Posted on 03/06/2014 8:53:58 AM PST by Rusty0604
As the artillery rolls into Ukraine, and the notion that Vladimir Putin’s Russia is an ally has been revealed to one and all to be a fantasy, it’s time to finally end our policy insanity of relying on Russian spaceships for American access to space.
Since the last space shuttle flight two-and-a-half years ago, our only means of getting NASA astronauts (or anyone) to the ISS has been on the Soyuz launch system, at an ever-rising cost, now over $70M a seat as of last August. Alternate competing U.S. means to replace it are under development in NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, but Congress has been continually underfunding the effort in order to instead funnel money to the Space Launch System, a giant rocket with no funded payloads and no apparent mission other than providing job security in the states and districts of those on the congressional space committees.
This issue goes beyond that of sending American taxpayer dollars to the Russian space establishment that could instead be purchasing lower-cost American flights from American providers and creating a new high-tech American industry.
(Excerpt) Read more at pjmedia.com ...
All I can say is “DUH.”
And when did that dependence come into existance? Beginning in 2009 after Obama shut down NASA.
Orion is in heavy development.
Yeah, the one program at NASA Obama didn’t cancel. Big deal.
We should never have had to rely on them in the first place. I blame Bush, and to a lesser extent Clinton.
And the Muslims are having their usual lethal impact.
I believe you can trace the roots of the decline of America's manned space program back to the last Apollo lunar landing. Mission accomplished,causing funds along with critical personnel behind the success of the program to leave NASA. The rest is history.
Until the moon missions stopped, anything seemed possible for the future. I was shocked when they stopped and would have been astounded to know back then that we would never return in 40+ years.
Obama did not shut down NASA. He also did not shut down the human spaceflight program.
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