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NASA Halts Non-ISS Work With Russia Over Ukraine Crisis
An anonymous reader writes "The Verge reports on an internal memo from NASA indicating that they've suspended all contracts and activities with Russia that aren't involved with operating the International Space Station. Quoting: 'Given Russia's ongoing violation of Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity, until further notice, the U.S. Government has determined that all NASA contacts with Russian Government representatives are suspended, unless the activity has been specifically excepted. This suspension includes NASA travel to Russia and visits by Russian Government representatives to NASA facilities, bilateral meetings, email, and teleconferences or videoconferences. At the present time, only operational International Space Station activities have been excepted.' NASA Administrator Charles Bolden argued recently that our dependence on Russia for putting astronauts into space needs to end."
It's really too bad these have to get in the way.
That's why they NEED Putin. Suck his ball, NASA!
Isn't this the sort of thing that the ISS collaboration was supposed to prevent?
Gas, grass, or ass--no one rides Soyuz for free!
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Would have the Russians suspend all ISS related contracts.
Good for the goose and all.
no more human flights to the ISS.
What is odd is that the house neo-cons/tea* have been the ones blocking development of human launchers, because they were afraid that it would stop funding to their SLS. In fact, they even gave more money to the Russians, than what they have approved to go to private space funding here.
And now, those traitor's actions are coming to haunt America. What do you bet that they will scream that we instead need to increase SLS spending to 10B/year and finish it by 2020, rather than simply spend less than 1B and have systems available next year?
Flame away neo-cons/tea*. Never take responsibility for your leader's actions.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
As a Dane im proud that the Secretary General of NATO and the Danish foreign minister is in front with sanctions against Russia. Putin is effectively destroying what has created lasting peace in Europe from the last 69 years. Putin will keep pushing, until we stand firm. Then he will pick as with someone else...even the gay community, anything that will take eyes of the fact that he rules the country like a dictator. But, the US Russian space cooperation was first initiated as a sign of good will. It will always stand as one of the greatest examples of respect, despite differences. I want to keep the space cooperation out of any foreign relations.
The rhetoric coming out of Washington these days is about as lost as it's foreign policy.
Space-X has done a bunch of docking with the international space station already, if they have a rocket capable of transporting people to the space station, this will be huge for them.
You heard it first here folks (well, maybe not): This is a bad omen.
Space has, for a long time, been one bright spot of US/Russian relations. For the US to make a move like this is basically a way of saying that we're not going to be friends any longer, and as soon as the ISS becomes obsolete, our governments will work separately in projects which serve to benefit all of humanity.
Now we shall once again enter a period of cold war style relations between these countries. Don't get me wrong, Putin has been blood-hungry for quite a while, and only through a fortunate (by unintentionally spoken) hypothetical by the US secretary of state were we able to temporarily diffuse the recent Syrian chemical weapons incident. Russia/US relations are coming to a head...start the popcorn.
.."if Russia stops American astronaut rides to the International Space Station any time soon and before U.S. companies are ready to do the job."
Asshole. How does this even make sense?
'The space station would probably have to be shut down without Russian transport, and in that case, "I would go to the president and recommend we terminate SLS and Orion."'
http://blog.al.com/breaking/2014/03/nasa_administrator_says_cancel.html
It inspired a race between two great nations to reach further than each other towards the stars.
The bad thing is that this doesn't seem likely again as we move out of the basic science business. I would love to proven wrong on this, but it seems that the US public looks upon basic research funded by the fed as some kind of socialist program. George W was instrumental in sabotaging basic science programs, especially those that study climate and geology, because there research objectives and discoveries didn't fit his agenda.
Who would have thought it would be NASA taking a hard line with the Russians instead of the president.
That's unfortunate that we loose scientific abilities because of political reasons. Science in this country already suffers from enough political religious groups and budget cuts. Hopefully SpaceX or the airforce will be able to fill the gap until it stabilizes.
cgbgjjkk,
Space program is one of the few unique things Russia can be proud of on the world stage. If it's prestige is endangered, Putin is apt to take notice. Unlike oil, space is above every country in the world and there is no inherent reason Kazakhstan has to keep its dominance for launches.
It was the dawn of the Third Age of Mankind, ten years after the second Iraq War. The ISS Project was a dream given form. Its goal: to prevent another war by creating a place where Americans and Russians could work out their differences peacefully. It's a port of call - home away from home for astronauts, cosmonauts, scientists, and tourists. Russians and Americans wrapped in 450,000 kilograms of spinning metal, all alone in the night. It can be a dangerous place, but it's our last best hope for peace. This is the story of the last of the IIS stations. The year is 2014. The name of the place is the IIS.
WOW. SO FUTAR. Just like when they quarantined Clavius base.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Well, I guess it turns out that shutting down our only manned space vehicle and going with another country was a bad move on our part. I can't believe this political powers were so short minded to force us to rely on another country in which we have had such a rocky history.
The MIC just had a cold-war-gasm
Table-ized A.I.
Oh come on, you're being unrealistically tough on a fledgling company. Can't they first shoot for the Shuttle's safety record?
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
It takes a seller 60 days to get paid off ebay/paypal. By the people are probably already homeless and cant pay their bills.
But Elon Musk has a spaceship!
Early last week I uninstalled Agnitum's Outpost software from my PC's. Not sure I want to rely on Russian software for security applications nowadays.
Call me when SpaceX has a safety record that even begins to compare with Soyuz.
Oh come on, you're being unrealistically tough on a fledgling company. Can't they first shoot for the Shuttle's safety record?
Actually, Soyuz has (just slightly) a worse safety record than the Shuttle. As of March 2014, Soyuz had two fatal accidents in 121 launches (also, two serious aborts).
It also had some pretty hair-raising close-calls on re-entries.
it was in protest of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
OP is so gay he cain't even get his facts straight. US invaded Afghanistan, look it up.
Just in case you're not trolling, the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979, and stayed for a decade before abandoning it. Look it up yourself:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_war_in_Afghanistan
I understand that the Russians are the only ones that can put people in the space station, and that the US serves as the ground control. If Russia refuses to let Americans on to the space station, what are the chances that the US would not coordinate ground control for an exclusively Russian or non-American crew? I've read from a number of sources speculating on this probability. What kind of ground support and communications structure are needed to keep the station operational? With the addition of the alpha magnetic spectrometer, the ISS has become a lot more interesting. : http://ams.nasa.gov/
Perhaps this is one thing that both countries really care about, it's one thing that could serve as leverage between then; a negotiation point.
It's a shame that the cooperation deminishing. The Russians are doing some really fantastic work. They've put a radio telescope in orbit: They launched a radio telescope (Spektr-R) into space. By synchronizing this telescope with earth based telescopes, it can resolve features that are 1250x times smaller than what Hubble can see (40u-arc-seconds vs 0.05 arc-seconds).. Did you know that by pointing all of the radio dishes on one side of the earth, and that knowing the exact time radio waves hit each receiver with atomic clocks, you can out resolve any optical telescope on earth? We can literally see finer details with a radio telescope than we can with our best optical ones (using "VLBI " interferometry). The more separation between radio dishes, the better the angular resolution; and now we have one in orbit that will give us much much better resolving power. We may be able to "see" planets with radio waves. (I'd love to hear from radio astronomers about the practical limitations of this -- real world vs back-of-the envelope)
They only started recently announcing their achievements on their website. Several of my friends joked that the reason we heard nothing for so long was that it was an expensive and embarrassing dud. It works, but they don't market or advertise themselves well. http://www.asc.rssi.ru/radioas...
deGrasse Tyson came up with "Cosmic thinking" that basically says we are all together on this little planet and we need to work together - for ALL of our benefit.
I wish that could come to pass but it won't until small men get over their pathetic grabs for power, people get over tribalism and we stop this irrational belief in Iron Age religions and fighting over who's interpretation of the fairy tale is correct.
In short, until we start acting like human beings and not like bald apes, we will never move beyond what we are now.
Order your manned flight to the ISS here. Space-X is doing various "abort tests" NASA insists on, and the first manned launch for NASA isn't supposed to happen until 2017. But Space-X may send their own private astronauts into orbit next year.
Space-X has been sending Dragon spacecraft to the ISS for some time now. The fourth one was supposed to launch this week, but the USAF had a fire at one of their tracking stations and all Cape Canaveral launches are on hold.
In case nobody noticed, NASA was a Cold War propaganda piece.
Now that things are heating up with the Russians as opposed to the jokers we've been slapping around for the past 25 years, perhaps Congress will increase the NASA budget to something less than a pittance and let them get serious again.
NASA apparently is trying to erect sanctions against NASA. Most of the US space and military heavy hauling was done by Volga-Dnepr An-124. It used to make its final approach to Moffett field right over my head. I guess we'll no longer see it. I wonder what NASA is going to do to replace it. Slice the cargo into smaller chunks and make more trips?
I misread NASA as NSA. Gah.. need new glasses.
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden says and I quote: "...our dependence on Russia for putting astronauts into space needs to end."
Too bad the space shuttle program has ended. Then we wouldn't rely on the Russian Federation.
How will this affect the central mission of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration: Muslim outreach?
There are lots of Muslims in Russia NASA might not be able to reach now.
http://www.foxnews.com/politic...
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
I mean, Fox-News-claiming-Bush-kept-us-safe-from-terrorist-attacks breathtaking. As in you cannot believe that someone just said something that brazen with a straight face.
Nah, they just forced Iraq to privatize it's oil industry and sell it off to for-profit foreign interests. Because America's record post WWII has been that of a rampaging imperialistic shitbag that has all the power of a British Empire without any of the responsibilities. Rather than setting up a colonial government, which might actually do shit like build roads and schools, you just overthrow dozens of governments, including democratically elected ones, to get those sufficiently subservient to your "national interests".
No shit. America got a million people killed in Iraq, created millions more refugees, and bombed the country into the stone age. Call us when Putin does the same or starts having 16 year old kids murdered on the other side of the planet from Moscow.
The hell they did. Any reason in particular you're ignoring the illegal, western-backed coup of Ukraine's democratically elected president less than 6 months before the next elections? Aside from all that, if Russia "invaded" Crimea by moving troops to a navel base covered under an existing treaty with Ukraine, than the United States has been busy invading western europe and Japan for over 60 years.
It takes some serious neocon balls (with a hefty dose of willful dumfuckery) to treat the self-appointed junta in Ukraine as a legitimate organization, while flatly ignoring the fact that the people of Crimea just overwhelmingly voted to join Russia. This is invariably countered with some BS about how this vote was done "at the end of a gun barrel", ignoring the fact that the the first things the junta did after sizing power was to strip Crimea of it's autonomy and start oppressing minorities. And ignoring the fact that the United States has 900 military bases throughout the world and special forces operating in more than half the world's countries.
You mean after the Wikileaks cables showed Bush giving free reign to death squads, after the U.S. built military bases and a fortress of an embassy, and made it clear that it would re-invade on a moments notice from military bases in surrounding countries in the event of 'instability'?
FTFY. Compare how many governments Russia has overthrown since the fall of the Soviet Union, and get back to us. How many countries has Russia bombed or invaded. How many people Putin is keeping in gulags, and force feeding them (which is torture), after they've been cleared for release since 2007? Is Russia violating the sovereignty of nations thousands of miles away from it by bombing innocent people inside them with impunity?
The United States lecturing modern Russia about imperialism is like Jack the Ripper lecturing Alec Baldwin on how to treat women.
The response
Our dependence on Russia for putting astronauts into space NEVER SHOULD HAVE FUCKING HAPPENED!
But, can we vote into office a group of dumbasses who'll shit all over America's mission into space?
YES! WE CAN!
Can we just take all that money and shovel it into Russian coffers and pork projects?
YES! WE CAN!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
All it takes is one congressman inserting language in an appropriations bill about what countries NASA isn't allowed to work with.
But they'd never do something like that, right?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
It was so bad, we had to get a legal opinion on if I was allowed to respond to a question e-mailed to the support address for one of the projects I work on. (they said yes, because the project was international in scope, and not just between us and China).
I also had a to pass up an invitation from the US Academy of Science, as it was for a meeting that was being held in China. (later, I was informed that it was Taiwan, which didn't count as China, but it was too late at that point).
ps. if it's not obvious, I work at a NASA center.
pps. and then let's not forget about earmarks and the like. Or how the shuttle was built all over the US and then brought together, to make congress happy that it was being built in their district.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
I blew that by getting the wrong energy content of a cubic meter of natural gas. It's more like 16-17 billion cubic meters of natural gas. That's 150,000 trips of such LNG carriers which sounds a lot more reasonable. Let's say that one ship could do a round trip from North America to Europe and back in two weeks or 25 trips a year. Then that's a need for about 6,000 ships. Wikipedia notes that new ship construction is up to 260,000 cubic meters, which would drop the ship count to under 3,000.
There are currently 357 LNG carriers of any sort (according the Wikipedia link in the previous page) in the general category worldwide. There are currently 4,000 oil supertankers worldwide. So this would be a substantial increase in large ship traffic particularly since it would just be servicing a particular region.
Some f**king neo-Nazi called 'bobbied' howls his appreciation of the holocaust inflicted against the people of Iraq by the US war machine, and the owners of Slashdot ensure he gets a score of '5'. Pay attention to how things work around here, you sheeple.
Iraq currently has a 'constitution' imposed on the destroyed nation by an American JEW. Read that gain. Yes, the depravities of the US State Department appointed a JEW to impose their will on the 'conquered' population. How perfectly Nazi of them- but then 'bobbied' thinks his 'master race' should get to do the same with every other Muslim nation on the Earth.
Today, the ravaged nation of Iraq, which suffers insane amounts of daily terrorism, enjoys puppet rulers split between America, and Iran. Iran actually partnered the USA in both the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, but this fact gets almost zero coverage.
Present day Iraq is littered with US military bases, that like NSA spying, zionist filth like 'bobbied' pretend don't exist simply because the US government lies about their existence. Given that the US placed a gun to Iraq's head, and made Iraq turn over 100% of its oil production to US companies, it would be IMPOSSIBLE for the US to ever leave Iraq. The moment they actually did so, those US oil companies would be thrown out overnight.
So tell me. What kind of dirty, depraved, filthy neo-Nazi racist garbage would try to claim Russia's reclaiming of the Crimea, with the full assent of the population, and zero bloodshed/destruction, is in any sense comparable to one of the world's worst Crimes against Humanity- the US invasion of Iraq. But I'll tell you this. The very fact such neo-Nazis post to sites like this, fully expecting to get the full support of the site owners, lets us know how close we are to war between the demons that run the USA, and Russia. This is no new 'cold war'. This is the run up to actual war- where the US war machine is unleashed across our entire planet.
Our dependence on lousy governments for space transport needs to end. Go SpaceX!
I just wonder how long before Putin invades low Earth orbit ....
seeing as he can, and nobody else on Earth has that capability right now.
Oligarchs, Fascists and the People's Protest in Ukraine
Derek Monroe says the Ukrainian far-right, with the backing of local oligarchs, the US and the EU, hijacked popular protests against corruption
"Western press reports are saying Russian troops are amassing on the Ukraine border. Russia says these are normal troop movements. There's a war of words between Congress and the Kremlin. But it seems fairly clear now, as the dust more or less settles, the Russian annexation of Crimea will have to be de facto recognized by Ukraine and the West. And the strategy now of President Obama and Europe is to quickly try to integrate Ukraine into the E.U. orbit and the American orbit--$18 billion IMF loan is being promised to the Ukraine and more."
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11661/
All NASA obligation to ISS will be canceled by Russia !
Check Mate and Match fuckers.
Though it could be more accurate to say that the Soviets sent support to the government of Afghanistan, in the same way the USA sent support to the government of South Vietnam.
This space intentionally left blank
Perfect timing for Indian Space enthusiasts.
They could start by moving all the Palis to Venus, and following that, the populations of Fuckistan, Bang la desh, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, et al all there. Give that entire planet to the Muz
NASA has issued a statement confirming that it is halting "the majority of its ongoing engagements with the Russian Federation," while ISS operation has been excepted
But there are hardly any engagements besides the ISS, so in the end, the collaboration continues without effect..
Is everybody else tuned into a different reality than I am?
The elected government in Ukraine gave into demands of the (CIA backed) protesters, even moved up the date for the next election. That wasn't good enough! No, you can't hold a coup if you don't have gunfire and confusion.
So they added some gunfire. Turns out the snipers weren't what the media said they were. Turns out they were something else instead. Turns out it was the protester side shooting at its own people in order to create chaos and anger and drive the revolution forward like a bunch of cattle. People fall for it.
Rabble-roused, and newly couped, Russia releases the infamous phone call between EU foreign affairs chief, Catherine Ashton and Estonian foreign minister, Urmas Paet, wherein the world is shown just how up to the neck the West is in covertly toppling the Ukraine government. (Imagine if the discussion had centered on placing a puppet leader in the White House. Do you GET how offensive such a conversation is?) But the US media distracts everybody by focusing on the use of the word, "fuck" in the phone call. And it works. Holy shit. It WORKS. Human sagacity sinks to an all new low.
So, the newly minted puppet leadership in Ukraine immediately announces their intention of seeking IMF funding. They obviously know which side of their bread the butter is on. IMF loan = massive, unpayable dept, rapid default and then the fire sale of the entire country's infrastructure and resource base to Western corporations. Total sellout of a country from within, basic treason by the leadership, and the creation of a wholly owned client state. Think of it as taking the Hoover Dam, NASA, your local police and all your farmland and selling it for a hundred bucks to the Chinese. Along with everything else. And this is entirely how the scam is designed to work, and how it always does work. Buy, hey, that's bringing 'freedom' to a country, right?
Crimeans see what is happening, and having old ties to Russia, feel the need to get the fuck out of the way of the holy-shit smite train. They hold a referendum. (You, know, like they do in a democracy, without snipers and crazy people). They decide to become part of Russia. Which is smart. They probably wont starve like the rest of Ukraine over the next few years while the IMF scam unfolds.
Oh no! But, but, Crimea was the goal! It's sitting right in the middle of all that oil and prime coast! So the US and Europe declare that the democratically held referendum in Crimea is not legal, while at the SAME FUCKING TIME supporting the NON-elected Neo-Nazi thugs in Ukraine. And I'm not even saying "Nazi" in frustrated jest. They're actual, full on Neo-Nazis.
So I have to ask:
What the hell, guys? How daft are the people in the West for falling for this shit? Putin is not the villain in this story. In fact, it is very possible that he might be a kind of savior.
Cue the sycophants, imbeciles and propaganda trolls.
The United States claims to support democracy, and yet it is now opposing the democratic will of the people of Crimea. This is a republic, with a predominantly Russian speaking population, who were effectively being made second class citizens by the Ukranian government. The regime in Ukraine, which has come to power, amidst a violent coup, against the democratically elected government, had installed street signs in Ukranian, and banned Russian speaking television. Imagine this happened in your country. Would you NOT want to break away? After supporting the new regime in the Ukraine, which came to power unconstitutionally, the US has the cheek to accuse Russia of acting against the Ukrainian constitution.
After the similar US actions in declaring an independent Kosovo, it makes a mockery of the United States that they should complain, when Russia pursues a similar policy. It is really tiresome to hear the insane rantings of members of the ruling regime in Washington. While Putin might not be the most tasteful of leaders, I believe he serves a very important purpose in opposing the neo-fascistic militarism of American foreign policy, and its totally self serving objectives.
Crimea was also historically part of Russia. It was only, against the will of its people, attached to the Ukraine by Nikita Kruschev, in the late 1950's.
I am shocked by the standard of reporting of the American media on this subject, and their flagrant disregard for the facts. As the US sinks further down the league of countries with acceptable standards of press freedom, it is really beginning to become a very ugly beast.
that George Bush proposed, Project Constellation
Proposing something and actually FUNDING it are very different things. GW's space efforts were just for show, as has been the case with every President since Nixon. They all get up and give their "WE'RE GOING TO MARS, BOYS!!" rah-rah speech. But at the end of the day, the NASA funding that was cut after Apollo remains at pretty much the same anemic levels. So NASA floats along, jerking around with LEO space bullshit, pretending they're actually going to do more *someday*. But it's all a dog-and-pony show for dumb shits like you. And that is truly non-partisan, with both parties being equally full of shit about being serious about space.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
In other news, Russian defense and space minister Dmitry Rogozin said Russia has no space interests with NASA outside of the International Space Station.
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden was subsequently reported to have said, "THAT'S THE JOKE."
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
... that the US has a functioning rocket program and doesn't depend on Russia for launches.
Oh right.
-_-
Stop being assholes and spending all our money on a useless war. give 5% of the military budget to NASA and they will have more than enough to get us a new launch system and have money to spare.
I am sick of spending every dollar to put our soldiers in harms way for other countries political agendas. Screw them, Screw them all. Let's spend it on science and the American people. OR, require the senators to have their children and grand children on the front line in full danger. You vote for war, then your legacy is the first to die.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.