13 thoughts on “NASA Over A Russian Barrel”

  3. Chris,

    Without ISS there would be no need for COTS or CCDev, so its critical to the New Space agenda.

  4. We paid for most of it (even parts of the “Russian” modules). Who are the Russians to “allow or not allow” anything? How will they stop it? #&^%&# ’em.

    Send a couple of Marines along with the Spacex module. Better yet, have the American members of the ISS expeditions secretly bring arms (tasers or whatever) to overpower the Russian crew if necessary, then do what is necessary to allow Spacex to dock.

  5. Without ISS there would be no need for COTS or CCDev, so its critical to the New Space agenda.

    New Space does not depend on CCDev, though it would be helped by it. It would be helped much more by a large and fiercely competitive propellant launch market in support of an exploration program, even if it came at the expense of scuttling the ISS and even if Orion survived. Such a program has been technically and financially possible for over thirty years, but not politically possible. It might have been politically possible if a president with a passion for manned spaceflight had been willing to spend political capital to defeat the special interests, but that’s just a roundabout way of saying it wasn’t politically possible.

  6. If I remember correctly, wasn’t the Canadian arm going to be used for final docking? If that’s true, there is no safety issue if the docking port is a standard design. (Well, the whole safety issue itself is bogus for the reasons in the article.)

    I think we’re past the point where it matters. Once FH comes online, Bigelow will be putting habitats in orbit. Then we could give the I.S.S. to the Russians and let them deorbit it for lack of funds.

  7. This should be a lesson to all of those who thought the Russians actually believed in freedom and “capitalism” just because they believed in making money.

    All the socialist states of the past century have believed in making money for the state.

  8. Phil,

    Actually, the Russians are behaving exactly like capitalists. Their strategy is identical to the one AT&T used to use to keep control of their network and their monopoly.

  10. Ken,

    Anti-Competition is only illegal because of Federal laws and regulations making it so. It started with the Interstate Commerce Commission in 1887 and was expanded with the Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1890 and the Federal Trade Commission Act in 1914.

    But the natural outcome of unregulated competition in markets is to cluster first into a oligopoly then slowly, if the economies of scale are there and a firm is sufficiently aggressive, into a monopoly.

  11. ken anthony Says:
    “I think we’re past the point where it matters. Once FH comes online, Bigelow will be putting habitats in orbit. Then we could give the I.S.S. to the Russians and let them deorbit it for lack of funds.”

    Or how about sell the ISS to the Russians and after the sale is final announce that we will be using the money to build another station with Bigelow’s habitats.

  12. I think you’re on to something Wodun.

    the natural outcome of unregulated competition in markets is to cluster first into a oligopoly then slowly, if the economies of scale are there and a firm is sufficiently aggressive, into a monopoly

    Monopoly generally only happen when government artificially creates it. Monopolies tend toward inefficiency. Which if unregulated allows others to eat their lunch. For example, I once worked for a company that owned all the beryllium mines in the free world. All other companies had to buy their raw beryllium oxide from ours so when they become too competitive they raised the price. Didn’t work. They outcompeted by providing better service. That company made the AZ top ten for laying off employees a year after I started working for them. This is typical of monopolies.

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