Biden’s NASA Goes Slinking Back to Putin

T he Biden administration is slinking back to Putin’s Russia at great risk to America’s national security for help returning NASA astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS). Russian cosmonauts will also travel on new American SpaceX rockets per the agreement.

The move represents a reversal of attempts to isolate Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine. “We estimate that we will cut off more than half of Russia’s high-tech imports, and it will strike a blow to their ability to continue to modernize their military. It will degrade their aerospace industry, including their space program,” President Biden previously said of U.S. sanctions announced in February, specifically vowing the move would not spare Russia’s space agency. The about-face on space cooperation is representative of the lack of resolve and frequent inconsistencies that plague the Biden administration’s general approach to governance.

“Putin knows that when I am president of the United States, his days of tyranny and trying to intimidate the United States and those in Eastern Europe are over,” Biden warned during his presidential campaign. But he has failed rather spectacularly at deterring Russian expansion.

Just as the administration flip-flopped several times on whether Biden’s remarks in March seemingly indicating support for regime change in Russia were meant literally, it can’t seem to stick to any one position on space cooperation with Russia. It is perhaps no wonder that a poll from the Associated Press and the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that just 21 percent of Americans have “a great deal of confidence” in Biden to properly address the war in Ukraine and that a majority of Americans disapprove of Biden’s handling of U.S. relations with Russia generally, given the administration’s frequent self-contradictions.

The United States will resume cooperation on flights to the ISS with Russia by sending astronaut Frank Rubio into space alongside two cosmonauts in September. Other missions with the Russians are already set to take place in 2023.

“To ensure continued safe operations of the International Space Station, protect the lives of astronauts and ensure continuous US presence in space, NASA will resume integrated crews on U.S. crew spacecraft and the Russian Soyuz,” the space agency said.

This represents a dramatic shift from a NASA statement earlier this month, which read, “NASA strongly rebukes Russia using the International Space Station for political purposes to support its war against Ukraine, which is fundamentally inconsistent with the station’s primary function among the 15 international participating countries to advance science and develop technology for peaceful purposes.” The rebuke came after the Russian space agency posted photos of the three cosmonauts aboard the ISS holding the flags of the new “people’s republics” of Luhansk and Donetsk, the two Russian-backed breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine.

Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, welcomed NASA’s mollifying tone shift, claiming the agreement with NASA to be in the interests of both countries and that the missions “will promote cooperation” on space exploration.

More worryingly, Russian cosmonauts will join NASA astronauts on SpaceX’s new Crew-5 which will launch in September from Florida with a Japanese astronaut also on the mission. Yet another joint mission with Russia on the SpaceX Crew-6 will launch in early 2023, NASA announced.

Seven people are on the ISS right now: three Americans and one Italian who flew up with SpaceX and three Russians who arrived in a Soyuz. Russia and America have an agreement that the ISS will always have at least one American and Russian on board.

Before former President Obama canceled the Space Shuttle program without a replacement in 2011, Russian cosmonauts regularly rode to the ISS on American rocketry. After the Shuttles were retired, however, NASA astronauts were forced to ride on Russian Soyuz rockets at the cost of tens of millions of dollars per seat. This was ended in 2020 when the private American company SpaceX started ferrying astronaut crews to the station.

The return to flying Americans on Russian crafts may represent a risk to the safety of American astronauts, in addition to the potential national-security ramifications. Russia’s top-of-the-line Proton booster and Soyuz rocket, which will be used once again by NASA to launch crews and cargo to the ISS, were recalled and grounded in Russia because of metal flaws in 2017 after an uncrewed Russian rocket was destroyed by said flaw.

The Russian rocket manufacturer is suspected of having illegally substituted special heat-resistant alloys needed for proper functionality with cheap inferior metals. Russia cut off the United States from the RD-180 rocket engine, which is the “workhouse” rocket for the American military’s space program, in March after the invasion of Ukraine.

The RD-180 is an old Soviet design, which has been purchased by United Launch Alliance, a joint venture between major American defense contractors. Since 2016, congressional Republicans have been concerned that America’s dangerous dependence on Russian rocketry could give Putin leverage over the American military.

“In a situation like this we can’t supply the United States with our world’s best rocket engines,” Dmitry Rogozin, the then head of Russia’s space agency, told state television. “Let them fly on something else, their broomsticks, I don’t know what.” Known for his erratic behavior, Rogozin was quietly removed from his position this month after a series of events including refusing to take a call from NASA administrator Bill Nelson in the wake of the ISS propaganda photo incident and a social-media post mocking Biden’s eyesight and bathroom habits. In a move that has been called a “shake-up at Russia’s space agency,” the Kremlin announced the replacement of the outspoken Rogozin with an official named Yuri Borisov shortly before unveiling the landmark new agreement with NASA.

However, anonymous sources close to the Kremlin allege that Rogozin remains in favor with Putin. One report suggests Rogozin may be destined for a new job overseeing Donetsk and Luhansk, the eastern territories in Ukraine seized by Russian forces.

NASA’s change of heart on Russia stands in stark contrast to the European Space Agency’s recent pulling out from the joint ESA-Roscosmos ExoMars mission, a high-profile project to land a new rover on Mars for scientific research.

The Europeans’ demonstration of more consistency than NASA has attracted notice and criticism of the Biden administration’s flip-flop. Former U.S. astronaut Scott Kelly has publicly commented that he believes Biden’s turnaround on cooperation with Roscosmos is the “wrong decision,” saying, “I’m not a big fan of Russians flying on a U.S. vehicle right now. I wasn’t too happy seeing that. I think it sends the wrong message. I think it’s bad optics.”

Whether it’s the wrong message or not, it’s clear that Biden’s NASA has a hard time sticking with any message for long. Just like the Biden administration as a whole.