With the ISS and the current state of political affairs in Russia, are we headed to a situation similar to that of what happened in the movie '2010'? When the US and Russian crews had to separate from each other while in space?
Since we'll be piggybacking our crews on Soyuz flights after the Shuttle's retirement, I certainly hope not. The only parallel political problems NASA is knee-deep in is with China - it's the Science Mission Directorate's policy that we don't do business with them, as HQ was pissed at their demonstration of shooting down satellites. I think despite the current political issues in Russia, our cooperation in space initiatives remains strong. Heck, my office mate is from Russia - he's funded through a HST money and his job is as secure as the rest of ours is.
I think it's suppose to be ready by 2012 right, so that's about 2 years we'll have to rely on Russia.
^Yup, that's the plan. Here's hoping that the Russians will succeed in getting that upgrade to the Soyuz they're planning. It was supposed to be replaced by the Kliper spacecraft, but there's no money for that idea. Still, spacecraft don't get much more reliable than Soyuz, so they could do worse.
Guess you missed all the cuts, most of the gov money is getting pushed into the burning hole in Iraq, Social Security and Bernanke trying to stop the property market from going into meltdown. NASA's budget has seen a cash crunch these past years and missions like MTO or TPF may be delayed or cancelled. The latest date on getting TheStick (Ares1) flying people in space pushes it closer to 2015, however some analysts have their doubts because NASA could have made better use of the commercial market or EELVs and TheStick may just become another gravy train for ATK and Lockheed. http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn11112-budget-cuts-may-delay-shuttle-replacement.html http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4524917 http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/space/02/04/nasa.budget/index.html
Iraq has nothing to do with it. NASA is always getting screwed by Congress. They want to spend tons on education, but they don't want to spend any on one of the government agencies that utilizes many fields that one can get in the education system. It'd be like, let's spend all this money to educate people to become law enforcement officers, but let's not fund the police departments.