CEV & Foreign Participation, Why Not?

So NASA has said "No" to European and other outside participation in CEV/
Ares. Does anyone care to speculate why?

I work on Space Station projects at JSC. I have several amusing stories
to tell about working the the Russians, Germans and Japanese. I bet
they have similar stories to tell about working with Americans. But
overall, it has been rewarding on the personal level to work with them.
I suspect that the big picture level, we were better off by partnering
with ESA, JAXA, Roscomos etc. And I don't just mean that lack of
Shuttle flights.

Were there any official statements about why we declined partnership
with the other nations? Did any Congresscritter make significant
statements on the subject?

On Tue, 04 Jul 2006 20:21:13 -0000, in a place far, far away, Robert
Love made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such
a way as to indicate that:

So NASA has said "No" to European and other outside participation in CEV/
Ares. Does anyone care to speculate why?

Because they don't want to put another country on the critical path.

I work on Space Station projects at JSC. I have several amusing stories
to tell about working the the Russians, Germans and Japanese. I bet
they have similar stories to tell about working with Americans. But
overall, it has been rewarding on the personal level to work with them.
I suspect that the big picture level, we were better off by partnering
with ESA, JAXA, Roscomos etc.

You are.

Rand Simberg wrote:

So NASA has said "No" to European and other outside participation in CEV/
Ares. Does anyone care to speculate why?

Because they don't want to put another country on the critical path.

That worked out just terrible when they did that with the ISS.

Core Module, Soyuz, Progress, what a mistake!

http://cosmic.lifeform.org

wrote in
oups.com:


Rand Simberg wrote:

So NASA has said "No" to European and other outside participation in
CEV/ Ares. Does anyone care to speculate why?

Because they don't want to put another country on the critical path.

That worked out just terrible when they did that with the ISS.

Core Module, Soyuz, Progress, what a mistake!

Saved the ISS when Shuttle went down.

--Damon

On Tue, 04 Jul 2006 17:33:42 -0500, in a place far, far away, Damon
Hill made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

wrote in
roups.com:


Rand Simberg wrote:

So NASA has said "No" to European and other outside participation in
CEV/ Ares. Does anyone care to speculate why?

Because they don't want to put another country on the critical path.

That worked out just terrible when they did that with the ISS.

Core Module, Soyuz, Progress, what a mistake!

Saved the ISS when Shuttle went down.

You say that like it's a good thing.

I remember a rather advanced 'camera' that was a joint
effort between the US and other countries.
When it came time to line up the bits - the other
countries mated beautifully. The US contribution
didn't.

Why?

Because the other countries stuff was done in metric
and the US was done in US and then 'converted' to
metric.

I think all Americans are deeply, subconsciously,
xenophobic - even with staunch, never fail allies.
Hell - the US is a barely United States at the best
of times - the *states* don't even trust each other.

I can see a time coming where the US will turn
inwards (ala China) and do its own thing for a
while.

In article ,
Robert Love wrote:
So NASA has said "No" to European and other outside participation in CEV/
Ares. Does anyone care to speculate why?

Unfortunately, the US has learned the wrong things from ISS: instead of
"choose partners carefully; trust them enough to put them in the critical
path so they actually save you from having to do some things; don't keep
switching plans on them without warning", the lesson drawn has been "can't
trust them dagnab furriners".

There were/are *two* foreign countries in the critical path on ISS. Only
one has caused significant problems. (And even that wasn't always entirely
their fault. Zvezda, aka the Service Module, got a lot of blame for
delays, but in fact the US modules slated to follow it were about as far
behind schedule, and for less pardonable reasons too.)

Were there any official statements about why we declined partnership
with the other nations?

I don't believe anybody has bothered to explain it; it's just taken for
granted that foreign partners would be a bad idea. And of course, because
nobody has actually spelled out the reasons, it's impossible to assess how
sensible they are.
--
spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. |

On Wed, 5 Jul 2006 12:27:25 +1000, in a place far, far away,
"BlagooBlanaa" made the phosphor on my
monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

I remember a rather advanced 'camera' that was a joint
effort between the US and other countries.
When it came time to line up the bits - the other
countries mated beautifully. The US contribution
didn't.

Why?

Because the other countries stuff was done in metric
and the US was done in US and then 'converted' to
metric.

I think all Americans are deeply, subconsciously,
xenophobic -

Yes, that's right. *All* Americans are xenophobic, and no one else
is.

So NASA has said "No" to European and other outside participation in CEV/
Ares. Does anyone care to speculate why?

I don't imagine there is a particularly simple answer to that.

People who like international space projects are likely to claim
things like (a) they enable a group of nations to take on a project
which done of them could do alone, (b) they cement friendships
between nations (e.g. US-ESA), provide a foot in the door for
potential friendships (e.g. US-Russia especially in the 90's), and
other non-space benefits, and (c) it is harder to cancel a project if
doing so would let down your international partners.

People who don't like them are likely to say (a) the increased costs
as a result of the budgetary uncertainties in each country, need to
coordinate, etc, outweigh any savings from being able to get each
country to pay for part of the mission, and (b) the space program
should not be held hostage to foreign policy objectives.

Apparently those in charge of Area/CEV are of the non-international
thinking, whereas those in the Clinton and Bush I (or was it Reagan?
I don't remember when Europe and Japan were brought in to ISS)
administrations were of the international thinking.

On 04 Jul 2006 22:47:41 -0400, in a place far, far away, Jim Kingdon
made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a way
as to indicate that:

Apparently those in charge of Area/CEV are of the non-international
thinking, whereas those in the Clinton and Bush I (or was it Reagan?
I don't remember when Europe and Japan were brought in to ISS)
administrations were of the international thinking.

Europe and Japan were in from the beginning (Reagan)--Clinton brought
in the Russians.