Space station future adrift (Soyuz purchase crisis)

In article ,
Al Jackson wrote:
I wonder, I had known that ESA and JAXA has explored the idea of
carefully funneling money to RSA to help fix this problem , for them,
..., but I never heard what came of that.

They're not well-supplied with money themselves -- their own station work
is over budget because of all these delays -- and this *is* something
that's supposed to be a US responsibility. My guess is that they're
unwilling to do it without being compensated somehow, and they think there
is little chance of renegotiating the station agreements in any reasonable
amount of time.
--
"Think outside the box -- the box isn't our friend." | Henry Spencer
-- George Herbert |

On Sat, 27 Nov 2004 13:46:09 -0500, John Doe wrote:

I have sympathy with the Russians.
As I recall the idea was to have a space space station by 1992.
Then 2005. Now 2010. All contributers have bailed out long ago
due to astronomical cost overruns.
Who wouldn't loose patience?

--
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In article ,
Derek Lyons wrote:
Henry is, I believe, badly wrong in thinking we can concentrate on the
'lifeboat' side while depending on the Shuttle for the 'taxi' side.

Note that I didn't say we should forget the taxi role, only that the
lifeboat role is more urgent and should be the first priority. My scheme
does envision a more capable Block II only a year or two later.

The Shuttle's schedule is now going to be horribly crowded, leaving
little margin for the taxi role.

The shuttle schedule is going to be busy, yes, but all those flights are
going to ISS, and a significant number of them are supply flights, and
there is no reason why they can't swap crews *in addition* to their
assembly/supply role. Indeed, that was the plan all along -- there was
never any plan to dedicate shuttle flights solely to crew swaps, or to
rely on Soyuz for non-Russian crew swaps.

In an ideal universe, the proposed taxi/lifeboat would be a Block I to
CEV's Block II.

Given that there's some urgency to the station requirements, it would make
sense for the lifeboat to be Block I, the taxi to be Block II, and the
reentry module for the beyond-LEO vehicle to be Block III.
--
"Think outside the box -- the box isn't our friend." | Henry Spencer
-- George Herbert |

On Mon, 29 Nov 2004 00:44:55 GMT, in a place far, far away,
(Derek Lyons) made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:

In an ideal universe, the proposed taxi/lifeboat would be a Block I to
CEV's Block II.

In an ideal universe, NASA wouldn't be developing systems for getting
humans to or from LEO at all--they'd be buying tickets from commercial
providers.

On 29 Nov 2004 00:55:25 GMT, in a place far, far away, Jim Davis
made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such
a way as to indicate that:

Derek Lyons wrote:

I think you are as ignorant and stupid of engineering realities as
ever.

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL

Exactly when does this resolution kick in, Derek? :-)

That's why I don't make resolutions like that...

(Henry Spencer) wrote:

In article ,
Derek Lyons wrote:
The Shuttle's schedule is now going to be horribly crowded, leaving
little margin for the taxi role.

The shuttle schedule is going to be busy, yes, but all those flights are
going to ISS, and a significant number of them are supply flights, and
there is no reason why they can't swap crews *in addition* to their
assembly/supply role.

Various posts over in s.s.s. have indicated that weight is a growing
problem. (To the point that reducing shuttle crew size for
weight/performance improvements has been considered.)

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL

Jim Davis wrote:

Derek Lyons wrote:

I think you are as ignorant and stupid of engineering realities as
ever.

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL

Exactly when does this resolution kick in, Derek? :-)

Trust me, I am being temperate....

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL

Dear Jim,

Thanks for the article. Interesting fix.

current international agreement, and a cash-strapped Russia wants
compensation for building more of the spacecraft after 2006.

Extraordinary! People who build and fly spaceships want to be paid.
What a great idea.

But warning against payment to Moscow are U.S. anti-proliferation laws
and the initial spirit of the interagency project - under which NASA,
Roskosmos and the space agencies of the 14 other nations involved divide up
the tasks and no money changes hands.

Heh. No doubt another stumbling block is the recent election in Ukraine
which is apparently gone to the pro-Moscow faction rather than to the
pro-Western faction. I guess with all the effort to steal the election
in the USA, the Bush admin neglected to put enough resources to help their
guy in Ukraine steal the election over there. Ah, well.

The good news out of all this "no more Soyuz vehicles" situation is that
the great folx at NASA now have another reason to return the shuttle to
flight. And that should result, sooner or later, in the massacre of
another seven astronauts. More hero worship to follow. Yay!

NASA Deputy Administrator Fred Gregory said that "the United States
and Russia have been negotiating" the Soyuz issue and other matters.

Yeah. Lots of other goofy issues, no doubt.

So how are they doing on Progress re-supply ships, Jim? With any luck,
the clever people in the USA State Department and NASA can **** off the
Russians sufficiently to run out of all access to space station, and
then either fly-til-they-die with the shuttle, or let the internationalist
socialist space station fall.

Thus far, I've never lost money betting on NASA to behave foolishly.

Regards,

Jim
http://indomitus.net/

"Derek Lyons" wrote in message
...
John Doe wrote:

Rutan would be the only one capable of whipping up something cheap and
simple
within 2 years.

ROTFL. The powers that people invest in Rutan are becoming nothing
short of miraculous.

What do you expect from someone who posts as John Doe?

Jeff
--
Remove icky phrase from email address to get a valid address.

"Derek Lyons" wrote in message
...
Ignorant bigotry. (As Henry pointed out - It took NASA much longer
than two years to fly the Gemini, and that was back in it's glory days
*and* with a spacecraft considerably less sophisticated and capable
than Soyuz.)

Gemini is in many ways a far more capable craft than an ISS life boat needs
to be.

Gemini was also the seond manned spacecraft designed by the US. We're a bit
further along the learning curve now. Something like APAS can be bought off
the shelf today, but Gemini was built (in part) to research rendesvous and
docking.

However, if you read this thread, you would realize we are talking
about a Soyuz replacement, not a (hypothetical and non-existent) craft
that can float around until rescued by (also hypothetical and
non-existent) another craft. (And given that maritime lifeboats for
hostile enviroments are neither simple, nor cheap, one wonders about
your conclusions regarding space ones. It's *hard* to make things
that must wait quiescent for extended periods, and then function with
no checkout and a near guarantee of sucess.)

As long as the shuttle is still flying, all we need is a lifeboat. A crew
ferry craft isn't needed until after the shuttle is retired.

Jeff
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Remove icky phrase from email address to get a valid address.