American partnership spells doom for Russians

  David Rigsby Rigsby is a second-year
political science student who hopes to return to his home planet
some day. You can reach him at [email protected]. Click
Here for more articles by David Rigsby

Every year it seems that the holiday season begins a day or two
earlier than it did the year before. Icicle lights and gold
garlands decorate store windows, while ads remind shoppers how many
days, hours and minutes they have left to catch sales. This is the
time of year when the price tag wields its power over
Americans.

And yet, Americans scrutinize the price tag of government
spending no matter what time of year it is. A project of recent
controversy that will cost an estimated $90 billion upon completion
is the International Space Station. Try to fit that one into your
stocking. The ISS has been the focus of NASA’s energy since
the early 1990s.

The station will serve as a floating laboratory, with
researchers working on projects ranging from medical research to
nano-circuitry.

American taxpayers are wondering if the ISS will pay for itself
in the form of technological breakthroughs and medical research.
Russian taxpayers are not worried about the monetary cost, but
rather the cost of their technological and cultural identity as a
space-capable nation. In order to meet the deadlines set by NASA,
Russia has had to make series after series of cutbacks. The most
recent of these cutbacks include the crown jewel of their space
legacy: the Mir space station. The Russians plan on de-orbiting the
station this February and dumping it in the Pacific Ocean near New
Zealand.

  Illustration by ZACH LOPEZ/Daily Bruin The ISS serves as
another example in the list of “global” projects that
the United States has spearheaded in recent years. The United
States usually sets the pace for the project, and coordinates the
efforts of partner nations. Instead of forming partnerships with
Russia, the United States has usually played dictator by giving
Russia guidelines to follow. This project, that Russia initially
signed on for to strengthen their space program, might actually
mark the end of its space agency. If these US policies regarding
the Russian space program continue, Russia’s sole purpose
will become that of the doting employee of NASA.

The ISS is a carryover from the Reagan era of Star Wars projects
intended to challenge the Soviet Union. In 1993, when the project
was first beginning to lift off, the concept morphed into a project
that the whole world could participate in. NASA brought Russia to
the drawing board, along with the European Space Agency, Japan,
Canada and Brazil.

After countless delays and missed deadlines, the first official
crew took residence in the partially completed space station a few
weeks ago. This historic crew consists of three men: an American
and two Russians. Newsweek reports that over the course of the
mission, the crew will be busy, “setting up house, installing
and testing life support systems and unpacking several thousand
pounds of gear and supplies left by previous missions.” If
this mission goes well, NASA will not have to readjust the 2005
projected completion date of the station.

Skeptics of the project are asking NASA, “Why
bother?” To which NASA replies, “For science.”
Research in the ISS’s laboratory modules will focus on,
“the effects of gravity on plants and animals, developing
next-generation materials and machines that can function in the
high-radiation vacuum of space and commercial development of new
drugs and microchips.” Larry Young, an MIT professor of
astronautics, who studies the biological effects of weightlessness,
compares the ISS to the Hubble Space Telescope, which also suffered
from delays and complications. “Now it’s surpassing
everyone’s fondest hopes, and no one talks about the problems
anymore,” the professor said, in regard to the telescope.

As far as some critics are concerned, Nasa has a lot to prove.
Jonathan McDowell, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for
Astrophysics told Newsweek that, “There will certainly be
some interesting science, but probably not $90 billion worth. The
only way that you can really justify this project is if you want
Star Trek to come true.” McDowell is referring to the idea of
using the ISS as a jumping-off point for future missions to Mars.
NASA has made comments of someday using the station for jump off
missions to other regions of the solar system, but no concrete
mission plans have been publicly released.

Americans have a substantial amount of money, time and resources
at stake with the success or failure of the ISS, but the Russians
have much more to lose. When the Russians signed on to the space
station, they unknowingly signed the death warrant for the bulk of
their other space programs, such as Mir. Reuters reports that,
“U.S. officials have pushed Russia to dump Mir, saying it
drained sparse resources that would be better spent on
Russia’s role in the ISS.”

Mir is a 15 year old space station that has bridged the doomed
Soviet Union with the struggling new republic in Russia. Mir has
hosted thousands of experiments, both Russian and American. Even
with the station’s aging components, the Washington Post
reports studies which have shown that the station could remain in
space until 2003 or 2005. Several private organizations have
inquired about leasing Mir from the Russians and using it for
commercial use. The Netherlands- based company MirCorp was willing
to foot the $60 million needed to keep it in orbit for one
year.

The most interesting offer that the Russian government
entertained regarding extending the life of Mir came from NBC. Even
after the government announced its plans for de-commissioning the
station, NBC claimed that it was still negotiating to make use of
Mir in a reality based television show that they were planning on
developing with “Survivor” producer Mark Burnett.
According to an Associated Press report, “Destination:
Mir” might still be coming to an NBC affiliate near you.

There is something much more important than entertainment value
to be lost with the destruction of Mir: Russia’s social
balance. The government is already squabbling about the
Cabinet’s decision. Russia’s State Duma lower house of
parliament has criticized the decision. Deputies overwhelmingly
supported a motion condemning the “premature end to
operations aboard the Mir orbital station, and ditching it is a
poorly thought out and unjustified step.”

Russia’s job market is also threatened by the decision.
About 100,000 scientific and technical jobs depend on the space
station’s stability. Russia’s already unstable job
market would be subjected to even higher stress. Mir has been the
pride of Russia’s space program, allowing Russian cosmonauts
to break many records, much to the dismay of their American
counterparts.

There are also fundamental differences in the way that Russians
and Americans deal with problems in the construction of the ISS and
training of its crew. Newsweek reports that, “the Russians
favor skills based training, expecting cosmonauts to deal with
problems as they arise, rather than repeated simulations designed
to estimate the unexpected.” The same issue reports that
American astronauts “never travel without exhaustive
procedure manuals.”

Both sides claim that their way of doing things is superior to
the other’s. Yet Russia has been the partner required to
change its procedures when working on the ISS. The United States
has once again forced its ideology on another culture.

If this “partnership” has taught the world anything
about international projects, it is to be very cautious when
signing a contract with the U.S. The contract that Nation X signs
just might be the death warrant for its scientific
individuality.