Russia desperately lobbies the U.S. to continue and expand its space partnership
Roscosmos: a paper tiger
A string of short articles in Russia’s state-run press today, describing the meetings between the head of Roscosmos, Dmitry Bakanov, and interim NASA administrator Sean Duffy, suggest strongly that Russia is desperate to link itself with someone in order to continue its generally bankrupt space program.
Bakanov is making his first visit to the U.S. He and Duffy are also conducting the first face-to-face talks by the heads of their respective agencies in eight years. While the U.S. press has been entirely uninterested in these discussions, mostly because it knows little of substance will come of them other than an agreement to maintain the partnership at ISS through its planned retirement in 2030, the reaction by Russia’s press has been remarkably fawning, repeatedly proposing the U.S. and Russia expand their partnership beyond ISS:
- Russia, US unwilling to waste achievements of 50-year-long space cooperation — Roscosmos
- Roscosmos invites NASA to cooperate on projects outside scope of sanctions
- NASA, Roscosmos heads discuss cooperation in exploration of Moon, deep space
- Roscosmos chief expects acting NASA director to visit Moscow to continue dialogue
Very clearly, Bakanov was trying to convince Duffy to consider a greater partnership, whereby Roscosmos and NASA do other space projects together. He might have even been offering to join NASA’s Artemis program to explore the Moon.
It appears from the other Russian state-run reports, however, that Duffy’s response was diplomatic but unenthused by such a proposal. All he apparently agreed to was to continue the ISS partnership, until the station’s retirement.
- Acting NASA chief endorses direct technical talks with Roscosmos — CEO
- Acting NASA head confirms readiness to continue cross-flights with Russia — Roscosmos CEO
- Acting NASA head confirms need to maintain ties with Russia — Roscosmos chief
- Roscosmos chief says he, acting NASA head agree to continue using ISS until 2028
That Russia is now offering to partner with NASA in exploring the Moon tells us that its 2021 partnership with China to develop China’s own lunar base is going nowhere. Russia needs cash and technical support from someone, and it now appears China is unwilling to give it. It is glad to have Russia as a partner, but it isn’t going to depend on Russia for anything, and it apparently isn’t willing to provide Russia any funds for its own lunar efforts. And Russia’s own contribution to that project has been less than nil so far.
So Russia is now looking to NASA and the U.S. taxpayer for help. Since the fall of the Soviet Union Roscosmos has been unable to get much of anything new off the ground. It has only partly finished its half of ISS, and that took one to two decades longer than planned. And it only happened because of U.S. funding. None of its other projects outside of the ISS in the past three decades have gotten much farther than nice PowerPoint presentations.
Roscosmos says it is building Russia’s own space station to replace ISS, but based on its track record in the past quarter century, it is doubtful it has the money or capability of getting it launched. It needs help, and these state-run news articles tell us that it is now lobbying NASA for that assistance.
As long as Russia continues to wage war in the Ukraine, there is not a chance a Trump administration will agree to such a thing. When ISS goes, Russia will be on its own in space. And it is not likely it will be a major player, based on almost everything we presently know about its space program.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Roscosmos: a paper tiger
A string of short articles in Russia’s state-run press today, describing the meetings between the head of Roscosmos, Dmitry Bakanov, and interim NASA administrator Sean Duffy, suggest strongly that Russia is desperate to link itself with someone in order to continue its generally bankrupt space program.
Bakanov is making his first visit to the U.S. He and Duffy are also conducting the first face-to-face talks by the heads of their respective agencies in eight years. While the U.S. press has been entirely uninterested in these discussions, mostly because it knows little of substance will come of them other than an agreement to maintain the partnership at ISS through its planned retirement in 2030, the reaction by Russia’s press has been remarkably fawning, repeatedly proposing the U.S. and Russia expand their partnership beyond ISS:
- Russia, US unwilling to waste achievements of 50-year-long space cooperation — Roscosmos
- Roscosmos invites NASA to cooperate on projects outside scope of sanctions
- NASA, Roscosmos heads discuss cooperation in exploration of Moon, deep space
- Roscosmos chief expects acting NASA director to visit Moscow to continue dialogue
Very clearly, Bakanov was trying to convince Duffy to consider a greater partnership, whereby Roscosmos and NASA do other space projects together. He might have even been offering to join NASA’s Artemis program to explore the Moon.
It appears from the other Russian state-run reports, however, that Duffy’s response was diplomatic but unenthused by such a proposal. All he apparently agreed to was to continue the ISS partnership, until the station’s retirement.
- Acting NASA chief endorses direct technical talks with Roscosmos — CEO
- Acting NASA head confirms readiness to continue cross-flights with Russia — Roscosmos CEO
- Acting NASA head confirms need to maintain ties with Russia — Roscosmos chief
- Roscosmos chief says he, acting NASA head agree to continue using ISS until 2028
That Russia is now offering to partner with NASA in exploring the Moon tells us that its 2021 partnership with China to develop China’s own lunar base is going nowhere. Russia needs cash and technical support from someone, and it now appears China is unwilling to give it. It is glad to have Russia as a partner, but it isn’t going to depend on Russia for anything, and it apparently isn’t willing to provide Russia any funds for its own lunar efforts. And Russia’s own contribution to that project has been less than nil so far.
So Russia is now looking to NASA and the U.S. taxpayer for help. Since the fall of the Soviet Union Roscosmos has been unable to get much of anything new off the ground. It has only partly finished its half of ISS, and that took one to two decades longer than planned. And it only happened because of U.S. funding. None of its other projects outside of the ISS in the past three decades have gotten much farther than nice PowerPoint presentations.
Roscosmos says it is building Russia’s own space station to replace ISS, but based on its track record in the past quarter century, it is doubtful it has the money or capability of getting it launched. It needs help, and these state-run news articles tell us that it is now lobbying NASA for that assistance.
As long as Russia continues to wage war in the Ukraine, there is not a chance a Trump administration will agree to such a thing. When ISS goes, Russia will be on its own in space. And it is not likely it will be a major player, based on almost everything we presently know about its space program.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
NO.
Ray Van Dune: Heh. Please, tell us what you think of this. :)
Trump turns off the spigot to Marxist organizations and countries that have been feeding at the American tax payers’ teat for decades and they die.
No more “free” health care, I guess.
Germany’s Fiscal Free Fall: Record Debt, Recession, and Welfare Crisis
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/germanys-fiscal-free-fall-record-debt-recession-and-welfare-crisis
Didn’t Germany try to prop the Greeks up?
There’s your problem
The Swedes go by Jante’….the Greeks wanted low taxes and big benefits–and it looks like they dragged the krauts down.
Russia’s tenure even as a mendicant space power – especially a manned spaceflight power -will last no longer than the date of the last crew departure from ISS prior to its controlled de-orbiting. Based on remarks at today’s post-Crew-11-launch press conference, that will be no more than five years hence.
There are, of course, easily imaginable scenarios under which that date arrives sooner. Russia builds military missiles in some of the same factories that also turn out its space launcher hardware. The growing ability of Ukraine to smash Russian industrial facilities at steadily growing distances from its nominal borders with Russia may make it impossible for Russia to continue space activities – including manned and cargo launches to ISS – well before an additional five years have elapsed.
And then there’s the decidedly non-zero probability of a Ukrainian column of Abrams and Leopard II tanks rolling into Red Square and reducing the Kremlin to powder with point-blank direct fire. At the rate Russia is burning through both men and equipment, I think such a scenario is fairly plausible at pretty much any point beyond roughly two years hence. With a bit of luck and increased Western support to Ukraine, it might even happen sooner.
With Medvedev threatening war, asking for help with their space program takes chutzpah,
In the 1990s, working with Roscosmos in space at least seemed to make some plausible policy sense: Keep the Russian aerospace engineers from going off to work for rogue states and give a boost to what looked like a vaguely emerging democratic government under Boris Yeltsin, and pick up a few votes in the House to get space station funding over the finish line.
I’m not saying *I* would have done it, but I grokked the argument.
Today, the rationales that existed in those days no longer apply. Honestly, if there were a way to eject the Russian segment that wasn’t prohibitively difficult and expensive, it would be difficult to oppose it.
So, enjoy it while it lasts, Dmitry.