I was reading this article and it seems to have left out the most important bit of pseudo news. It suggests that the Russian launch pad for its Soyuz program took a devastating and severe hit during the last manned launch to the International Space Station and that it looks like this could end Soviet Russian cooperation in the boondoggle. It seems that the damaged structure must be replaced if any further Soyuz are to launch and there is some doubt that Russia still feels the need for ISS games.
The article does mention that Russia will have difficulty replacing the launch complex and fixing it up since the country is so heavily sanctioned for waging war on its frontiers and has, as a consequence got every stupid dolt in NATO talking about launching preemptive strikes on Russia and cutting off all trade and technical support and exchanges. This is amusing on several fronts.
Why is anyone wasting time in orbit now? LEO is not even the back yard in space exploration and development and the tricky bits all now happen much further out and sadly, NASA is not really playing any kind of meaningful role in any of it. The only people that seem interested in getting to the moon and to Mars are working at Space X and they don't seem to feel any need to spend time messing around in orbit. They plan to play much further out and it shows.
NASA has been building a replacement space suit for something like 25 years and is no further along then when they started the whole process 25 years ago. Think about it, 25 years is a long time to screw up something as simple as making a modern space suit out of modern materials and processors and yet this is simply the margarine on NASA's cold toast. NASA does nothing well and it shows.
OK, the slings and arrows are well deserved but if Roscosmos and the Russians simply terminate their share of the missions in support of the ISS, is NASA going to pick them up? The Russians have already cut their investment by 25% and with a war that is costing them far more than they anticipated once they realized that every tinhorn dictator in the EU and EU Commission got involved in furthering the war to the bitterest end and the death of every Ukrainian, it looks like they need to trim their expenditures at no cost to their own enterprises. What better thing to cut than the ISS?
Can NASA and Boeing take up the 'slack'? It's an interesting question.
Oh, and do you believe a mission critical structure that survived dozens of Soyuz launches just happens to have failed catastrophically when the need for it went away in the minds of those who work in the Kremlin? Yeah, me neither.
7 comments:
I don't know how "allowing " the destruction of Russian space launch capability would "aid " Russia. A bit like destroying their own money making pipe lines just to force the EU into buying expensive American LP.
My suggestion is the Culinary Institute of America shared a "recipe " and a suitcase of 100 dollar bills with local friends.
Fits their MO of dirty deeds done dirty cheap to harm and annoy Russia.
Michael the anonymous
First, "it was an accident!" or at least has to look like one.
Second, Russia gets nothing at all out of launches to LEO and the ISS so why?
Third, I used to think the CIA had some people on the ball and was used against our nation's enemies with some effectiveness. I don't anymore. I think they are purely a Praetorian Guard sort of thing and defense of the USA is far down on their lists with Keeping Democrats in charge at the very top of their priority lists.
If you had to pick and choose from all of what we know about the last 50 years, can you find any point where the CIA involvement somehow "HELPED" us? All I can see as I look back is a dismal record of failure and supporting failure. They are the Color Revolutionaries and every one of those regime changes was a complete disaster. ALL OF THEM.
Friend, I didn't say the CIA did something useful or smart. I said that damaging equipment to "shut down" Russian space activity seems pretty weird, unless like so many other "Operations" was to cause harm and annoyance to Mr. Putin.
I've noticed Mr. Putin has no problem telling the world Neyt when he chooses. He could just inform NASA that the Russians are out of the business without blowing up stuff.
One hopes the CIA is just as worthless in doing the current ongoing Color Revolution against our Republic.
If you have contract, but want get out of contract, you use method exempted in contract to get out contract.
Interesting thought, I googled and yes, they do have a contract with NASA and ISS until 2028. So perhaps they weren't getting worth out of the contract, hard to say.
So CIA vs not worth the costs thoughts. We may never know, unless they rebuild something to work with say China's space program and thus was "ghosting" NASA.
Scott Manley has a decent analysis of what happened and the Russian options on his YT channel.
My takeaway is that, while other Russian launch *sites* aren't suitable, much of the equipment is replicated there & could be transported to Baikonur.
The damaged "dance floor" itself seems massive to the man in the street at many tons, but is a rather small in terms of modern oil/naval/space construction projects.
As far as sabotage, it is better to not ascribe to malice that which can be attributed to 50yo machinery failure. Did someone forget to throw the switch to engage the (notional) locking pins? Did they throw it and the pin actuator fail? Did it engage but the pin was metal fatigued and broke? Did it engage but the concrete surround the pin detent was set into failed?
The blow has to be severe enough that the cost to 'put it right' is offsetting enough that it won't get met and the reason why is simple. The old myth of space as the. high ground in a war is not really germane when there is no war and the Russians simply do not have what it takes to voyage to the moon or Mars and sinking government money into that project is a waste in Russia's current phase. Maybe in 20 years it will be worth revisiting and in 20 years nobody will recognize the hardware being used to launch rockets into space so just get rid of it and end the pointless and wasteful drama.
And no guys, it is well worth pursuing if you have Space X on your side and a man like Musk running it with a vision. Just to send rockets up into LEO is pointless. We've learned all that can be learned from doing that.
Space X will develop the capability to refuel in orbit and send much larger ships to Mars but NASA and Roscosmos are done.
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