rumsfeld, Condi Rice and even Bush repeated, on the TV, that Iraq and Saddam were not a threat and suddenly, in 2002, Saddam became the worstevilin the world? Give me a break.

France's position was that we should have given more time of the UNinspectorsto check for Saddam's "weapons of mass destruction". Your country decided not too. Today, we know that you were wrong. It happens and, please, get over it.

Then Bush came and said that Iraq needed this invasion and that iraqis would welcome Americans. Please, do it again, open a fucking history book printed outside of Israel to understand why this is just fucking ridiculously stupid. If you think that you can support Israel on one side and then invade an arab country and be welcomed, let me tell you that you are fucking nuts.

So France "surrenders" and is "afraid of war"? Hum, maybe it's because France has a 13-centuries long history and has been devastated many times,including twice in just the last century? You never have suffered like we didafter the 2 world wars, you *cannot* understand. I'm not surprised that Germany had the same point of view on the Iraq conflict, they suffered much more than wedid. Actually, even in the countries of "the coalition", most people were against the war.

War is fucking bad, it should always be avoided at all costs. If you don't understand that war is never necessary, unless if for self-defense when someone attacks you, then I would say that your country should get an history before trying to tamper with world affairs.

This "pre emptive war" thing is the biggest amount of crap I have ever seen. Right now, some corporations are making huge amounts of money out of this crap and if you think that they care about your children dying in Iraq, let me tell you that you are plain wrong, it's all about dividend and return on investment.

Oh, and yes, diplomacy WAS possible with Saddam. Did you look at his face in February 2003, when the war was imminent? He gave you all he had! All the missiles he had, everything. He was ready to accept next to anything.

Just because some people abused the "oil for food" program and didn'tfollowthe UN sanctions doesn't mean that Saddam wasn't ready to comply. These sanctions have never been really enforced, sometimes you just need toput some weight in the balance.

This war was, is and will always be unacceptable. The vast majority of the world tells you that since the beginning and still you elected the man that lied.

Oh, and about the "freedom fries" act (that one proved that these peoplein the Congress are not actual adults), I would say I feel very happythat my country is associated to the word Freedom because yes, that'swhat we stand for.

Re:Repaid already?

[hughk]

That was quite a rant, but you have forgotten to remind the USians that without French help, then the war of independence would have failed. I know, that it was done out of the French love of the English (neignbours and so on). Anyway, I find it particularly hypocritical when this is forgotten.

Actually a lot of the problems comes down to the trenches of WWI. The US entered particularly late into that one but it was a common and appalling experience for the rest of Europe.

Re:Repaid already?

[smchris]

My wife still shudders at the Perrier embargo of '03 when all things French were evil and products weren't making it to our local grocery.

Basically, the U.S. is a brain, heart and soul dead shell with a lot of weapons. Even at our local metropolitan Mensa gathering we have to avoid the "Rush Limbaugh is God" table. This has all been analyzed and put on the bookshelves already. Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death. Berman's Twilight of American Culture.

Personally, I've decided I don't care. A purposeful Nazi or a pig-ignorant Nazi, they are both repugnant and I'm ashamed of my countrymen. But you have to realize that the American people are pig-ignorant. Forget quality public education, we don't even have free media. I gave up on so-called "liberal" public radio after the drumbeat to war in March of '03 when one of their shows headlined some guy from a military college on "Socrates, the soldiering years!" Talk about pseudo-intellectual target market warmongering taken to the ridiculous. If it weren't for the meager checks and balances of the internet, Clear Channel would probably be telling the U.S. heartland that most of the world has been taken over by aliens, so to speak.

And they'd believe it.

Re:Repaid already?

[Alan Cox]

America had been discovered at the point the French were fighting wars all the time. It was happily occupied by native Americans who weren't upsetting too many people except the odd passing viking.

It just happened to get invaded, and then various local terrorist forces (by the current definition) overthrew the "legitimate" goverment.

The supreme irony of course is that the only reason the revolution succeeded was assistance from the French whose new ideals were of a republic and not dissimilar to the US of the time.

And freedom.. Freedom to be persecuted by your own media industry ? Freedom to have your web site (ie your printing press) taken away without legal due process ?

"Freedom" in the USA and many other countries (the UK for example) is a marketing exercise used to control the people. Look beyond it, what matters is not being associated with a word but acting accordingly.

Alan

Re:WTG Russia.

[BoomerSooner]

They aren't trying to profit they are trying to break even. If Russia had the budget NASA has I would be willing to bet they could create a reusable shuttle. How the hell does Bush think we can get to Mars when we need to borrow Russia's space fleet to get to ISS? What a joke.

They are doing a part exchange

[thegraham]

According to the article at first the US will pay in work already done on the ISS that the Russians didn't do.

White Elephant

[FiReaNGeL]

In the beginning, the ISS was supposed to be a great international effort to promote science in orbit, among other things.

We all know the 'great' and 'international' part got scrapped (well, not entirely, but still)... what about the science? With a crew of 2 members and troubles with reapprovisionment, is there any (real) science getting done on the ISS? Or is it only kept up because we already invested too much in it?

Re:White Elephant

[Atrax]

I recall reading recently (New Scientist?) that the current crewing levels are barely enough for ongoing maintenance, never mind space science, which for the most part doesn't require a big-ass expensive clunky space station anyway. A lot of zero-g work can be done far more easily, aside from long-term studies, of course.

I think in part the whole project was a mixture of diplomatic goodwill and make-work for a floundering industry sector, with a healthy helping of publicity banner thrown in. As far as I'm aware, the ISS has contributed nothing of note scientifically, and far less than it ought to have in terms of technological/engineering breakthroughs, though I'd welcome any infirmation that either confirms or denies this baseless accusation.

I suppose it's better than nothing, but there are (could be) far better science platforms than a manned space station. Look what the HST did, for instance.

Re:White Elephant

[qbwiz]

They were planning on studying the effects of starvation in space, but the Russians managed to screw up the experiment.

Re:White Elephant

[tsotha]

In the beginning, the ISS was supposed to be a great international effort to promote science in orbit, among other things.

Actually, in the beginning it was supposed to be an American space station. Then when it was clear the taxpayers didn't want to pay for it the Russians were enticed to join the effort as a way to tap their supply systems and also to keep Russian engineers from moving to the Middle East and building guided missles. Then the Europeans were pushed into adding their tax dollars (for no reason I can see, from the European point of view).

And no they aren't doing any usefull science. But then they wouldn't have with a seven man crew. What usefull science would you expect to get out of a manned space project in LEO anyway? The Russians did all the usefull human biology stuff decades ago, so I think what we'll see is more of the same old worthless stuff they did on the shuttle: high-school science projects and more space crystals that could have been grown more cheaply on the ground.

International relations

[Sta7ic]

As a US citizen, I'm curious if this is fallout from our wonderful public relations. Half the known world is pissed off at us, and it wouldn't surprise me if this isn't much more than Russia saying "You want to bum a ride? How much ya got for gas money? The price of rocket fuel isn't going down, ya know."

Hint to the current and future US Presidents: you may be the elected leader of a technological powerhouse, but you can't go it alone.

(it'll also pay for them to keep an eye out on Japan's technology, that the EU is becoming a collected economic force to bruise egos, and China's locomative-esque economy with about a third of the world's population, too, but who knows if they pay any attention)

Re:International relations

[demachina]

I certainly wouldn't be surprised if Russia didn't lob this little missile at the U.S. at this particular component because Putin is royally pissed at the outcome of the elections in Ukraine. It appears the Moscow backed thugs that were in power were thoroughly bad but I'm not sure the new government is exactly going to be a pillar of Democracy. Putin was equally unhappy about Serbia, and Star Wars(Russia is building new warheads to defeat it) and in general that the U.S. and Europe is trying slowly suffocate Russia on the world stage.

A couple of days ago at a Collin Powell press conference Powell was talking about how important it was Ukraine get a democraticly elected government without outside interference. The reporter being especially smart, informed and ballsy pointed out the U.S. was funding Yuschenko's party through the National Endowment for Democracy and was in fact interfering in the election just as much as Moscow was. It wouldn't be suprising if the CIA was helping fuel the uprising after the previous election too, they do that sort of thing, all the time. You see "National Endowment for Democracy" is one of those big brotherisms. They don't actually promote democracy where people in a country pick the leader of their choice, they work to bend and twist countries so that only governments friendly to U.S. win, even if that outcome runs counter to the actual democratic will of the people that live there.

It will be interesting to see how deeply the relationship between the U.S. and Russia fractures. It appears poised for a really deep schism that could lead to a new cold war. I'm wondering what will happen to ISS if the U.S. and Russia return to a true adverserial relationship. I'm pretty sure the Russians could with some work, undock the pieces they built and have a functional space station core they could use to build a new MIR while the rest of ISS eventually ends up in cinders.

Re:Russia seems different since the school inciden

[Talrias]

Now they want to charge for something that should be bridging for international good will.

It appears to be a case of charge for it, or do not do it at all. The Russian Space Agency is facing financial difficulties and needs all the extra funds it can get.

Chris

Can you blame them? I can't.

[WidescreenFreak]

Personally, I am not surprised by this revelation. I doubt that they would have done this if the shuttle fleet wasn't grounded. Right now, they see themselves as the only current way to get our astronauts into space, so they're going to take advantage of that. Besides, $20 million to the Russian space agency is a fraction of the cost of somehow getting a new shuttle out (if that's even possible anymore). I'm somewhat surprised that this wasnt thought of earlier.

They pretty much have us by the jubbles and they know it. You vant an astronaut in space, comrade? Ve're your only real solution right now. Ve're going to take advantage of that. Can't say that I blame them. Ah, the capitalist spirit hits the Russian space program!

You were buying security, not spacecraft

[Ars-Fartsica]

You were paying to keep missile specialists and other assorted weapons designers from going to work for dubious nations. That actually pretty much describes the entire purpose of Russian involvement: the US wanted to keep rocket scientists from going to Iran after the fall of the USSR, so it paid them to make space junk.

Re:You were buying security, not spacecraft

[demachina]

I imagine that was a factor but I think you are really underestimating the experience the Russians brought to the project. They have a couple decades of hands on experience with long duration space station construction and operation. The Zarya and Zvedza modules they built are the heart of the ISS. The U.S. had no space station experience other than then the short duration Skylab flights 30 years ago which were mostly stunts to get rid of the rest of the Apollo rockets.

It was pretty obvious the U.S. has since lost "the right stuff" to do a space station. First sign ... one failed space station design after another at huge expense over twenty years, with nothing flown.

I think the "keeping Russian space scientists" employed was little more than saving face. In reality I think the U.S. and Boeing came to the conclusion that using the experienced Russian engineers was the only way to get actually get a working space station off the ground. They in fact paid them to build a Mir2 and it became the heart of ISS. The U.S. sure did love to rant that the Russian modules were behind schedule and over budget. Well this convieniently glosses over the fact that those were two of the most complex and challenging modules in the station, and that the U.S. and Boeing had flailed for nearly 20 years, squandered billlions and billions of dollars, and hadn't managed to build ANYTHING. More than a little hypocrisy there.

I've seen more than a few people point out how the U.S. pays for everything on ISS. Well this is for damn sure if you count the nearly 100 billion the U.S. wasted in those awful years when they didn't building anything, and the billion dollar a pop Shuttle flights versus the tens of millions for a Soyuz or Progress flight, and it probably costs 20-50 times as much to employ Boeing engineers to build a component as it does Russian engineers. All in all I don't think the total dollars squandered really counts for much other than to prove that nobody squanders money like NASA and Boeing. The Russians have launched and run multiple successful long duration space stations for a tiny fraction of what NASA and Boeing have wasted on ISS. I think they deserve a lot more kudos for their frugality and their ability to get bang for the buck, versus the NASA/Boeing aptitude for wasting billions of dollars.

Frequent flyer miles?

[alpha1125]

Do the astronauts get frequent flyer miles for this trip?

Reminds me of that Texas/Bush-ite Bumper Sticker

[glomph]

on the pickup trucks with the gun racks:

"Gas, Grass, or Ass, Nobody Rides for Free!"

Re:WTG Russia.

[juniorkindergarten]

Ok Troll, I'll bite
#1 the computer you're using now -- space exploration pushed the microelectoronics revolution
#2 that fancy koolatron cooler that you bought last summer to keep your beer cold, again thank space exploration
#3 teflon, plastics, most modern alloys, etc.
ok, I'm done feeding the trolls, next!

Re:WTG Russia.

[phoenix.bam!]

Spinoffs from NASA research. The list at the link above is about 10 pages. And I would have to say that yes, you personally and mankind have both benefitted from the work NASA has done.

Here are some examples from the list

Air Quality Monitor

Virtual Reality

Municiple Water prurification (So your tap water doesn't kill you.)

Solar Energy

Fire resistant material

Digital Imagry Breast Biopsy

Voice controlled wheel chair

And here are a bunch from the above link that were easy to cut and paste:
Advanced keyboards, Customer Service Software, Database Management System, Laser Surveying, Aircraft controls, Lightweight Compact Disc, Expert System Software, Microcomputers, and Design Graphics. Dustbuster, shock-absorbing helmets, home security systems, smoke detectors, flat panel televisions, high-density batteries, trash compactors, food packaging and freeze-dried technology, cool sportswear, sports bras, hair styling appliances, fogless ski goggles, self-adjusting sunglasses, composite golf clubs, hang gliders, art preservation, and quartz crystal timing equipment. Whale identification method, environmental analysis, noise abatement, pollution measuring devices, pollution control devices, smokestack monitor, radioactive leak detector, earthquake prediction system, sewage treatment, energy saving air conditioning, and air purification. Arteriosclerosis detection, ultrasound scanners, automatic insulin pump, portable x-ray device, invisible braces, dental arch wire, palate surgery technology, clean room apparel, implantable heart aid, MRI, bone analyzer, and cataract surgery tools. Gasoline vapor recovery, self-locking fasteners, machine tool software, laser wire stripper, lubricant coating process, wireless communications, engine coatings, and engine design. Storm warning services (Doppler radar), firefighters' radios, lead poison detection, fire detector, flame detector, corrosion protection coating, protective clothing, and robotic hands. So yeah, I'd say mankind has gained something from going to space. And to think all of this would have been developed in the timeframe without NASA and its goals is laughable.

Re:WTG Russia.

[NanoGator]

"how excally does 'mankind' benifit from by going into space?"

Well, according to TV, most of the stuff I bought was a direct result of space travel.

Hollow, empty shell

[mcrbids]

The U.S. space program today is a shadow of its past. It's primarily a holdover from a pissing match between the budding USA and the USSR.

The USSR has ceased to be a "superpower", and the USA has established clear, military dominance. What's the point of NASA today?

What's really interesting is the kickoff of the private/commercial space age begun with SpaceShipOne. The Ansari X-Prize wasn't the goal - it was the starting line.

Within the next 1-2 decades, we'll see the old-style national space agencies dwarfed as pure economics brings scale to the space industry.

Space today is basically a high-dollar, cottage industry. Everything is hand/custom made at high expense, and in painfully small volumes.

It'll start with the obvious - people paying $25,000/seat to fly into space for an hour. Technology will be refined, prices will drop, and by the time I'm an old guy (I'm 32 now) I expect to be able to spend a week in space at a price I could actually afford.

But that's not so big, as the reality that new uses for the reduced-cost space travel will be discovered - uses we have no way of predicting.

Just like Edison could never have predicted micro-electronics, the future holds possibilities we can only begin to imagine!

Re:Well then.

[freeze128]

Perhaps we should rename the space station then. How does everyone like the acronym for American Space Station? Hmmm... Maybe not such a good idea.

Ticket price for the Rus Kosmos

[Vexar]

Okay, I did the math:
1 seat on the Russian taxi sells commercially for $25 M US dollars, however that included several weeks of training, as the story goes.
I believe that the Soyuz is a 3-seater. Assuming all passengers are capable astronauts, It isn't unreasonable to still expect the astronauts can travel for the same price as a civilian tourist.
At that price, let's round up and say the seven-person Space Shuttle ride equivalent is $200 M US dollars. I believe that the cargo volume in the Soyuz is much smaller, so tack on $50-100 M US dollars for an additional supply-only launch.

It sure seems to me like no matter how you jiggle the numbers, there really isn't much fiscal sense to fire up the Space Shuttle, for routine, non-assembly missions. A billion-dollar Shuttle launch means 1/3rd to 1/4th the investment value.

Re:In related news...

[Nyrath the nearly wi]

As a matter of fact, the Europeans are expecting the US to hold up its end of the bargain. They spent millions of dollars on the ESA lab module for the ISS, and due to the grounding of the Shuttle fleet, it is on the ground gathering cobwebs. What is really angering the ESA is NASA toying with the idea of breaking their contract by permanently grounding the Shuttle fleet and never lofting the lab.

Without the Russian's heavy lift capacity for re-supply, the ISS would have to be abandoned, which entails a large risk that the station would undergo a catastrophic failure. NASA would actually like to pay the Russians and have the funds to do so. Unfortunately, there is a slight obstacle in the form of the Iran non-Proliferation Agreement of 2000.

Re:In related news...

[demachina]

Here is a picture of which countries were supposed to supply what though many pieces on this picture will probably never make it in to space. Most of the important Russians parts did.

I assure you the Russians built the heart of the station that is there now, the Zarya Control Module and the Zvezda crew quarters. Zarya is called a U.S. component only because the U.S. paid for it through Boeing but it was built in Russia.

The U.S. was supposed to build the Crew Return Vehicle which would have allowed it to be fully manned but that was long ago cancelled. When it was the U.S. killed any prospect of the seven man crew which pretty much killed the ISS as ever being useful. The current crew can barely maintain it and don't do much research, not like its any good for any zero G research anyway.

The U.S. is building a lot of solar panels many of which are probably never going to fly and aren't the most challenging part of the station.

Russia had a full functional space station for like a decade called Mir. Most of their expertise is at the heart of the current ISS core. Not sure NASA could have successfully flown anything without them. If you recall during the years Russia was in Mir, NASA and Boeing was churning out one failed ISS design after another, none of which flew and all of which just filled Boeing's pork filled belly.

I imagine Russia is regretting they deorbited Mir as a condition of joining ISS. It was past its prime and on its last legs but at least it was all theirs. ISS is all shiny and new and flush with squandered U.S. tax dollars but its probably going to end being pathetic and doing anything useful. Russia was getting a whole lot more done with a whole lot less with Mir. I think the modules now forming the core of ISS would have gone in to Mir2 if they could have scraped together the cash for it. I imagine they have been a lot happier and got more done if they weren't bogged down in the political morasse that is ISS.

Maybe the shuttle will fly again and the ISS will get kind of on track again but I really doubt it. Its probably never going to get much beyond where it is today, and Russia will most probably have to keep it alive while NASA's manned space program finishes cratering. Maybe thing will improve at NASA with O'Keefe gone but I doubt it. Its pretty obvious his head was completely bent by the Columbia disaster and he was totally paralyzed at the prospect of ... gasp ... risking anyone's left on space exploration. He clearly should have been booted years ago. Fact is space exploration is dangerous, do your best to make it less so but don't give up just because you can't make it 100% safe. Astronauts aren't astronauts if they can't accept the risk they might get killed.

Re:Well then.

[khrtt]

One shuttle flight - $300M
One Russian flight - $20M

If the shuttle fleet weren't grounded, each US flight would cost as much as, what, 60 Russian launches. Forgive me if I got the numbers wrong; they should be in the ballpark, at least. It's way more cost effective for NASA to pay the Russians for the lift. Russian space tech is crappier than NASA's, but it's also way cheaper than it's crappier:-). Of course, it would be even cheaper to pay these guys, or even these guys, but they are not quite up to the task yet.

US cannot pay - by law

[candiman]

The US Government cannot pay money to Russia for launch services due to an Act of Congress. This was passed to prevent any monies going to Russia (or the Soviet Union) after they supplied weapons to Iran.

This announcement by the RSA is nothing more than a rehash of an old argument - and one that will not be solved any time soon as it would require an Act of Congress.

The only way it can be resolved realistically is through a barter arrangement (which is what RSA is suggesting in some reports). Hence, not a lot of immediate use to the "cash-strapped Russian space program".

Re:US cannot pay - by law

[starman97]

Why bother following the law..
It didnt seem to bother His holiness Ronald Reagan
when he sold aircraft and missile parts to Iran
to finance an illegal war in Nicaragua.
Sure the Democrats squeaked a little, but in the end
they did nothing about it.

Kick in a bit of the cost, US.

[JohnnyNuke]

The comments so far seem to be a flamefest on Russia. Personally, I think that Russia is justified on asking for money to pay to send US astronauts into space. So what that the US is building most of the ISS personally? The Russians could care less, the US' money isn't going torwards them, but to the building. All the Russians see is that they're lugging an extra American and equipment into space at their expense. It should be common courtesy to pay back a bit for their services. You'd be pissed if that guy in the carpool who lives half an hour out of town didn't even say "Thanks" for picking him up every morning. The US should realize that they can't rely on other countries to be their taxis forever while they stall on the next generation of US spaceflight.

Re:Well then.

[glebd]

Baikonur space port, or whatever they call it now, was built (actually near Tyuratam village, not Baikonur) when Kazakhstan was a part of USSR, probably because of the particular geographical location. Later, when USSR broke, Kazakhstan went, "oh, look, Baikonur is on our territory now, we are independent, so it must be ours then!" Not that they had any use for it whatsoever without the Russian Army and Space Agency.

To my knowledge, Russia now has another space port, Plesetsk, and is actively developing it. Perhaps this is to minimise dependency on Kazakhstan and "their" Baikonur.

Re:Well then.

[DavidTC]

The cheapest thing, of course, would be to build what the Russians use, instead of our dumb-ass shuttles.

Hell, if they're that broke, let's buy some of theirs.

How did we end up with such an expensive system, and how did Communists build such a cheap one? Wasn't their society supposed to be extremely wasteful, and ours the efficient one? What the hell happened?

I something think James P. Hogan was right in 'Leapfrog'.

Re:Well then.

[khrtt]

How did we end up with such an expensive system, and how did Communists build such a cheap one?

They couldn't afford an expensive system. They tried, too, but had to stop for lack of funds. Then they had no choice but to keep updating their old Soyuz system. In the meanwhile we abandoned ours, because we had the shuttle.

The whole story shows that you shouldn't put all your eggs in one basket, even if you have a lot of eggs, which is a well known fact outside of the context of space programs:-).

Besides, the shuttle is a much bigger ship than Soyuz, and it can do a lot more than just take people in and out of orbit, so they are not really comparable. Just try to imagine a Soyuz-based mission to fix the Hubble.

Re:Well then.

[hazem]

One shuttle flight - $300M
One Russian flight - $20M

If the shuttle fleet weren't grounded, each US flight would cost as much as, what, 60 Russian launches.

PLEASE tell me you don't work at NASA. 300 / 20 = 15... or maybe you're using metric?

RTFA

[Mock]

Sigh.
As usual we get the slew of high moderated posts about how the americans built everything, and how the russians are now gouging them.
Some people blame the americans, others the russians. All didn't read the article.

Fact: The russians are currently ferrying everything to the station.
Fact: NASA is grounded.
Fact: The russians are very low on funds, and can't afford to keep doing this.

They've stated that they'll wait to see if NASA meets its May deadline to get their shuttles going again.
They've stated that they want to negotiate something to ease the burden (such as bartering for the man hours they currently owe for other work).
America's response hasn't been made clear yet.

Is this gouging? No. They haven't even entered negotiations yet.

Should they gouge? Some of you "capitalist or die" affictionados may think so, but that kind of thinking is what drives the CEOs who only look to the next quarter's earnings, and what they can get out of it before the thing collapses.

This doesn't work in world politics, as can be seen from the fallout of Iraq.

Re:WTG Russia.

[rxmd]

#3 teflon, plastics

Teflon was invented in 1938 by Roy Plunkett at DuPont Laboratories and commercialized in the 1950's. I don't know why this myth connecting teflon and space keeps coming up. Same situation for plastics, if you don't narrow it down specifically.

#1 the computer you're using now -- space exploration pushed the microelectoronics revolution

Microelectronics isn't all that related to space, too. Transistors and ICs were well in use in the 1950's and early sixties. The microelectronics on spacecraft tend to be specifically less complicated than their counterparts on Earth, simply because of radiation resistance. For example, Intel introduced the Pentium in 1993, yet it took them until 2002 (IIRC) to put one on a spacecraft. The contract to develop a space-hardened version of the chip wasn't even awarded until 1998/9. Attributing people's PCs to space research is stretching it, too.

Just because something is labeled "space age" doesn't make it actually related to space research. (But then, space research has given us the Space Age Ant Habitat for our desktops, of course.)