The longstanding NASA-Russian partnership in space may be unraveling

It's ridiculous to believe there will ever be any kind of a self-sustaining human colony on Mars anyway. As far as obtaining data and images, robotics is the method to use.

 

Yes you can. With good tariffs.

 

What do "neo con" politics have to do with acknowledging the facts about Russia? The nerds at NASA are as non-political as they come. They have long been and still are happily working together with Russia in space. They are colleagues in a highly specilialized set of professions, and they can see that there is a severe disparity in our capabilities and those of Russia. The basic problem is that the Russian state is failing to maintain a competitive space program, and they absolutely are relying on very old technology to ferry people and equipment to and from low earth orbit today. They are not innovating. They are not even exploring space at this point. Remember when they tried to launch a Mars mission several years ago and it went absolutely nowhere?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fobos-Grunt

Fobos-Grunt. It was supposed to return a sample from Phobos. Didn't manage to leave earth orbit. Meanwhile, NASA is doing all kinds of cool stuff beyond earth, like visiting the asteroid Bennu for a sample (fundamentally similar mission, but a far more challenging target), and sending a probe by Pluto and Ultima Thule with resounding success, among so many other missions, such as the Mars rovers and orbiter missions around several worlds.

It's a crying shame. I don't want to kick Russia while they're down. They're capable of so much, if only they could rid themselves of the kleptocracy and stop behaving adversarially toward us and Europe. I think they might do well teaming up with us and the ESA to get things done in space, given how limited their economy is at present. Ultimately, though, it would be nice to see them achieve so much more domestically, so that they could grow their economy properly and achieve more on their own in space. It would be nice to be racing them again, this time to Mars and beyond. Instead, we're stuck racing ourselves (NASA vs SpaceX).

 

Obviously not a Trekkie ...

 

You can't stop people from buying cheap stuff. Even with good tariffs, Chinese stuff will still be cheaper that compatible domestic stuff, hence it'll be bought.

 

The longstanding NASA-Russian partnership in space may be unraveling
Excellent. Perhaps we will be smart enough to stop throwing our money at space.

 

Neo-con? Not at all. I enthusiastically support peace with Russia. They are not a superpower is all.

Indeed that rather plays into my argument.

 

Trying to paint your obsession with bashing Russia as a humble acknowledgement of "facts" is just plain nuts.

This is an incredibly naive statement. Those nerds are human beings, just like anyone else. They have all the same biases and instincts as the rest of us. And they, too, have political beliefs and agendas. Simply taking their claims at face value - particularly in this anti-Russian environment - is to abandon reason for faith.

Russia, Russia, Russia... meanwhile, YOUR OWN COUNTRY is suffering greatly due to the rampant kleptocracy in the US government.

Do you think your endless Russia-bashing is going to make America any better? Do you think constantly pointing the finger at Russia will change the problems that we face right here in America?

As for your characterization of Russia's space program, I repeat what I already said. Perhaps you are right and perhaps you are wrong. But no reasonable person should take your claims or the claims of US government personnel at face value, particularly when it comes to critiques of Russia. But even if you were right, I'm still wondering what difference it would make, since I do not live in Russia. I'm more concerned about what's happening in my own country.

 

It's one thing to say they are not a "superpower" (however we're defining that), it's entirely another to brush them aside as a "joke" and to diminish their relevance on the international stage.

 

You think? 'Say something often enough, keep saying it, and the suckers will believe it'!