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"  Months ago, the Russian government asked me to head a panel on spaceflight at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (watch it here). But that was before the crisis in Ukraine, which changed relations between spacefaring companies and nations drastically. The theme of the forum was &amp;quot;A World in Transition,&amp;quot; and as we&amp;#039;ve seen as the diplomatic crisis continues, that includes the way spacefaring nations cooperate in space. The way things are going, NASA may be left out in the cold. President Vladimir Putin warned the United States of a &amp;quot;boomerang effect&amp;quot; of sanctions against Russia, and the space panel seemed to make his point. Following American sanctions against Russia, NASA has halted much of its cooperation with the country, and hundreds of executives of U.S. companies sat out the forum this year. SpaceX founder Elon Musk and a NASA official were on the original roster of invited panelists. Neither was here. White House officials said attending the Forum would send &amp;quot;an inappropriate message&amp;quot; in wake of the Ukrainian crisis. Meanwhile, Musk is taking potshots at his competitors&amp;#039; use of Russian rockets as he tried to win the rights to U.S. Air Force launches.  In Musk&amp;#039;s place, tellingly, was Susmita Mohanty, the CEO of Earth2Orbit, an Indian private space startup. The new Indian government is keen on building Russian relations. I was the only American on the panel\u2014and in the room. Roscosmos deputy director Sergey Saveliev announced during the panel that the Russian government would, later this year, announce a new space policy that would replace the International Space Station. This was not a great reveal\u2014government officials said they would stop cooperation on ISS in 2020, and this week signed a space cooperation agreement with China. A $52 billion influx into Russia&amp;#039;s space program gave teeth to the words. &amp;quot;Russia is open to partnerships with all countries,&amp;quot; Saveliev said. This is not East versus West. Europe is deeply tied to the Russian space program, and the panelists did not seem to even consider a retreat. &amp;quot;Space activities and business and cooperation is above short-term political crisis,&amp;quot; says Jean Loic Galle, president and CEO of Thales Alenia Space &amp;quot;Even during what we called the Cold War, U.S. and Russia continued to cooperate.&amp;quot; His firm partners with Russia on satellites and launch programs. Their most recent joint company formed in 2013. &amp;quot;Whatever the current situation, cooperation with Russia is very strategic for our company and we will try to expand it,&amp;quot; he says. An executive with Airbus echoes his comments, saying space projects should &amp;quot;transcend politics.&amp;quot; All of this leaves NASA feeling isolated. The agency now depends on Russian spacecraft to deliver astronauts to the ISS and uses Russian rocket engines to launch national security satellites. Cries to replace Russian contracts with private space hardware have increased, but this won&amp;#039;t be a rush job. If America does go it alone, it will depend on innovation from private space companies like SpaceX to lower launch prices. There also will be a mandate make America competitive in the satellite launch industry and national security launches. The Russian and European panelists admitted that SpaceX&amp;#039;s innovations were prompting them to look at new ways to access orbit, including creating spaceplanes and reusable rockets.  Russia is trying to revamp its launch industry in the wake of high profile rocket failures of its Proton-M. Last December, Russia announced the consolidation of about 70 aerospace companies into the United Rocket and Space Corporation. Igor Komarov, general director of the new firm, told the panel that there will be reforms that will introduce innovation into the Russian space industry. &amp;quot;There are quite a few problems with the personnel in the industry and the training of specialists,&amp;quot; he says. Consolidation and innovation may not go hand in hand, however. That makes foreign partnerships even more important. If Washington D.C.&amp;#039;s idea was to shut out the Russian spaceflight industry, they may have only shut themselves out. It&amp;#039;s not impossible to imagine the next generation space station being closed to U.S.\u2014leaving our astronauts floating outside the airlock, peering through the window at the Europeans, Indians, and Chinese inside. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.popularmechanics.com/space/a12951/are-us-sanctions-isolating-nasa-instead-of-russia-16825737/>