[FPSPACE] Not Sharing?

[Brett Harrison]

What are we to make of this?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/mar/31/space-mission-russia-us


************

Cosmonauts banned from using astronauts' space station toilet

Russian complains he is not allowed to use American facilities as  
commercial interests dent space cooperation


Luke Harding in Dushanbe
The Guardian, Tuesday 31 March 2009


It was supposed to be the final frontier, where the petty jealousies of  
earth and other planetary concerns were left behind. But space is not the  
haven of international harmony it used to be. Once upon a time, astronauts  
on the international space station shared resources - food, equipment,  
facilities. But now, a veteran Russian cosmonaut has complained that he is  
not even allowed to use his American colleagues' exercise bike - or his  
toilet.

According to Gennady Padalka, commercial squabbles on earth are starting  
to compromise morale in space. For seven glorious years after his first  
space mission in 1998, Padalka said he and his American astronauts had  
cooperated brilliantly. All this changed in 2005 when space missions were  
put on a commercial footing, he said, and Moscow started billing the US  
for sending its astronauts into orbit.

Padalka told Novaya Gazeta newspaper that officials had rejected his  
request to work out on the American exercise bike during their  
pre-training mission. Worse than that, they had also ruled that American  
and Russian crew members should use their own "national toilets", with  
Russian crew banned from using the luxurious American astro-loo.

"What is going on has an adverse effect on our work," Padalka, 50, was  
quoted as saying in an interview before he and his crew mates blasted off  
to the international space station last Thursday. They arrived safely on  
Saturday.

Padalka, who will be the station's next commander, said the arguments date  
back to 2003, when Russia started charging other space agencies for the  
resources used by their astronauts. Other partners in the space station  
responded in kind.

"Cosmonauts are above the ongoing squabble, no matter what officials  
decide," said Padalka. He went on: "We are grown-up, well-educated and  
good-mannered people and can use our own brains to create normal  
relationship.

"It's politicians and bureaucrats who can't reach agreement, not us,  
cosmonauts and astronauts."

The standoff over the gym machine appears to mirror the dismal  
relationship between Moscow and Washington under the former US president  
George Bush and Russia's Vladimir Putin.

He said he had inquired before the mission whether he could use an  
American machine to stay fit.

"They told me: 'Yes, you can'. Then they said 'no'. Then they hold  
consultations and they approve it again. And now, right before the flight,  
it turns out again that the answer is negative."

While sharing food in the past helped the crew feel like a team, the new  
rules oblige Russian cosmonauts and US and other astronauts to eat their  
own food, Padalka said, conceding that the US astronauts generally had  
tastier stuff.

*************

-- 

Brett Harrison

"Sometimes I think war is God's way of teaching us geography."
- Paul Rodriguez