Retaliatory Sanctions: US to Have to Use Trampolines to Deliver Astronauts to Space - Russia Insider

Retaliatory Sanctions: US to Have to Use Trampolines to Deliver Astronauts to Space

Originally appeared at Live Journal. Translated by Julia Rakhmetova

Not everyone paid attention to the news that Roscosmos (Russian space agency) refused to extend the contract with NASA and European space agencies for delivery of astronauts to the International Space Station. Ingenious users of social networks are already calling this "Roscosmos sanctions", despite the fact that they will only come into force in a year and a half, when the current contract is over.  

Well, we can consider these sanctions as a delayed start on giving our Western partners cause to reflect on their behavior, or find some alternative way to deliver their people into orbit. Recently, Dmitry Rogozin (Vice-Premier responsible for space industries) suggested NASA use a trampoline in lieu of Russian rockets, and that manufacturers get a better look at the prospects suddenly opened in the American and European markets.  

But let’s be serious. This news is actually very important.

Many experts and pundits, as well as ordinary observant people, have noticed that over the last few decades, there has been a kind of split reality. The media works with images, stereotypes and mental clichés; and then there is true reality, that we can touch. The West won the Cold War due to the fact that it managed to inconspicuously drive millions of Soviet people into a virtual reality, and now it’s trying to repeat this trick again.

When Obama talks about Russia’s ruined economy, it’s not just narcissism vis-a-vis Congress, but a conscious programming of perception – mine and yours. When they say Russia is a regional power and a gas station, that’s an act of hostile linguistic programming. Our forefathers would say: tell a person he’s a pig a hundred times and he will begin to grunt.

Roscosmos sanctions are important because they break the mold. When a person looks at a rocket launch from the Vostochny spaceport, he realizes that not every gas station has rocket technology.

It’s true that space programs are expensive. But besides the space aspect, there’s an essential fact: while we look to the stars, they can’t make us grunt.

Americans have already said they’ll fly private rockets, but let’s stock up with popcorn and wait for 2018. Then we’ll see who is the regional power with backward technologies.