Should we be paying Russia to get us to space?

[Screw_Michigan]

John McCain got Russian-made rocket engines banned from US use by 2019 in last year's defense authorization act, claiming the national security impact of funding Russia, but NASA buys $426 million worth of Russian rides to the International Space Station every year. Additionally, the Air Force wants to compete 34 launches through 2022 to drive down the price of launch. Unfortunately one of two companies currently certified to launch for DoD will only be able to compete in five of those launches through that date because of the law, so DoD is asking lawmakers to change it, allowing additional RD-180 purchases. The other company, SpaceX, is against this because it would have a monopoly in the latter years of this decade.

Ironically, McCain got the engine banned because he didn't want money going to Putin's "cronies," but NASA continues to pay Russia to get our astronauts up because Congress, specifically the Senate, treat commercial space launch like its slush fund, hurting its best chance to get off the Russian engine. The opportunity cost is awful, too. The $426 million plus the billions flushed down the toilet on a shitty NASA rocket called the Space Launch System is just total waste. All because lawmakers have porked the shit out of that program, SLS, who gives a shit if it's a horrible deal for taxpayers?

What do you guys think? Fuck you, in advance.

[smackaholic]

Given the way the feds overpay for anything, the money we are paying the russkies to hitch a ride, is prolly a bargain. That being said, we should figure out a way to do it ourselves.

[Screw_Michigan]

DoD cares more about getting spy satellites to orbit than it does paying Russia for ISS rides. I hear its because McCain hates the Air Force and Boeing from the aerial refueling tanker scandal the late 2000s when an acquisition official steered a giant contract to Boeing and ended up in prison. He's taking out on them.

[Mikey]

Given the way the feds overpay for anything, the money we are paying the russkies to hitch a ride, is prolly a bargain. That being said, we should figure out a way to do it ourselves.

We know how to do it ourselves. Congress would rather spend money on futile expeditions to the Middle Earth East. That makes a lot of sense.

They'd rather send our guys up in a Yugo than a a high quality American made Cadillac.

[smackaholic]

Given the way the feds overpay for anything, the money we are paying the russkies to hitch a ride, is prolly a bargain. That being said, we should figure out a way to do it ourselves.

We know how to do it ourselves. Congress would rather spend money on futile expeditions to the Middle Earth East. That makes a lot of sense.

They'd rather send our guys up in a Yugo than a a high quality American made Cadillac.

Sorry, but heavy lift space travel, is not like riding a fukking bike. It is a use it or lose it skill, I would think. If we go thirty years without doing it, we will get a bit rusty.

[Felix]

Sorry, but heavy lift space travel, is not like riding a fukking bike. It is a use it or lose it skill, I would think. If we go thirty years without doing it, we will get a bit rusty.

well said...launching a rocket and sending men (or women) into space is a complex task......the consequences of not knowing what you're doing are evident
the russians have maintained their space program while our congressional "leaders" have stripped it to it's bone in order to give more money to defense and fund our little expeditions all over the world.....it's not like we'd be starting from scratch, but if you look at it on a cost/benefit basis, it makes more economic sense for us right now to hitch rides with the ruskies....if the congress ever decides to pull it's collective head out of their asses and give NASA the funding it needs, we could probably have a viable launch vehicle in a couple of years......

[Mikey]

Given the way the feds overpay for anything, the money we are paying the russkies to hitch a ride, is prolly a bargain. That being said, we should figure out a way to do it ourselves.

We know how to do it ourselves. Congress would rather spend money on futile expeditions to the Middle Earth East. That makes a lot of sense.

They'd rather send our guys up in a Yugo than a a high quality American made Cadillac.

Sorry, but heavy lift space travel, is not like riding a fukking bike. It is a use it or lose it skill, I would think. If we go thirty years without doing it, we will get a bit rusty.

It hasn't been anywhere close to thirty years.

[mvscal]

the russians have maintained their space program while our congressional "leaders" have stripped it to it's bone in order to give more money to defense and fund our little expeditions all over the world.....

Spit the dick out of your mouth, you fucked up moron. The Russians have not maintained their space program. In fact, it is about to take a 40% haircut over the next ten years. NASA's budget is more than four times what the Russians spend. Even if the Russians fully funded their program, their $6.7 per annum billion would be utterly dwarfed by NASA's $17 billon.

Economic Crisis Guts Russia's Space Budget
The Moscow Times
Apr. 15 2015 19:49

Russia's Federal Space Agency has reduced its upcoming funding request by 41 percent to 2 trillion rubles ($40 billion) over the next decade, according to a statement published on the Roscosmos website Wednesday.

"It should be noted that the designated volume of federal funds is the absolute minimum for guaranteeing that we achieve [our] established objectives," said the chairman of Roscosmos's internal planning body, Yury Koptev.

Just three weeks ago, Koptev quoted 3.4 trillion rubles ($67.5 billion) as the agency's funding target in its proposed Federal Space Program 2016-2025 — a document that lays out Russia's space activities over the next decade and specifies the funding allocated to each project. The original draft of the program was completed last year, but Russia's economic crisis has forced the government to reevaluate its spending priorities. Russia's economy is expected to shrink by up to 5 percent this year amid low oil prices and Western sanctions over Moscow's role in the Ukraine crisis.

The drastic reduction in proposed funding will hit Russia's more ambitious space proposals hard.

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/article/519179.html

[Felix]

Spit the dick out of your mouth, you fucked up moron. The Russians have not maintained their space program. In fact, it is about to take a 40% haircut over the next ten years. NASA's budget is more than four times what the Russians spend. Even if the Russians fully funded their program, their $6.7 per annum billion would be utterly dwarfed by NASA's $17 billon.

oh okay now it makes perfect sense as to why we're hitching rides with the Russians, because we spend four times the amount the russians do....Bush killed the space shuttle program back in 2004 and Obama killed the Constellation program which was supposed to replace it.....so to the point the US hasn't put a manned space flight together since 2009, which was a mission to fix the Hubble Telescope, it had nothing to do with space exploration.....the US doesn't seem interested in building another space program, hence the reason they're going to farm it out to the private sector....

[mvscal]

the US doesn't seem interested in building another space program, hence the reason they're going to farm it out to the private sector....

That may be so but it certainly isn't because of any lack of funding. What exactly is NASA doing with those 17 billion dollars a year anyway? Are we really getting our money's worth? Or is that an unfair question to ask?

Would you care to make some other irrelevant deflection?

[smackaholic]

It hasn't been anywhere close to thirty years.

Never said it was, but being an elderly Fukk you realize that time does indeed fly. My point was that if we let it fly that long, we will have nobody on the job that ever put a large payload in space. A better number would likely be 20 years.

[Wolfman]

I'm thinking that money is not the issue either. There's something deeper going on with the current power structure. It also includes downsizing our military. Pretty pathetic that the folks that went to the moon and developed a space shuttle are relegated to hitching rides on old soviet platforms.

[Screw_Michigan]

oh okay now it makes perfect sense as to why we're hitching rides with the Russians, because we spend four times the amount the russians do....

How much we spend compared to the Russians is irrelevant. The Russian space program is in disarray. Mvs posted a link already and the Moscow Times reported recently that Russia is consolidating a number of its state owned space companies, including the company that makes the rocket engine that McCain got banned. They have also had a couple of recent launch failures and a space capsule failure on the way to ISS. Point being: Russia's best and brightest are not going into space. The US is going through something similar, but nothing nearly as bad as Russia.

the US doesn't seem interested in building another space program, hence the reason they're going to farm it out to the private sector....

We have a space program. What do you think NASA is? Unless you're talking about space program = space exploration. That's where SLS comes in, unfortunately lawmakers who don't give a shit about NASA have turned SLS into a jobs program while the contractors who work on SLS (Boeing, Aerojet Rocketdyne) don't give a fuck because they're recipients of that pork.

At this point, Musk is light years past NASA when it comes to rocketry and if/when Jeff Bezos gets online, just let commercial space take care of certain exploration missions. The problem is these certain "free market Republicans" who want to outsource everything all of the sudden want NASA to build, control and own everything related to space simply because of their districts.

[Joe in PB]

Sure hitching rides with the Ruski's seems counterproductive, but then so was the Space Shuttle the last decade or so. What you're not considering is the black budget and highly classified projects that make rockets for space travel obsolete.

[Diego in Seattle]

Given the way the feds overpay for anything, the money we are paying the russkies to hitch a ride, is prolly a bargain. That being said, we should figure out a way to do it ourselves.

We know how to do it ourselves. Congress would rather spend money on futile expeditions to the Middle Earth East. That makes a lot of sense.

They'd rather send our guys up in a Yugo than a a high quality American made Cadillac.

They did send us up once in a Jaguar.

Sin,
James Lovell, John Swigert, and Fred Haise

[Felix]

That may be so but it certainly isn't because of any lack of funding. What exactly is NASA doing with those 17 billion dollars a year anyway? Are we really getting our money's worth? Or is that an unfair question to ask?

Would you care to make some other irrelevant deflection?

it's not an irrelevant deflection, it was intended to elicit the question you posed.....exactly what are we getting for our "more than four times what the Russians spend" when we can't even get a space ship launched? I mean sure the Russians spend less because we're kicking in for gas money hitchiking on their space flights.....

but to the point, what are we getting for 17 billion?
you want to take a stab at there hoss?

What you're not considering is the black budget and highly classified projects that make rockets for space travel obsolete.

have you been reading the Area 51 website again? projects that will make rocket travel obsolete? what like flying saucers or space jets with cloaking devices?

the "highly classified projects" are always directed at defense, not at the exploration of space.......

[Atomic Punk]

NASA = govt pork for govt contractors. However, what does the 1st A in NASA stand for? Aeronautics. They operate under the notion of funding to provide the contractors R&D for future military aircraft and other things that fly in the atmosphere.

The private companies that are wanting to go to space are flipping the bill (or some of it) for R&D for things like the Mars mission(s) etc., and are going to be regulated by?

Right now there is the Orion project and the 1st flight happened recently. It looked like an over-sized Apollo capsule that landed off the West coast. There are nut jobs that want to colonize Mars. Go to their website and see for yourselves.

[smackaholic]

maybe we should leave it to the russkies....

https://www.bing.com/news/search?q=Rock ... &FORM=EWRE

[mvscal]

but to the point, what are we getting for 17 billion?
you want to take a stab at there hoss?

I have no idea. It sure doesn't seem like very much for 17 billion. You were the one whimpering about NASA's budget being "cut to the bone." Seems to me we could trim that budget another 30 to 40 percent and not miss anything. Of course the same can be said of every government agency.

We can start with 100% cuts to every department not authorized by the Constitution.

[Truman]

What exactly is NASA doing with those 17 billion dollars a year anyway? Are we really getting our money's worth? Or is that an unfair question to ask?

You do realize feel-good Muslim outreach programs don't exactly come cheap these days, right?

[Mikey]

http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files ... imates.pdf