NASA suspends contact with Russia

[Triton]

Breaking news:

"NASA suspends contact with Russia over Ukraine crisis:
Work on International Space Station will continue"

by Arielle Duhaime-Ross on April 2, 2014 02:03 pm Email @ArielleDRoss
http://www.theverge.com/2014/4/2/5574896/nasa-suspends-contracts-with-russia

Citing Russia’s ongoing violations of Ukraine’s sovereign and territorial integrity, NASA told its officials today that the agency is suspending all contact with Russian government representatives. In an internal NASA memorandum obtained by The Verge, the agency said that the suspension includes travel to Russia, teleconferences, and visits by Russian government officials to NASA facilities. NASA is even suspending the exchange of emails with Russian officials.

Ongoing International Space Station activities are exempt from this suspension, however, as are meetings with other countries held outside of Russia that include the participation of Russian officials. The directives come directly from Michael O'Brien, the agency associate administrator for International and Interagency Relations.

"NASA's goals aren't political," said a NASA scientist who to spoke The Verge on condition of anonymity. "This is one of the first major actions I have heard of from the US government and it is to stop science and technology collaboration... You're telling me there is nothing better?"

Earlier in March, NASA's chief executive, Charles Bolden, told reporters that "everything is normal in our relationship with Russia." But that relationship seems to have gone sour since then. Last week, Bolden used mounting tensions with Russia to blast Congress on its lack of space funding in a blog post, stating that the US' current reliance on Russian space missions was unacceptable.

Here is an excerpt of the memo:

Given Russia's ongoing violation of Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity, until further notice, the U.S. Government has determined that all NASA contacts with Russian Government representatives are suspended, unless the activity has been specifically excepted. This suspension includes NASA travel to Russia and visits by Russian Government representatives to NASA facilities, bilateral meetings, email, and teleconferences or videoconferences. At the present time, only operational International Space Station activities have been excepted. In addition, multilateral meetings held outside of Russia that may include Russian participation are not precluded under the present guidance.

 

[Stargazer]

Can't say I'm surprised. As a matter of fact I wrote about exactly this in a post last week from an ISS-related topic (apparently mine and several other posts have been deleted although they were not offensive — unless I didn't manage to retrace them, which is also possible). It was the next logical step to the current crisis. And now what? Back to Cape Canaveral once again?

 

[TomS]

I'm amused by the NASA scientist who says NASA's goals aren't political. That's a stunning failure to remember the agency's history.

 

[J.A.W.]

Truth stranger than fiction?

Well, I enjoyed the fanciful Clint Eastwood flick - 'Space Cowboys'..

 

[Triton]

I'm amused by the NASA scientist who says NASA's goals aren't political. That's a stunning failure to remember the agency's history.

It doesn't surprise me that a NASA scientist wants the agency to be politically agnostic or appear to be so.

 

[F-14D]

I'm amused by the NASA scientist who says NASA's goals aren't political. That's a stunning failure to remember the agency's history.

It doesn't surprise me that a NASA scientist wants the agency to be politically agnostic or appear to be so.

I'm mostly lurking now because I've hand surgery and it's hard to type with only one hand and an elbow. Of course, given how I post. maybe no one would notice the difference anyway!

Still, I can't help but agree with TomS' point. Tying in with the point made on the closed "If Russia takes the ISS.." topic wherein the Administrator opined that if we angered Russia and they took over the ISS his reaction would be to recommend shutting down our manned launch capability and essentially (IMO) abandoning the US' role in space, it's hard not to feel that many times politics more than results seem to matter. I'd like to reproduce an exact quote from that same Administrator regarding the three most important goals of our space program. These views have never been withdrawn, nor have they been "disavowed" or "clarified" by the Executive Branch:

"When I became the NASA administrator -- or before I became the NASA administrator -- he [the President] charged me with three things. One was he wanted me to help re-inspire children to want to get into science and math, he wanted me to expand our international relationships, and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science ... and math and engineering,"

These are the most important reasons for our space program? Politics indeed...

-back to just watching

 

[Triton]

An anonymous NASA scientist is not a spokesperson for the agency. He or she had no business commenting about NASA policy, especially to the press.

 

[Byeman]

"If Russia takes the ISS.."

Not possible. The ISS can not exist without US support

 

[Byeman]

These are the most important reasons for our space program? Politics indeed...

Correct, that is the purpose of gov't managed programs. Why would one think otherwise? Gov't agencies serve the gov't and its citizens.

 

[F-14D]

These are the most important reasons for our space program? Politics indeed...

Correct, that is the purpose of gov't managed programs. Why would one think otherwise? Gov't agencies serve the gov't and its citizens.

Not completely sure I catch all of your drift. Are you saying it's OK that the most important goals of an agency can be political in nature that have nothing to do with why the agency was set up and what the citizens expect. If Bolden had said that through achieving the goals of NASA's advances in space exploration and aeronautics we will also realize the ancillary benefits he mentioned, I'd see nothing wrong there. But to make those sideshows the reason for NASA's existence seems to be fundamentally wrong. Take the word "NASA" out of his statement, and put in "Coast Guard" or "FAA" or "Highway Safety Administration" and you can see what I mean.

Politics of course play into every thing. There's a reason the Johnson Space Center was built in Texas rather than at Canaveral, but even in this case NASA's goal was to get to the Moon, etc., not to build a building.

So Bolden's recent statement that if Russia took the ISS his response would be to recommend that the US respond by killing our manned space program is particularly disturbing to me because it reveals a mindset that puts politics itself not just a factor or a means to an end, but the end itself.

Or maybe I'm reading too much into your statement, in which case I'm sorry.

 

[F-14D]

"If Russia takes the ISS.."

Not possible. The ISS can not exist without US support

Why not? They're the only ones that can get people to/from it, they can certainly resupply it, and given that their control centers are in charge at various times already, why couldn't they run it for a certain period of time to achieve political goals?

The ISS would not exist without US support, because we had the only thing that could build it. But it's been built and the system that did it has been retired. Today, even we couldn't build it.

I don't really think such a thing would happen, but it's an interesting thought exercise.

 

[Triton]

"National disagreement over NASA's goals and objectives detrimental to agency planning"
Date: December 5, 2012
Source: National Academy of Sciences

Source:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/12/121205132407.htm

Without a national consensus on strategic goals and objectives for NASA, the agency cannot be expected to establish or work toward achieving long-term priorities, says a new report from the National Research Council.In addition, there is a mismatch between the portfolio of programs and activities assigned to the agency and the budget allocated by Congress, and legislative restrictions inhibit NASA from more efficiently managing its personnel and infrastructure.The White House should take the lead in forging a new consensus on NASA's future in order to more closely align the agency's budget and objectives and remove restrictions impeding NASA's efficient operations.

"A current stated interim goal of NASA's human spaceflight program is to visit an asteroid by 2025," said Albert Carnesale, chancellor emeritus and professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, who chaired the committee that wrote the report."However, we've seen limited evidence that this has been widely accepted as a compelling destination by NASA's own work force, by the nation as a whole, or by the international community.The lack of national consensus on NASA's most publicly visible human spaceflight goal along with budget uncertainty has undermined the agency's ability to guide program planning and allocate funding."

The committee that authored the report was not asked to offer views on what NASA's goals, objectives, and strategy should be; rather it was tasked with recommending how these goals, objectives, and strategies might best be established and communicated.

The report recommends establishing a national consensus on NASA's future with the executive branch taking the lead after technical consultations with potential international partners. The strategic goals and objectives chosen should be ambitious yet technically rational and should focus on the long term, the report says.

To reduce the discrepancy between the overall size of NASA's budget and its current portfolio of missions, facilities, and personnel, the report says, the White House, Congress, and NASA, as appropriate, could pursue any or all of the following four options:

* Institute an aggressive restructuring program to reduce infrastructure and personnel costs and improve efficiency;

* Engage in and commit for the long term to more cost-sharing partnerships with other U.S. government agencies, private sector industries, and international partners;

* Increase the size of the NASA budget;

* Reduce considerably the size and scope of elements of NASA's current program portfolio to better fit the current and anticipated budget profile.

Regardless of the approach or approaches selected, the report recognizes that eliminating the mismatch will be difficult.

Because future human spaceflight or large-scale Earth and space science projects will likely involve multiple nations, the U.S. should explore international approaches to such projects, the report says.To do so, the U.S. must have a program that other countries want to participate in and must be willing to give substantial responsibility to its partners.The U.S. must also demonstrate its reliability and attractiveness as an international partner.

 

[Triton]

"The Myth of America's Love Affair with the Moon"
by Jeremy Hsu, SPACE.com Senior Writer | January 13, 2011 07:01am ET

Source:
http://www.space.com/10601-apollo-moon-program-public-support-myth.html

An enduring American legend holds that the U.S. space program enjoyed broad enthusiastic support during the race to land a man on the moon. In reality, polls show that levels of public support look remarkably similar today as they did 50 years ago.

Public opinion in favor of continuing human lunar exploration almost never rose above 50 percent during NASA's Apollo program – but the lone exception was in October 1965. Americans often ranked spaceflight near the top of programs to be cut in the federal budget during the 1960s buildup toward the first moon landing.

"It's contrary to what the space community wants to believe," said Roger Launius, space history curator at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum.

The only time when more than half of the public believed Apollo was worth the expense came at the time of the Apollo 11 lunar landing in 1969, when Neil Armstrong took humanity's first steps on alien soil. Even then, only a lukewarm 53 percent of the public believed such a momentous historical occasion had been worth the cost.

Such findings suggest that the United States went to the moon not because the public demanded it, but because U.S. presidents and Congress believed it served a greater political purpose during the Cold War, Launius said. He added that any future U.S. effort to send astronauts to the moon would also require a similar political, economic or national defense reason to compel funding for the effort.

The absence of such a reason may have made it easier for President Barack Obama's administration to move to end NASA's Constellation program last year. That program had aimed to return U.S. astronauts to the moon. Instead, however, Obama has proposed an equally ambitious quest to send astronauts to an asteroid and then Mars.

Crunching the numbers

The good news for space exploration in general is that public opinion favors it – but only when not taking economic costs and budgetary spending into consideration.

"When you divorce it from the numbers and you ask people if they like NASA and spaceflight, people say yes," Launius told SPACE.com. "75 to 80 percent are in favor."

The space historian examined nationally representative polls done by industry people and Gallup that asked the same consistent questions year after year. He also looked at polls conducted by the New York Times and others.

Public support for overall space funding has hovered around 80 percent in favor of the status quo since 1965, except for a major dip in support during the early 1970s. That may bode well for NASA's continued existence, but it also suggests that few people are clamoring to throw even more money at the space agency.

Budget myths

Still, polls also show a huge misconception regarding the cost of the U.S. space program. Public opinion has wrongly put NASA's budget at about 22 percent of the government's spending over the years, when in fact NASA's budget only reached 4.3 percent of the federal budget at its peak in 1965.

Since the 1970s, the U.S. space agency's budget has hovered below 1 percent of government spending.

"My suggestion is that NASA is so visible and the space shuttle is such a powerful icon that people believe this stuff must cost an enormous amount of money," Launius said.

As for 2010, NASA's budget came in at just six-tenths of 1 percent of all government spending. Neither side of the political aisle seems to have any real interest in boosting NASA's budget, according to Launius.

NASA also seems unlikely to get a dramatic budget boost in the near future. While an October 2010 NASA authorization bill signed by the president called for a slight increase in the space agency's funding, that money has yet to be appropriated. Instead, NASA and all other non-military government agencies have been frozen at their 2010 funding levels by a Congressional continuing resolution (a stopgap until a full budget can be agreed upon) that holds until March 4.

Finding a prime directive

U.S. space agency funding in recent years has depended upon certain congressional interests in protecting NASA-related jobs, as well as a fuzzier "feel-good" sentiment toward keeping the space agency afloat.

If NASA ever wants to get a bigger budget to send astronauts back to the moon or beyond, it will need to find compelling reasons – whether they're related to the search for life or a precious "unobtanium" resource worth going after and exploiting, some experts say.

Launius also suggested that the lack of political support for returning astronauts to the moon is related to the bigger question hanging over the purpose of human spaceflight – or rather, the lack of clearly defined purpose.

"There's an inability of the aerospace community – and I include myself here – to articulate a clear, irrevocable, unassailable rationale for doing this," Launius said.

 

[Grey Havoc]

On a tangent, via MilitaryPhotos.net: http://rt.com/news/157496-russia-iran-space-satellite/

 

[Grey Havoc]

A trifle embarrassing: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/space/11344733/Astronauts-evacuated-from-International-Space-Station-section-due-to-harmful-leak.html


EDIT: http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2015/01/iss-ammonia-leak-alarm-false-indication/