Is the International Space Station Truly International?

Call me idealistic, but I do not feel that we should be cooperating with the Chinese as long as the country has an oppressive Communist regime. To ignore the human rights abuses of China is simply wrong, imo. Then again, I don't think we should have outsourced so much of our manufacturing capability to China while decent wage jobs in this country have evaporated in a variety of areas. But I guess that ship has already sailed...

A few pithy quips here...

"Aldrin said the U.S. treated its partners more like participants in the way NASA limited access to the station."

Correct me if I'm in error, but didn't the Chinese destroy an orbiting satellite while Griffin was visiting them? As they say, timing is everything...

"Should we make use of the Shenzhou for access to space?"

Sure, why not Wal-Mart-ize the space program too? If I had a dime for every time I've read comments like "lazy, overpaid NASA employees" on blogs like this one, I'd be as rich as Warren Buffett.
Bottom line: there are just some things that America should not outsource overseas, and the space program is one of them. Period!

"He called for the admittance of such new space powers as China, India and Brazil among others, and for the U.S. to loosen its grip on station management."

Are these countries contributing in any fashion to the design, operation, and maintenance of the ISS? If not, then they can choke up the $35M and take a ride with the Russians.

Anyone with the money can visit the ISS thanks to the Russians. There is no amount of money that can buy you a seat on a Shuttle. But if one were to use an American frontier analogy, you can get to Fort Pitt via stagecoach, or horseback, or you can walk.

Either way, if you want to go badly enough, you'll find a way to get there.

As of today, the highly touted "private space program" has yet to orbit the planet, let alone dock at the ISS.
It takes money, cubic dollars of it!

I've worked in the ISS program for the past three years. Although I LOVE the international aspects of the program, working with international partners does make life a lot more challenging. At this stage in the program, I could see us opening up to other countries for small projects, but we shouldn't place any newcomers in the critical path. For example, we could co-sponsor experiments with Chinese, Indian, or Brazilian scientists. Relying on Europe and Japan for cargo resupply has already hurt us because there have been significant delays in the ATV and HTV programs, respectively.

Adding a country like China, who has a still very young space program, would not be a trivial change to the ISS program. It is already very difficult sometimes working with the Japanese, given the language barriers, time-zone difference, and export restrictions. China would most likely be even more challenging to work with.

It's good that Mr. Aldrin is pressuring the U.S. to open up a bit and think outside the box. Russia knows they have us in their claws, and they've already announced that the price for a Soyuz seat will increase in 2012. So perhaps if we at least start looking at the Shenzhou cooperation, it will make Russia think twice about price gouging us during "the gap".

I think Buzz is most certainly correct. NASA is obviously having problems, so why not invite a wider international community? As you said, this would only enhance the reputation of the U.S., and would ensure enough goodwill that the U.S. can maintain access to ISS during the years until Orion is ready.



A couple of people I've spoken to have argued that China shouldn't have access because they might work to sabotage or otherwise undermine the project in favour of something they put together themselves. Eh? How could this possibly benefit China other than to forcibly create enemies from a variety of partner countries? While this is a particularly extreme example, there still is significant opposition to such a partnership. The point is, from a scientific and international relations perspective, I just can't see any way such wide cooperation could be a negative thing.

I've worked on ISS for nearly a decade and fostered wonderful relationships with engineers from all over the world whose countries have contributed to making ISS what it is today. Funny, I don't recall China or India being one of those countries I visited...

The US, Canada, Russia, Japan, and Europe through ESA contributed their blood, sweat, tears, and money to ISS. Those are the countries that should and do have access to ISS. If the other countries of our world step up financially and contribute, I see no reason to deny access. But to give access for the sake of access? No way.

The ISS is complex enough as it is now, any new partners would incur costs of translation, negotiation, delay, travel, etc etc.

Space is a very unforgiving place, as Buzz knows, and any small error could have serious consequences. The anti microbial agents in the water must be compatible with the existing system. The power must be known and well controlled, etc etc. The ATV and HTV have taken a long time to qualify so as to avoid the SPEKTR problem, where a minor change in a Russian docking system caused a Progress to crack the hull of the SPEKTR (a module on the Mir station) and cause an evacuation, loss of a lot of hardware, a lot of newly required work, etc.

Let's get the ISS done, and then add a partner each year. At first they might only provide a battery powered experiment that returns samples.

But let's NOT go to the trouble of qualifying a new docking system now.

Your friend Buzz is a brilliant guy who continues to be disconnected from reality.

Using his logic, we should also allow Chinese, Iranians and Yemenis to man our nuclear submarines, fly our fighters and participate in our secure satellite control network. Perhaps we could also then go on to permit failing socialist economies to raid our banks and federal reserve whenever they need capital to build palaces.

Or maybe we could remember that Apollo was all about demonstrating American capability to do great things, it wasn't an international endeavour.

Frank's response: Using your logic, then shouldn't we tell the Chinese not to buy our debt, of which they currently hold more than $1 trillion, or tell the Saudis not to sell us cheap oil? We like our international partners to do our bidding and toe the line when it is in our interests. Isn't it a little late to call them names?

I'd feel a tad more confidence in the idea if the Chinese had any demonstrated experience with docking.

"Relying on Europe and Japan for cargo resupply has already hurt us because there have been significant delays in the ATV and HTV programs, respectively."

@Rob:
True but as always there are two sides to this story. Consider ESA's point of view. There have been huge delays in NASA getting Columbus to the ISS. But the commitments were kept from both sides and that made the ISS possible.

Just a few observations from a space scientist, not an aerospace engineer.

Matt Johnson: the Soviet Union was a communist country when Apollo-Soyuz was flown. Russia is hardly a flagship democracy right now. I fail to see how the politics of a partner affect its ability to fly and dock in space. Especially given we'll be beholden to Russia for the foreseeable future to get Expedition Crews to ISS. Should we cede ISS to Russia because Putin is little more than a dictator?

ISS Guy: I'm curious: were China or India even invited to participate in the ISS program? Did they even have fledging space programs in the 80's when ISS went forward? How is their current non-membership status relevant to Dr. Aldrin's point of including them now?

Why hasn't anyone howled over the original plan to drop ISS into the ocean once construction was completed, as per the original VSE timeline? That hardly speaks well of NASA's commitment to an international, multi-year project.

I understand the engineering hurdles of adding docking and mating hardware to handle new modules/vehicles from new partners. But many of these comments jump off the deep end and make it sound like 16 nations and only 16 nations should participate. One more is too much! How silly.

And I don't believe I read one work in Dr. Aldrin's piece about having China or India or Brazil or anyone getting a free ride. He talked about cooperation, not giveaways.

"To ignore the human rights abuses of China is simply wrong, imo."

@Math Johnson:

Do you know how many military coups were staged in Latin America by your government (yes, the CIA is an American agency) back in the 50s, 60s and 70s?

What about Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, or the hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths caused by your "War on Terror"?

Should the rest of the world just ignore what USA did there, simply because now you have Obama in charge, and he's a nicer guy than Bush?

I'm not Chinese, and I'm not saying they're not guilty of human rights violations, but what about taking care of your own backyard? Stop dreaming you're the good guys, you're just defending your own interests, as is every other country in the world, and your hands are certainly dirty.

From abroad, I really can´t understand how some American people -not all of them, luckily- prefers to disconnect themselves from reality and pretend some things didn´t happen at all.

Let´s get real, people. This is about spaceflight, and clearly China and India will be key players in the following years. They should be part of any international space station, it's only a question of when and how.

The ISS should have been truly international from the start. Because we monopolized it, we lost many of the original partners that were supposed to help us build it, we gutted the design until it was worthless for almost everyone except the US, Russia and the UK. It's nothing more than a PR gimmick now. I would be very interested in seeing it turned into a functional space station, something that has a use beyond simply being there for a phot-op everytime we send more crew up.

We don't have the money to do it properly on our own, and even if we did, there are plenty of reasons why we should open it up for more nations, and no credible reason not to.

The best space station the US ever had was Skylab because it was simple and relatively cheap. And if the international community wanted one, we should have launched them a Skylab too if they paid for it.

There was no logical reason for a huge microgravity international space station. If we were going to spend the kind of money that we have on that monstrosity then we should have built a real space station that produces simulated gravity. And then we would have finally learned if humans can adjust to an artificial gravity environment.

The ISS is a huge waste of tax payers money, IMO. Skylab was a much better deal.

The last thing that Buzz did that made any sense was punch some wacko thar deserved it.
Other than that, Buzz hasn't done much that didn't make sense except to his own bottom line in the past...oh, 35 years.

Buzz, take a clue from your old crewmates on Apollo 11.

Brazil is not part of the international space station because they chose to back out due to funding issues. Their flag is still flying in building 9 and is on the International Space Station monument along the median of NASA Road 1 outside the JSC Saturn Gate.

Brazil was supposed to build the EXPRESS racks, but the US had to do it instead.

Using Shenzhou to fly taikonauts (and anyone else) to the ISS is a great idea - but the PRC space programme will have to speed up a helluva lot before that day comes. A flight rate of half a dozen missions per decade can't inspire confidence. The same goes for India, SpaceEx, and the rest.

Bob Shaw

Baby steps. Whilst all in favour of greater international cooperation in space, the CNSA is in its infancy. But is now standing tall and taking progressively bigger steps. With more success, say a dozen or so internally crewed launches, the Chinese may open up seats to their SS for selected partners (N Korea!) in the Russian model of building partnerships. With dockings and greater operational capability may come docking to the evolved ISS (Beta release!) Even the addition of a Chinese habitat. Probably to the Russian Segment.
That being said it would make sense to cooperate on common comms protocols; docking interfaces; fuel types;... Commonality of hardware, software and support infrastructure may save lives in the future. And that will be an International Good. A truly International Space Station could also set the trend for an international base on the Moon and eventually the end of tired old earthbound politics.

'From here, there are no borders'
Commander Sunita Lyn Williams Expedition 14/15

I would point out that the Russian model of sharing seats, tech and expertise with international partners has raised their international standing... And that despite various terrestrial 'complications' they have been a steadfast space partner even more so are the partnerships being built by the ISS crew.
I would echo Reiv & Claudio comments and add the Chinese own 739.6 billion in U.S. Treasury securities (debt!) One way to insure the collectors don't come knocking is to BE NICE! And ESA was none to happy re: the X-38 debacle.

@Will if there is one nation state that is most unlikely to be an international participant on the ISS it is the UK; Timothy Peake nonwithstanding:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8058601.stm

On the ISS Program and Shenzhou Program Cooperation

I. The Shenzhou’s Schedule Issue

From the news paper and the website reading, the Shenzhou vehicle missions and the new mini space lab vehicle Tiangong missions will take place in the following schedule:

1) The new Tiangong-1 (T-1) would be launched in fall 2010 with the rendezvous and docking device on board only.
2) The Shenzhou-8 (S-8 unmanned) would be launched in spring 2011 for the unmanned rendezvous mission and S-9 (manned) would be launched in summer or fall in 2011 for the docking with the T-1. If all tests are OK, then
3) The manned S-10 would be launched in spring 2012 or earlier to complete the docking verification.

Thus, the Shenzhou mission would be used for the ISS crew transfer from 2013 or later, provided the agreement of the new White House policy and ISS partners’ agreement for the special cooperation, etc. As of today the Shenzhou program can not meet the ISS crew transfer requirements.

II. The Cost Option to ISS

As for the cost of the ISS program and Shenzhou program cooperation from 2013 or later date, if Shenzhou development is on schedule, since the Shenzhou program did not make any contribution to the ISS development, thus, they shall pay the visiting and parking service fee of $XX Ms to the ISS program. The two ISS partner crews round trip shall pay the passenger fees of total $XX Ms to the Shenzhou program. Thus, the trade would be free for both programs in a crew transfer mission. This is the one of the options that would be developed, if both sides agree.

III. The White House’s Decision

The White House would be the policy maker for the Shenzhou cooperation. NASA has to work with all ISS partners to support the policy.

For the best ISS crew transportation service, the NASA’s STS, Soyuz, and the new TBD Shenzhou all together are the best option, if the White House agrees.

The cooperation between the US and then the communist USSR in 1973-1975 for the Apollo and Soyuz program would be the example for the new cooperation between the ISS and Shenzhou programs. Again, let the White House makes the decision.

IV. Conclusion

The special cooperation depends on the Shenzhou’s readiness issue, management and cost issue, the STS retirement date issue, and the White House policy change.

If we invite China, do we allow them to carry sidearms to counterbalence the ones the Russians are allowed to pack? [grin]

Seriously -- what's the maximum height allowance of a Shenzhou crewmember? 5'6" or so? Could be a constraint on general use by NASA's astronauts.

And -- agreed, it will take a number of years for the Chinese to develop and validate their rendezvous and docking capabilities. Their recent 'maneuverable subsatellite' on the last Shenzhou was a real dud. No onboard nav demonstrated, no re-rendezvous to any range, no pix of the Shenzhou orbital module after initial departure.

Claudio,

It is true, the United States is far from perfect and I have been critical myself of many things my country has done. That being said, there is no way you can equate our government to the Communist dictatorship in China.

Since neither China, India nor Brazil contributed to the building of the ISS, do not make them partners in the operations of the ISS. If these counties, or any others, would like to visit the ISS, however they can get there, fine, but they would have to pay their way.

For future programs, such as a lunar outpost, these nations could become partners in that effort. The time to bring them in is now during the early planning stages.

Negotiating with the international partners constant requests for more influence: remember, they almost never, ever, want to pay their fare share in doing so.

I remember the initial negotiations on ISS with ESA. They insisted on complete veto power over any design and configuration changes - even though they were providing less than 11% or something of the resources. And they do that with a straight face.

As long as each entity won't give up control over its territory (eg its modules), the problem will also remain. NATO to this day still has this problem. The Supreme Commander cannot order a country's forces under his command to do something that the home politicians back home don't want them to do - even if its an emergency. Which always leaves things in the U.S.'s lap. ISS is no different: Our 'partners' are all united on what the U.S. RESPONSIBILITY is (ie, a lot); but all also agree that that the U.S. has no Authority over them, even when necessary.

Buzz has to get a lot more specific, and practical, in his suggestion to make it work (and I wish he would). As someone who has tried to integrate the partners at one time, trust me, there are 'attitude problems" on ALL sides.

One word kills it. ITAR. Try rolling that back.

"Should the U.S. open the ISS to other international partners? Should we make use of the Shenzhou for access to space?"

At first glance I'd say no. There's a better path for non-ISS countries that want to get involved with this kind of work, and that's to do business with companies like Bigelow Aerospace (space stations) and SpaceX (Dragonlab). The U.S. government shouldn't do anything to compete with these potential commercial U.S. services. The current ISS arrangement is fine, as it predates these and helped pave the way for them, but expanding ISS sounds to me like it would crush them.

Now if a new international partner on the ISS used SpaceX transport services, I guess SpaceX wouldn't have much to complain about. If the ISS incorporated Bigelow modules for them to work in or some similar arrangement were made with Bigelow, Bigelow wouldn't have much to complain about, either. However, I don't think that's the proposed scenario, and even if it were, a new, similar commercial entry would raise the same issue.

ISS is an international project and has been since the original program's inception in 1984. President Reagan invited international participants at the outset, and James Beggs was sent around the world to recruit partners. We worked closely with the Japanese and Europeans beginning in 86 and both NASDA and ESA adopted much of the US architecture. The Brazilians have been in and out of the program many times over the years, and were supposed to have built various pieces like the Cupolas and External Mounting platforms and interior racks, but were never able to organize to be full participants and actually caused us a lot of lost time and resources.

The Russians came along later and provided very critical systems and elements like the habitation module (SM) and emergency return and launch capabilities (Soyuz). We worked well with the Russians in Phase I; Phase II did not go as well as we had hoped with segmented operations becoming the norm rather than having a truly international facility and crew.

The US probably went a bit overboard in trading away its responsibilities for providing some key elements, like modules, over the last 15 years. We did that in exchange for things like Shuttle launch services for the JAXA JEM and ESA Columbus. Monetarily it looked good on paper and afterall we are partners. Unfortunately it cost the US significant space manufacturing capabilities, shut down and mothballed when we sent those functions to Italy and other places.

Anti-magnetic Spectrometer (AMS), is an excellent example of a truly international, multi-US federal government agency project, paid for largely by the DOE (NASA doing the systems integration, and NASA contractors serving as 'prime' and with about 35 countries around the world participating - now if NASA would actually provide the support that NASA signed up to provide 20 years ago.....

If the Brazilians, Chinese, or others came forward, able and willing to make real and needed contributions I think the US and other partners would be happy to talk. We could still use the Centrifuge Module. The Biotechnology Facility, intended as one of the US' preeminent research facilities on ISS, was halted in order to fund Constellation, and is another possibility, and there are a number of open experiment rack locations in the US Lab.

Unfortunately the US no longer has any capability to launch most of these potential contributions. So perhaps we could provide the scientists if someone wants to build the hardware and provide the launch services.

The Chinese and Indians, based on where they are today, might be able to play a role in a few years. Have they proposed anything ?

Until China, India, Brazil commit serious resources to ISS, they shouldn't be partners. Period.

Doing anything in the name of international cooperation makes it more expensive. It also makes every aspect of getting something done in a timely fashion much more difficult.

Someone should remind Buzz Aldrin the United States went to the Moon... by ourselves. If it's a choice between leadership or international cooperation, international cooperation loses.

A thread on this subject was bound to expose one cracked nut - and so it has.

Anyone who can get to ISS and dock with it safely (either in their own spacecraft or in one purchased from an existing supplier) should be able to purchase usage time there. Fee? Don't know. $20mln per person per week? In any case, even the possibility is a ways off.

You wouldn't catch me on a Chinese Rocket. Long March 3B in 1996: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qVaXFhu7NE .
Not the fact that they had an accident, it's the aftermath of it and cover up. Who knows--five hundred killed? A thousand?

OK, the Beijing Olympics were great but even then there were some questionable things going on. Things have improved quite a bit, but I wouldn't be jumping into bed with China just yet.

Just wait until something goes wrong, that's the true test.

I think anything that puts people into space is better than keeping everyone here on Terra. However, I also think this action about ISS, or about other locally orbiting stations that might be, etc, diverts money and work from where we as humans really need it to go. I believe that work is *space settlements,* and the need to build them may be urgent. We need to do settlements, a business ecology to support the settlements, leading to a growing knowhow for doing it. This present activity looks good enough for PR and bright pictures to impress those who know little of space, but it doesn't get us anywhere as we remain sitting here in the bottom of our Terra's gravity well. Yes, I favor more space exploration, but the place to do it from is *off-Terra* like Mars, the Belt; Aldrin cyclers, even Luna if we have to go very slow. But let's just get *off* this idea that space stations are getting us somewhere. They aren't.

Titeotwawki -- Martha Adams [2009 May 25]

I spent about seven years working on the ISS, and what Buzz doesn't understand is that there are both partners and participants in the ISS. There is an open door to participants, but those five who accepted the risk of building hardware and participating in the overall design, that is US, Russia, Europe, Japan, and Canada, are the only partners. Participants have included several false starts by Brazil, who he mentions as being shut out, and successful participation by Italy, separate from The European Union. Participants barter their way into the ISS, through Department of State negotiations. The partners, through multilateral consent, allow participants. The senior partners, as it were, are Russia and the US, because they operate the ISS, and maintain the operating segments of the station.

The agreements that brought the partnerships and participation together have been years in the making, and have less to do with how the ISS operates as how it is funded. The construction of the ISS, as a multi-year nominal plan, added costs for all concerned, so there are continuing negotiations to keep it funded.

Wake up, Buzz. Where's the colonialism? Space-faring nations who commit to contributing can still participate, even if it's harder to barter as construction nears completion. Partners have major investments, and by design, they will soon find increased return on that investment.

Nix that plan for now:

1. Feels too much like outsourcing American jobs to China.

American high-tech jobs no less. With the current angst in the current Shuttle workforce not being picked up by the moon program, just not the right time. And the outsourcing perception thing would probably come back to bite Obama, Nelson, etc.big time.

The ITAR whining from contractors sounds like another veiled attempt to ultimaley let defense & aerospace contractors to outsource American jobs overseas.

I don't know what kind of horsetrading wheeling & dealing was done to get the Hubble repair mission back on the manifest, but this type of stuff has too much of a downside for the Dems to take the bait, imho.

2. NASA's got too many internal probs right now & in the near future with CxP (or whatever the revised moon program is), so it doesn't need any more diversions.

NASA needs to cleanup the inexperienced CxP workforce and awful management that's wasting $$ (in addition to the technical issues), revamp the program's technical plan and revamp the staffing. Try hiring the best experienced folks they can get (current + former Shuttle/Apollo mgmt & workforce). Then get it done successfully before branching out to expand & complicate station operations further.

3. Station needs to focus on it's core mission - science & experiments for medicial, energy, green stuff - like cure cancer, improve solar power, or something.

Try to impress the general public with something awesome (& recycled pisswater ain't it folks). I don't even know what the heck they do up there all day, so think how much the public doesn't know or care. Leno's "jaywalking" bit could have a fun time with station.

My personal opinion is that Buzz makes sense: the International Space Station is not that important but it would still be a shame to stop using the facility only half a decade after it became fully operational.

I don't know if this is feasible, but if U.S. annual funding of the Space Station could be reduced to the same level as that of (say) ESA/Japan, then *IF* China, India, Brazil, Ukraine and perhaps private industry (Bigelow, SpaceX) might be able to compensate for the shortfall, everybody would be better off. You would then have a facility with additional modules provided by the new participants, while the U.S. government might maintain a single crew member on the Station. The might be additional opportunities for commercial ventures such as space tourism too, if the role of the U.S. government were reduced and everybody had to look for new sources of funding.

Regarding Chinese participation, if the argument is they are "evil communists" and rivals in space, it's far better to have them spend $500 million a year of their scarce space funding on maintaining a non-military manned space facility in Earth orbit...

MARCU$

1. China has the world's second largest economy (having passed Japan in equivalent buying power according to the CIA World Book of Facts) and uses more steel, aluminum and coal and has more cell phones and Internet users than the US. China is, except for Canada, the US largest trading partner. We are borrowing hundreds of billions of dollars from them. We are partners in much more serious matters than space. Stable relations between the US and China are much more important to the future of the world than the ISS. The ISS was supported by Congress, after many slips, not for science or the spirit of exploration, but only when the Russians joined, as a catalyst for international trust and cooperation. I have sat in the Launch Control Center beside a Russian and worked at a NASA center with a citizen of China, when 20 years ago I couldn't even bring a camera to work. When you work directly with people you learn that we are all have pretty much the same ideas, goals, and dreams, and that the conflicts we have are mostly the result of misconception and xenophobia on the part of our governments. It is because we do not fully trust them that we should invite the Chinese to join.

2. US support for ISS is running out. China has flown only three manned missions, but each was accomplished safely and achieved new objectives. China is the only country that can provide manned launch capability and the only prospective new partner that can afford to provide significant new financial support to the ISS.

3. China is as capitalist as the US. Hey, our school system is socialist.

4. China does not regard the US as an adversary. Most modern Chinese forget the Korean War but remember the American Volunteer Group, which aided them in WWII. Americans forget that thousands of Chinese died to protect Billy Mitchell's men from being captured after the raid on Tokyo.

5. Griffin's visit was several months before the ASAT incident. He openly insulted them when he turned down an invitation to visit the Chinese launch site, saying he had seen plenty of launch pads.

6. China remains a one-party country, but the KMT (the party that was on the other side in the civil war and generally runs Taiwan) has offices in many cities on the mainland and will probably run candidates there in a few years.

7. In summary, the political difficulties are much less than those posed by learning to work with the Russians. China is now second to the US and will surpass us in some areas whether we like it or not. Our interests are not the same, but in the long run both countries must learn to work together. Partnership in the ISS will promote the trust and understanding that are needed on both sides.