Russia Bans US from International Space Station

[Music] >> Joe: A chest puffing school yard round of “what you gonna do about it” has ended with Russia refusing to allow American astronauts to accompany cosmonauts to the International Space Station. It kind of went like this: Hey Russia stop trying to aggressively annex Crimea. Lots of people in Ukraine don’t want you to do that and your land grab unnerves us. >> Lee: Oh ya, what you gonna do about it? >> Joe: Well, we’re gonna hit you with a bunch of sanctions and NASA will refuse to work with your space agency… except for hopping rides to the International Space Station. We still need you for that. What you gonna do about that? >> Lee: We’re gonna laugh hearty Russian laughs and refuse to take you to the International Space Station, resulting in an entirely Russian space station crew, effectively turning it into Russia in the sky. We will call it Sky Russia. >> Joe: This Russian-American rocket-car-pool buddy system would cease in 2020. After that, NASA will have to find alternate means to ferry up to the ISS. Which could prove itself to be pretty problematic since NASA decommissioned the Space Shuttle program back in 2011. Which I still think is stupid and even though it’s something I have no control over yet refuse to get over. >> Lee: Right now, Russia’s taxi to space costs 60 million dollars per American astronaut. The uplifting aspect of all this is that all that money can be redirected to one of the many private companies jumping into the Space Exploration game. So, even though Russian-American relations continue to deteriorate, we need not worry too much about getting up to the shared space space. >> Joe: But Russia’s threats even go a step further, as they indicate that they might just abandon the space station program all together after 2020, which would end a symbolic relationship of togetherness that was our tightest bond after that whole Cold War thing. >> Lee: Russian components aside, the ISS could still function with the likes of the US, Europe, Japan, and Canada sticking around to operate the thing. It’s complicated but doable. >> Joe: And should be done. The ISS is our jumping off point into the great beyond. The knowledge we can reap from it is way too valuable to just let the thing drift in orbit. [Music]