Russians Say Americans Are "Conservative," They're
"Flexible"
Is NASA, stung by
criticism of safety procedures in the wake of the Columbia
disaster, becoming too safety conscious? To hear Russian space
types tell it, the answer is "yes."
And that is cause for friction between the two biggest partners
in the International Space Station Program.
"Here in Russia, we are more flexible in our approach to
technical problems," said Sergei Gorbunov, who speaks for the
Russian space agency. "The Americans are more conservative in
dealing with technical problems, but this isn't a fault."
It's literally a difference in philosophy. One NASA official
describes it this way: Americans want to prove something is safe.
Russians want to prove "it's not safe."
The two countries are now bumping heads over whether to allow a
February space walk, where both astronauts will venture outside the
space station, leaving no one on board for emergencies.
The Russians are comfortable with the idea. Aboard Mir, they
often sent both members of a two-man crew outside the station for
hours at a time.
They're pushing for the spacewalk, where astronauts would
prepare for the docking of a new type of Progress resupply module
and would also retrieve some Japanese experiments outside the
living environment.
But NASA is still looking over its shoulder after Columbia,
literally questioning the safety of everything. Jerry Linengir, who
served aboard the Mir in 1997, said, "The Russians are probably on
one side of the balance, and the Americans are probably too much on
the other side."
Linengir should know.
He was aboard Mir when fire broke out -- the worst fire ever to
have broken out on a space vessel. So was the Russian now aboard
the ISS, Alexander Kaleri.
The American now on board, space veteran Michael Foale, was on
Mir when the station collided with a Progress vessel. If ever the
two countries paired up a couple of troubleshooters, it's on this
mission.
"The Russians don't want to lose a cosmonaut any more than we
want to lose an astronaut," Linengir said. Perhaps, he said, the
Russians might be "less used to protecting the worker ... They're
probably more willing to overlook a lot of things that we're not,"
a throwback to the Soviet days when workers were considered more
expendable than in America.
Perhaps, however, it's a function of money. "When you have a
limited budget like they did when I was there, you can't afford to
go to option B," Linengir said of his time on Mir. "Maybe we
misinterpret that they're cavalier about things when they have no
options."