24 thoughts on “If Russia Refuses To Fly US Astronauts”

  1. Loved your response, Rand.

    The linked article makes a fatal assumption; that the currently planned requirements (such as launch abort) would apply. Also, that SLS would be the only means for Orion to get to SLS (ULA could loft it just fine – as they plan to do for the 2017 shot).

    If we’re in a need-it-ASAP situation, the metrics change. At least, they would in a rational world.

    Rand, I’m betting that a lot of people in DC haven’t got a clue it’s even possible to send people to ISS on a US launcher in a timeframe of weeks or months, not years.

    Exit question: if the Russians use denial of ISS access to give ISS an all-Russian crew, is anyone seriously thinking that they’d ever let us back on ISS without at least massive danegeld?

    1. I’ve been looking for the text of NASA’s contract with Roscosmos for Soyuz launches (at 70 million a seat). What I’m trying to find out is when the next payment is due.

      The reason is there’s a way other than Russia cutting us off for us to lose ISS access. It’s our side deciding to suspend payments (probably without giving any thought whatsoever to the consequences).

    2. Exit question: if the Russians use denial of ISS access to give ISS an all-Russian crew, is anyone seriously thinking that they’d ever let us back on ISS without at least massive danegeld?

      To which my first reaction is “Oh, no! Don’t throw me in that briar patch!”.

      What’s the point of the ISS, right now, exactly?

    3. Exit question: if the Russians use denial of ISS access to give ISS an all-Russian crew, is anyone seriously thinking that they’d ever let us back on ISS without at least massive danegeld?

      If they try to pull something like that, have the NASA controllers turn off most of the systems in the US modules. Every time one of the cosmonauts tries to turn something back on, shut it down again. I’m talking heating, ventilation, the works.

  2. Rand,

    Don’t we at least need ECLSS and a docking adapter? I understand we could temporarily skip the LES.

  3. Don’t the Russians have the legal right to block Dragon from docking? They are part owners of the ISS.

    1. That would be an interesting international court case. On what grounds? It couldn’t be safety because it has already berthed several times. They could interfere with a docking, but that wouldn’t happen until they get a docking adaptor.

    2. Dragon doesn’t dock at ISS, it berths (and the distinction is important for this). Dragon basically comes to a relative halt within range of the Canadarm, and using that is berthed to a Common Berthing mechanism on the US side of the station. So, it is berthed to an area not under Russian control. They could, I suppose, order Dragon to stay away, but we could simply ignore them.

      It’d sure be an interesting lawsuit though – who would have jurisdiction? 🙂

      1. The Russians control all the propulsion systems on ISS. I’ll bet that if they want to, they can make all Dragon approach, grapple, and berthing attempts very challenging, to say the least.

        1. This is true, but NASA controls the CMGs, and they could do the same for the Russian docking attempts if it came to that (which it won’t).

      2. Obama would punt to the international community and then screw the pooch so badly that it would be up to a nine judge panel made up of Susan Rice, Samantha Power, John Kerry, Hamid Karzai, Bashar Assad, Hassan Rouhani, Kim Jong Un, Nicholas Maduro, and Raul Castro. The vote against the US would be unanimous.

    3. They could probably bitch but my understanding is the operational agreements and the practical agreements have ISS as 2 stations with a docing adapter (Node 1), the Russians have got their side, the
      Americans and other partners their side, and then the 2 co-ordinate for key manuevers.

      The plus side is there is almost complete redundancy. The negative is you need to coordinate,
      especially for reboost burns.

      If the Americans had real “Legal” stick they would have blocked the Tito flight.

      It’s also just stupid, the Russians get way too much money to fly crew, giving that up would be silly.

      It’s why we don’t see tourists to ISS. NASA pays big bucks and no tourist can possibly match it.

    4. If the Russians refuse to fly NASA crew to the ISS “legal” goes out the window right quick.

    5. “Don’t the Russians have the legal right to block Dragon from docking? They are part owners of the ISS.”

      In theory, I believe all visiting vehicles require approval from all the partners. In practice, this has only restricted American launches, not Russian launches.

      I seem to recall a case a few years back where NASA wanted to extend a Shuttle mission a couple of days to make up for a late launch, but there was a Soyuz mission scheduled. NASA asked the Russians to delay the launch a few days, but they refused and launched anyway while the Shuttle was still at the Station. As the docked Shuttle was within the approach corridor of the Soyuz, the result was NASA scrambling to pack up the Shuttle and depart before the Soyuz got there.

      One of many examples of the one-sided agreements of the International Space Station.

    6. This only applies if you wanted to dock at the ports on their side of the station. ESA does this. But Dragon berths on the US side of the station. As long as they keep to the US side of the station it is fine.

      They may claim, like NASA has done in the past, that something threatens the integrity of the station. But like Rand said here there is a precedent for Dragon berthing on the ISS before so that argument does not have a leg to stand on.

      The fact is there is plenty that could be done to simplify the whole system and make it safer. But there is no actual impediment to conducting manned flights on Dragon/Falcon 9 as is.

  4. Regarding launch abort systems; doesn’t Dragon already have a partial capability there (though software may be lacking)? I’m talking about the Draco thrusters the cargo version already has. They’re useless in atmosphere or under accel, but once past the point where atmospheric drag is an issue, they could push Dragon clear of a non-thrusting stack. So, as long as you can shut down the Merlins, you’ve got an abort mode into a ballistic reentry once past significant atmospheric drag. (and Shuttle couldn’t do even that for several places in its ascent; no survivable separation until after SRB burnout, and black zones at several points thereafter where propulsive loss doomed the shuttle to a non-survivable trajectory )

  5. What would a short-duration life support system for Dragon look like? I recall the shuttle crews couldn’t keep the ACES suits operational for the whole re-entry because gases vented into the cabin would overwhelm the shuttle’s life support systems. So that would seem to rule out that particular suit being relied upon for a multi-hour ride uphill.

    I doubt NASA would tolerate a shirt-sleeve environment. So there would have to be suits as well as some sort of oxygen generator/CO2 scrubber, plus temperature and, I’d assume, humidity control. One wonders if, somewhere in a deeply-buried lab at SpaceX HQ, Musk has some sort of McGuyvered solution in a box while they keep working on the real ECLSS.

    1. IIRC SpaceX has contracted with 3rd parties to develop those systems. I doubt they are fully developed.

      Depending on how much safety they want to implement, I stress here again, Shuttle did NOT have a launch escape tower and the crew did NOT usually use suits either.

      If you look at the mission records for Shuttle vs Soyuz the number of fatalities is similar. There was only one incident in the whole Soyuz program where the launch escape system was actually used and one depressurization incident. The most common incidents in Soyuz seem to be partial failures in the reentry. i.e. the heat shield did not come off on time, the landing rockets did not ignite, the parachutes did not open properly, landing was off target, etc.

      Fact is SpaceX already has some environmental controls in the capsule as is because the payloads require them. Probably not enough to support an actual crew. However this environment is not that dissimilar from a diving bell or a submarine. There is most likely existing equipment that can be repurposed for oxygen generation/CO2 scrubbing even in the commercial sector.

      As for space suits AFAIK only the US, Russia, and China manufacture them. Russia and China have working space suits based on Sokol and the US has the ACES suit like you said. Once again it depends on how much time and effort you want to spend on safety.

      1. O2 generation is not actually needed. For a flight measured in days, bottled O2 would be fine.

        CO2 scrubbing; look to Apollo 13 for the answer. Then, they used lithium hydroxide as the scrubber and ran air through it to accomplish the scrubbing. Faced with the problem of the CM canisters not fitting in the LEM and having run out of canisters for the LEM, they used duct tape to attach the CM canisters to the LEM’s suction lines.

        So, for Dragon, a simple set of lithium hydroxide canisters with laptop-computer cooling fans for air circ through the canister would be fine; the fans would readily use the Dragon’s onboard DC power, or if that proves too hard, take along a few laptop batteries.

        1. Don’t forget moisture control, and temperature control
          Humans tend to have tighter requirements for comfort,
          much below 60, the performance falls off, much above 90, same
          thing.

          You also need a toilet/urinal and food/water.

          for say a 2 day mission up, a lot of that can be simple, but,
          the temperature control can be a problem

          1. You do not need a toilet for a short voyage to a LEO space station. You can just use diapers. Food is probably already being produced to use in ISS. Water you just need some bottles with drinking straws.

  6. It takes years for Congress to get common sense. Maybe now they will get the point that the commercial crew program has to be fully funded now.

    Bob Clark

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