2000 Iran, North Korea and Syria Nonproliferation Act May Destroy ISS
Since 2005, NASA has spent $700M for Soyuz flights such as this to get cargo and crew to the space station. (NASA, GETTY IMAGES / September 18, 2006)
“If we don’t get it, we’ll end up with no access to space,” Nelson spokesman Bryan Gulley said. Despite his support for the waiver, Nelson, like most members of Congress, does not like that America is dependent on Russia for access to space, much less that NASA will be paying Russians to build ships while cutting shuttle workers’ jobs in the U.S.
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A law that few know about may soon cause the International Space Station to become a long-lost causality, a blatant sign of the United States opposition to Iran’s nuclear opposition—at least according to the Orlando Sentinel.com. The Iran, North Korea and Syria Nonproliferation Act was passed in 2000, preventing the sale of nuclear technology to Iran. But little known was that it would also prevent NASA from buying Russian space technology and the Russian Soyuz spacecraft after the year 2011 as long as Russia was exporting nuclear or missile technology to Iran. In 2005, Congress had given NASA a waiver of the ban, since then spending over $700 million dollars on Russian spaceships transporting crew and cargo to the space station.
Pretty close to being completed, NASA is responsible for transporting crew and cargo, keeping “extra craft on the station as lifeboats in case of an emergency” under the international agreements when the station was first created. Expiring in 2011, the company in Russian which made the Soyuz is reported as needing three years of lead time—in order to ensure that manufacture and supply will not be interrupted. And last but not least, the station crew will be doubled next year, requiring more Soyuz lifeboats. “It takes 36 months to fulfill an order,” said Yevgeny Khorishko, the Russian Embassy spokesman in Washington. “So if U.S. Congress does not grant a waiver by the end of September, it means your astronauts in 2012 will be preparing for their missions on the ground and will not be flying.”
And then we have the upcoming election, with parties not wanting to be too soft on Iran and Russia, especially when Russian has sold Iran a nuclear reactor to generate electricity, according to Iran. Russian is also helping to construct it. And Iran has refused demands by Europe and the United States to shut down its nuclear-enrichment program for international inspection. All of this makes Congress slightly reluctant to grant the waiver to Russia.
“The bottom line is that Congress is very wary of Russia,” said John Isaacs, executive director of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, a Washington-based think tank. “It’s going to be difficult for any government agency to get an exemption.”
This entry was posted on Saturday, August 2nd, 2008 at 5:14 pm and is filed under Public Relations, Space Agency News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
