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Isn't that what I just said? But if only perfect nations are allowed to criticise other nations that grossly violate human rights, then no one gets to criticise them. If only perfect nations were allowed to fight Nazi Germany during World War II then Hitler wins. If you must be perfect in order to fight for what's right then no one gets to fight for whats right. I don't see myself belittling other peoples countries when I criticise their lack of democracy. Cuba is not a democratic country, and I'm not going to let some issue that the US elections of 2000 may have had a little funny business in them prevent me from critisicing Castro, I don't have to be a hyper-nationalist to do that.
Ok. Reasonable. But Cuba isn't a democracy, it's a military dictatorship with a communist economy. That's not as bad as some would believe, there are advantages to a communist economy; not one I would want to live in but it's up to the people in Cuba to decide. I ignore any stories about Cuban elections. It is a dictatorship after all so elections are a farce. Cuba hasn't attacked the US so there is no reason to maintain trade sanctions. Internal politics is their business. You could argue about missiles in the 1960s but that was long since resolved. Normal relations are long overdue.
Ps. My last name is spelled "Dyck" and prounced "Dick", with a short "i". It's a Canadian thing. My name is not "Dyke". As a memory trick there are verious jokes you could come up with over the fact my name really is Mr. Dyck.
Cuba is a dictatorship, but one that pretends to be a Democracy by holding elections, it shows a lack of honesty on Castro's part. Cuba has armed terrorists and has attempted to destablilize its neighbors. I think proxy wars count as an attack. Castro doesn't seem content to mind his own business.
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America is a Republic that pretends to be a Democracy by holding elections.
americans choose from a pre-selected group of canadites.
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America is a Republic that pretends to be a Democracy by holding elections.
americans choose from a pre-selected group of canadites.
There are also the primaries where the members of each party choose the party candidates. What do you really want? A direct democracy doesn't work when you have more than a room full of people. the only kind of democracy left is a Representative Democracy also known as a Republic. A Republic is a form of democracy, if it is not, it is not really a republic as it is not representative.
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics wasn't a union of Republics as those republics weren't representative of the people they represented. The People's Republic of China is also not a Republic as the elections are not real and do not involve real choices. If you think these places are republics just because of the names, then you are fooled very easily. I don't particularly like countries that pretend to be republics but really are not. Czar Nicolas II didn't pretend to be an elected representative of the people, he wasn't afraid to admit he was the Czar, so why is Putin continuing with the trappings of the Democracy he just overthrew? he appoints the governors of the Russian Republics, that makes a lie of the label of it being a Federation, and the fact that those governors are appointed and not elected anymore makes them not republics. If Putin is not honest enough to admit he is a dictator, why should we trust him on joint projects in space?
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If Putin is not honest enough to admit he is a dictator, why should we trust him on joint projects in space?
Again, internal politics is none of your business. You bought into the propaganda of "communist bad, democracy good". First, communism is an economic system while democracy is a political structure; they aren't opposites, they deal with different aspects of a nation. Second, Russia/Soviet Union was an ally of the United States in World Wars 1 & 2, why would you think it intrinsically bad now? Internal politics is their business, you shouldn't try to force every country in the world to copy the American system. After all, freedom means they do what they want. Their system is evolving right now, and will end up different that the United States. Most countries have a unique system different than any other. Their internal politics has nothing to do with participation in an international project. Other nation-to-nation relations could affect it, but their internal matters are their business.
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who gives a dam, about another failed National Space Agency, by the time we get back to the moon it will be almost 50 years after we landed the first time. It will be almost 65 years when we might get to Mars, and these are tourist / explorer manned missions not outpost or settlements, that will not enspire the public about the huge cost in the space race. The expensive nature could stop the expansion or completely demolish the manned space activities in the future.
I want to see a serious space agency, to go into space and build into space for the long term and not this quickie trips to the moon or mars or beyond. If you don't like my comments about all the failed Space Agencies including ESA, NAS, RSA, JASA, and CSA just to name a few. We need clear concise action for space and in the next 30 years we should have a minimum of 300 humans in space permanent or on rotation but the numbers should go up and down currently we have less then 8 humans in space at any given time on the ISS and orbiting crafts.
We need to stop playing about space and act !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We have knowledge about build space stations then build them to house factories and develop products to be shipped to earth and also food processing offworld use. Second expand that into missions to the moon with robotic mining and other activitities clearly build on the facilities in orbit, Be BOLD , BE CONCISE, BE COURAGEOUS in space development.
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And to top it off, Putin is a dictator and an enemy of freedom, "not wanting democracy" in government is perhaps the slogan of a facist.
Edit: Oh, and if national self-interest isn't valid when doing the helping eachother/holding hands/international cooperation thing, then where is your outrage over Russia charging the US for Soyuz seats?
Hear hear! I think we should cooperate with Democracies like Japan, strong democracies that can step up to the plate and pull their own weight. Japan has proven to be a good ally since the end of World War II, I think India is a potential partner too, Great Britian too, and maybe Israel.
The Japanese are not living in a democracy, in fact most Asian countries don't care less for American style democracy - although the USA like to think of itself as the number-1 we all got our problems in the States aswell ( uncontrolled immigration, high levels of corruption, violent gun crime, and rising levels of obesity...) Asians often prefer to live in a totalitarian single party state.
Sometimes Japan looks like it can play fair ( such as being a US ally ), but other times when it comes to money the Japanese can be most un-democratic like the import import tariffs and trade barriers the US companies must face when entering Japan and the unfair Beef ban on American cattle even though it were Japanese cattle that had the Mad-Cow.
After the defeat of Japan in World War 2 the Japanese people were given democracy like a kid with a silver spoon but instead they threw it back in everyone's face and flushed it down the toilet. Japan have allowed Jimin-to or the LDP to dominate Japan politics since the end of WW2 and it can be placed next to Vietnam, Taiwan, Syria, Malaysia, China, Singapore, Cuba and Laos. There very few Asian places that made any sort of attempt at democracy, South Korea and its loony protestors might be an example of one place that is making an attempt at democracy. but as if Israel would be any good to a new Apollo style journey to the Moon, Israel and its a warmongering nation that spends most of its time killing innocent Arabs ( perhaps we could also thank the Arab suicide bombers that hide behind people ) and Israel has done next to nothing in space exploration unlike the Russians or Americans. The great thing about NASA is that it has broken free of the US military a long time ago and the US military do their own stuff now but with Israel this ain't so. If you give the Israeli gov such space-money and technology, they'll only want to make a bomb or gun out of it so they can kill more Arabs. Or even better the Israeli leader will betray the USA by re-selling tech to mainland China, and sell-out more US defense technology to Chinese.
Personally I think working with the Russians has been a breath of fresh air, they have great engineers, experience with Venus, the Moon and Heavy launch and the Russians come with a good dose of common sense. Working alonside the Canadians or Europeans like the British, Spanish or Germans have also been good for NASA, I know the ESA gave a lot of time and money to the Hubble telescope.
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If Putin is not honest enough to admit he is a dictator, why should we trust him on joint projects in space?
Again, internal politics is none of your business.
No, but American foreign policy is America's business. The fact that the Russian government is oppressing the Russian people and denying them their rights is nothing to go to war about, but I think American values comes into play when deciding what international partners to participate in international ventures with.
It is really no different than deciding not to buy consumer items that were made in sweat shops employing child labor in a foreign country. Like you said, it is really none of our business what sort of labor laws a foreign country may have, but we can certainly decide to ban imports from that country if their labor practices offend us, it is no different with Russia. If Russia becomes a dictatorship we can decide not to participate with Russia. Besides joint missions with undemocratic countries to Mars would probably lead to undemocratic compromises in the colony's government. I think we should endeavor to spread democracy where ever we go including out in the Solar System. I find undemocratic governments offensive as I believe it is the innate right of all human beings to decide how they are government. A form of government that doesn't allow free and fair elections or elections with no choices under a one-party system is unjust, and we should do nothing to support such a government.
You bought into the propaganda of "communist bad, democracy good". First, communism is an economic system while democracy is a political structure; they aren't opposites, they deal with different aspects of a nation. Second, Russia/Soviet Union was an ally of the United States in World Wars 1 & 2, why would you think it intrinsically bad now?
I do not think they were good then either, just because they were fighting one kind of evil doesn't make them good, and remember they also allied with Nazi Germany before Nazi Germany turned on them. Soviet Russia was never a reliable or dependable ally, they only fought on our side because Hitler wanted to kill them and we wanted to get rid of Hitler. Flip flop allies are not good or dependable, the only time we can depend on the Russians is when someone else wants to murder them and we want to stop the murderer. Russians can always be counted on to look after their own interests, but in a permant ally, something more is required, the US is for example an ally of Israel, even though our short term interest might be served by our not being an ally of Israel. Russia certainly is not an ally of Israel even though many Israelis are former Russians. I think the US has some good allies that have stuck by us through thick and thin, Russia is not one of those allies. Our priorities should be to work with those allies that have been good to us. Great Britian, Japan, Austrailia, and Israel for example.
Internal politics is their business, you shouldn't try to force every country in the world to copy the American system. After all, freedom means they do what they want. Their system is evolving right now, and will end up different that the United States. Most countries have a unique system different than any other. Their internal politics has nothing to do with participation in an international project. Other nation-to-nation relations could affect it, but their internal matters are their business.
Freedom means people do what they want as individuals, it is individual freedom that matters. All independent nations have freedom to act however they choose, North Korea has freedom of that sort, but its people are not free. You are ignoring the freedom of individuals within countries when you consider only the freedom of those country's governments.
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And to top it off, Putin is a dictator and an enemy of freedom, "not wanting democracy" in government is perhaps the slogan of a facist.
Edit: Oh, and if national self-interest isn't valid when doing the helping eachother/holding hands/international cooperation thing, then where is your outrage over Russia charging the US for Soyuz seats?
Hear hear! I think we should cooperate with Democracies like Japan, strong democracies that can step up to the plate and pull their own weight. Japan has proven to be a good ally since the end of World War II, I think India is a potential partner too, Great Britian too, and maybe Israel.
The Japanese are not living in a democracy, in fact most Asian countries don't care less for American style democracy - although the USA like to think of itself as the number-1 we all got our problems in the States aswell ( uncontrolled immigration, high levels of corruption, violent gun crime, and rising levels of obesity...) Asians often prefer to live in a totalitarian single party state.
Sometimes Japan looks like it can play fair ( such as being a US ally ), but other times when it comes to money the Japanese can be most un-democratic like the import import tariffs and trade barriers the US companies must face when entering Japan and the unfair Beef ban on American cattle even though it were Japanese cattle that had the Mad-Cow.
Another variation of "never mind the mote in your neigbors eye when there is a beam in your own." So what if were not perfect and Japan is not either. Japan does have a representative government and its people do get a vote and a choice between multiple candidates which is about what we have in the United States. Maybe this doesn't meet your strict definition of what a democracy is, but I doubt there is a single nation in the world that qualifies. The fact that were not perfect doesn't stop us from opposing evil in the world nor should it.
Take the parable of the good Samaritan, but lets change it around and replace the Samaritan with a Good German. "The good German walks down the road and sees a man who was beaten up and robbed laying on the side of the road." The German has two choices, he could
A) look at his nation's past and find that it is responsible for the Holocaust and two world wars and decide that since he is a German and therefore imperfect, he has no right to pass judgement of the bandits who have beaten and robbed the poor man since Germany was guilty of worse crimes, he thinks twice and wonders what if that man deserved to be beaten up and robbed? What if those bandits were simply trying to take back something which the poor man laying on the side of the road stole from them in the first place? Maybe the bandits were simply meeting out just punishment for the crimes that man committed, and considering that he was a German, he decides that he is not qualified to make moral judgements in this situation, so he just walks past the stricken man and ignores him.
or he could do
B) the same thing the Good Samaritan did in the original story.
Now it seems some people think the United States should do A) because it is not perfect, I find that not to be a very good reason at all.
After the defeat of Japan in World War 2 the Japanese people were given democracy like a kid with a silver spoon but instead they threw it back in everyone's face and flushed it down the toilet. Japan have allowed Jimin-to or the LDP to dominate Japan politics since the end of WW2 and it can be placed next to Vietnam, Taiwan, Syria, Malaysia, China, Singapore, Cuba and Laos.
That is because they voted for a party you don't like. The Japanese are typically very conservative. The United States gave them democracy and the Japanese voted conservative and you don't like that, and Japan is a very successful first world country that is second only to the United States because of that. I imagine that you would rather they be an unsuccessful third world country that voted socialist. Venuzualia is a case study in the other extreme, they hate America and they hate capitalism and they are a third World country that produces only oil. While Japan produces many things, the Venuzualians produce mainly oil and they export it. The oil won't last forever, and when it runs out Venuzualia will go down the tubes with its socialist system that need oil exports to maintain itself.
There very few Asian places that made any sort of attempt at democracy, South Korea and its loony protestors might be an example of one place that is making an attempt at democracy. but as if Israel would be any good to a new Apollo style journey to the Moon, Israel and its a warmongering nation that spends most of its time killing innocent Arabs ( perhaps we could also thank the Arab suicide bombers that hide behind people ) and Israel has done next to nothing in space exploration unlike the Russians or Americans.
That is a rather hateful thing to say about Israel, seems they can never do right by you, they have been willing to give up some land for peace and your absolutely unwilling to cut them any slack. I remember two important things here. Israel gave up some land for peace and for that the Arabs attacked them. the News media would like to ignore that and concentrate only on the tactics Israel uses to defend itself, but it again seems to me that those tactics are much more humane than the ones we used against the Germans during World War II.
The great thing about NASA is that it has broken free of the US military a long time ago and the US military do their own stuff now but with Israel this ain't so. If you give the Israeli gov such space-money and technology, they'll only want to make a bomb or gun out of it so they can kill more Arabs. Or even better the Israeli leader will betray the USA by re-selling tech to mainland China, and sell-out more US defense technology to Chinese.
Again another hateful thing to say about Israel, which after all is a democracy, and its Arab neighbors are not. If Israel wanted to kill civilians, it wouldn't have dropped leaflets over places it planned to bomb warning residents to get out, it wouldn't have used precision guided smart bombs and missiles either, the Arabs certainly don't bother, they're happy to kill any Jews whatsoever, any jew dead is a victory for them.
Personally I think working with the Russians has been a breath of fresh air, they have great engineers, experience with Venus, the Moon and Heavy launch and the Russians come with a good dose of common sense. Working alonside the Canadians or Europeans like the British, Spanish or Germans have also been good for NASA, I know the ESA gave a lot of time and money to the Hubble telescope.
The Germans also had great engineers, they pioneered the field of liquid fueled rocketry and launched the first space vehicles, but we worked with their scientists only after their government was defeated, we didn't conduct joint projects with Nazi Germany. I admire the Russian Engineers skills and their accomplishments in space, but their government is not someone I want to work with right now as they have seized power from the people who have risked so much to overthrow the Communist system and dictatorship. I do not hate the Russians, but I wish not to work with an oppressive dictatorship. Space should be a place of freedom.
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What's so suspicious about our elections?
During the election itself, Florida had ballots cast by thousands of voters who had been dead for years. Thousands of ballots were thrown out because the punch was in question. One polling station had the wrong party logo printed beside candidate's names. Voters were turned away at the ballot box, not permitted to vote; the excuse was an accusation of conviction of a felony when the real convict was a completely different person. During the 2004 election saw problems outside Florida; one electronic polling station in a traditional Democrat area was "accidentally" left in test mode so all votes were discarded. Another polling station recorded more votes for George W. Bush alone than the number of registered voters. The list of offences goes on, but the point is America has been claiming to be not only a major, democratic nation, but also leader of the free world. However, the stunts pulled during the last two presidential elections are the sorts of things you see in a third world country.
Well put, and enough said on that. If you can't remember the fact that the United States had no declared winner of the presidential election in the one before last, and it was ultimately decided by a court many weeks after the fact - despite the very well documented 3rd world class election shenanigans, you either have a very poor memory or are inventing revisionist history. Everyone saw it. Everyone knows it happened.
Why should I want to trust a country like this in any joint space mission??
All those stats you mention are just so much propaganda. You are looking and flaws and seeing flaws that aren't there of one particular country to the exclusion of all the rest.
The president publicly admitted today that America's spy agency operates secret prisons all over the world. The CIA has become a secret police, secretly kidnapping anyone whom they think is a threat. The CIA now stands in the halls of infamy with the KGB, NKVD, Stazi, Gestapo, and others in this particular activity. The president also admitted that the US will not torture people "anymore", because the American government has been ordered to stop doing so by its Supreme Court.
I guess that liberals, foreigners, and other "terrorists" have gotten to the president of the United States - and filled his head with "propaganda" as well.
Why should I want to trust a country like this in any joint space mission??
I'd say there are countries that are a lot worse than the US of A, and that we should not partner with them because they abuse human rights. Your confusing a difference of degree with a difference of kind and pretending that differences of degree don't matter.
What kind of degree of difference? Is it more morally acceptable to torture and murder many hundreds or thousands of people (remember "Abu Grahib"?), instead of 10's of thousands? Torture is torture and murder is murder. America has crossed the line - the level of immorality is the same.
American bombs killed far, far more people in Iraq than Sadam Hussein would have killed for the remainder of his leadership (with his activities being so closely monitored pre war). What's more, the American administration knew it would be this way beforehand. Bush himself has admitted that over 30,000 people had been killed as a result of American action in Iraq (many place it at over 100,000). Yet, Colin Powell stood in front of the world and touted knowingly incorrect and likley fabricated "evidence" of Iraqi wrongdoing as justification for these actions (remember the "mobile chemical weapons trailers"?)
Why should I want to trust a country like this in any joint space mission??
There are poor and rich people in this country because not everyone has the same qualifications to the same jobs, and not everyone can earn the same amount of money because people are different. What is so surprising about that?
Nearly one in five American children lives in poverty. That is a statistical fact. They don't work - and are getting a generally substandard education. Many don't get 3 meals a day. America is supposed to be the most prosperous society in the world - yet has some of the highest levels of domestic inequality in the civilised world. Tell me how that is a "just society"? This is a government that seems to have abandoned it's most vunerable.
Why should I want to trust a country like this in any joint space mission??
I also don't give a squat about the World's opinion about my country, as it more influenced by propaganda than by reality.
You keep believing that, while more and more of the world turns away from America as the example to follow and the country to work with. If this way of operating continues, eventually there will just be an isolated America, still in denial and in decline - and still spying on their own citizens.
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I know sometimes political stuff and space mix but
Guys this political stuff is starting to go Off-Topic !!!!
We should try and stick to the thread - subject the International space station and NASA and RSA working together
'first steps are not for cheap, think about it...
did China build a great Wall in a day ?' ( Y L R newmars forum member )
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Ok, I'm not the one trying to redefine democracy. All I'm saying is that nothing in this world is perfect and that I apply fuzzy logic in deciding which countries aren't democratic and with whom we should be involved in joint missions with. It is not my purpose to examine the warts of our electoral process under a magnifying glass, and these warts go both ways. I recall that some "dead people" voted for JFK too. But by and large out electoral process is fair, not perfect I should add, but it is a good indicator of the mood of the public, which is more than can be said of how Cuba conducts its elections. You can quibble about a few thousand votes counted here, or a few thousand votes that shouldn't have been counted there, but there is a vast difference between dictatorships like Cuba, and Republics like the US and Japan. Let us just say that some countries don't have our best interests at heart, and we should have partners in space that we can trust. Besides, there is nothing wrong with some competition, this acts as a motivator to get us moving faster. One can also say that if all the World's companies suddenly decided to get together and jointly produce cars, that this would be more efficient as all the car companies would be combining their resources together to produce cars. Once can say it, and there is a certain logic behind it, but it would not be true.
I think it is better to have competing interests exploring and exploiting space. The competition should be kept on friendly terms, but a little rivalry can go along way towards driving these accomplishments.
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The United States of America is one nation in a world of 194 nations.
Yeah, but we are 30% of the worlds economic output, 45% of it's market cap, Spends 45% of the world's R&D budgets, a military budget almost as large as the rest of the world combined, same with the space budget probably too, Half of the world's nobel lauriats are American, etc, etc.
Moreso than any other nation on earth we can afford to go it alone, or with some of our best of allies in the Anglosphere.
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Nearly one in five American children lives in poverty. That is a statistical fact. They don't work - and are getting a generally substandard education. Many don't get 3 meals a day. America is supposed to be the most prosperous society in the world - yet has some of the highest levels of domestic inequality in the civilised world. Tell me how that is a "just society"? This is a government that seems to have abandoned it's most vunerable.
Poverty is measured off half the countries median income. In a country like the USA our poverty level would be $22,000 a year, higher than the median incomes of all but the top 25 or so richest countries in the world. In India, however the Poverty level would be like $400 a year. A swedish study found that if Sweden's poverty level was at the same *absolute* level as the United States, around 40% of their country would be in "poverty" The United States though is one of the few countries to have childhood poverty decrease over the last 20-25 years (along with Canada and the UK) Countries like Germany have had a marked increase, which is especially profound considering Germany's chronic lack of childbirths.
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/4 … gra416.gif
German Child poverty has doubled, the US's is decreasing, also since Poverty is half the countries income, the current "poverty" levels would be something like this:
$22,085 USA
$20,673 Norway
$17,789 Canada
$16,783 Sweden
$16,189 UK
$16,035 Belgium
$14,977 Germany
$8,630 Hungary
$7,123 Poland
$5,233 Mexico
i.e. almost 50% higher than most all of the developed nations there. Norway is the exception; most countries have to work to expand their economy, Norway can literally just pump money out of the ground and subsidize it's entire economy with it....
Why should I want to trust a country like this in any joint space mission??
ON the contrary, why should the US go in international projects if we will end up paying 90% of the bill, and the rest of the countries who only pay 10% for it simultaneously demand 25% of the workshare? That's what usually happens, It's just a convenient way of milking Uncle Sugar...
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Nonsense! Intelligence has been proved to be equally distributed throughout the human race nation-wise, gross-national-product-wise, and motivation-wise. To squander the intellectual resources of Mother Earth at this critical time in the space program, just for the sake of nationalistic profit-motivated, bean-counting fatcats is worse than dumb. It's diverting foreign intellectual ambitions in directions which at best ignore and at worst oppose the space program.
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Not all states are intelligently run though. Instead of getting the smartest man in Russia running Russia we instead get Vladimir Putin, who runs his foreign policy so as to oppose everything the US tries to accomplish for no better reason than to show Russia's independence from us. In other words we determine Russia's position by taking one foreign policy position and thus causing Russia to take the position that's diametrically opposed to ours. Sounds to me like Russia is more interested in being a compeditor than a partner. So if Russia wants to be a compeditor with the United States, then let it be a compeditor!
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since Poverty is half the countries income, the current "poverty" levels would be something like this:
$22,085 USA
$20,673 Norway
$17,789 Canada
$16,783 Sweden
$16,189 UK
$16,035 Belgium
$14,977 Germany
$8,630 Hungary
$7,123 Poland
$5,233 Mexicoi.e. almost 50% higher than most all of the developed nations there. Norway is the exception; most countries have to work to expand their economy, Norway can literally just pump money out of the ground and subsidize it's entire economy with it....
http://www.nationmaster.com/
Population below poverty line by country
#106 Jamaica 19.7
#107 Kazakhstan 19
#108 Morocco 19
#109 Bermuda 19
#110 Poland 18.4
#111 Israel 18
#112 Costa Rica 18
#113 United Kingdom 17
#114 Egypt 16.7
#115 Bulgaria 13.4
#116United States of America 12
#117 Croatia 11
#118 Thailand 10
#119 China 10
#120 Mauritius 10
#121 Ireland 10
#122 Hungary 8.6
#123 Malaysia 8
#124 Tunisia 7.6
As for working with those 'commie Ruskies' I don't see what's the probelm as it was the Russians that kept US manned spaceflight alive these past few years, after the Columbia tragedy, the ISS has to depend on Russia's Soyuz transports or crew trips to space and back to Earth and it was the unmanned Progress taht were keeping the US manned space program afloat. Soyuz has built up a strong safety record its last fatal flight was in 1971 while the Space Shuttle has seen the loss of 14 astronauts and a near miss in 2005 when Andrew Thomas said "it's probably a bit dramatic to say that we dodged a bullet" piece of foam debris broke away from an aerodynamic ramp on the side of the ship's external fuel tank during launch 16 pieces of foam debris had tore off Discovery during launch
'first steps are not for cheap, think about it...
did China build a great Wall in a day ?' ( Y L R newmars forum member )
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I think you mean not run rationally, instead of "intelligently."
My perhaps poorly-made point is that intelligence resides worldwide, and to turn our backs on intelligent individuals, not to mention those of potential genius, just because they live under restrictive secular or faith dictated regimes, where ignorance of the importance of an ongoing space program to their planet as well as ours is maintained and/or contributions prevented, represents a terrible waste of a global intellectual resource--which should be preserved as avidly as any other renewable resource. Idealistic? Sure, but by preventing suicide bombings, by education other than merely medieval dogmas leadng to reduction of overpopulation, where that in itself is a contributator to the squandering of itelligent awakenings of what should be possible from uninformed intelligent individuals throughout the world.
I wonder if some form of extra-national "technocracy" might eventually meet the needs of an international space program, which seeks out and nurtures current individual genius potential throughout the world? Not that I think we should wait for anything so "yesterday" or "tomorrow" utopian at the present time. By simply doing as we are (with the U.S. Space Shuttle and the Russian Soyuz launches at last demonstrably capable of cooperatively supplying LEO payloads interactively) should get us by until at least 2011.
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When you have one world wide agency you have one leadership who decides what avenues to follow whos advice to listen to and whos not to. That agency can go down one corridor and get stuck at a dead end, someone else who is not listened to may have some good advice that the administrator just won't listen to, without rival agencies in competition to this one, he has nowhere else to go with this idea, however under a compeditive system he does. An Administrative monopoly is not always the best thing, as despite the pooling of resources, that whole agency and everyone under it is still subject to the limitations of the same leadership.
The International Space Station is sort of like that, they had the attitude that no matter what, we're going to build this space station, if someone has better ideas, too bad, the ISS takes the lion's share of the budget and you just get the crumbs left over if their are no cost overruns with the ISS. The other countries pool their resources together and thus sucking out money from people who may have better ideas. Competition frees up more resources than collective action as national pride is at stake under a compeditive situation where its not under a collective space agency. If something goes wrong with the project fingers always point to the prime contributor to the project and all the lessor contributors escape culpability.
In a compadative situation, one country can land men on the moon while the other piles more money into an expensive space station that delivers little return for the effort. The space station financers realize their error as their compeditors lead ahead of them in the space race and thus change their funding priorities to correct for this.
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I'm sorry I even hinted at an international technocracy. You just seemed to go wild at the the mere suggestion of such a thing as mutual cooperation regarding what is, after all, already in progress between the U.S. and Russia--improbable as that would've been if someone had suggested it only 15 years ago. So, skipping that we're locked into it completing the ISS together with them, and the other contributors, until the end of the Space Shuttle Era, in 2010, what's your opionion of how the next phase of space travel should be accomplished that's any better ... other than taking into account the experience of the design engineers and spacefight crews from the 2006-2010 construction phase and continue cooperating in roughly the same way...?
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I tend to think the ISS is way over budget, but the Russia we started the project with was not the same Russia that exists today. Yeah, we started it, so best to finish it to get something out of our expense and trouble, but competition is not a bad thing either. We're not close to approaching the maximum resources from any of the countries, alot of it depends on public interestm the more the public interest, the more money that will be made available. We can certainly afford it. What is worse two missions each with 6 astronauts from two different countries or one mission with 6 astronauts with each country paying for half a mission instead of a complete mission each?
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Russia is a dying state literally. See life expectancy, abortion rates, sterily rates.
Do not count on them being there in the long haul.
Russia is not going to make propulsion systems breakthoughs
Russia is not going to make Lifesupport breakthoughs
They are living off past space glories & experience (a true asset)
Russia is backed solely by Oil prices & comododity prices
Their industrial output is still moribund watch as they get in
trouble as Oil Prices start receeding somewhat.
Unlike some here, I don't consider Russia a Threat anymore.
Morelikely the threat is more from the possibility of fraud, not just waste, when
dealing with joint projects.
This is not Russia bashing, the USA itself has coasted & lived off past space glories, the difference is the
USA has the industrial/techincal might to create new glories.
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Russia, has potential, its people are educated, and it could go somewhere if only it would stop thinking like one of the bad guys and stop measuring themselves by their ability to thwart and defy the United States of America, I think that is a negative yardstick that they measure themselves by.
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I doubt if the Russians think of themselves that way. And the way they keep on chugging along, launch after launch with their automatically docking Soyuz system, tuning it up here and there as they go, has aspects of steadiness and reliability I envy. Not that I believe we can't do as well, once we settle on another, up to date space transportation system which is as reliable. Meanwhile, I'm proud that the pro's are at last in charge of the Space Shuttle, with the operational flexibility, inspections, and in-orbit repair means in place to carry out what remains to be done at least to complete the ISS construction. But, unless we pull our space-sox up, the Russians are gonna be ready with the necessary crew and/or materials transportation system before we are, assuming completion by 2010. Where is the uproar we should be hearing regarding the transportation gap that appears inevitable at the present snail's pace of this vital development?
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The Russians running the Russian Space program are one thing; the Russians running the government are quite another. Cosmonauts are happy to be in space, they don't care whether its in cooperation or in competition with the Americans. Vladimir Putin is another factor, he seems to measure Russias progress by how bad a time he can give the Americans, he has this old KGB mindset which is always thinking about what bad things he can do to the Americans without provoking open warfare, he regards NATO as a threat, and he does not regard Russia as a team player with the rest of the European nations that are members of the EU and NATO, he instead wants a Russian dominated sphere of influence and wants a Russo-centric area of Europe surrounding his country, so long as his impluse is to build Russian Empires, then he will have trouble getting along with his European neighbors. After all France does not run Germany and Great Britian, it gets no sphere of influence surrounding itself, why should Russia. If Russia wants to be a regular European country, it should stop trying to run the affairs of neighboring countries like the Ukraine, Georgia, and Belorus, it would stop trying to support dictators throughout the world and start acting like a democracy and support similar democratically-minded countries in the world against dictatorships. Russia instead has supported countries like North Korea, Iran, and Belorus. I still fail to see the advantage of working with a country that has a hostile foreign policy to our own. I'd rather they all be democracies and have values similar to what we have. This is for future missions, its too late to do something about the ISS, I think its best just to finish that.
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With all due respect, your speculations regarding post-2010 politics in Russia very likely won't change the present LEO arrangement. Completing the ISS by 2010 will be like building a reearch institution on Earth out in the boondocks and then taking the construction workers' trucks out of service without providing any busses for the researchers in which to get there and back. Without Russia's continued support with Soyuz and Progress, just as now for housekeeping chores only, I see no way to avoid cooperating with them in the development by stages of increasingly large parachute-landing capsules ... at least until a proper reentry from LEO flyback transport system can be developed, debugged, and put into service. By that time, I imagine that we'll have come up with an internationally agreed upon system design in cooperation with Europe, China, and India, as well as Russia.
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