Russia recently blamed a US astronaut for going crazy and making a hole in the space station (one that NASA denies), says it wants out in 2025 and now say one of the models that they build has fatigue cracks and can fail any time after it’s design limit, and can not be expected to last till 2030. Also one of their rockets while attached to the ISS ‘malfunctioned’ pushing the station - that could not have helped it.
Add to this they are having trouble with their own space program “Russia’s space programme has been hit by a series of budget cuts and corruption scandals in recent years. Its section of the ISS has also faced a string of problems.”
Add to this that the Russians became star tof the show, but now SpaceX is taking that position
It just seems to me too many things seem coincidental on the Russian side, like they not only want out, they want it to look like they got out at the right time. So it appears like they may be intentionally sabotaging the station. I would add the potential addition of the Trump factor and wanting his opponent to look bad after he is our of office, so perhaps even setting this up with Russia, I don’t know if Trump is needed for this, but would not put it past him either. With or without Trump it just smell bad.
Space is hard. I don’t think that there needs to be intent for things to go wrong.
What I do think is that, as you pointed out, SpaceX taking center stage and leaving Russia on the sidelines changes their funding quite a bit. Rather than the US greatly subsidizing their space program in order to send our people and materials to the ISS, now that we have our own ride, the gravy train on that has run out.
Whether there is intent on their part is hard to say for sure, but I don’t think that it is needed to explain the difficulties they are having, nor their desire to reduce their commitments.
Musk fanboy propaganda aside its still the Russians who do most of the actual work supplying the station.
As it is, the reason is that the ISS is now a dinosaur. It was designed as a political make work post Cold War 1. That era is now gone and in a world of renewed Great Power competition its increasingly peripheral to interest of all parties.
So, are you saying that SpaceX has not begun delivering supplies and people to ISS? Or is basic factual information “fanboy propaganda” to you?
They used to do pretty much all of it. They are doing less now. This is what I said, and this is the fact of the matter. They are getting less funding from the US to help pay for their space program.
It is to some extent. But it’s also modular, with new parts replacing old, and new parts being added.
Are you saying that it has no utility function?
With China putting up their own station, and our orbital capabilities increasing, a new station run by fewer or even only a single nation is becoming more feasible and desirable.
Russia certainly wouldn’t want to be still investing in the ISS while we start putting up a new and improved one for just ourselves and maybe the European Space agency.
Lol, no. The US is getting out of the LEO business as far as manned space exploration is concerned. It’s Artemis and the moon again. If Orion ever flies that is.
Any long term effect of these happenings? I would suspect that it would set up a vibrational pattern in the space station which may over stress certain parts of it.