Much Larger, Further Contracts Will Be Required To Buy Russian Flights Until Orion Flies In 2015

NASA took a first step into a world even its administrator doesn’t embrace, inking an initial contract to have the Russians lift American astronauts to space instead of their traveling on U.S. space shuttles.

For half a decade, the United States will be totally dependent on the Russians to transport NASA astronauts to the International Space Station that was built with $100 billion of U.S. taxpayers’ money.

By signing a $141 million change to a contract with the Russian Federal Space Agency, NASA for the first time obtained Russian transport services on Soyuz spaceships beyond an earlier cutoff deadline at the end of 2011, thanks to congressional enabling legislation.

This new deal will only buy Soyuz services through the spring of 2012.

More, and far more costly, arrangements will be required to buy Russian transport services through 2015. That’s when the next-generation U.S. spaceship system, Orion-Ares, will begin flying.

Long before Mike Griffin became NASA administrator, President Bush ordered the U.S. space shuttle fleet to retire by October 2010, to save money so extra funds didn’t have to be provided for developing the Orion space capsule, or crew exploration vehicle, and the Ares rocket that will loft Orion into orbit.

That created a half-decade gap when NASA wouldn’t be able to get even one astronaut off the ground, becoming dependent on the kindness of others.

In reality, that came down to having to buy space transport services from Russia, the same nation that has been threatening to use missiles to annihilate any European Missile Defense (EMD) system in Poland (interceptors) and the Czech Republic (radar), at the express invitation of those two host nations.

Many members of Congress have asked how many millions of dollars Russia will demand from the United States for those Soyuz transport services, and why that money couldn’t have been spent on continuing further American space shuttle flights.

Some lawmakers are incensed that the half-decade gap will mean thousands of highly skilled engineers, technicians and others will be booted into unemployment lines or forced to move elsewhere to find work, a huge blow to the central Florida economy near Kennedy Space Center, and to the area near Michoud Assembly Facility at New Orleans, an area that was ravaged by Hurricane Katrina.

To be sure, there is a slim possibility that some commercial space flight company may develop not only the cargo logistics spaceships that NASA desires, but also crew-carrying craft, in which case perhaps NASA would no longer be dependent upon the Russians.

Tense relations with Russia made it appear questionable whether Congress would pass legislation to permit NASA to execute further contracts for Soyuz services with the Russians, but the measure finally slipped through Congress in a rush to adjournment.

No lawmakers, however, voiced any happiness at the prospect of buying the services from a bellicose, threatening nation.

Even Griffin, while saying this is necessary, said it is "unseemly" for the space agency of the richest nation on Earth to be unable to transport its own astronauts to space. He also said if he had been the NASA administrator when decisions were made creating the half-decade gap in U.S. space transport capabilities, he would have opposed them.

This is all part of what some dismayed members of Congress see as a humbling of a once-great space agency, the only organization ever to have placed men on the moon, and an agency that has provided wondrous pictures and discoveries about Mars.

Too, this step backward for NASA comes as other nations are taking giant steps forward.

For example, China has launched multiple successful manned space flights, attaining low Earth orbit. And it has sent spacecraft to the moon, as has India.

Both Europe and Japan have developed robotic cargo spaceships for logistics missions to the space station.

And many observers expect China to land taikonauts on the moon by the end of the next decade, perhaps before the United States returns astronauts to the nearest neighbor to Earth. That NASA manned mission is expected in 2020, if the Orion-Ares program proceeds as planned, without falling behind schedule.

China is flush with money for a space program, and for a massive military buildup and modernization, thanks to running a $230 billion surplus in trade of goods and services with the United States.

NASA is buying flights on Soyuz vehicles even though two recent returns to Earth on Soyuz vehicles were marred by abrupt ballistic descents and hard landings that, on one flight, left two crew members injured. The problem in each case may have been the failure of the equipment bay module to separate cleanly from the crew vehicle prior to reentry.

In the latest contract deal with the Russian Federal Space Agency, the firm-fixed price extension covers comprehensive Soyuz support, including all necessary training and preparation for launch, crew rescue, and landing of a long-duration mission for three station crew members.

Crew members will launch on two Soyuz vehicles in the fall of 2011. They will land in the spring of 2012. The flights may be used to meet NASA’s obligations to its international partners for transportation to and from the station.

The contract extension also provides for the two Soyuz flights to carry limited cargo to and from the station and dispose of trash.

Cargo allowed per person is approximately 110 pounds (50 kilograms) launched to the station, approximately 37 pounds (17 kilograms) returned to Earth, and trash disposal of approximately 66 pounds (30 kilograms).