Russia has been a frustrating spaceflight partner for at least a decade and the US policy toward the country has been “schizophrenic”, according to two former Nasa administrators.
Both Jim Bridenstine and Charles Bolden described the relationship with Russia in the major International Space Station (ISS) a “tense relationship” during livestreamed remarks on Sunday, reports Space.com.
Bridenstine, who led Nasa between April 2018 and January 2021, said: “I will tell you that our nation’s policy towards Russia, when you consider spaceflight, is schizophrenic.”
He made the remarks during a livestreamed event at Arizona State University.
According to current Nasa officials, relations with Russia regarding the ISS continue as usual these days while many of Russia’s space partnerships have weakened in the wake of their ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
However, Russia has also taken some provocative spaceflight actions recently that have threatened the ISS multiple times.
Bridenstine and Bolden both claimed that they had deep issues with Russia during their respective tenures at Nasa.
They called for a careful look at Nasa’s international partnerships in the ongoing Artemis program of moon exploration.
Bridenstine also criticized Nasa for being “overdependent” on Russia during the decade.
He said Congress had made the same mistake regarding the ISS as Russia said it would pull out after 2024 to focus on building a Russian-owned space station.
He said he was worried that the commercial stations funded by Nasa would not be ready in time to fill gaps in low Earth orbit research.
“Congress, quite frankly, is at fault for any gap we have on low Earth orbit, because they have been negligent in a replacement for the International Space Station,” Bridenstine said.
“We’ve known forever that the ISS is not going to last forever, but we haven’t been doing what’s necessary to prevent the gap from happening. Now that gap seems to be accelerating, and nobody is talking about it.”
Bolden, who served as Nasa chief from July 2009 to January 2017, said the Russian government was a bigger issue than the Congress.
Bolden, who was administrator during Russia’s previous invasion of Ukraine in which it seized Crimea in 2014, said: “The space community in Russia is great, (but) it’s the government.”
There are now numerous restrictions regarding US government work with China. Bolden said, however, that during his time in Nasa, the agency had been “on the way to an incredibly cordial program with China.”
Nasa is determined to solidify more international partnerships going forward. A total of 21 nations have signed the Artemis Accords; Russia is not among them.
Bolden termed Nasa’s initiative in making the European Space Agency’s (ESA) service module a part of the critical path of the Orion spacecraft as “a big risk”.
Bridenstine countered that the ESA “has been a great partner” on the ISS – it is the largest partner aside from Russia and the United States.
“Europe was also on the critical path for Nasa’s recently launched James Webb Space Telescope,” said Panelist Scott Pace, former executive director of the US National Space Council.
“ESA did a magnificent job with that,” he added.
Another matter of contention among the participants of the event was whether space cooperation spurs international collaboration or is just a lagging indicator of it.
