Now, NASA and Russians need each other

A little space history
Now, there have been some pointed questions about how the United States wound up in the situation of supposedly being excessively dependent on Russian space services in the first place. Ironically, these inquiries usually are posed by critics of the Bush administration — which actually inherited that posture from the Clinton administration.

When the Russians were first invited to join the international space station effort in 1993, a suspicious Congress approved the deal under the conditions that the Russian contribution “enhance but not enable” the project. That is, Moscow could play as add-ons, but it could not be placed “in the critical path” of any station function. These conditions were accepted by all parties.

From the beginning, the Clinton White House and then-NASA Administrator Dan Goldin misrepresented the plans and their implementation. Russia was quickly placed “in the critical path” for orbital hardware and space transportation. (Their self-esteem demanded it, one White House adviser asserted.) Alternate NASA-only approaches were scrapped.

But this reliance works both ways: The U.S. space effort is in the Russians' critical path, and they have a lot fewer resources for setting off down a different path. Hard as it may be to visualize at the moment, they’d be a lot worse off without NASA than NASA would be without them.

Follow the space money
When the cash flow factor is added in, the idea that the U.S. space effort is helplessly dependent on the Russians looks even more preposterous. It has been Western money, mostly from the U.S., that over the past 15 years has kept the Russian space industry alive. Despite a budget surplus, the Kremlin has been and continues to be stingy with federal allocations, requiring space organizations to earn a large fraction of their money overseas — and even pay taxes on their earnings. Recent Moscow promises to double the space budget have wilted in the face of crashing oil and gas prices.

Further, it’s safe to assume that general Russian business practices regarding foreign deals hold true. This implies that this external cash flow is not restricted to official channels. Many top Russian space industry figures and their shadowy "facilitators" can be presumed to be getting their own rewards for working out foreign deals. If that income ever came under threat, they would likely wind up being "active and true friends" of continued U.S.-Russian space cooperation.

What NASA needs to do is to get some backbone into its negotiating teams, and walk into the room with the knowledge — secretly shared by the Russians — that the United States actually holds the space aces. NASA can hammer out a deal from that strong starting point, and not from an position of humble subservience. The same attitude should govern how NASA and the Russians address the safety issues pointed up by recent problems with Soyuz capsule landings.

As for Congress: Lawmakers need to clear the way quickly for the purchase of Russian space rides at bargain prices, while NASA works on potential fall-back options and keeps up the price pressure on Moscow. On this basis, the U.S., Russia and the other space station partners can get on with their business, in concert and on their own.

This week's 50th anniversary of NASA's founding, and next month's 10th anniversary of the first space station module's launch, provide fitting opportunities to review the alliance forged to operate the international space station. Although that alliance hasn't fully met any of its original promises, it has taught lessons about spaceflight that make it well worth preserving and expanding. Reality-based  if reluctant — interdependence is one of the most valuable of those lessons.

James Oberg, space analyst for NBC News, spent 22 years at the Johnson Space Center as a Mission Control operator and an orbital designer. He is the author of several books about the U.S. and Russian space programs, including "Red Star in Orbit" and "Star-Crossed Orbits."

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