Mar 20 2014
Why Russia Is Laughing At America
There is an aspect of the current aggressive Russian actions that people probably completely overlooked, and that is a stupid, short sighted decision made by this administration a few years back. That decision has made the US impotent in the face of Russia today. I wrote about that decision at the time:
Short Sighted Fools In DC
There is a rule on NASA missions that we can never design or implement a mission which relies on foreign resources to succeed or be safe. It has been a major barrier to international joint efforts forever because just about everything in a space mission is critical to its success. You can’t have a successful Hubble, for example, if you can’t get it into orbit, can’t communicate with it on a daily basis, can’t respond quickly to anomalies.
…
The norm is for a mission to be self sufficient in terms of US resources to operate within all expected and emergency scenarios. Until Obama, Pelosi and Reid took charge that is.
Now the International Space Station is incapable of being supported by American technology and resources. Not since the Democrat fools in the last Congress and this White House retired the space shuttle fleet AND ALSO cancelled the program to replace that fleet with another (cheaper) mode of transportation (i.e., the Orion program):
The Obama Administration’s proposed cancellation of the Constellation program in February 2010 and was signed into law October 11, [2010]
This job killing myopic act illustrates the clumsy, unthinking rashness of this White House and the last Congress. Apparently the President wanted Americans with shovels working, not exploring space and holding onto our technical edge in that final frontier of humanity. This White House is the first since Kennedy to halt America’s leadership in having people in space.
Today the International Space Station we spent billions of tax payer dollars to deploy can only be accessed via Russian manned launch systems. America has no method to send or retrieve our astronauts to this national treasure without Russia. And Putin knows this. Everyone knows this.
We are being held hostage because Democrats made a bone-head decision and violated a common sense law regarding America’s access to space. And that is why we can only bluster and bluff as Vlad marches into Crimea.
I would agree that the decision to make our dependence on Russia for astronaut taxi duties was and remains a horrible one. And shame on Congress and Obama for doing that. But to suggest that this is the reason why we can’t do anything in Crimea is ignoring a long list of other reasons, such as:
1) We lost the moral high ground due to all of the foreign adventurism of the Bush and Obama Presidencies.
2) Ukraine is too far away and too difficult to get to to support militarily.
3) Obama has been made into a fool and tool by Putin with Syria, Georgia and South Ossetia, Iran etc because he cannot work out for himself that 99.9% of what Putin says is Russian nationalist, communist, KGB, Machiavellian and mendacious.
4) Clinton made the Ukrainians give up their nuclear arsenal because American foreign policy has become nuclear neurotic over the last four decades. Had Ukraine held onto the nuclear arsenal that they had (after the Soviet break up) Ukraine would not be losing Crimea right now.
Yes, it’s sad that we can’t ship astronauts to the space station. But I think that can be remedied by NASA much faster than the epic and ongoing foreign policy failures of this Administration and its clueless State Department. Give NASA the chance, I bet they could get astronauts to the ISS within three to six months. How many years is it going to take to fix what Obama and the Democrats (with the fellow traveling GOP) have wrought?
[…] enough. It’s that, back in 2010, when he wasn’t even in full flexibility mode, Obama handed something very valuable over to Putin. And Putin, being no fool, will play this card as he reinstates the former Soviet Unions […]
Time to face the truth – It’s no longer an “International” space station, it’s a Russian Space Station. And what’s the point anymore of sending some poor sap up periodically to cool his heels in a useless Russian tin can with a wall outlet?
It’s dead, Jim. Let it go.
and that really applies to our entire government funded space program. Private outlets may have some good promise, but as far as NASA goes – it’s dead. Write a nice obituary, build a good cenotaph, and let it go.
we were not worthwhile inheritors of our parents legacy, and their trust in future generations, meaning us, was woefully misplaced.