Space station future adrift (Soyuz purchase crisis)

"Jeff Findley" wrote:

"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?

It's not just John Doe, but many across these groups. (It's also
particularly virulent over on slashdot.)

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

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

(Henry Spencer) wrote in message ...

If the yanks can't send money to Russia, perhaps they could get China to
supply the "Soyuz" in exchange for becoming a member of the ISS ?

Distinctly unlikely. Many of the people currently in power in Washington
have gotten there partly by howling with alarm about the Yellow Peril:
how the evil Chinese were stealing US technology...

In order to capture the flavour of the times from when this story was
first being crafted, you have to add in, at this point, "...in order
to develop Weapons Of Mass Destruction (i.e., rocket launchers and
nuclear warheads) which the evil Chinese will use to attack the
United States and kill us all..."

... and how the traitorous
Democrat scum in the White House and Congress were letting them get away
with it.

A necessary adjunct to this ploy was the newspeak redefinition of
all spce-related technology as "munitions", and hence the regulation
of all space-related things and thoughts under ITAR, in order to
keep the evil Chinese from learning how to build launch vehicles
and nuclear bombs. Ironically, this has had the net effect of forcing
various countries, that would otherwise not have developed various
items of advanced space technology (which turned out not to be very
hard or expensive to develop, but which previously were marginally
more convenient to obtain by buying them from US companies), to
actually push through to becoming independent of US space technology
in their satellite equipment supply chains. So, the anti-China ploy
has directly resulted in the profileration of space technology
world-wide, something that in a big-picture sense we should all be
grateful to those Republican congressmen (and their instrument in
these matters, the State Department) for.

Too bad about virtually all US space equipment and services
companies losing virtually all of their export sales, though.

As far as I could tell at the time, this was what the anti-Clinton
crowd thought it would take in order to get the enemy impeached. It's
only after this failed, that they found out that all it took was a
good, old-fashioned sex scandal. Who'd have thought?

- Kieran A. Carroll

Disclaimer: These opinions are mine, and aren't intended to represent the
opinions of my employer.

If I had to bet real money, I would bet that NASA will choose not to
send astronauts to ISS for long duration missions after 2006. They
would rather spend billions on the long term CEV program than send a
dime to Russia for a ride on Soyuz. That's just the way it is. Look
for science to be performed on the 3 or 4 Shuttle missions to ISS
every year for the rest of the program. Unless, of course, Russia
concedes the point and gives the US more free rides on their
spaceships.

(Explorer8939) wrote:
If I had to bet real money, I would bet that NASA will choose not to
send astronauts to ISS for long duration missions after 2006. They
would rather spend billions on the long term CEV program than send a
dime to Russia for a ride on Soyuz. That's just the way it is.

It's not a preference, it's the law of the land.

Look
for science to be performed on the 3 or 4 Shuttle missions to ISS
every year for the rest of the program. Unless, of course, Russia
concedes the point and gives the US more free rides on their
spaceships.

Given that Russia has yet to provide a single free ride to the US...

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

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

On 29 Nov 2004 14:34:41 -0800, in a place far, far away,
(Kieran A. Carroll) made the phosphor on my monitor
glow in such a way as to indicate that:


As far as I could tell at the time, this was what the anti-Clinton
crowd thought it would take in order to get the enemy impeached. It's
only after this failed, that they found out that all it took was a
good, old-fashioned sex scandal.

Actually, if that's all it took, he wouldn't have been elected in the
first place, since the man was a 24-7 sex scandal throughout his
political career.

What it took was a perjury and witness-bribing-and-intimidation
(felonies, note) scandal, brought on by a sexual-harassment law that
he signed with his own pen, but thought should only apply to the
commoners, not to himself.

Explorer8939 wrote:
=

If I had to bet real money, I would bet that NASA will choose not to
send astronauts to ISS for long duration missions after 2006. They
would rather spend billions on the long term CEV program than send a
dime to Russia for a ride on Soyuz. That's just the way it is. Look
for science to be performed on the 3 or 4 Shuttle missions to ISS
every year for the rest of the program. Unless, of course, Russia
concedes the point and gives the US more free rides on their
spaceships.

If the US can't get to their part of ISS perhaps they could sell it. If
the Globalstar network can go for a half cent on the dollar, perhaps
Bigelow will pay a token sum and operate it with Russian help until his
own station is available.
-- =

John Halpenny


A cluttered desk is the sign of a cluttered mind.
I=92m so glad my desk isn't empty.

"Henry Spencer" wrote in message
...
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.

We were well on our way to having a lifeboat demonstrator (X-38/ACRV), but W
canceled it. We were making good progress toward a second lifeboat that
would've been Spiral 1 to a Spiral 2 ferry (OSP), which could've easily led
to Spiral 3 (CEV) but W canceled it. Now we've thrown away almost four years
(and how much money?) and have nothing but studies and an increasingly
fragile shuttle fleet to show for it. The requirement for a post-2005 CRV
still remains.

-Kim-

In article ,
Derek Lyons wrote:
would rather spend billions on the long term CEV program than send a
dime to Russia for a ride on Soyuz. That's just the way it is.

It's not a preference, it's the law of the land.

As I understand it, that particular law of the land *has* provision for
exceptions, although they require high-level approval, there would be some
political fuss, and NASA has been reluctant to ask.
--
"Think outside the box -- the box isn't our friend." | Henry Spencer
-- George Herbert |

In sci.space.policy Henry Spencer wrote:
In article , John Doe wrote:
Rutan would be the only one capable of whipping up something cheap and simple
within 2 years.

There are plenty of people who could at least be *testing* something
suitable in a couple of years or so... given generous funding and an
absence of bureaucratic roadblocks. But it would probably be another year
or so, even in a maximum-speed program, before the result was cleared for

Random thoughts:
The shuttle could going to ISS could several test articles of minimal reentry
devices.

Load them up with stuff that would otherwise be going down in the progress,
and throw a few dozen overboard when at a safe distance from ISS.

Unlikely unfortunately.

"rk"

The USA and many other nations are worried about
nukes in the hands of Iran with its current leadership.

The current US policy is that Iran is not allowed to have nukes.