Russia calls dibbs on the ISS, too.

[Neemi]

Russia's nixed the US's $60 million rides to the space station. Please tell me we don't have anyone up there right now...

http://mobile.theverge.com/2014/5/13/5714462/russia-will-cut-off-us-access-to-the-international-space-station-over

[Marnoot]

That's not until 2020 according to the article, so if it ends up happening I imagine the crewed SpaceX Dragon capsules will be ready for us to use by then.

[wmenorr67]

I say cut it now.  Bring our people home and then let the Russian space program wither on the vine.  See if they can do anything without our money.  I can think of a lot of things $60,000,000 could do right here at home.

[HankB]

Looks like Obama achieved his goal of taking the USA down a peg by giving up - and actually celebrating - the loss of our manned spaceflight capability by retiring the shuttle fleet.

[Bigjake]

No great loss. 

NASA was right up there with WIC,  as far as waste of taxpayer dollars went.

[HankB]

No great loss. 

NASA was right up there with WIC,  as far as waste of taxpayer dollars went.

No question that NASA has become corrupted by politics, but it still does some work to push back the frontiers of human knowledge. WIC hasn't accomplished anything more than facilitate the breeding of more WIC dependents.

[Bigjake]

No question that NASA has become corrupted by politics, but it still does some work to push back the frontiers of human knowledge. WIC hasn't accomplished anything more than facilitate the breeding of more WIC dependents.

Think of where we might be if the same funding went towards privatizing space..

I'm not saying that NASA hasn't contributed mightily to our knowledge, just that they're a typical .gov bureaucracy.  What have they done for us in the past 2 decades the couldn't have been done better and more efficiently by encouraging the private sector?

[MicroBalrog]

I say cut it now.  Bring our people home and then let the Russian space program wither on the vine.  See if they can do anything without our money.  I can think of a lot of things $60,000,000 could do right here at home.

Russia's space agency has an annual budget of $5.6 billion, do you really think that the loss of $60 million dollars will make it wither on the wine?

[RevDisk]

I say cut it now.  Bring our people home and then let the Russian space program wither on the vine.  See if they can do anything without our money.  I can think of a lot of things $60,000,000 could do right here at home.

Russia's space program is superior to our own space program in terms of launch capacity. Hence why we buy rides from them, dude.

OUR space program is withering on the vines, not their's. SpaceX is our only practical solution at the moment.

No question that NASA has become corrupted by politics, but it still does some work to push back the frontiers of human knowledge. WIC hasn't accomplished anything more than facilitate the breeding of more WIC dependents.

Which is NSF's job. NASA should only be doing space and aeronautical research. Preferably stuff that has practical applications to actually being in space. LACKING A MANNED LAUNCH PLATFORM IS A PRETTY FRIGGIN BIG GAP IN THAT MISSION PROFILE. NASA is currently not planning manned Orion capacity until 2021. Thankfully someone sane in the US govt is shoveling a decent number of contracts at SpaceX for when Orion underdelivers and overruns budgets.

[cordex]

Also, the 2020 end of service is really just a refusal to extend the ISS end-of-life, isn't it?

[Ben]

Russia's space program is superior to our own space program in terms of launch capacity. Hence why we buy rides from them, dude.

OUR space program is withering on the vines, not their's. SpaceX is our only practical solution at the moment.

Sadly, while our government programs may still outpace the Ruskies in technological, engineering, and medical innovation, we have become slackards in exercising our abilities, all too often for political or "safety" reasons. If there is a 0.01% chance that something might go wrong, we all too often choose not to proceed. The Ruskies (and some other countries) have become better risk takers than us. I'm not sure if we'll ever go back to the "hold my beer and watch this" culture of the Apollo era.

[RevDisk]

Sadly, while our government programs may still outpace the Ruskies in technological, engineering, and medical innovation, we have become slackards in exercising our abilities, all too often for political or "safety" reasons. If there is a 0.01% chance that something might go wrong, we all too often choose not to proceed. The Ruskies (and some other countries) have become better risk takers than us. I'm not sure if we'll ever go back to the "hold my beer and watch this" culture of the Apollo era.

And yet their safety record is better than our's.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spaceflight-related_accidents_and_incidents

[roo_ster]

And yet their safety record is better than our's.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spaceflight-related_accidents_and_incidents

A blown up shuttle here and there and pretty soon you are talking real risk image management.

[MicroBalrog]

Really I think this is a good thing.

LEt us separate the two space programs and restart the space race.

[RoadKingLarry]

And yet their safety record is better than our's.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spaceflight-related_accidents_and_incidents

I'm not entirely willing to accept the Soviet's word on how safe their space program was in the earlier days.

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

Yea they hid a few oopsys back in the day

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I537 using Tapatalk

[MicroBalrog]

I'm not entirely willing to accept the Soviet's word on how safe their space program was in the earlier days.

Fine, take just the post-Soviet era. The gap will not become less pronounced.

[RevDisk]

Fine, take just the post-Soviet era. The gap will not become less pronounced.

Boris is correct. While I suspect there are some, but less than many believe. Most of the noteworthy Soviet accidents have now leaked or been declassified by either Russians, Americans or just random folks.

[HankB]

A blown up shuttle here and there and pretty soon you are talking real risk image management.

First shuttle was lost due to a poor management decision, influenced by politics. (They wanted to maintain launch schedule for political reasons.)

Second shuttle was lost due to a poor engineering decision, influenced by politics. (For political reasons NASA switched to a "green" foam insulation on the fuel tank, and stayed with it, even though NASA's own website covering previous launches indicated pieces were coming off.)

Note the common influence in both disasters.

And they are no longer hiring the best and the brightest. One of the trade journals I read had a letter from a NASA manager - he had an opening to hire someone, and was told that even though he could interview anyone he wanted, the person he hired would be a black woman. I've heard elsewhere that "diversity" was the new driving factor in NASA hiring, since the agency workforce was "too white."

[cordex]

Note the common influence in both disasters.

I guess Russia keeps politics out of their space program.

[RevDisk]

Note the common influence in both disasters.

NASA making poor decisions? You could argue it's because their brass don't have the stones to tell hippies to shut their pie holes, or tell some feeble responsibility ducking politicians that no, we're NOT launching. Or engineers for not throwing down their tools and saying "You're not killing anyone today, you tosser!" Or whatever. At the end of the day, it was NASA's area of responsibility and it failed as an organization.

The solution is to hire someone very good to run NASA, give them the flexibility to make significant changes, and tell them to succeed or NASA is shut down.

[cordex]

The solution is to hire someone very good to run NASA, give them the flexibility to make significant changes, and tell them to succeed or NASA is shut down.

Also maybe make sure their name ends in "-ov", "-chenko", "-vich", "-chev", or "-sky".

[roo_ster]

NASA making poor decisions? You could argue it's because their brass don't have the stones to tell hippies to shut their pie holes, or tell some feeble responsibility ducking politicians that no, we're NOT launching. Or engineers for not throwing down their tools and saying "You're not killing anyone today, you tosser!" Or whatever. At the end of the day, it was NASA's area of responsibility and it failed as an organization.

The solution is to hire someone very good to run NASA, give them the flexibility to make significant changes, and tell them to succeed or NASA is shut down.

This.  

[HankB]

Also maybe make sure their name ends in "-ov", "-chenko", "-vich", "-chev", or "-sky".

Or maybe includes a "Von-"

[cordex]

Or maybe includes a "Von-"

The Germans did amazing things with rockets, but their program's safety record leaves a lot to be desired.  Especially when it comes to rocket construction and ground crew.