There seem to be some culture clashes between the American and Russian space programs.

To quote the article:

The Russians consider themselves less rigid and more inventive than the Americans, who tend to follow every letter in the technical manuals, said Sergei Gorbunov, a spokesman for the Russian Space Agency.

"Here in Russia, we are more flexible in our approach to technical problems,'' Gorbunov said. "The Americans are more conservative in dealing with technical problems, but this isn't a fault.''

Whether it's a fault or not, the irony can't be lost on anyone who lived through the Cold War, in which American ingenuity and flexibility was ostensibly matched against Soviet bureaucracy, and those American characteristics supposedly defeated the Soviet Union. It's particularly ironic, considering that such a perception would have been perfectly valid, in almost every sphere other than the space program, at least since the 1960s, when the Americans won the race to the moon.

Of course, NASA's culture has been a subject of much discussion since the release of the Gehman Commission's report on the loss of Columbia in February, but such discussion (and criticism) from that report has focused not on NASA's lack of flexibility, but rather on its lassitude in following its own established safety procedures, increasing the irony still further.

And after all, it's not at all clear that NASA's approach is superior to the Russians'. While the Russians have had several near disasters (a fire on their space station, and a collision with it) NASA has lost over a dozen astronauts in two Shuttle disasters, while the Russians have only lost four (and none in the past three decades), in the four-plus decades since the beginning of the human space race. One could attribute that to greater ambition (NASA puts up over half a dozen at a time, whereas the Soviets and now Russians have never launched more than three at a time), but both programs have so little experience in absolute numbers, compared to any other endeavor, that such comparisons are probably meaningless.

Regardless, because we share a space station, such a cultural difference is a real problem. Perhaps it's time to consider a way to end it--with a divorce.

And not just for potential "irreconciliable differences."

The space station is in the wrong orbit.

Its high inclination is useful for earth observations, because it allows a greater view of the earth than one that only flew over low latitudes, but that's the only real benefit to it. On any other technical measure, lower would be better.

Lower inclination would make it easier to reach, and allow more payload for any (non-Russian) launch vehicle, and thus reduce operating costs. Lower inclination would make it potentially useful as a staging point for missions beyond earth orbit (a use that is essentially precluded by its current location). In fact, a proposal was made just a couple days ago to move it for just the latter reason.

No, there's really only one real reason that the space station is in the orbit that it is--politics. In 1993, the Clinton-Gore administration decided that they would finally completely pervert the nation's space program from one that was supposedly purposed for opening up the high frontier to one that provided foreign aid to Russian space scientists, in hope that they wouldn't twist their talents to selling nuclear and rocketry expertise to countries like North Korea, Iran, and yes, Iraq. They decided to bring the Russians into the space station program.

There was only one problem. The high-latitude Russian launch sites don't permit launches to low earth orbital inclinations of less than 51.6 degrees.

Thus, our escalator to nowhere didn't even start at the ground floor.

But that was then, and this is now. The Bush administration has no great desire to keep the Russians involved in the space station debacle, and there are rumors that they'd like to actually do something visionary in space. One way to make lemonade out of the ISS lemon might be to move it to a useful location, and if the Russians don't like it, they can go build their own, since the reality of the program was that they were never true partners. They were really simply subcontractors, and not very good ones, because much of the money sent to the Russian government in the nineties for space station hardware instead went to yachts, BMWs and Cayman bank accounts for the well-connected in the Russian government.

But is such a move feasible?

Well, yes, but it won't be cheap. Changing orbital planes in low earth orbit is not trivial--going from the current inclination of fifty two degrees to the more conventional NASA one of twenty eight (the latitude of Cape Canaveral) requires about forty percent as much velocity change as getting into orbit in the first place.

Fortunately, unlike launches, it needn't be done all at once, so there are a lot of options for doing so, over a long period of time (perhaps a few years). Without doing an extensive analysis, I'd be surprised if it couldn't actually be done for a billion dollars or so, even with NASA's ways of doing business.

Now, that's a lot of money to you and me, but to NASA, and a nation that has already spent many times that much on a space station whose use remains elusive, it's a pittance, and possibly one well worth it.

So, would Russia, to use another old Cold War metaphor, become the spy that was sent back out in the cold, when it came to space?

Not necessarily. They've been negotiating with the French to use their near-equatorial launch site in Kourou, French Guiana, on the northeast coast of South America. If they can start launching their vehicles out of that site, they'll be able to get into almost any orbital inclination they please, and can continue to support and participate in even a newly relocated space station.

As long, of course, as they're finally willing to pay their own way. If not, then it might be hasta la vista, petrushka.

Theres that difference. Whether you call the money spent on ISS as "investment" or "waste".
With investment, theres always the temptation of invest some more, to finally get to the promised benefits. Waste can be stopped immediately.

I fear that the "Precautionary Principle" has taken root at NASA, which if true will gradually eliminate its ability to accomplish anything whatsoever.

I think the ISS is in an excellent orbit as it is and should not be moved. Right now, its out of the way, and won't interfere with future, more important, orbiting structures such as space hotels, orbiting research parks, etc. Furthermore, I think the ISS has great potential as a destructive testing facility (ie destructive to the ISS). Imagine a sort of underwriter's laboratory UL in space, where we can test on-board fires, explosive decompressions, docking craft ramming, crew members going psycho inside, etc. Just like community fire departments do training on abandoned houses, we could use the ISS for a similiar function. The ISS's high inclination would generally allow the insuing debris cloud to stay away from the important orbits, or perhaps we could bag it up. I honestly think its worth trying to make a silk purse from this sow's ear, after all there's just gotta be something worth doing with "deep-sh*t nine", our beloved but warty ISS.

A billion dollars? Now that would be an
X-Prize for putting a hotel in orbit. I'm not a fan of Putin (who may have assassinated some political opponents and is tightening his grip on the country) but the Russian people seem to have done an admirable job with space (starting tourism for instance.)

I encourage a can do attitude regardless of the source... if America has to play catch up again, I think we're up to it.

An aside on U.S. space science in general seems appropriate.

Some years ago, when I was still at Goddard, a friend who is a planetary astronomer told me that our work was becoming more and more bureaucratic -- like the European approach used to be -- while the Europeans were adopting our past, much more flexible practices. It seems that the Europeans had realized that our older approaches were more effective.

The irony of Russian entrepeneurship and innovation in space versus American bureaucratic stagnation is staggering. Thanks for your ongoing efforts to bring attention to this serious problem.

From Russia, without Love written by Rand Simberg is provocative, but not very original. Please remind that for a fraction of costs the Russian space industry could and can achieve much higher output compared to the US space industry. International Launch Services (ILS) and Sea Launch are examples where benefit is generated from a combination of Eastern and Western technologies. It is NOT the matter of skilled workers, engineers and scientists, but a matter of wrong thinking of top management and political inhibitions. Like the Planetary Society is working directly with Russian companies leaving outside "political considerations" and NASA managment to get the first solar sail launched from a Russian submarine future funding of ISS "subcontracts" may go directly to the responsible company for builting crucial Soyus and Progress spacecraft rather than via "Russian bureaucracy"! It is a skandal that billions of dollars are not INVESTED in cheap and safe access to the SINGLE orbital outpost NOW. The Russians could launch up to 8 Progress and up to 4 Soyus crafts a year without any problem, making the ISS a real scientific facility which it should be. I would like to blame all major partners of ISS (this Russian space agancy that I can´t spell, ESA, JAXA and NASA) for not taking action to fully exploit the ONLY AVAILABLE REAL ISS launch infrastructure for the safe and progressing utilization of the multi-billion space facility now OPERATING in orbit. How can I take all those dreams of "Return to Moon" and "Go to Mars" serious, when we fail to sustain an already available wonderful opportunity to perform good science in space (with all the present limitations)? My proposal is not DIVORCE, but go to the PSYCHOLOGIST and get some training in how a good international family should interact!!
Kind regards from a Space OPTIMIST

The argument I've heard is that the ISS is not living up to it's potential mainly because it is not fully staffed. Is that true or just a convenient lie? If it were true it would be very easy to prove. Attach a second lifeboat and operate the damn thing, no more excuses.

I strongly suspect it's just bullshit. In which case it should be auctioned to the highest bidder (establishing it's true value) and public funding should be cut immediately.

At that point, if it delivers or not, it doesn't steal tax payers money.

Rand,

I think that the idea of moving ISS to a more equatorial orbit may actually be good for many reasons. First, the two you mentioned earlier
about being able to get more payload to ISS from
a given launcher and the ability to send things to the moon (or Mars, etc) easier. Ironically enough, this may well help the Russians a lot too. When they realize that they're mostly cut out of the deal, it may make them more interested in working on private space stations ala Mircorp. I could be wrong, but I think that it would be funny to see the Russians out-capitalist our NASA bureaucracy.

~Jon

It should be noted that currently, the Russians are the only ones that are GOING to the Space Station. If the orbit of the station were to be changed, and if the Russians do not start launching from a more equatorial launch site, we would have manned access only by the undependable Shuttle. Unless, of course, we develop another craft, work with the Chinese, or somebody else develops a manned launcher. I, for one, do not want to depend only on the Shuttle, and another craft means more $$$. Yes, a semi-private orbital launch capability project would be great, but I don?t see any chance of our government changing its spots and going in that direction soon.

Ken:

Yes, a good part of the problem with the station is that it takes two or three people just to keep the thing running. To actually do science you need more. But a second lifeboat? The ? cancelled ? X-38 was supposed to be the lifeboat. As for the Russians, we?d have to pay them more money, and that just wouldn?t do. Then there?s the little issue that it helps to actually have running lab modules to work in. Don?t forget that Columbia was flying to run a lab in a different orbit for a couple weeks.

There?s a huge number of possibilities for new alloys, semiconductors, superconductors, etc. that might be made in bulk in microgravity. We don?t know, we need to do the research, but we do know there many, many materials that can?t be made well in gravity. And if we are to move out there, we need to do long term animal, plant and human studies. We?re still waiting to do most of the research ideas I read about in the ?70s, and it would only take one big result (like a near room temperature superconductor) to really start space manufacturing.

Unfortunatly, Alot of people that read this blog need to review how orbital mechanics works. Moving from a high inclination orbit to a lower one especially in low earth orbit requires quite a bit of propulsive energy. Right now ISS is in decent position to be reached by both the Russian, American, Japanese, and European launch sites. If you moved it back to 28.5 degrees, yea it would gain you a 40% increased from KSC, however you would loose your only existing logistic source. God forbid you loose another shuttle, or an Ariane. Remember, efficiency is the enemy of reliability. As for going to the moon from a 51.6 inclination, the Russian were perfectly capable of doing this with their Zond/Luna series. Changing inclination during a Translunar trajectory is not that big a change, since your already "breaking orbit" anyway.

George

Eyup, and as I said, with the orbit change the Shuttle would be the only current way to get people to the station. Having no backup does not thrill me.

Tethers are another thing that really need to be researched. You can potentially do a lot of orbit changing tricks without the super "space elevator" type cables. One nice one is to bank and exchange momentum for orbital inclination changes.

VR: "As for the Russians, we?d have to pay them more money, and that just wouldn?t do."

Why? My understanding is that it only needs to be docked, so it's mostly one time fixed cost. The same number of launches services the ISS, but they have a different crew rotation (yes, longer which presumably means they could get more done.)

Supplies would need to be sent more often, so that is a variable cost... but isn't having more people going to require that cost regardless of how we do it?

Right now, NASA could prove the worth of the ISS if in fact the justification for it wasn't just a bald-faced lie. ...even before they get more modules connected.

Door number one, do the thing and pay for it.

Door number two, don't do the thing and don't pay for it;

or the choice NASA has made for us...

Door number three, don't do the thing, but pay for it anyway.

But what if the Russians can launch Soyuz (and progress) from Korkyu? Then the need for a high inclination orbit dissipates.