NASA Had No Choice But To Buy Soyuz Flights

January 10, 2006

NASA's announcement last week that it will pay Roskosmos $43.6 million for a round-trip ride to the International Space Station this spring, and an equivalent figure for an as-yet-undetermined number of future flights to the station until 2012, represents the agency's acknowledgment that it had no alternative.

The deal was reached recently between the two space agencies after Congress last October amended the Iran Nonproliferation Act to permit NASA to conduct commerce with its Russian counterpart. The act had prohibited such transactions, because the both the Clinton and Bush administrations determined that the Russian government was aiding the development of Iran's nuclear program.

The fact that both the Bush administration and Congress agreed on the need to exempt ISS activities from the prohibition underscores the desperate situation in which NASA finds itself regarding manned spaceflight.

"If the U.S. is to maintain a presence on the ISS and take advantage of the billions invested in the facility, we must rely on the Russians," Joe Pouliot, a spokesman for the House Science Committee, which oversees NASA, told SpaceDaily.com.

"It's clear we have to rely on Soyuz and Progress, and we definitely have to pay for it," Pouliot said.

Such comments sum up NASA's predicament succinctly. Since February 1, 2003, when shuttle Columbia disintegrated during re-entry over the Southwestern United States, and with only the exception of shuttle Discovery's 14-day mission beginning last July 25, the U.S. space program has lacked any capability of putting humans into orbit.

The subsequent re-grounding of the shuttle program after Discovery's problem-plagued flight dashed any hopes of a return to regular and frequent missions.

The Congressional Research Service reached more or less identical conclusions in an analysis of the situation completed early last year. "A key issue is whether the nonproliferation benefits gained by linking the ISS to Russian proliferation behavior are worth the costs to the U.S. space program at this point in time," the CRS analysts wrote.

"From a space program perspective, the … question is the extent to which NASA needs to have U.S. astronauts on the ISS for long duration missions between 2006 and 2010, and to have any astronauts there after 2010."

Under the new agreement, NASA will pay $43.8 million for Roskosmos to fly U.S. astronaut Jeffrey Williams to the ISS in March, and return Bill McArthur, the current U.S. space station commander, home.

The amount also will cover the cost of a Soyuz craft if necessary as an emergency escape craft, and for training in Russia of a NASA astronaut who will replace Williams in September, NASA spokeswoman Melissa Mathews told reporters at a briefing last Thursday.

Copyright 2006 by Space Daily, Distributed United Press International

4.6 /5 (7 votes)  

Rank 4.6 /5 (7 votes)
Tags

Related Stories
Relevant PhysicsForums posts

More news stories

Could Venus be shifting gear?

(PhysOrg.com) -- ESA’s Venus Express spacecraft has discovered that our cloud-covered neighbour spins a little slower than previously measured. Peering through the dense atmosphere in the infrared, the ...

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created 22 hours ago | popularity 5 / 5 (7) | comments 8 | with audio podcast

Two new moons for Jupiter

Advances in technology have lead to the discovery of new planets outside of our Solar System, and now even new moons in our own backyard.

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created 22 hours ago | popularity 4 / 5 (1) | comments 7

Mars Science Laboratory computer issue resolved

(PhysOrg.com) -- Engineers have found the root cause of a computer reset that occurred two months ago on NASA's Mars Science Laboratory and have determined how to correct it.

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created 23 hours ago | popularity 4.7 / 5 (6) | comments 4 | with audio podcast

NASA sees wide-eyed cyclone Jasmine

Cyclone Jasmine's eye has opened wider on NASA satellite imagery, as it moves through the Southern Pacific Ocean.

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created 14 hours ago | popularity 3.5 / 5 (2) | comments 2

Clam fields found at deep, low-temperature Mariana vents

(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists have marveled at the unusual life forms thriving at high temperature hydrothermal vents of the deep ocean.

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created 22 hours ago | popularity 4.3 / 5 (3) | comments 0 | with audio podcast


Anonymous knocks CIA website offline (Update)

The website of the Central Intelligence Agency was inaccessible on Friday after the hacker group Anonymous claimed to have knocked it offline.

New error-correcting codes guarantee the fastest possible rate of data transmission

Error-correcting codes are one of the triumphs of the digital age. They’re a way of encoding information so that it can be transmitted across a communication channel — such as an optical fiber o ...

Small modular reactor design could be a 'SUPERSTAR'

(PhysOrg.com) -- Though most of today's nuclear reactors are cooled by water, we've long known that there are alternatives; in fact, the world's first nuclear-powered electricity in 1951 came from a reactor ...

New power source discovered

(PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and RMIT University have made a breakthrough in energy storage and power generation.

The power of estrogen -- male snakes attract other males

A new study has shown that boosting the estrogen levels of male garter snakes causes them to secrete the same pheromones that females use to attract suitors, and turned the males into just about the sexiest ...

Advanced power-grid model finds low-cost, low-carbon future in West

(PhysOrg.com) -- The least expensive way for the Western U.S. to reduce greenhouse gas emissions enough to help prevent the worst consequences of global warming is to replace coal with renewable and other ...