NASA Asked How to Keep Space Station Going Without Russia

[Purveyor]

By Jonathan D. Salant May 15, 2014 12:21 PM ET

Lawmakers have asked NASA’s chief how the U.S. can maintain use of the International Space Station if Russia delivers on a threat to end its participation after 2020 as the Ukraine crisis strains relations.

“We will need to step back and evaluate the costs and benefits of maintaining” the station “without our Russian partners,” House Science Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, a Texas Republican, and members of the panel said in a letter today to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden.

Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said May 13 that his country would no longer export Russian engines for U.S. military rockets and also may withdraw from operations of the civilian space station. Rogozin was among Russian officials singled out for U.S. economic sanctions over his country’s takeover of Crimea from Ukraine.

Since ending its manned space program in 2011, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration has depended on Russia to shuttle crews to and from the station that orbits 260 miles (418 kilometers) above the Earth.

Two U.S. companies, Orbital Sciences Corp. (ORB) and Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp., have NASA contracts to ferry supplies to the space station.

more...

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-15/nasa-asked-how-to-keep-space-station-going-without-russia.html

[tridim]

1. Putin needs to go, that'd do it.

Or give Space-X Russia's contract.