NASA must de-orbit the Space Station and say ‘dasvidaniya’ to Russia

Russia’s Vladimir Putin has demonstrated that he wants to wage a perpetual ideological, economic and physical war against the West. It is time for Congress to step in and sever U.S.-Russian space station cooperation, even if it means sending our beloved orbiting outpost crashing into the Pacific Ocean.

No one likes this option. But no one likes war, either.

We cannot continue to collaborate in space exploration with Putin’s regime. Continued space partnering with Russia is an obvious threat to U.S. national security and the security of our allies.

Rising political tensions are a risk to our space station astronauts’ safety. It is also morally wrong to support Putin’s corrupt regime and its illegal war against Ukraine through space cooperation.

NASA is one of the few U.S. Government agencies still deeply enmeshed with the Russian government. Through decades of reversals and failures in executive and legislative branch policies, NASA has been directed into a quagmire of critical technical dependencies on the Russians that make operating the International Space Station virtually impossible without Russian support.

During the Clinton era, NASA was ordered to use its soft power influence to keep Russian rocket scientists gainfully employed through cash reimbursements for Russian work on the then-fledgling International Space Station.

The Clinton policy was meant to prevent Russian rocket scientists from fleeing the collapsed Soviet Union to go work for rogue nations wanting to build intercontinental and space-accessible missiles. Starting with $400 million in cash sent to Russia in 1993, NASA began subsidizing Roscosmos, Russia’s version of NASA.

Today, it is time to shut this space-cash pipeline down.

NASA argues that it is studying how to commercialize the space station, hypothesizing that one day, American companies will bask in dollars from a profitable space station, with those companies responsible for dealing with the Russians. This unrealistic fantasy does not need study — it is silly folly at best and more signs of unrealistic policy dementia within the thinking of NASA’s current 1980s-era astronaut-leaders.

NASA has been greatly successful fostering a new domestic commercial rocket industry (SpaceX, Blue Origin, Rocket Lab, Sierra Space, etc.). But the agency will never be able to make the station commercially viable.

After more than $100 billion in investment, the space station will never become a for-profit laboratory. The obscene operational costs of the station rise every year — NASA’s budget for the space station is currently just over $3 billion a year. Meanwhile, for-profit or not, the station is and always will be dependent upon Russian operational cooperation.

As Russia embraces Putin’s dangerous orders, the West must now close ranks and expect more desperate acts of Russian aggression throughout Europe, Africa and Asia. With the dogs of civil war at his front door, Putin cannot back down from his plans to roll Russian mercenaries and troops across the former Soviet republics that once provided the bread and butter to his economically and politically bankrupt nation.

The U.S. must exhaust all remaining soft-power tools left to discourage continued Russian aggression, even if that means losing some capabilities we hold dear, like the space station.

As the world’s premier space-faring nation, America’s navigation in space requires not just technical space positioning and timing, but also a moral compass.

The Biden Administration, and NASA Administrator and former Florida U.S. Senator Bill Nelson, may still believe in the promises of détente and the benefits to global security from space cooperation with Russia that were relevant back in the 1990s. Sadly, the 21st century is a much more dangerous and fast-paced place than when Gorbachev took down the Berlin Wall.

NASA may also argue that it needs lots of time — at least five years, probably more like ten — to study the safe de-orbit of the station. While five years may be bureaucratically “fast” based on the speed of executing any major decision at a federal agency, this timeline ignores our obligation to national and international security during wartime.

Today, world realities must trump bureaucratic delays. Russia is in Ukraine. Putin is not going to stop after Ukraine unless Russia suffers consequences. There is no time for more NASA studies or “ideating.” NASA has emergency evacuation procedures for the space station; we can be safely off the platform within a year if Congress takes the politically difficult decision to deorbit this Fall.

NASA, as the world’s dream factory that inspires and creates the best possible future for generations to come, now needs Congressional help to break its sad dependency on Putin’s Russia for space station operations.

At a fundamental level, common sense tells us we shouldn’t remain in bed with a dictatorship determined to destroy our nation and our way of life. Russia is a self-proclaimed nation at war with the West, a desperate aggressor state that is terrorizing the free people of Europe. We should not be holding hands in space with these people.

Congress must act immediately, directing a fast-tracked phase-out of collaboration with Russia on the space station, while approving a plan to safely deorbit the platform by 2026. It is time to close the hatches, deorbit the International Space Station and move on to the moon and Mars, without the Russians.

David Steitz most recently served as NASA’s Deputy Associate Administrator for Technology, Policy and Strategy and as the agency’s Deputy Chief Technologist. Steitz retired from NASA in 2022, concluding a 32-year career at NASA Headquarters in Washington.