For about five years America is going to depend on the Russians for access to the Space Station. Suppose because of happenings in Georgia the Russians decline to do their part?
“The new challenge we have is that for approximately five years, the plan — which is a very bad plan but is the only plan that NASA and the administration and Congress have approved — is to be dependent on the Russian Soyuz vehicle to get people to and from the international space station,” said Tom Feeney, (R-FL). “And so now, with the political realities with Russia invading Georgia, we have a new wrinkle thrown in.”
Tom Feeney is right. It is a very bad plan. So what can be done?
Full speed ahead with private efforts to get into space in the same way the US Government sponsored air mail contracts to get the fledgling aircraft industry off the ground.
How about a competition to get private industry to supply the space station?
Cross Posted at Power and Control
Comments
5 responses to “Space Without The Russians”
I disagree. We could have had this: http://manconquersspace.com/downloads/movies/MCS_TeaserIII_1280.mov but we chose not to have it because we’re rotten. We don’t deserve it. Let’s just forget about it and watch American Idol.
Fat Guy,
I still have my original copy of “The Conquest of Space” bought when I was a kid.
Woulda, coulda, shoulda. All crap. What are we going to do now?
BTW we are not rotten. Just prudent. With all the advances in technology in the last 40 year we will get into space at a much lower cost.
Americans are slow to excite. When they get excited they can move worlds.
Yeah, Fat Guy, those grapes were probably sour anyway…
Your attitude is an incomprehensible to me as the sizable chunk of sci-fi fans who were opposed to Bush’s plans for going back to the Moon and on to Mars. They started dragging out the same excuses that Mundanes use when the subject comes up: Too expensive, too much needs fixing dirtside before we start moving out, too dangerous, yadda, yadda, yadda… Worse example of BDS I’ve ever seen, but at least they had that excuse. “We didn’t do it then, so now we never should do it, because we don’t deserve to”? That’s just pathetic. I hope you don’t apply that attitude to your social life…
SPACE ELEVATOR!!! SPACE ELEVATOR!!!
That’s the coolest thing going and one of the most low tech and inexpensive. Just gotta invent the thether, the rest is easy.
If I’m wrong, I don’t want to know. Don’t burst my bubble.
The Space Elevator is impossible given the current state and expected advances in materials science. The problem is fundamental – bond strength.
The Launch Loop is practical. Look it up.