NASA's withdrawal from communication with Russia would cause damage, first of all, to the US itself and its space programs. If someone may probably win anything from this withdrawal, this would be only a bunch of certain American private companies.

At present, these companies are adhering to all kinds of rhetoric around "the Crimean issue" for trying to convince the US Congress to allocate more sums on NASA's needs - which, in the end, would mean that this money will be allocated on these companies' projects.

It looks like the US is using the threat of stopping cooperation in the sphere of space exploration with Russia as a means for punishing Russia for what the US is depicting as Russia's "annexation" of the Crimean Peninsula (it reality, it was a free-will wish of Crimea's residents for the peninsula to become a part of Russia).

Recently, "The Verge" website published NASA's internal circular letter which says that the agency is cancelling any cooperation with Russia except for jointly using the International Space Station. The website claims that allegedly, NASA has received such an order from the White House.

In his interview to The Verge website, American rocket engineer and writer James Oberg says that the refusal to cooperate with Russia would only hamper the fulfillment of the US's own space projects. If a space project is abandoned for a rather long time, it would be pretty hard to successfully return to it later, Mr. Oberg is convinced.

The US's dependence on Russia in the sphere of cosmonautics is linked, first of all, with two aspects. First, without Russian Soyuz spaceships, the US would not be able to deliver their astronauts to the International Space Station in the foreseeable future, because the US is not planning any launches of piloted spaceships before 2017. Second, NASA is going to create a new heavy rocket with Russian engines "RD-180" (NASA has already purchased several such engines for Atlas rockets).

"If Russia decides to introduce some sanctions in the sphere of space exploration in response to the US's sanctions, these Russia's sanctions may hurt the US much worse than the US's sanctions may hurt Russia," Russian expert in international space projects Yuri Solozobov says. "Theoretically, Russia may affect the US projects of piloted spaceships and of a future carrier rocket in a way that neither NASA nor the White House would like."

Russia has already signed several contracts with NASA concerning the supplies of RD-180 rocket engines to the US and letting American astronauts use Russian Soyuz spaceships. However, even if these contracts are broken, this would not be a tragedy for Russia.

"Russia can conclude space contracts with other countries," Russian expert in Eastern affairs Sergey Druzhilovsky says. "For example, Iran is eager to cooperate with Russia in the sphere of space exploration and is ready to allocate money to Russia for its space projects. There are quite a few other countries that would like to cooperate with Russia in space projects as well."

At present, American robotic rover Curiosity is working on Mars. The rover is equipped with several Russian devises, and US scientists are regularly sending data received by these devices to Moscow by post.

"This communication between scientists and the results of scientific investigation on Mars may also suffer if the US introduces "space sanctions" against Russia," Russian scientist Maxim Litvak says. "The US has already banned its space scientists to communicate with their Russian colleagues via E-mail. The Russian side in this project is represented by scientists from the Institute of Space Research, and the American - from the Laboratory of Reactive Dynamics, and now, both are totally at loss about what will be next."

As it was said, the only side in whose hands this "space conflict" may play are several American private companies. By removing their Russian competitors, these companies are hoping to win more chances to receive allocations for their projects from the US authorities.

However, let us hope that common sense and mutual interests will prevail over political conjuncture in the end. After all, if we look back into history we may recollect how, in 1975, even the severe realities of the Cold War did not prevent the Soviet Union and the US from carrying out the famous "Soyuz - Apollo" project.

Source: Voice of Russia