Annals of the Bush Legacy: Manned American spaceflight grounded.

[bushmeister0]

AFP reports that our little trouble with the Russians in Georgia and that pesky missile defense system we want to set up on their front doorstep will probably lead to us not having access to the International Space Station for at least five years:

"The National Aeronautics and Space Administration will become dependent on flights to the ISS by Russia's Soyuz spacecraft when it retires the shuttle fleet that has long ferried US astronauts into space in 2010.

NASA will only get its successor space vehicle, Orion, planned for a revival of trips to the moon, ready for flight in 2015 at the earliest. (Good luck with that!)

'If recent Russian actions are any indicator, a technical excuse to completely block US access to the ISS for geopolitical reasons would fit nicely into the Kremlin toolkit,' Vincent Sabathier, an expert on human space exploration at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, told AFP. . .

Because the ISS needs someone aboard all the time to keep it going, the situation, Nelson said, would mean leaving the station to 'degrade and burn up on rentry, or with us ceding it to those who can get there.'

NASA's chief Michael Griffin told AFP just days before the Georgia conflict erupted that it was a 'great concern' that something could happen to make Soyuz unavailable.

'If anything at all in that five years period goes wrong with the Russian Soyuz, then we have no system to access the space station."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080824/sc_afp/usrussiaspaceisspolitics

Hmmm. . . the Bush legacy rears it's ugly head again.

Is there anything these guys can do that doesn't result in utter failure?

[Trajan]

1. As a Space Shuttle Technician on Layoff ....

Well ... I am not pleased by the collapse of the US manned space program ..... Even if many of my compatriots here disagree ....

[bushmeister0]

3. Bye, bye institutional memory when everyone is laid off.

Maybe, we can ask the Chinese for help getting into space again?

[thunder rising]

2. Let me say this slowly 'cause it's a new experience for many ... This is a 'diplomatic' situation,

where diplomacy could work out details and keep up the space station.

[bushmeister0]

4. Diplo. . . m m m . . . ah ah . . . no, it's too hard!

[Iggo]

5. NeoCons either haven't figured out...

...how to loot NASA yet, or they have and there's nothing left to loot.

[Purveyor]

6. I'm sure China would be more than glad to help Russia out in maintaining and financing the upkeep

of the ISS.