Action-reaction in space: the “gyrodine war” heats up
by James Oberg

Monday, February 28, 2005
In an increasingly strident campaign of cosmic complaints, Russian space officials earlier this month blamed “an American operator’s mistake” for wasting over 13 kilograms of precious rocket fuel in the Russian section of the International Space Station. The complaint followed a report by msnbc.com of NASA alarm over what the American side saw as careless Russian oversight of a spacewalk in which an astronaut could have been exposed to hazardous thruster firings.

Since then, this reporter has learned (and a NASA official has confirmed) that a joint US-Russian investigation team concluded last week that these preliminary American concerns were justified. Meanwhile, though, several anonymous Russian space officials were quoted in the Russian press as attributing the NASA concern only to the American side’s growing sense of inferiority connected with the grounding of the space shuttle fleet, and they seemed to blame the spacewalk hazard on failed American hardware.

Lost in all of this exchange of complaints is the fundamental engineering problem of what actually is forcing the Russian thrusters to fire during spacewalks. American and Russian space workers have strikingly incompatible theories about the causes. With another space walk coming up in mid-March, a consensus is urgently needed so that effective countermeasures can be developed.

More here:http://www.thespacereview.com/article/331/1