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NASA Denies New Space Station Partnership With Russia
schwit1 writes NASA officials today denied they were negotiating a partnership with Russia to build a space station replacement for ISS, as suggested yesterday by the head of Russia's space program. Maybe the misunderstanding comes from NASA head Charles Bolden, who is currently in Russia. Bolden probably said some nice feel-good things to the Russians, things like "We want to keep working together," and "We will support your plans for your future space station." None of this was meant as a commitment, but the Russians might have taken them more seriously than Bolden realized.
Can you explain how going 0.1 planetary radius "up" is exploration? And what progress? It's the same damn thing for half a century.
like it or not Russia IS A LEADING nation. I know that we in the US and other parts of the western world like to look down on Russia but in many fields they are the leader, space exploration is probably one of their strongest points both historically and currently. Countries all over the world use Russian rocket technology to get shit into space, even the US. People still seem to look at Russia as it was prior to 2000, they have had a massive economic and political changes in since then yet so many can't seem to get past the old mindset or look beyond the douche that is putin.
"beureacrats "
Can you please turn on your spell checker?
" We tried to tell you you're to stupid"
To stupid what?
Space exploration? Hardly. They haven't done any exploration since the Berlin Wall fell. NASA's putting probes on every planet they can, the ESA and JAXA are launching their own probes, even China and India are doing more exploration than Russia. The only real active area of research for Russia is on the ISS.
Russia's just a cheap source of rockets - and that has more to do with their low cost of labor and massive subsidies than the actual cost-effectiveness of their rockets. The fact that they're currently the only way to the ISS has more to do with the political failings of NASA than any redeeming quality they have.
PS: Russia's economy is still failing. It's not in the near-freefall it was in the 90s, but it still looks more like a big second-world country than a developed nation.
until it has been officially denied.
"Leading" is a relative term in a world dominated by the US. We're a fifth of the economy. We're most of the military spending. We have the most advanced weapons. Our culture is known world-wide. The Chinese could compete with us, if they get a few more years of 8% growth and they can figure out their aging population problem. The Europeans could also compete with us, if they'd ever get off their damn asses and give their precious sovereign right to veto every-damn-thing to the EU.
Russia clearly belongs in the next tier, right along with the Japanese and other regional powers. But it's not like Russia can bail out small Latin American countries without noticing the hit to it's budget. But the top tier clearly could. So could the Japanese.
space exploration is probably one of their strongest points both historically and currently
Russia has heavy lift capability, and that's basically it. I tried to find the last time they actually did exploration (as in probes, rovers, etc) and didn't see much of anything since the Soviet Union. Right now NASA, ESA, Japan, China and even India are all ahead of Russia as far as exploration goes, as all those organizations have active probes in space doing science. Russia is basically just hauling stuff into orbit.
Better known as 318230.
Putin doesn't care about what Americans think. His political base is at home, and they don't care about America either. This is more likely to be the Russian rocket makers getting desperate to justify their budget.
What in my post implied Putin cares what ordinary Americans think? I mentioned him trying to appease a Russian domestic audience with a space station, and potential difficulties he'd have reining in the Donbass rebels, but I said nothing about Western public opinion.
BTW, your premise is wrong to an extent at least. All my comments got a -1 troll, the AC posting that Russia was a superpower got to +4 insightful, and everyone criticizing that blessed comment also got -1 troll. Which means the Kremlin apparently loosed it's merry band of paid internet trolls on Slashdot.
PEBCAK
Leading is a relative term when you're discussing countries capable of human spaceflight. Last time I checked, the United States was paying a princely* sum to space-taxi their Astronauts to the ISS.
*When I say Princely, I mean, "the United States pays more to go to the ISS than the King of Malaysia", because that's totally a thing that happened as part of an arms deal, and we still pay more than he did for the privilege, despite our station being connected to theirs.
moox. for a new generation.
I did live there for about 6 months in 2012 in St Petersburg for work. much of Russia has modernised and is really quite a pleasant place to visit or even live, especially the larger cities, people just can't seem to get past old mindsets and ignorance. Much the same is happening with China, the risk to a lot of the western world is these countries are going to leave much of the western world behind, in a few years people will be saying "how the fuck did they get so far ahead of us" as they have remained blind to the rapid advancements of these countries both economically and technologically.
"spaceflight" is a relative term when you're discussing what amounts to a tree fort in the upper atmosphere for adults with connections.
Soar past? This is a finite planet, and we are all identical human creatures. And no one is going anywhere, despite all the feverish delusions from the space crowd.
Don't forget, China *was* once the kind of hidebound bureaucratic nightmare that we are heading towards. They are just swinging the pendulum around the other way, but the solution space is quite constrained, there just doesn't seem to be a rational outcome for human societies.
All I know is if an individual exhibited the behaviors of a modern western economy, constantly cycling between euphoria and dire depression, we'd label the person as "sick" and put them on powerful medications. But entire societies? Oh no, it's normal, don't touch it.
After all, the people in power are perfectly happy with this system and see nothing wrong with it.
The only "medication" I see for our society is either a catastrophic bloody revolution that will come after decades of darkness, or a rational revolution. I know which way I'm betting.
TFA seems to think that the Russians are beyond pale, that they are so clueless that they took a common 'nice feeling comment' as a commitment from NASA - which can't be further from the truth
The Russians ~ and the rest of the world ~ already know that NASA - under the Democrat administration - is often underfunded, especially under the Obama administration, and the Russians also know that NASA simply can't locate any funding for a new space station. What the Russians were doing is to set up a trap and let NASA falls in
The Russians have their own space station plan - actually two plans
Plan A is to continue to upgrade their portion of the ISS
Plan B is to somehow integrate whatever they have (experience / hardware, whatever) with China / EU / India, or whoever has a plan for a new space station
NASA is never featured in either of the two plans - or in other words, the Russians already decided to stop their cooperation with NASA pass 2022
Then why the head of the Russian space program said what he said yesterday --- to force NASA to come out with an official denial - like what NASA just did --- so that they (the Russians) can official wash their hands clean and declare to the world that it is not that they do not want to work with NASA, it is NASA who no longer wants to work with the Russian
Don't tell me that isn't the coolest tree fort you've ever in your life seen.
... We will need substantive evidence of their change of character before we commit to further projects.
If the Russians are determined to be enemies of the West, then it is in our interests to see that they are as technologically regressed as possible. That means not sharing computer or rocketry technology that they can use to make weapons etc.
It is very sad. We tried so hard to be their friends. The Chinese broke with the Russians in large part because they understood the stupidity of this pointless hostility between our people's.
China has prospered from that realization. All the wealth and power that is now China's could have been Russia's. That and more. They could have remained a super power and then some. They could have been incredibly wealthy.
But they pissed it all away for nothing... just as Putin is pissing away Russia's second chance for nothing.
Whether Russia gets a third chance is entirely speculative. The Russians are profoundly pigheaded. And given that they are unlikely to even admit they're doing stupid things it is unlikely that their position can be salvaged.
What they are forcing the west to do is cut them off. Isolate them. Starve them of trade. Surround them with strong military defenses that they cannot breach... and wait until after a generation of poverty and isolation they crack.
Last time Russia gave up a big portion of their territory. The next surrender of territory will probably be in their east. Siberia etc are all likely forfeit. The US won't take these things. The west won't take them. We'll just make the Russians too weak to stop their eastern neighbors from taking it.
Hopefully whatever is left of Russia when this is concluded is wiser.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
The soviet union collapsed and now russia is run by a thug dictator for life as his personal toy with immature cult of personality on the same level as north korea
they invaded and vivisected georgia, and now invade ukraine because their feelings were hurt when slavic brothers ukraine announced it preferred to go with europe. its economy is tanking because its economy is just digging up oil
it is 140 million people. china is 1.3 billion. eu is 500 million. both diversified and growing economies with stable governments, not politically immature kgb goon worship
canada is small and weak over a large land area too. difference being, canada is at peace and with good relations with its neighbors. russia looks for every opportunity to piss everyone off. ultranationalism and 1950s imperialism is a fantasy of hurt egos and faded glory. it's a colossal weakness, not a strength. it only announces more aggression to come exactly as gets weaker
russia is a dying country. the 1950s and sputnik and yuri gagarin was its highest point. everything from then on was/ is downhill
in a hundred years, the trajectory that started with the collapse of the soviet union will continue. sibera will pass to china (outer manchuria, which russia won from china only in 1850, is going majority chinese population soon). and everything west of moscow will pass to europe by choice or by fire, as ukraine shows
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E...
they are too few people over too large an area. their economy is too weak. and their politics is mafia level intimidation amateur hour, easy to topple and push around, if not outright inviting revolution when rabid ultranationalism loses its power
their much vaunted military will not keep up technologically and with a collapsing economy, and that's the only chip they have left that is weakening over time
the history of central asia is replete with giant empires that rise and fall. russia is but another to come to pass, and soon. i think this century, at least the next
no more deals with russia, especially on the space station. they are aggressive losers, any deals we make with them will not last and will be subject to further decay over time
to russian space scientists:
i suggest defecting to the west and private space companies. be the next sergey brin of space. he didn't make google in russia, and he never could have. the russian von brauns need to do the same
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Almost in Europe? what weird ass map are you looking at? it is close to some European countries, most of which are not really indicative of Europe. Russia has plenty of pretty good cities, include Moscow, Yekaterinburg, Pskov, Vladimir and quite a few others, though I have not spent enough time in others to truly judge them. You are heavily focused on the western mentality and propaganda and forgetting that most of the wests wealth is centred around a very select minority (happy to admit I am in that minority). Whilst Russia is very similar in this respect china is NOT, it has a middle and upper middle class that vastly outnumbers the entire population of the US and this group is rapidly rising in wealth. China are already only second to the US in the official number of millionaires, china has half a billion middle class.
When you say you want to work together, it seems logical that people might get the idea that you would want to work together.
I would not call that 'misunderstanding' I would call that 'lying'.
And if you are an official spokesperson of the NASA, you should know how to say things.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
My FireFox on Ubuntu 14.04 routinely forgets the selected spellcheck language, and does not work until I select again the English (US).
So no, not PEBCAK. Just Mozilla doing their fine job as usual.
All hope abandon ye who enter here.
There are no Dunbass Rebels, its Russian troops with Russian Commanders.
The U.S. also has also accumulated a $18 trillion national debt to pay for all that prosperity, all that "we've got the biggest dick" military spending, all that corporate welfare, all those entitlements, etc.
And it's growing at about $500 billion a year now.
When the credit card bill finally comes due some day, the party ends.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Sure does.
"beureacrats" is underlined in squiggly red bullshit, as it should be.
http://imgur.com/rHQYgmt
You've either added it to your dictionary or fucked something else up.
http://tech.slashdot.org/story...
Yup.
http://tech.slashdot.org/story...
True enough. There were, in fact, two probes (Mars and Phobos), but both weren't able to leave the LEO.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
The rocket market isn't just a "failing" of NASA, they were confident that those rockets would be on the market, so they accepted having to use them for a few years in order to be able to afford other things on their limited budget.
Especially now that there are multiple new rockets coming to market to compete in that space, it doesn't look like a failing at all. It looks like they have quality analysts, actually.
They didn't trip over their shoelaces and accidentally end up having to buy Russian rockets.
You wanna know what an MD in her first year of residency has? A 350% debt-to-personal-GDP ratio. Post-residency she's still in the 150-200% range. You wanna know what a 19-year-old home depot cashier at $9.25 an hour has? No debt at all. You wanna guess which one of those women will have a more financially stable future?
Compare that to the US. Yes we have a lot of debt. but we have it mostly because some idiot insisted on cutting taxes without cutting spending, financed two major wars 100% via debt, and then didn't notice that light touch mortgage regulations were about to cripple the economy and fuck everyone over. That a) tanked Federal revenue, while b) drastically increasing social spending because unemployed people qualify for a lot more food stamps, which would have been bad enough if that idiot hadn't already had us running a sizable deficit.
Now if any of us actually gave a shit about the deficit (rather then giving a shit about manipulating people to support our other policy positions) it would be trivial to fix. Raise the income tax five points, fire the Army because we've got Marines, abolish NASA, implement a massive Federal VAT, or any number of ideas could fix it single-handed.
But like I said, nobody who claims to care about the deficit actually cares about the deficit. They care about manipulating moderates into supporting their social-engineering scheme to either a) cut government spending because it's a threat to freedom and the American way of life, or b) jack up the income tax rate because inequality is a threat to freedom and the American way of life.
Which one are you?
Who do you think makes rockets? The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace workers.
Who do you think processes rocket fuel? The Steelworkers.
Who do you think designs the damn things in government labs? Government employees, most of whom are unionized.
The current Republican party will never fund any of these groups, partly because some of them are Evil Unions, and partly because the lesson the GOP base learned from the Bush years was that government spending is an evil in it's own right.
Seriously, the ISS group needs to skip a new station and allow private space to take that on.
Instead, the ISS group should focus on getting a base on the Moon and then on Mars. Private Space will be going to the moon around 2020-2022. Europe, Japan, Canada, Russia, etc should join the private space and push to create the side infrastructure that can be used on the moon. In particular, robotics, nuclear power, etc.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.