Global Times New Media reported on November 26 that Abrams, the U.S. Special Envoy for Iran and Venezuela, said on Thursday that the United States will impose sanctions on four entities from Russia and China, which Washington believes will help Iran develop its missile program. Among the sanctioned entities, these include the Russian Space Agency, which has been working closely with NASA.
Just 10 days ago, Musk’s company SpaceX successfully launched the manned Dragon spacecraft using the Falcon 9 launch vehicle and sent four astronauts to the International Space Station. This means that the United States finally has no need to look at the face of the Russian Space Agency, and has regained the ability to send astronauts to the sky 10 years later.
I have to say, the Yankees are really snobbish.” As soon as the forefoot of the Dragon Ship sent people to the sky, Washington’s hind feet turned against Russia. Of course, it is not the first or second time that Americans have done the matter of crossing the river and tearing down the bridge. Together with the “famous double standard”, it ranks at the top of their exclusive gatekeeper stunt list.
As early as the Cold War, the United States had the world’s most powerful space technology research and development team and the strongest aerospace industry system. This can be seen from the famous Saturn-5 rocket, which successfully achieved its first manned lunar landing in 1969, with a total thrust of more than 3,000 tons and a rocket weight of more than 2,700 tons, which is the largest tonnage rocket developed by mankind so far. To this day, no one has surpassed it!
During the Cold War, the United States developed space engineering for two reasons: first, military strategic needs, such as launching GPS satellites to provide all-weather navigation services for the U.S. army, navy and air force; second, face engineering – don’t be deceived by the public’s remarks. Western countries, which are pragmatic and enterprising in the public, are also “great success” .”
After the end of the Cold War, the space technology and industrial industry of the United States, which had made great contributions to the confrontation with the Soviet Union, was immediately disastroustly cancelled by institutions and greatly reduced funds, making it difficult to maintain a huge and advanced rocket development and production system. Lack of financial support has brought some space technology in the United States to a standstill, such as rockets and manned spacecraft.
In order to solve this problem, NASA has imported about 100 RD-180 rocket engines from Russia every year since 1997 to assemble its Atlas-5 launch vehicle (Atlas-V) to maintain its normal launch vehicle. Launch projects cost about $1 billion a year on average.
Since 2006, NASA will not only import Russian rocket engines, but also rent Russian Proton-M carrier rockets and Soyuz manned spacecraft to transport American astronauts into space. According to statistics, NASA has paid more than $4 billion to the Russian side for the purchase of “boat tickets” for astronauts to enter space.
In the past 29 years, the U.S. government has imposed numerous sanctions and suppressed Russia, but has never sanctioned the Russian Space Agency. The reason is that without Russia’s engines and spacecraft, the space engineering of the United States can’t continue at all. In 2014, the United States took the lead in imposing financial sanctions on Russia under the pretext of Russia’s invasion of Crimea.
Russia immediately terminated its space cooperation with the United States, which led to the semi-paralysis of the International Space Station. Washington consulted China for this reason and wanted to rent the “Shenzhou” spacecraft to provide supplies and personnel rotation for the International Space Station. Its predicament can be seen.
Now Musk’s “Falcon” rocket has matured, and the “Dragon” spacecraft has successfully made its first flight. The United States believes that its own aerospace technology can meet its own needs, so the Trump administration resolutely launched a plan to impose sanctions against the Russian Space Agency within decades of its last as a caretaker government.
There are two main reasons why the United States throws out this sanctions:
First, curb the development of Russian space technology. The huge expenses paid by NASA have become a continuous source of power for the development of Russian space industry. This kind of “capital enemy” behavior makes American society dissatisfied, but it has no choice but help. Now that Musk’s Falcon rocket and Dragon spacecraft are mature, the United States can use its own rockets to launch manned spacecraft. At this time, sanctions against Russia will seriously hit the Russian space industry.
Second, Trump has now confirmed his defeat and is about to hand over power to the Democratic Biden administration, but in the last few decades, Trump has frequently caused trouble for Biden and is preparing to make a comeback in 2024. Recently, U.S. warships crossed into Russian territorial waters from the Barents Sea and the Sea of Japan respectively.
The U.S. government officially withdrew from the Open Sky Treaty on the 22nd, and now it has drafted a document to impose sanctions against the Russian Space Agency. This series of actions is obviously to worsen the relationship between the United States and Russia and give Biden a “bad mess”, and the worse the better! It is no exaggeration to say that Trump has put partisan interests above the national interest, at the expense of the diplomatic relations and strategic interests of the United States in order to cause trouble for his opponents.
For a long time to come, although the United States will remain the hegemon of the world, too much such “crossing the river and tearing down bridges” will certainly seriously affect the policy stability of the United States. After all, the United States is not omnipotent.
It still has a large number of industrial supporting projects that need to be completed in coordination with other countries, and the end result is that no country dares to cooperate with the United States to meet the temporary needs of partisanship, and ultimately harms the long-term national interests.
