Russia Lands Astronauts & My Cell Phone Still Works

Apparently lost on Congressman Mike McCaul, who had this to say at Mayor Parker's NASA press conference in DC yesterday - "What I am concerned about is that we're not going to be speaking English in outer space, but rather Chinese and Russian" - is that Russians already ferry NASA astronauts in space. Just today, a Russian cosmonaut piloted a Soyuz spacecraft back to earth with two NASA astronauts on board:

With Suraev at the controls, the Soyuz TMA-16 that they rode to the station undocked from the new Poisk module at 4:03 a.m. EDT and touched down near Arkalyk, Kazakhstan at 7:24 a.m. EDT. Both space travelers were reported in good shape after the landing on the snow-covered steppe.

Remarkably, the cosmonaut did not take the opportunity to shoot down any U.S. satellites, thereby destroying our ability to use our cell phones. No, really, one of the guys leading the charge to save NASA - Bob Mitchell with the Bay Area Houston Economic Partnership -  suggested that possibility at a League City Chamber of Commerce meeting (he's referring to Obama's plan to have Russia take astronauts to and from the International Space Station until private industry builds a new rocket and crew vehicle system):

“Then, when they finally realize what has happened (and that they are in control of space), I think they are going to say to us, ‘We don’t have any seats left on our Soyuz or to carry your experiments to the space station.’”

If we don’t have control of space and the Russians do, Mitchell said they could easily shoot down our satellites and we would have no cell phones.

“Think about that.”

I am thinking about it, and I think there is some misunderstanding, and perhaps fear mongering, going on. My understanding is that the U.S. is not getting out of the manned space flight business, we are just giving that business to private U.S. contractors, and taking it away from the Johnson Space Center in Clear Lake. So, Russia won't be "in charge of space." Also, Russia is a partner in the International Space Station and so far, as of today, my cell phone still works.

Another thing Mitchell said caused me to drag out a calculator:

“The Russians did charge us $25 million to carry one of our astronauts on the Soyuz to the space station. Now it’s $50 million. They learned capitalism pretty darn quick. What happens in two years -- $100 million? $150 million?

I tried to find the per astronaut cost to ride on the Space Shuttle. On a NASA website, it says that each launch costs $450 million. Other places, I see $1.3 to $1.5 billion. A friend told me it was $2 billion. Those bigger quotes seem to be the lifetime cost of the space shuttle program divided up by the total number of launches.

Let's go with $450 million, with each launch carrying seven astronauts. Our current manned space program, with our own rockets and crew vehicles costs $64 million per astronaut. So, the Russians, with their pesky notions of capitalism, are offering a good deal right now. Commercial space companies are projecting their costs will be anywhere from $20 million to $100 million per astronaut.

There has got to be a way to message the importance of keeping manned space program jobs at JSC without resorting to fear and misinformation. Anyone want to give that a stab?

John has more on Mitchell's remarks, and it's no surprise he's got a very strong reaction.