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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group

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To: Hawkmoon who wrote (177301)	12/7/2005 10:08:28 AM
From: neolib	Read Replies (2) of 281500

But we're still missing that $4.8 Billion aren't we... Perhaps you could enlighten me. I'm unaware of any $4.8 Billion we paid the Russians. The article you linked on the Space Station and the Russians "costing" us so dearly on it was one of the most amazing pieces of crap I have ever read. I subscribed to the excellent Aviation Week & Space Tech through all those years and followed the issue closely. The Russians did indeed have delays while going through much economic turmoil, however, many of the US components suffered redesign and delays as well. Russia made a most convenient scapegoat for us. The thing that pissed me off was that the actual cost of Russian components and launch where peanuts compared to the US produced and launched components, yet Congress refused to simply purchase such goods and services from the Russians, instead we stuck it to them since they had contractually agreed to provide them as their portion of being a true partner in the Space Station. IIRC we did purchase about $400million which helped them greatly. The main obstacle to US funding of the very cheap Russian goods was a Congressional ban on purchasing Russian space components since Russia had Space technology dealings with Iran (and I think India at the time which we also objected to). If you consider that the true cost of a Shuttle launch is on the order of $400-500Million, in retrospect, we should have contracted the entire damn turkey to the Russian, from design through production, launch and operation. If we had done that and funded them on time, it would have cost about 1/4 the current cost. Perhaps the clowns that blasted Gore for the Russian "cost overruns" could produce a new study showing how the Shuttle with its enormous costs and periodic self destructs has impacted the overall cost and schedule of the Space Station. Even better, why not quote Ronnie's original estimates for the thing vs. the current costs, and place the so called Russian cost in a little perspective. What a hoot.

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