Russians have a lot on their plate, and then there is this issue too…
22 Likes
The Ukraine’s have taken out Major Tom.
4 Likes
They could (eventually) unplug it by disconnecting all the umbilicals - but they would then have no power.
2 Likes
NASA’s not. The SLS is coming in horribly overpriced and likely is going to get cancelled during some congressional budget check. Currently something like $4.1 billion per launch is just not sustainable. It’s likely going to be private companies doing all the flying and supplying for NASA from now on.
I doubt this will actually happen. Rogozin has been blustering forever, but he’s just an ineffectual liar like everyone else in the Russian government, and personally I think it’s empty threats. Nothing they say can be believed.
Of course I could be wrong, but if they do follow through then they will be relegated to the humiliating and lonely position of being a ‘former space power’ (along with the UK). They can launch rockets of old design, but they can do very little else on their own. And the space program is one of the very few concrete things that Putin’s Russia can actually be proud of.
8 Likes
They may not think it’s worthy trying to try to develop new NASA or ESA control systems for the ISS. The other participants may decide to end participation in the ISS early anyway. On Feb 1st, before Russia invaded Ukraine, NASA had announced plans to deorbit the ISS in 2031.
The laboratory will continue operating until 2030 following a commitment made by President Biden and Vice President Harris last month, but its long-term future is unsustainable.
For more than 20 years, the ISS has been “a beacon of peaceful international scientific collaboration,” said NASA administrator Bill Nelson, but all of its mission goals will have been completed by the end of this decade.
3 Likes
Sky Lab!
2 Likes
Actually not likely. They have already survived multiple attempts. NASA intentionally sources parts from all 50 states for SLS to make sure every congressperson has a vested interest, and it seems to be working. Obama and Trump both tried to defund it and were blocked by various packs of congresspeople.
NASA has stated this themselves. SLS is not a regular launch vehicle. It’s a moonshot machine. NASA is doing what nobody else can and blazing the trail for private industry behind them. That’s the whole model. Cost doesn’t matter because it’s publicly funded R&D (just like all science is) and it will be made cheaper by others later. Also, 4.1 billion is nothing in the US budget anyway. The war in Iraq spent more than that to air condition their tents.
No, no, no. Private companies are doing the space trucking. That’s the point. They are doing what the shuttle did 40 years ago. Nobody can get to the moon right now. Nobody can get to Mars right now. NASA is doing the science, the research, and the hard things, then hands those off to private companies to figure out how to make money on it. That’s the entire model and it’s working.
You talk about SLS like it’s some sort of boondoggle. The opposite is true. It’s going extremely well. People talk about SpaceX like they’re going to the moon and Mars. They aren’t. Those things are 1000x harder than anything SpaceX has done. LEO is easy compared to what SLS is going to do.
17 Likes
I’m afraid that’s not really a useful question.
“Illegal sanctions” is ultimately a propaganda term.
Or an irregular noun if you like:
Our sanctions are legimately imposed by international agreement.
Your sanctions are illegal interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign nation.
3 Likes
I guess that depends upon whether international laws and treaties exist and if countries can be bound by them.
9 Likes
Just so. I did have a much longer post started before I realised I was hipdeep into a lengthy essay on theories of international relations which no one was going to read and went with the shorter, more sarcastic version instead.
2 Likes
They almost certainly violate Russian law (and if they didn’t, that could be fixed), and I expect various trade agreements are arguably being broken. But international law is just whatever you can get away with, since there’s no supervening authority to enforce any of it. Even well-behaved countries violate treaties 24/7. And of course, rule 1 of “international law” is that you can’t invade other countries. So on balance, I doubt there is much international sympathy for these complaints, yet.
But if the unprecedented sanctions are kept in place for a long time, that conversation will start to shift, especially in countries that worry about America’s random smiting (which is most of them). The fact that Russia can be rich-ish in energy, yet still have their economy switched off by the US on a whim, might spell the end of the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency, because dodgier states will now see that as an intolerable existential threat, whatever the short-term considerations. So in an indirect sense, the US and Europe might face international punishment, and I suppose that is part of Russia’s aim in pushing the “illegal” narrative.
Two years from now, when serious numbers of Russian citizens have died of sanctions and Putin hasn’t, even Western opinion might be divided on the subject.
That’s why it’s ominous that there’s been little talk of when and how sanctions should end. If it’s not transactional, then it is indeed pointless cruelty that can only make things worse. Whether these sanctions are morally justified will ultimately depend on whether lifting them buys a positive outcome.
3 Likes
The West is imagining the oligarchs are screaming “our jets and yachts are being confiscated, our offshore accounts are frozen, and we can’t party in Ibiza anymore! Do something, Putin!” But that’s the stupidest delusion imaginable.
Every oligarch knows that if they make noise about their dissatisfaction, Putin will trot out a mountain of evidence of their corruption, confiscate his assets, beat him into a bloody mess, and toss him in a gulag until the end of time. They are also aware that nobody inside or outside of Russia is going to cry foul over a jailed oligarch.
Maybe the world leaders are imagining the combined resources of the pissed-off oligarchs have the resources to murder Putin. Maybe they think there’s a Jasonovitch Bournesky lurking somewhere in Moscow that will step up and do the needful for a billion roubles.
Or maybe they are just completely deluded, without even a tiny idea how to end Putin’s war without triggering a nuclear first strike.
1 Like
Maybe…Maybe…Or maybe…
Are you sure?
5 Likes
stupid leaders why don’t they fix everything
4 Likes
But Putin just OUTSMARTS them!!! He’s practically super-human and immune from all attacks!!! That’s exactly why he’s threatening to launch a nuke… clearly that’s from a position of strength… /s
5 Likes
“The purpose of the sanctions is to kill the Russian economy, plunge our people into despair and hunger, and bring our country to its knees.”
Yes, that is the entire reason, and it might work. Our your country could stop invading Ukraine, and everyone would likely revert to the usual rules. That would be an easy way to end this. So really, fuck you Russian stooge. Keep playing the victim while your cruise missles decimate Ukrainian towns, and eventually maybe I’ll care about your life difficulties, but probably not.
6 Likes
Most of us support this not because they’ll talk to Putin and he’ll listen but because Putin stores his grift with the oligarchs and not in his own name. It’s because it directly hurts Vladdy.
No one needs to tell Putin that it’s hurting Putin. You can also bet he wasn’t happy having one of his fav toys confiscated. That hurt.
9 Likes
We may as well just give up and cede Texas to him. Preemptively- because you know he wants it and there’s nothing we can do about that.
7 Likes
8 Likes
