American Astronauts, Russian Rockets, and Iranian Nukes

What do American astronauts, Russian rockets, and the Iranian nuclear program have in common? More than I ever realized.

As it happens, the Senate approved a bill this week that would allow NASA to purchase Russian Soyuz space vehicles that could be used as a stop-gap between the end of the operational life of the shuttle fleet and the debut of the new Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) that is being developed for the US spapce program.

So what about the Iranian nuclear program? The catch to the US/Russian deal was a clause in the Iran Nonproliferation Act of 2000 that would prevent the purchase by the US of hardware for manned space missions from the Russians while the Russians continued to supply Iran with nuclear reactor technology and/or weapons development tech. The bill approved earlier this week included a special waiver to allow this deal. For more information, there’s a Congressional Research Service study the effects of the Iran Nonproliferation Act on the International Space Station available here.

Now for the next hurdle… if we fly these vehicles, will they still be called Soyuz capsules?