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posted by janrinok on Thursday May 01 2014, @12:36AM   Printer-friendly
from the who-will-blink-first dept.

Russia's Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin has lashed out again, this time at newly announced US ban on high-tech exports to Russia suggesting that "after analyzing the sanctions against our space industry, I propose the US delivers its astronauts to the ISS with a trampoline." Rogozin does actually have a point, although his threats carry much less weight than he may hope. Russia is due to get a $457.9 million payment for its services soon and few believe that Russia would actually give it up.

Furthermore, as Jeffrey Kluger noted at Time Magazine, Russia may not want to push the United States into the hands of SpaceX and Orbital Sciences, two private American companies that hope to be able to send passengers to the station soon. SpaceX and Orbital Sciences have already made successful unmanned resupply runs to the ISS and both are also working on upgrading their cargo vehicles to carry people. SpaceX is currently in the lead and expects to launch US astronauts, employed by SpaceX itself, into orbit by 2016. NASA is building its own heavy-lift rocket for carrying astronauts beyond low-Earth orbit, but it won't be ready for anything but test flights until after 2020. "That schedule, of course, could be accelerated considerably if Washington gave NASA the green light and the cash," says Kluger. "America's manned space program went from a standing start in 1961 to the surface of the moon in 1969-eight years from Al Shepard to Tranquility Base. The Soviet Union got us moving then. Perhaps Russia will do the same now."

 
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  • (Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Friday May 02 2014, @07:46AM

    by Yog-Yogguth (1862) Subscriber Badge on Friday May 02 2014, @07:46AM (#38789) Journal

    Does the US even have a cohesive congruent narrative of events beyond "Russia bad" and "Putin bad" blabbering? All I ever read from them looks like belligerent gibberish and nonsense: noise. Feel free to pick any topic and it's much the same as far as their output is concerned.

    I'm pretty sure making a lot of noise is exactly what the US wants to achieve but anyone who haven't long ago started to tune out the US weren't ever listening much in the first place.

    Either way it's quite rude of the Usians to continue to camouflage their Nsaian language behind English-sounding words, or maybe it's just sooo saaad *Van Halen jazzhands* :)

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  • (Score: 2) by tibman on Friday May 02 2014, @01:40PM

    by tibman (134) Subscriber Badge on Friday May 02 2014, @01:40PM (#38903)

    The reason why anything from the US appears as noise to you is because people are free to say whatever they like. It's just bullshit unless backed up by proof. Pictures, interviews, transcripts, and so on. To me, the same is true for all nations and all peoples. The only exception is when someone i trust says something, i don't need proof.

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