Astronaut and cosmonaut
joined in the apolitical pursuit of science, at the
coupling of Apollo and
Soyuz spacecraft in July, 1975. Said to have formally
ended the space race that
began in 1957, Russia's invasion of Ukraine
may herald its resumption.
New Space Race Will Benefit U.S. and Russian Programs (Gazeta Wyborcza, Poland)
"Paradoxically, the sanctions war and the breakage of space-level
cooperation may bring not only losses, but benefits for both countries. Cut off
from access to Russian engines, space industry in the United States will be
incentivized, accelerating the process of decoupling the transport of American
astronauts to ISS aboard Russian rockets. ... For
their part, the Russian Academy of Sciences and Roskosmos
point to the creation of a lunar base. This would require the construction of a
new rocket similar to the one now being planned by NASA. The isolation and
competition of both space programs may be the beginning of a new space race."
A sight that soon may no longer be possible: Crew members of ISS Expedition 38 aboard the space station, Feb. 22, 2014. Clockwise from top center: Oleg Kotov, Koichi Wakata, Sergey Ryazansky, Rick Mastracchio, Mike Hopkins, and Mikhail Tyurin.
The
Ukrainian conflict is pushing Russia and the U.S. back on the path to a new
space race. Russia's deputy prime minister even suggested that the U.S. provide
its astronauts with a trampoline to get them into orbit.
Since
July 17, 1975, the era of space cooperation has been uninterrupted. The joining
of Apollo and Soyuz symbolically ended the space race that began in the 1950s. At
the close of the 20th century, for instance, U.S.-Soviet space cooperation led
to the creation of the International Space Station [ISS].
Its existence is the result of a close, symbiotic relationship between NASA and
Roskosmos.
In fact, it is impossible to imagine the station functioning without one of
these agencies. It turns out, however, that the prospect of this is now closer
than ever before.
Cooperation
between the two space giants is based on two main pillars.
The first is the
International Space Station, which even today is not yet endangered. NASA has
ended cooperation with Roskosmos in every area except
the daily functioning of the ISS. This isn't the
result of sanctions, since the U.S. has never imposed them on institutions or
firms active on Russian territory. One of the sanctions does, however, include
the person of Dmitry Rogozin - deputy prime minister of the Russian
Federation. He is, among other things, responsible for the activities of
Russian space sector, including NPOEnergomash, which manufactures the RD-180 rocket
engine. These are used by the U.S. Air Force and United Launch Alliance in the Atlas
V and Delta IV rocket. The Russians, in response to another wave of sanctions, altered
their license for by the U.S., forbidding their use in launching military
satellites, which is what the U.S. Air Force primarily uses them for.
Even
though NASA and Roskosmos are still cooperating on the
ISS, Russia has announced that it no longer sees the
point of using the station after 2020, which is when the existing agreement
between the United States and Russia regulating the function of the ISS expires.
Paradoxically,
for both countries, the sanctions war and the breakage of space-level cooperation
may bring not only losses, but benefits. Cut off from access to Russian
engines, space industry in the United States will be incentivized to pursue the
only alternative: domestic projects, constructed by private enterprise. This in
turn may significantly accelerate the process of decoupling the transport of
American astronauts to the International Station aboard Russian Soyuz rockets.
For
their part, the Russian Academy of Sciences and Roskosmos
have sketched out the direction of Russia's space industry, pointing to the
creation of a lunar base. This would require the construction of a new rocket
similar to the one now being planned by NASA. The isolation and competition of
both space programs may be the beginning of a new space race.
