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."

FMI: www.spaceflight.nasa.gov/station