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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.
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.
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.
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.