CANADA: NASA’s chief Administrator, Charles Bolden, conceded that were Russia to cut off American access to space – one source of concern in the escalating troubles between the Russian and Ukrainian borders – then the agency has no go-to plans for piloting the International Space Station (ISS). Both Russia and the United States are currently the biggest backers of the ISS, which has been operational since November 1998.
“We would make an orderly evacuation,” said Bolden at a U.S. House Appropriations subcommittee hearing. The station cost $140 billion to construct, and would be lost if Russia carried out its withdrawal in the year 2024, as they have already announced. In 2024, they plan to have constructed their own space station, which will carry much of the material already aboard ISS.
The admission from Bolden came as quite a considerable surprise, as he spent much of the past year trying to avoid the question. He did maintain that both NASA and its Russian counterpart, Roscosmos, have kept a professional working relationship, despite the worsening of diplomatic relations between Russia and the U.S., with Russia honoring its commitments to NASA aboard the spacecraft. Although the U.S. is still dependent on Russia for rides to the ISS and back, NASA is currently developing ‘space taxis’ to carry their astronauts to the space station by 2017.
Bolden’s made his statements after what has been described was an intensive ten minute long showdown with the newly appointed space and science subcommittee chairman, John Culberson, who continually pushed Bolden several times until he made the admission.
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