Russia-America space alliance

I've heard that the Russian space budget is $170 million/year,
approximately. That's less than one STS launch. It's difficult to see
what 'alliance' means in that context, besides a one-way flow of money from
my country (U.S.) to Russia.

The dependence on Russia for ISS components proved to be disastorous to the
U.S. Modules were delivered very late due to budgetary problems within
Russia, and this lateness caused a lot of excess spending on the U.S. side
--- you can't just lay off your entire workforce and then tell them to come
back when the Russian module arrives. Many said in hindsight that it
would have been cheaper to build the hardware that Russia ultimately
provided within the U.S. instead. Based on this poor track record, I
would hope that our U.S. Congress will look very suspiciously on any
dependence on Russian hardware for any future endeavors.

Sea Launch and ILS marketing of Proton flights and other services seem to
be doing well. Less government is better with respect to these
activities, so I would hope they are not part of your alliance plans.

Russia needs dollars badly. There seems to be an idea floating about in
ssi_list that Russia should offer its launchers to the world on the cheap.
I disagree strongly. I hope that they will extract the maximum willingness
to pay from their customers, and reap the associated profits. If it costs
them $x million to put a satellite into LEO or GEO, and they're able to get
someone to pay $4x million for that service, then that's a good thing, not
a bad --- they need those profits for a variety of reasons.

Ron Menich

"Zachary
me.com>

06/17/01
03:45 PM
Please
respond to
ssi_list

After reading a recent Washington Post highlighting Bush's trip to Europe
and looking up on my wall at never-opened boxes with never-assembled USSR
rocket models, I got a little excited. Most of the Post talks about how
Europeans are impressed (?) with Bush, but do not like his policies at all.
There is also an article about Bush's meeting with Putin. Apparently Bush
'changed his mind' and has decided that a Russian-American friendship would
be really good. As for the actual details of the meeting, it was mostly
Putin being nice and trying to convince Bush to abandon the missile-defense
program. The meeting seemed to be about disagreements mostly, but
considering that Bush has newfound enthusiasm in good Russian relations
maybe something could happen? Although missile defense is the most touchy
subject, and space has a lot to do with it, a Russian-American space
alliance would still be a possibility. The pooled resources of the two
most
(at one time or another at least) prestigious space-faring nations in the
world might be a good thing. I'm not sure NASA could cooperate very well
in
its current state, or that I'd want NASA to have such direct control of the
only breath-of-fresh-air from NASA, but changes could be made. I'm sure a
Russian-American space 'shared' space organization with launches all over
the world (or at least on opposite ends of it) could work. Maybe Dennis
Tito would be very good as the American administrator (he certainly does
have experience with the Russians, although he may not want to work for the
government). Bush would definitely be enthusiastic about a pro-business
space policy that drives the Rus-American space organization to develop
cheaper launch technology etc. that also leaves room for some science here
and there (a pluto probed would be built in space of course). The Russians
would probably not mind it if the Americans came with money and promised to
work primarily on helping Russian and American space business. It would
all
probably work as long as someone didn't tell Bush that space business may
... ahem ... one day significantly reduce the use of oil ... ahem ...
This seems like the best 'next step' to me? However, I have
proven myself
to be a tad bit nutty? If all the Americans and Russians on this list
could
write to their congressmen, and maybe even the big guys, about this it
might
'break through' (like everything else did right ;) ). Seriously, I don't
see how we're going to get anywhere without some major changes to the
system, this may be one.